In this episode of Faith for Normal People, Elizabeth Orr joins Pete and Jared to discuss the Enneagram and its role in fostering self-compassion and personal growth. Together they highlight how understanding your Enneagram type can lead to greater self-awareness and healthier relationships, and how self-discovery tools like the Enneagram give us a chance to love ourselves—and therefore our neighbors—better. Join them as they explore the following questions:
What is the history of the Enneagram? Where did it come from?
Why and how is self-compassion the goal of the Enneagram?
How does Liz talk to people who may be resistant to the Enneagram or other similar tools?
How does the Enneagram interact with faith?
How can the Enneagram show us the barriers we’ve built and how we can be better aware of them?
What kind of defenses are built by each type in navigating the world?
How are our patterns formed in childhood relevant when we’re talking about the Enneagram?
What are the concepts of essence, core belief, core fear, focus of attention, idealized self-image, defense mechanism, vice, and virtue? How do they connect to one another in real life?
What are some personal aha moments Liz had with the Enneagram that changed the way she thought about herself and her path in the world?
How does the Enneagram approach sin, and how does that contrast with Christian ideas of original sin or human nature?
Why do some people criticize the Enneagram as being too self-centered?
Quotables
Pithy, shareable, sometimes-less-than-280-character statements from the episode you can share.
“One of the things that most people hear first about the Enneagram is actually a bit of mythology. It's not true that the Enneagram is ancient. You will hear that it is ancient. It is not. It is only as ancient as the 1920s.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“[The Enneagram] is about self-compassion because that is the source of all of our compassion for everybody else. It can be a really beautiful articulation of why the people that we love drive us nuts. Like, “Oh, I understand why my colleague who's a 3 is always taking over in meetings—because she needs the attention. She needs the validation.” That can be helpful, but if we can't do that for ourselves, it's a lot harder to continually live into that.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“We are perhaps our hardest subject of compassion. So [the Enneagram] helps us understand why we developed what ultimately are just survival strategies.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“We all had a really good reason to become the way that we did. We don't just do it for funsies, we don't become difficult because it's a good time for everyone. We do it because we came to believe that our environment necessitated that. When you can extend that compassion and understanding to yourself, that's when you have the best chance of actually wriggling free from some of those patterns.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“We don't sustainably evolve and grow out of something by beating ourselves up. Because if we did, it would have worked. But I think with patience and understanding and getting to the, “Why am I doing this? Why am I like this?” We can start to unlock ourselves from that.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“Each perspective that each of the nine types holds is equally valid. And if we were to run through the core belief of each type, none of us can say that they're totally false. The sixes are right—the world is a dangerous place. The nines are right—the world is a place that doesn't value connection. The ones are right—the world is really messed up. It both affirms and expands how we can see the world and how we can meet other people when we recognize [that if] I want my perspective to be taken seriously, I have to do that for you.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“In Enneagram theory, we are born our type. I was born an eight. I didn't become an eight. The rigidity of my type eight structure was built and calcified actually pretty early on in the first few years of life.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“Our parents did the best they could. But they have their own big and little ‘T’ traumas that they have not healed from and impart those on us. And sometimes our parents held us when we were hungry or they changed us when we just wanted to be held. And they didn't meet the need that as a baby, we couldn't articulate, and they couldn't figure out. And that shapes, developmentally, how we come to understand the world.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“Even though there are three different types in each center, there are some common strengths and some common suffering.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“In the gut center, they're kind of our specialists in control. And so there's a fear around the loss of autonomy and control for all three types—the eight, nine, and one—in the gut center. And when they start to fear that, they become really, really defensive around their own boundaries and really, really offensive towards the boundaries of others. And they start to kind of puff up and try to control their environment, other people, or themselves.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“In the heart center, where you have types two, three, and four, the question that really torments them is: Who am I? And is that person deserving of love? When that question gets triggered in those three types, you're going to see them perform. They're going to try to use the people in front of them, use their relationships as mirrors, to assure them of their value. They start to shapeshift, and just seek their value outside of themselves.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“In the head center, which is types five, six, and seven, there's a lot of fear that these three types really struggle with. And the fear is around: Who can I trust? And am I going to be alright if I take the next step? And when you see them start to get really stressed, they start to trust things outside of themselves. So fives are going to want more information. Sixes are going to want more contingency plans and threat analyses. And sevens are going to want more options—and that's all because there's this struggle to trust themselves.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“It's not just that these patterns didn't develop in a vacuum, but we were rewarded for these patterns. We got what we needed because of how we showed up. And that piece is so important because it reminds us we were doing the best we could with what we had. And that reminder, I have found, at least helps me remember to be gentle with myself. I didn't come with this software downloaded in my brain of how to be a perfectly functioning human. It's trial and error, and I've been rewarded for a lot of my errors. That's such an important reminder.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“Each type has an essence, which is this beautiful gift that they just show up [with] in the world. It's who you remember yourself to be—the unburdened, beautiful gift. You don't have to try. When you just relax, that essence flows through you. However, we live in a world that is imperfect. Our holding environments are imperfect. And that core belief—what we begin to believe about the world—is cemented very early on. As we start to understand the way the world is, this core fear kind of emerges, [and] this is what I need to be looking out for and afraid of and trying to avoid.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“I believe we can only meet other people as far as we've met ourselves. There's not a lot of understanding I can offer to someone else if I'm not willing to interrogate myself.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“Sometimes in Christianity, there can be these like wildly opposite poles. We are disgraceful, disgusting, terrible sinners and/or we are God's chosen people, we are above the rest, city on a hill. There's so much whiplash in that, you really can't make sense of it. And neither of those is honest. Neither of those is fully true.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
“You have to know what you are capable of in order to move in the world in service of others.” — Elizabeth Orr @theb4np
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: October class “Get a Grip on the Gospels: Reading the Gospels Well” taught by Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw
Books:
The Unfiltered Enneagram by Elizabeth Orr
The Essential Enneagram by David Daniels
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Jared: You're listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God ordained podcast on the internet.
Pete: I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
[Intro music plays]
Pete: Have you ever wanted to learn from a Bible scholar how to read the Gospels well? Well, now's your chance. Our October class, which is the second class in our three part series on the New Testament, is coming soon.
Jared: And the class is called Get a Grip on the Gospels: Reading the Gospels Well, and it's taught by our very own incredible nerd in residence, Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw. Jennifer explores that word we use all the time around here, the context, the context that shaped the gospels, like the society, the politics of the time, as well as the pivotal elements in these four texts.
Pete: The class is pre recorded, which means you can get instant access to watch it as soon as you buy it, and it even comes with a study guide so you can follow along.
The class is pay what you can from October 1 through the 15th, and then it costs $25. There will also be a live Q&A for all three parts of the series on November 20th at 8pm ET, so Jennifer can answer all your burning questions about the New Testament. And of course, if you want access to this class and all the other classes, plus ad-free podcast episodes, Bible Scholar Q and As and more, you can become a member of our online community, the Society of Normal People for just $12 a month.
Jared: So for more information and to buy our October class, head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/fall24. That's fall and the number's 24. That's thebiblefornormalpeople.com front slash fall 24.
Pete: Today on Faith for Normal People, we're talking about the Enneagram with Elizabeth Orr.
Jared: Elizabeth serves as the Associate Chaplain for Spiritual Formation at Wake Forest and is the creator of the popular rude ass Enneagram Instagram account. Now in this episode, we didn't get a chance to get into each Enneagram type. So we'd encourage you to check out her new book, the Unfiltered Enneagram, which is a hilarious and accessible account of the Enneagram that invites us to see that the only way to find self compassion is to embrace wholeness.
So I'd encourage you to check that out.
Pete: Now, what's extra fun about this episode is that it's also a live podcast recording, meaning that our Society of Normal People community members are actually watching this whole conversation as we record it, way before it's published as an episode and getting an exclusive Q&A session at the end.
Jared: So here's our shameless plug. If you want to participate in future live podcast recordings, you can become a member of the Society of Normal People at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join.
Pete: Don't forget to stay tuned at the end of the episode for quiet time as we reflect on the episode and our own experiences related to the conversation.
Jared: All right, folks, let's dive into this conversation with Elizabeth.
[Music plays over teaser clip of Elizabeth speaking]
Elizabeth: “I believe we can only meet other people as far as we've met ourselves. You know, there's not a lot of understanding I can offer to someone else if I'm not willing to interrogate myself. In the language of Alcoholics Anonymous, got to keep my side of the street clean. And in order to do that, I need to be honest with myself. You have to know what you are capable of in order to move in the world in service of others.”
[Ad break]
Pete: Liz, welcome to the podcast.
Elizabeth: It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Pete: Absolutely. And we're thrilled to talk with you about the Enneagram. So let's just start with a very basic question, especially for those, I mean, not everybody's into it as much as you are, right? So just what, what's the, what is the history of the Enneagram?
Like where'd it come from?
Elizabeth: Yeah, certainly, certainly. So the Enneagram, one of the things that most people hear first about the Enneagram is actually a bit of mythology. It's not true that the Enneagram is ancient. You will hear that it is ancient. It is not. It is only as ancient as the 1920s. So the first public record of the Enneagram was in the 1920s and it was debuted as song and dance, and it was not nine types. But it was the three different centers, the body, the head, and the heart.
And so how that all came to be was this philosopher, teacher, kind of spiritually curious cat, George Gurdjieff, who, searching for enlightenment, went out and hung out with these different spiritual communities, monks, yogis, fakirs. He was traveling with these different communities in their pursuit of enlightenment. And he was sort of studying with them. And what he discovered was that each of them had their own very particular path. The yogis had a really intellectual path. The monks had a really emotional, affective path. The fakirs had a really sort of bodily, somatic path.
And so what he noticed was, number one, by his assessment, he felt like he could pursue all three of these paths. And so what he came to believe was, okay, so we all, as humans, possess a somatic wisdom, an emotional wisdom, and an intellectual wisdom, and intelligence. However, the flaw he found in these designs was that they all required retreating from daily life in order to pursue these paths.
And he was like, well, that was not very practical. That's not really accessible to most people. And so he developed out of these sort of three schools of thought, he merged them into what he called the fourth way, which was this method and practice of attuning to all three of these centers of intelligence: our head, our heart, and our gut, in order to gain self awareness and enlightenment. And that is the basis of the Enneagram. He used that symbol for the first time in the 1920s. He formed these little schools, these little sort of fourth way groups that met and talked. And from there the Enneagram was built.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it came into conversation with modern psychology. In the 1980s and the 1990s, we had our first books written on it. There was kind of a, some in-house Enneagram drama with a lawsuit about who owns the intellectual property of the Enneagram.
Pete: Wow.
Elizabeth: And it was determined that nobody does, which is why I could write about the book about the Enneagram, and why there are many wonderful Enneagram books. And there were some formal training programs that also came about in the 1980s and 90s, and then social media got a hold of the Enneagram, and here we are today.
Pete: Wow. Although, there's one thing though Jared, you didn't discuss the satanic roots of the Enneagram. Could we get into that?
Elizabeth: I did not get into that. [Laughing]
Jared: The irony, the irony of you saying that, [Pete laughs hard] as I was just thinking, when I was, I think when I first heard of the Enneagram, which was probably, I don't know, 15 years ago, that was, yeah, it was a lot of Wait, that sounds like satanic, or it sounds like pagan, the Enneagram, and now I feel like there are more secular people who are like avoiding it because it's become connected to Christianity.
Elizabeth: Right. Exactly. Exactly. It is really funny because also in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, the Jesuits got a hold of it and started using it in their spiritual direction. And I would say more recently, more mainline Protestant and sort of non-denominational Christian communities have embraced and rejected it. So it's really polarizing, even within the same denomination or non-denomination.
Jared: So I think for a lot of people, their entry into the Enneagram is sort of thinking of it like almost like a Myers Briggs, like a profile, a personality type. And there's, you know, nine types. We don't really have the time to necessarily get into all of those. So, you know, I want to maybe talk a little bit more about some of the bigger picture things about the Enneagram that people may not have known because they usually go right to those types.
So one of the things that you mention is that the goal of the Enneagram is actually self compassion, which I think is actually really important to name. Um, that was, that was true for me, was to realize, Oh, not to throw the church under the bus, but what the church had always told me was like a fatal flaw of my personality is just a normal thing that can be good or bad, but it's just neutral.
It's not bad in itself. So that was, I think it was really helpful for me more so than the typing and all of that. It was just sort of—
Pete: And I'd never heard that before until reading your book, right? I had never I mean, I'm an amateur, you know, Jared's really into this and I'm very much I like it, it's fun. It's also satanic. But anyway, I just so but yeah, I didn't, it was completely new for me. [Liz laughs]
Jared: As most fun things are, it’s satanic.
Elizabeth: The best things are [sarcastically].
Jared: Can you say more about why that's the goal cuz like with Pete just learning that, I think for a lot of people that's new that self compassion is the goal. And then you know, not only say more about why that's the goal, but how do you get there with the Enneagram? Like, how is it about self compassion?
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. So the reason, the why that it is about self compassion at its heart is because that is the source of all of our compassion for everybody else. It can be a really beautiful articulation of why the people that we love drive us nuts, right? Like, “Oh, I understand that like, that's why my colleague who's a 3 is always taking over in meetings because she needs the attention. She needs the validation,” right? That can be helpful. But if we can't do that for ourselves, it's a lot harder to continually live into that. We are perhaps our hardest subject of compassion. So it helps us understand why we developed what ultimately are just survival strategies.
We all had a really good reason to become the way that we did. We don't just like do it for funsies. We don't become difficult because it's a good time for everyone. We do it because we came to believe that our environment necessitated that. And so when you can extend that compassion and understanding to yourself, that's when you have the best chance of actually wriggling free from some of that and those patterns.
I, you know, I just, we don't sustainably evolve and grow out of something by beating ourselves up. Because if we did, it would have worked. But I think with patience and understanding and getting to the why am I doing this? Why am I like this? We can start to unlock ourselves from that.
Pete: Can I ask something just to follow up on that? To make sure, make sure I understand. Are you saying that self understanding leads to self compassion and this is a way of understanding yourself and what makes you tick, right? Okay.
Elizabeth: Yes, exactly right.
Jared: Yeah, and I think that's important because again as a tool of self awareness—because I think there are some people who resist like, oh, well, don't don't label me. It can't be right. And it's like, well, you're thinking about it wrong. It's a tool. So we use it for self awareness and for these things. And if it's not helpful, then, you know, don't use that tool or don't use it in that way. Is that, you know, how do you talk to people who maybe are resistant to these kinds of things?
Elizabeth: That's fair. We all have a degree of terminal uniqueness that we kind of cling to, you know, like, so I'm not in the business of evangelizing around the Enneagram to skeptics. I think that's fair. And it really tends to only make people more resistant. So, ultimately, and this is true of how I practice with the Enneagram in my world and generally it then translates into how I interact with other people, but I would just prefer to trust other people on the subject of themselves. And so if like, they're not into the Enneagram, that's valid.
Jared: And maybe I'm going to tie in a bit of a faith angle here before we move on, because one thing that was actually really helpful for me, but I could see running counter to a lot of people's faith traditions, is almost this relativizing of, it almost relativizes morality in some sense.
So don't take me out of context here. But I mean, one of the early conversations that my wife and I had about the Enneagram, again, probably 15 years ago, was the realization that if we're coming from different perspectives, we might actually have the most helpful and healthy response to something might be opposite.
And so in this case, it was authority, where for her, her response to authority needed to be to stand up for herself, to be confident, to push back, to resist, and mine needed to be submit and defer. And so there was this aha moment of, oh, my faith tradition has always told me there's always one right way to respond to any circumstance. There is the kind of godly way, and then there's the wrong way. And here we were bumping up against this realization through the Enneagram that, oh, maybe the healthy thing would be for you to respond completely opposite to me. So how do you see, you know, the Enneagram and faith interacting or not interacting in these ways.
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. One of the things that I remember sort of being almost drilled into me over and over again in my, for my formal training around the Enneagram, was each of these perspectives that each of the nine types holds is equally valid. And if we were to kind of run through the core belief of each type, none of us can deny that they're totally false, right?
Like, yeah, the sixes are right. The world is a dangerous place. Yeah, the nines are, are right. You know, the world is a place that doesn't value connection. The ones are right. The world is really messed up. And so it both affirms and expands how we can see the world and how we can meet other people when we recognize like, well, I want my perspective to be taken seriously. I have to do that for you.
And similarly with faith, right? I think we see so much of our own tradition often in other traditions. A few months ago at work, I work as a university chaplain and we were having this really beautiful dedication of the Pooja Mandir, which is this really holy vessel in Hinduism in our chapel and beautiful ceremony was my first time at a Hindu Pooja and there was all this incense and they were, you know, passing out rose petals and there were bells and prayers and chants.
And I grew up in the Catholic Church and I was like, man, Catholics are really very Hindu. It was just like all that, you know, that, um, that incense and the belt, [Pete laughs] like it just was so much like mass and there's standing and sitting and, and the liturgical calisthenics. And so again, I think the Enneagram can mirror that, which is true in our faith traditions, which is, you know, we're, we're actually a lot more similar than we are different, but the particulars are so worth understanding for ourselves. And then extending that practice of understanding that we have to do for ourselves to others.
Pete: Mmhmm. It's something you said just sparked another question here. Talk a little bit more about the receptivity to Enneagram among college students that you work with.
Elizabeth: Oh, they love it.
Pete: Do they? Okay. So you're very explicit about that, right? I mean, you don't, you don't keep it hidden for just a few select people who aren't going to kill you, right? So it's just, you actually employ the technique and, and to help the students and they really love it.
Elizabeth: They love it. I mean, students, faculty, staff. They all really, really enjoy it. And there was a little bit of time where I kept it hidden more because of the Instagram presence. Cause I was like, I don't want people knowing my Finsta, the, you know, associate university chaplain is out here being rude on the internet. Um, but I kind of couldn't keep that as hidden as the book came out, and so people do seek me out for Enneagram typing interviews, for workshops with their student organizations, or with their offices.
I've done so many workshops with, you know, departments on campus. But the college campus, I have found, is one that really loves the Enneagram because there's so much identity development happening within college students. That four years is such fertile ground for figuring out who they are and the Enneagram is a beautiful tool for that.
[Ad break]
Jared: Well, with that, I want to jump onto that because not only is it helpful for identifying who we are, but I think one of the most helpful things, again, for, for me, was helping me remember who I was, right? And so for me, it coincided, and there's a language warning coming up. So just giving you guys a warning.
But this intersection, it was when my second son was born, who was the most like me when I was a kid. And to see him as a two or three year old, that came at the same time that we were doing Enneagram stuff, so it was like the perfect, like, I had this physical embodiment, and then I had this framework, and you say, it's a framework that reveals the places where we've built up brick wall barriers to being seen and known. It doesn't tell us who we are so much as it shows us how we get in our own way.
And I think that's just a really great statement. My less polished way of saying it was, it showed me who I was before the world fucked me over. That's what I always used to say. It's like, there's a sense of like, “Oh, the world has ruined me.”
Like it caused me to have all these defenses and put up all this armor and change how I interact. And so between my second son and the Enneagram, it was showing me how I get in my own way. So can you talk more about that dynamic and how that barrier gets built and how we can be better aware of it and maybe how the Enneagram can be a tool for becoming better aware of it?
Elizabeth: Absolutely. Yeah. And I would completely co sign on your, your articulation of that [laughing]. So it, you know, like I said a little bit earlier, it really has more of a description of our, our defense system, our survival strategy. In Enneagram theory, we are born our type. I was born an eight. I didn't become an eight. The rigidity of my type eight structure was built and calcified actually pretty early on in the first few years of life.
Again, theory, Enneagram theory says we become pretty set in how we see the world as babies. And it's not so much about blaming our parents, right? Our parents did the best they could. But they have their own big and little ‘T’ traumas that they have not healed from and impart those on us. And sometimes our parents held us when we were hungry or they changed us when we just wanted to be held. And, you know, they didn't meet the need that as a baby, we couldn't articulate and they couldn't figure out. And that shapes, developmentally, how we come to understand the world. And so that rigidity, that sort of structure then starts to set in by the time we're like three or four years old. And as we grow and develop the experiences that we have in life, again, sort of continue to impact the thickness of that rind.
And so, you know, there are people who their parents have been doing their work and, and kind of only, warning, language—f***** them up a little bit. And so their shell doesn't need to be as rigid. Whereas there are people who, you know, who had really traumatizing childhoods and they needed that protection. And so they get into their early twenties and they're just so hard to, to break through to. And maybe it's not into until their brains are finished cooking at, you know, in their mid twenties that they start to say like, well, maybe I don't always need these defenses and they don't always need this armor.
And so what the Enneagram does, which is really powerful, is it names very specific pieces of the armor: the chest plate, the forearm guard, the whatever. I don't know armor. [Laughing] Um, but it names the specific pieces of it that helps us then spot it in real time. And that gives us the opportunity to shake it off a little.
Pete: Yeah. It helps declutter your life a bit with all the, the unhelpful coping mechanisms that we've developed because of maybe unmet needs and things like that. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth: It's powerful.
Jared: Can you maybe, just with that, cause I think it might be helpful to—I know I said we can't go into every type and kind of figuring that, but—
Pete: Yeah. Which is the worst number and why is it six? [All laughing hard]
Liz: All nine.
Jared: Can you just give a couple of examples, I think it's a little bit of a dynamic. And so if you could just pick a couple of types and kind of walk through that dynamic of how those defenses get built and then how kind of, it looks to be aware of it and maybe change it.
Elizabeth: Right. What I'll do, which I think is, is again, sort of a little bit broader of a response is with those three centers, even though there are three different types in each center, there is some common strengths and some common suffering.
And so in the gut center, they're kind of our specialists in control. I really want to be in control. Same. And so there's a fear around the loss of autonomy and control for all three types, the eight, nine, and one in the gut center. And when they start to fear that, they become really, really defensive around their own boundaries and really, really offensive towards the boundaries of others. And they start to kind of puff up and try to control their environment, other people, or themselves.
In the heart center, where you have types two, three, and four, the question that really torments them is, Who am I? And is that person deserving of love? And so when that question gets triggered in those three types, you're going to start to see them perform. They're going to try to use the people in front of them, use their relationships as mirrors to assure them of their value. And so they start to shapeshift. And just sort of seek their value outside of themselves.
In the head center, which is types five, six, and seven, there's a lot of fear that these three types really struggle with. And the fear is around, who can I trust? And am I going to be alright if I take the next step? And when you see them start to get really stressed, they start to kind of, they trust things outside of themselves. So fives are going to want more information. Sixes are going to want more like kind of contingency plans, and threat analyses. And sevens are going to want more options and that's all because there's this struggle to trust themselves.
Jared: You also mentioned that it's important to remember that none of our patterns developed in a vacuum and so we've been talking about these things from when we were younger and and how they develop but how is that relevant when we're talking about the Enneagram? Because it's, in some ways it's almost a trite observation. It's like, yep, of course, we're all impacted by things that we grew up with, of course. But how does that get filtered through the Enneagram?
Elizabeth: Because our strategies, our patterns have worked. You know, the shapeshifting has served the two, the three, and the four. They have gotten love and assured of their lovability when they've performed. The head center types have gotten past their fear or at least gotten to ignore it by kind of creating more options and digging for more information rather than just trusting themselves. And the gut center people, they've been trusted with leadership and responsibility and been assured that they're good people because they're willing to make a hard decision. And they're willing to take control and take the lead.
So it's not just that these patterns developed, didn't develop in a vacuum, but we were rewarded for these patterns. We got what we needed because of how we showed up. And that piece is so important because it reminds us we were doing the best we could. Maybe our best looks different today than it did five years ago. I hope it does. I hope my best today looks better than it did yesterday. We were doing the best we could with what we had. And that reminder, I have found, at least helps me remember to be gentle with myself. You know, I'm not gonna, I didn't come with this software downloaded in my brain of how to be like a perfectly functioning human. It's trial and error. And I've been rewarded for a lot of my errors. And so that's such an important reminder.
Jared: Yeah. I wanted to kind of bring, you've mentioned lots of pieces kind of through the life of a person as it's filtered through the Enneagram, but I wanted to see if we could bring it together because there is a helpful narrative that kind of weaves through the Enneagram.
And there's these, these pieces and I'll maybe run through them, but then if you could, if you could kind of put them together and tell us a story of how all this works together. So we have the essence, then we have the core belief, the core fear, the focus of attention, the idealized self-image, the defense mechanism, the vice, and the virtue. So those words maybe don't have much context or meaning right now, but maybe can you weave those in to show how they connect to one another?
Elizabeth: Happily, yeah. So those words are not my intellectual property. Those words are what's known as the basic propositions which is a framework that was developed by Dr. David Daniels. He wrote this scrawny little yellow book called The Essential Enneagram. He helped found the Narrative Enneagram Training Program. So he's really a giant in the Enneagram world. And he developed these basic propositions of each type.
So each type has an essence, which is this beautiful gift that they just show up in the world. It's who you remember yourself to be, right? The unburdened, beautiful gift. You don't have to try. When you just relax, that essence flows through you. However, we live in a world that is imperfect. Our holding environments are imperfect. And that development, that core belief, what we begin to believe about the world is cemented very early on, again, based on those, those kind of imperfect interactions with our caregivers. As we start to understand the world, this is the way the world is, this core fear kind of emerges. Okay, if this is how the world is, then this is what I need to be looking out for and afraid of and trying to avoid.
So to sort of put a little flesh on the bones here, right? Sixes have this beautiful essence of guidance. They have this wisdom that navigates the people they love to safety, but they come to see the world as a really dangerous place. I think we can agree that's true. It's not the only thing that's true about the world, but it is true. The core fear of someone who sees the world as a dangerous place is, “I'm going to be abandoned. I'm going to be alone to face this scary world on my own. I'm not going to have a guide and I can't do it.”
So the idealized self-image then is the type's response to the world, it is really kind of the strategy—how I navigate and survive a world that I perceive as dangerous and scary and one that I could be abandoned in. Well, sixes are going to show up as loyal. I'm going to be loyal to people, so they'll be loyal to me. They won't abandon me. And I'm going to be prepared for anything. I'm going to predict every possible worst case scenario and I'm going to run it through. The defense mechanism is what Dr. Daniels called as the glue. So it kind of holds the whole belief system and fear and response to that fear, idealized self image, in place. And for Sixes, that's projection. What they're really afraid of is, “I can't handle this scary world.”
That is a terrifying prospect, that the call is actually coming from inside the house. So they project it out. The world is scary. People will abandon me. I don't trust what I'm being told. They externalize their fear.
And then the emotional experience of that is what's known as the vice. So for the six, that's more fear. They're terrified that they're right, uh, that the world is scary and they're going to be abandoned.
The virtue is an emotional, it's an expanded emotional capacity that we do have to cultivate unlike our essence, but it allows us to reconnect with our essence. So for the six that's courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the trust in self that whatever is up ahead Even if I didn't anticipate it or prepare for it, even if I have to face it alone, I'll be okay. And that helps reconnect them with their essence, that essence of wisdom and guidance that actually shelters and keeps people safe in a scary world.
[Ad break]
Pete: You know? Um, again, coming at this as an amateur, Jared knows a lot about the Enneagram. You, you know, a little bit, you wrote a book, but, but, uh, I just know my number and why it's bad. Anyway, but that's the, but the, the thing is, and what's really striking me here, I'm, I'm gonna you know, bring in a little bit of Christian thinking here, maybe a Christian response to this, which is there isn't a lot of room here—and I'm saying this in a supportive way, there isn't a lot of room here for thinking about we're born bad, you know, original sin.
And this, you know, the Enneagram, the way you just described, this is very helpful to me, this, this, these terms and how you went through the narrative. It's a journey toward healing for people who want to undertake this and that just is not how many Christians are used to talking about the human condition, right? And that's maybe one area why there is tension. Although ironically now Christians are all over this. [Laughing]
Jared: Well, maybe for that reason it's almost like we've resisted—it wasn't part, I can just speak for my tradition growing up. You're right. It would have been in conflict, but it's also something that I think we deeply craved as far as like, okay, but what's the path toward he There was this, it was a skipping from, you were born bad, then you asked Jesus into your heart, and now you're supposed to be good all of a sudden. It's like, we didn't do any—it's like saying, I want to get really strong, but I never go to the gym. I just like take the supplements and I'm, I'm strong. It's like, it doesn't work.
Pete: Well, you have to move towards sanctification. The way to do that is just keep, that dysfunctional person keeps trying really hard to do stuff the right way.
Jared: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It was just actually sanctification for my tradition, was just feel really bad about the stuff you keep doing bad. Yeah. [All laughing]
Pete: Right. But there's, but there's no, um—Liz, we'll get back to you in a minute. There, there's, there's no self knowledge in that journey that you're describing. And this is full of like, “Oh crap, I, I know this.” And it's sort of like, I want to know, I actually do want to know who I am.
Jared: Well, it goes full circle because there's no self knowledge because the self is bad.
Pete: Yeah.
Jared: So if you start with the premise that self knowledge. Then you want to know. That's what you know about yourself. Is that your garbage? Right? But maybe, maybe you, maybe Liz, can you enlighten us, bring us into this conversation from an Enneagram perspective around the view of self and self knowledge. Because I could also see, and I've actually heard this criticism of the Enneagram, uh, it's just too much navel gazing. It's just self, self, self. Jesus was all about other people and you're all about learning about yourself. So maybe speak to that.
Elizabeth: I mean, we can only, I believe we can only meet other people as far as we've met ourselves. You know, there's not a lot of understanding I can offer to someone else if I'm not willing to interrogate myself.
You know, in the language of Alcoholics Anonymous, gotta keep my side of the street clean. And in order to do that, I need to be honest with myself. And, you know, I think, I think sometimes in Christianity, there can be these like wildly opposite poles of either—and actually both. We are disgraceful, disgusting, terrible sinners and/or we are God's chosen people. We are, you know, above the rest, uh, city on a hill, right? Like, there's so much whiplash in that, you really can't make sense of it. And neither of those is honest. Neither of those is fully true.
Pete: Neither of those know themselves. Neither of those know themselves, right?
Elizabeth: Correct. Correct. Yeah. They're lying to themselves about something.
Pete: Yeah.
Jared: Yeah, and I think that's—the Enneagram provides that again, and it's not like when I say “the Enneagram” because I just always have the some close friends who are very anti-Enneagram. And so it's like when I say that it's a placeholder for tools of self awareness and self-compassion and knowing yourself.
It's like that nuance, whatever those tools are for you, if it's not the Enneagram, that's great, but whatever that tool is provides the nuance to help you down the path. So you realize you are not all bad and you are not all good, but there is a particular mix of good and bad that you are. And it's helpful for you to know that.
Elizabeth: Exactly.
Pete: Maybe good and bad aren't even the right words.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I would, I would even say like, we are capable of harm, even despite our best intentions. And it's critical to know that and to be honest about it to be in the kind of relationships that our faith calls us to be in. You have to know what you are capable of in order to move in the world in service of others.
Jared: Can I ask, as we, you know, we don't have too much more time here, but maybe you can turn a personal lens on you.
Liz: Of course.
Jared: And say what were a couple of like, aha! moments for you with the Enneagram that helped change the way you thought about yourself and your path in the world.
Elizabeth: Mmhmm. So one that I'm, I'm still, I'm mostly on the other side of it, but the way I like to talk about it is, there was this big, Jenga piece within myself that I was poking at and had a suspicion that if I took it out, the whole tower would come down.
I'm an eight. I lead with eight. And what I have always liked about myself and understood about myself was that I like a fight. I like a battle, especially a righteous one, especially one where I feel like I'm up against a real structure of injustice. And I was raised Roman Catholic, grew up outside of Boston in the early aughts. And so the clergy sex abuse scandal broke when I was in middle school. Which was also about the time where some of my friends who were queer were coming out for the first time.
Jared: Mm hmm.
Elizabeth: And so I'm watching the hypocrisy between the way that the clerics in Boston protected and defended people who were doing so much harm, their own clergy and were casting out my friends simply because of this discovery about themselves.
And yes, my Catholic faith also still meant a lot to me, especially as I grew. And when I got to college, I was introduced to a lot more of that nuance. I was introduced to people like Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero. And I saw that there was actually this like real subversive thread within the Catholic Church as well.
And so that that part of me that loves a scrap, loves a fight, said—well, there are probably people within this institution that would say that I'm not Catholic enough because I don't agree with certain company lines, or because I think that they could really deal with things in a different way, or because I think that they perpetuate a lot of injustice. Frankly, my opinions are all my own.
What would it be like to insist that you don't get to take away my Catholic identity, you don't get to say I'm not Catholic enough, and instead, I'm going to put myself in a position of leadership, and I'm going to be a Catholic campus minister, and work with the future of the church, and lead the peace from the inside out, not really taking down the church, but hopefully sort of like instilling what I believe to be the values of the Gospels into young Catholics who would then go on and live those out, right?
Now that is an incredibly vain idea that I could make kind of an impact like that. I didn't really believe that I was going to see a lot of movement in my lifetime, but I did that for about 10 years. I was in Catholic campus ministry for about 10 years. It was wonderful work. I loved it. I loved working with the students, but I had this realization that this piece of me that runs around looking for a fight had done very well for myself by positioning myself constantly in opposition with the Catholic Church. And it was exhausting.
And I was about 33 years old when I realized I have another 30 years or so of a career left if I'm lucky. I want that. I want another 30 years of a career left. And that's a copy and paste of the years that I've been on this earth. I can't keep going at this pace. That desire to be strong and tough and a formidable opponent to one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, [laughing] that's not going to serve me in the long run.
And at the same time, I was also like, the Enneagram—that my work with the Enneagram was starting to unfold and invite me into a much gentler space. And I was like, what if I stopped fighting and actually sought more life giving work, work that I felt poured into me, and I wasn't just fighting. And I was really, really lucky in that I was able to sort of rework my job and, and repurpose my position within the chaplain's office.
And now I do sort of what's, we joke that it's like a really squishy spiritual formation, but it encompasses that which is so life giving. And my Catholic identity is still very important to me, but I'm now navigating like, what, what is that? What, how big of an identity piece of, how big is that Jenga piece? Now that I'm not sort of the face of Catholic life at a university. So that is how the Enneagram really confronted me recently and invited me into a gentler space and a space where I wasn't the warrior, but was showing up in such a different way.
Pete: Mhmm. That's great. Thank you, Liz, for being with us. I learned a lot. This was a lot of fun.
Elizabeth: Thank you so much for inviting me. This was really wonderful.
[Music signals start of Quiet Time segment]
Jared: And now for quiet time…
Pete: …with Pete and Jared.
Jared: All right. Well, we know Liz has a lot of personal experience with the Enneagram, but what about you, Pete? What's your personal experience with the Enneagram? How has it impacted your understanding of yourself or others in your life?
Pete: It's changed everything. I'm rich now, actually. That's what happened. No, um, I'm kidding, right? Of course. No. I was introduced to the Enneagram just in slow bits and pieces, maybe 10 years ago. And I'm not an avid Enneagram person, but it's not because I don't like it. It's, it has affected me because it's given me a better sense of who I am, how I show up in the world and the kinds of things that I might be drawn to.
And some things that I might not be drawn to. And that's very helpful. It's also been helpful for at least a couple of my children. What my son, he read a book on the Enneagram years ago when he was thinking through some things and he said, “There's a name for who I am. I mean, I understand. I understand why I prefer the things that I prefer and how other people, it might be harder for me to connect with them.”
Right? So I, to me, that's, that's, that's a wonderful thing. And, um, I'm proud to be a six, a partially well functioning six.
Jared: [Laughing] I think that's one of the technical categories. Partially well-functioning.
Pete: Partially well functioning, not too, not too weird, six. Okay.
Jared: That's good. Yeah. Mine goes back a little bit further. I would say almost 20 years now. I think my sister in law introduced me to it. It was very helpful for me, and we're going to get into it in a minute, to start to unpack maybe some less than helpful theological or maybe a fancy word of anthropological understandings of what the, my tradition, my Christian tradition taught me about who I was. And it started to shake some of those foundations in a really good way for me, and we can talk about that.
But I think for me it was, it did give me perspective that other people aren't like me. And so it did, it refined my understanding of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Well, if we're, if we come at the world differently, then I actually have to learn more about who you are and how you would want to respond because if you respond, if I respond as an eight and you're not an eight, that's not going to go well.
Pete: Yeah.
Jared: Great. And that was a big aha for us. Having someone, I had a close friend where we talked about this in terms of authority. And we came to the realization that our next best step as to become like a healthier version of ourself when it came to authority was so different because I was an eight. And so my journey of growth was really learning to respect authority and submit to authority and not sort of, you know, pounce on it and be aggressive toward it and for my friend who is a six, this isn't a story about Pete, by the way, this isn't a passive aggressive way of talking about Pete.
Pete: He was a six! A six! If you can believe that.
Jared: No, but they, you know, they were saying, oh, that's interesting because I think for me to grow, to grow up, to mature would mean I need to stand up to authority more. I need to stand on my own two feet. I need to have confidence. I need to not just do what other people say just because they come off as the authority.
And it was interesting to say, oh, that's a great, that was a huge aha for me to say, what it looks like to grow as a person, there's not just one path. It actually can come from your different personality, regardless of what system you use. For me, the Enneagram was a great aha to see that diversity of how we approach things. And therefore, I can't just tell you what to do without knowing where you're coming from and who you are. And I think that's a huge piece of it.
Pete: Right. And, you know, you mentioned do unto others and we can throw another Bible verse in here is, uh, love your neighbor as yourself. And the thing is, you know, for me, it's been also just trying to understand others better, but also, you know, understanding myself and if I can say having learning to have more compassion on myself because as a six, you know, when things are not functioning, well, I, I really want to control things.
I deal with anxiety and it's more like not what's wrong with you, it's, it's like, well, you know, you, you have a certain makeup and, and, and you don't have to live and wallow in this, but the, you know, there are ways to be you and to function better.
Jared: Yeah, you'll need different tools depending on who you are.
Pete: And that's, and that's a skill to learn, right? That's not like, you can't just read a book or a pamphlet or something. You have to keep working on it. But I think, you know, for me, authenticity and knowing myself and understanding what I do and why I do it, that's a, that is a prime ethic, you know, for me, it really is.
And, and, and that's why I like knowing how screwed up I am or how well I am in other areas and just what makes me who I am. And it's not judgment. It's not self-praise. It's just knowledge. And that, that means a lot to me. And so, yeah, I guess the Enneagram has helped me go down that path of self discovery and given me languages, uh, words and language to articulate that to myself.
Jared: Well, and maybe to go into a little bit more of what we were talking about earlier with, uh, the golden rule. And again, I wouldn't say it necessarily challenges those, it helps refine what we mean by that in terms of loving your neighbor as yourself, the golden rule. But I do think one thing that the Enneagram did challenge for me was this understanding of sin. Because as an eight growing up, everything was seen as arrogance. Like, no matter what I did, it was like arrogant. [Pete laughs] And so then to be like labeled an arrogant person, that didn't do well for me. It just, it made me feel bad about myself.
Pete: Have you gotten used to it now though? [Pete laughs]
Jared: Yeah. I mean, you saying it over and over and over time helped me adjust.
Pete: Yeah, good.
Jared: Um, but no, like, so then to have a different frame, to reframe it as like, no, this isn't a sinful part of you is that you're arrogant. It's that you show up confident in the world and that way of showing up can be healthier or unhealthier. But that you show up that way, just your baseline way you show up in the world, is not sinful. And that's what helped, is like, let's start with the baseline, and then sin, or health or unhealth, is relative to that.
It's not like, oh, how you came into the world was sinful, and now you have to minimize yourself to be good. And I, that changed my life, frankly, in terms of how I saw myself and started being able to not dismiss “sin,” but to see it as relative to what is a healthy version of myself and when am I getting off track?
Pete: Right. And, and I think that's exactly what, you know, some Christians probably have difficulty with in even thinking of the Enneagram. First of all, it looks like a satanic symbol.
Jared: A pentagram.
Pete: But apart from that, um, it's how you show up in the world is, okay, being anxious is not a sin. I mean, by any definition. So this is just yet another thing in the world that we live in that causes us to reflect on the nature of how the Christian tradition, just sticking with that, has explained the human condition, which is frankly, far more complicated than everything sin, right? I mean, there's, there's a lot of thoughtful Christians throughout history who have been basically psychiatrists before there was such a thing, right?
You know, so they thought about it, but it's, in popular use sometimes we collapse very quickly into “that’s sin” or “you’re sinning.” Well, well, how does the enneagram handle sin? It sort of redefines it in a sense and it doesn't make it the big power that affects everything that comes out of your mouth or other things.
There are um, you know habits that we've picked up in life. There are coping mechanisms. There was how we were just born, you know, all that family dynamics Exactly all that stuff comes into play and And it makes our getting to know ourselves and others more a matter of curiosity and not judgment. And I know you gotta judge yourself. I don't know if I do. I think most people judge themselves far, far too harshly. It's not that they don't judge themselves enough. They do that all the time, and it's because of a faulty anthropology, as we say, and maybe, you know, the Enneagram helps us to have different language.
Jared: Yeah, and maybe that's just a way to, to, to sign off here, is just a reminder that Liz said, you know, the goal of the Enneagram is self compassion. And I think that's what a lot of us can really relate to for those of us who grew in an upper tradition where we were taught that self compassion was maybe the cardinal sin It's sort of deny yourself. Yeah, deny yourself is what you need to do. Call yourself bad, you know follow in Paul's footsteps. That's denial of the flesh or whatever interpretation we give to that. So I think that can be something to take away, is just that the goal is self compassion.
[Outro music plays]
[Outro music plays]
Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show! If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give.
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Outro: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People. Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Wesley Duckworth, Savannah Locke, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Natalie Weyand, Lauren O'Connell, Jessica Shao, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
[Beep signals blooper]
Jared: All right. What resources do you six, ugh, my god, I, I only have one job, read the question, I can't even do that.
Elizabeth: It's hard. Hmm.
[Beep signals end of episode]
