Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) and Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) join Nikhil Sharma (AlignUs World) in a six part series to discuss the Enneagram.
In this six part series we give an introduction to each Enneagram Type, look at each of the Triads: Body, Heart, and Head, and discuss subtypes and instincts.
Watch the video below for Body Types (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)
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Transcript
Nikhil: In today's topic, we'll be discussing the Enneagram Body Types, which are Types Eight, Nine, and One. We are lucky today to have our special guest, Ms. Joanne Kim, who is an Enneagram therapist at OliveMe Counseling and Feelings Translator at Intelligent Emotions. Joanne helps people discover their true self beyond their Enneagram Type and live out their Flow State. The Enneagram is an excellent resource for those who feel they're kind of stuck in the mud to help them awaken themselves, to be able to live their best life, and to pursue meaningful and loving connections as well as being able to pursue all of their professional hopes and dreams.
I'm a firm believer of the Enneagram as I became aware of this about a year ago when I was clearly at the lowest state of my life. Through the Enneagram, and through the entire process of understanding it better, it has allowed me to literally go from being a physician to being a tech entrepreneur. I truly feel without the Enneagram, as well as my support system, which also includes Joanne as she has worked a lot with me on my Enneagram Type, I would not have come this far. I'm truly grateful for her. And it's surely a pleasure to have her here today with us at the AlignUs Podcast. Welcome Joanne. Thank you for being with us.
Joanne: Glad to be here.
Nikhil: We hear this Enneagram word a lot or I’ve certainly asked a lot of people about it and there is some familiar with it. For those who are new to the podcast and haven't heard the previous episodes, can you give us a quick, 30 second elevator pitch about what the Enneagram is.
What is the Enneagram?
Joanne: Yeah, the Enneagram is an ancient personality framework that in a nutshell tells us nine different ways of seeing and interpreting and responding to life. So, the nine Types in the Enneagram are archetypes of the universal human experience in highlighting our reflexive autopilot patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing. Of course, there's a lot more diversity to the human race, but it helps us conceptualize things in a very compact yet comprehensive way.
I love it.
Nikhil: I'm with you on that. It's truly empowering. When I first picked up the Enneagram book that you gave me, I was like, wow, that's me right there. Like, how did you know all the way to like, knowing how my childhood was? I was just so taken back by how this system could literally know that much about you. From that I became an instant believer, and it truly is the best way, I feel, to have self-discovery.
Being that there's these nine Types, they break them down into the centers of intelligence or these three Triads, as they are often referred to. Can you describe for us the Triads and what emotions they are typically associated with?
Joanne: Yeah, so people think that we have one brain, we actually have three. We have the topmost brain, which is sometimes known as the human brain, the thinking brain. Then the middle brain, also known as the mammal brain. That's kind of the seat of all emotions. Then the lizard brain downstairs in the brainstem area. That's kind of where it manages everything that we do reflexively, without thinking, it just kind of happens, like pupil dilation, heart rate, things like that.
So, the Triads of the Enneagram. If you break the Enneagram diagram into three sections, there's the Gut Types, or sometimes known as the Body Types, and that corresponds with the brainstem. The Heart Types, Twos, Threes, and Fours correspond with the mammal brain or the limbic brain. Then the Head Types, Fives, Sixes, and Sevens correspond with the Head Types. Obviously, we have all three and so it's that we live as if we're only one of the nine or one of three centers, but we actually have the whole brain and the whole being. So, the point of the Enneagram is to find out our Type, not so that we can reinforce our Type, but for us to recognize that that's kind of, we assume that we are a lot less than we actually are. The point is to find out our Type as the starting point for us to learn how to grow beyond our patterns, namely, to take ourselves out of the box that we put ourselves into.
Nikhil: That makes a lot of sense. So, basically, when you find out what your Triad Type is, that is the Type that you are most comfortable with. The ones that we subconsciously revert to, our autopilot Type that comes out. But the important thing for our listeners and our audience to be aware of is to understand what all the different Types are, especially different Triads, so that you can use those as areas of growth. Especially because we're so commonly locked into what we are used to that need to be more aware of what can become and other aspects or how other people think. So, that's what I love about it.
Body Types
Joanne: Then you had a question about specifically Body Types. So, if you think about just generally in the Western world, there's a lot more room to focus on heady things like intellect, reason, logic, et cetera. Nowadays, we hear more about the more Heart Triad things like emotions, image, identity, relationships. But Body Types are probably the least familiar Triad out of all three, especially in the Western world, because the main currency or language of Body Types is energy. So, think about instincts, intuition, having a gut sense or a felt sense. Those are very nonverbal, but this is a very important arena by which we gather lots of information that would be hard to visibly pick out. It's kind of like an energetic experience, even animals sometimes will know when there's an earthquake or a hurricane coming. I think that's kind of a lot of what Body Types tend to live in more reflexively. It's not always a conscious experience.
Nikhil: Right. I feel as humans, we only think that we either react logically, with our brain or we react with our heart and our emotions. But there is a whole subset of individuals who process the information from the outside with their bodies and then react with that bodies’ or with that specific Type. So, it's really interesting to think that there really are three different ways of processing information. With the Body Triad I realized it's like you're reacting with your intuition and it's like instinctual.
Joanne: Yeah. So, I think with more openness towards things like yoga, or some of the Eastern traditions, we're now hearing more about it. But it's got to take, I think, several decades before it gets just as much airtime as like Brene Brown feeling type stuff, or obviously just like rationality and intellect like sciences and emphasis on things that are more concrete, more measurable, things like that.
Nikhil: Can you explain to us how there are emotions that are tied specifically to the Gut Type compared to the Heart Type and then the Head Type so that maybe our viewers and audience can see which Type they kind of mix with?
Joanne: Yeah. Let's start from the basic foundation that there are general groups of feelings, human basic emotions. If we just focus on the negative emotions, there's anger, sadness, and fear, and basically one per Triad. So, each of the Types within these Triads have a very specific relationship with those given emotions. So, the Gut Types, their main emotion center is around anger. Heart Types is around sadness, sometimes people call it shame. My good friend, Melinda, will be covering that in a different episode. And Head Types correspond with the fear center. Within each Triad one Type of the nine tends to go with the feeling, mainly they overdo the feeling. Another Type underdoes the feeling. The last one has a very complicated, sometimes chaotic, sometimes ambivalent relationship with that emotion. Obviously, we have the capacity to feel all the full range of emotions, but our specific Type will have a go-to-habit around that emotion that happens so instinctually that we won't even know that's what's driving us until like we get into trouble.
Nikhil: Right. So, with the Body Types, is it associated with rage and anger in the sense that they're not able to control a situation and that's what brings out the anger for them? Why is that specifically associated with the body?
Joanne: Well, I'm glad you use the word control because each Triad also has their corresponding themes and it just so happens that for Gut Types, the word control is one of the big ones. So, control, will, power, agency, action, a lot of forward movement or very active energies, that anger as an emotion tends to make possible. Anger as a negative emotion says that something I want or something I need isn't happening or there's something in the way. So, in a sense, it is a reaction to us not getting what we want or us being out of control and for some Types anger in its raw energy is the way to get past that.
Again, one of the Types within the Gut Triad tends to overdo anger. Type Eight will be the one that tends to overly rely on anger. Sometimes they're so expansive with their energy that they don't think that they feel angry. Everyone else feels like they are, but that one overdoes anger.
Type Nines underdo anger. They kind of disconnect themselves from it. And in the sense of control, they tend to be the ones who are so non-asserting of their own agenda.
Then Type Ones, that's the Type with the complicated relationship with anger. It's like they want to, but they don't want to. There's constant like back and forth.
Nikhil: It's kind of like Type Eights externalizes it. Type Nine, it's like they repress it or suppress it inside.
Joanne: They disconnect from it.
Nikhil: It's almost like when anger does come out, it sort of shocks them or it shocks others that it's all been repressed and disconnected with them.
Then Type One, they seem to internalize that, correct?
Joanne: Yeah. For Type Ones, I love this word, I think it's like a Spanish term called “ira”. My Enneagram teachers describe it as, I think that's probably where the word irate or irritation comes from. It's like the slow simmering behind the scenes anger, like this constant churning. Versus what people usually associate with the anger being like explosive, rageful, destructive. That's usually describing traits that come with a territory of Type Eight. And especially for Eights, they're not necessarily trying to be destructive, but they can forget what kind of actual impact that they have. Kind of like anger unleashed. That's what that is.
Nikhil: That's good. I like that. Anger unleashed.
We're having a great conversation here so far learning about the Body Types. We’re going to jump into just going over the different Types of the Body Types, Type Eight, Type Nine, Type One, and just learn a little bit about some of the good qualities about them. Some of the challenges that they have, especially when it comes to relationships as well as some of the areas we can use for growth.
Type Eight
Joanne: This will be a useful metaphor for all the Gut Types. I like to think about all Gut Types, with the emphasis on control and agency, as a car, just a different feature of a car.
I like describing Eights as cars with no breaks. It's all gas pedal and it's all go. It's all energy, all forward movement. How this shows up in life is that as soon as they want something Eights will go for it without even thinking about whether the delivery or the execution is appropriate or the intensity with which they seek something is helpful or useful or what asked for.
In a typical day to day situation of how that's very useful is that Eights tend to be very good at big picture, visionary thinking, like high CEO, big boss level. They don't like being stuck in the weeds. They don't have the patience or the time for that. What their strengths are is whenever there is a situation that requires big, effective, wide scale action you call Eight to come and take charge. The downside though is that they're not always in a situation where they are the rightful authority or the rightful person to take big effective actions.
One big arena where Eights get into trouble is, for example, at work. They might be working on a project with other people but whoever's above them, namely their boss or manager, if Eights don't think that the manager is doing a good job, sometimes they can actually take over because they might feel stifled or like they're being slowed down. There's a lot of impatience that can happen with coworkers. So, when Eights sense that the rightful authority is not doing their job correctly, according to the Eights perspective, Eights often can take over in their ego and end up steamrolling over other people.
From an energetic standpoint this is still very effective in that it gets a lot of work done, but there's a lot of dead bodies in their wake. I think relationships personally and professionally can suffer a lot when the Type Eight ego is not tamed because the Type Eight resists being tamed at all costs.
Nikhil: It's like when they feel like once they processed all the information and they have it in their mind that they're right. What they're going to do is the right way to do things. There's no other possible way of doing things. They're just going to move them forward with whatever their thought process is, and nothing can stop them.
Joanne: Right. It's like, my truth is the Truth. Capital “T” Truth. Also let my will be done. All y'all get out of the way otherwise, you're going to get stomped.
Nikhil: Like I’m coming through. You don't want to hear, your headphones are on, like you are just moving forward.
Joanne: Yeah. Like a bull sees red. Like you better get out of the way of Type Eight.
You know, a car without brakes, the only way for the car to stop is if it hits something. So, often that's what, like getting fired from a job, a relationship breakup, often those major life circumstances are what finally catches the Eights’ attention in getting them to stop because they didn't impose limits from within themselves.
Limits are imposed on them.
Nikhil: It seems like they can turn very toxic very quickly, those Types of relationships.
Joanne: Yeah. I mean, I will say all nine Types have their own way of being toxic. It's probably the easiest to peg Type Eights as being so because their patterns are the most obvious. They're the most expressive.
In that sense, the growth path for Type Eights is to recognize that brakes exist. Brakes are necessary. It's not all about the gas pedal and we need to learn how to use the brakes so that the car can function well.
Nikhil: I feel like it's important not just for Eights, but all types of personalities, but okay, yeah, definitely Eights, to once we start creating these thoughts and emotions into our head or especially thoughts it's good for us to do some self-reflection prior to us putting our action plan forward. I feel like practicing any type of self-reflective, whether it's meditation, journaling, just taking a moment to pause to make sure that, hey, these seem like the right thoughts. I've thought about this for some time and yes, all right. I think I'm going to need to move forward with this. There may be some naysayers about it, but I feel like I've taken the appropriate steps to make the best overall decision. So that was great. That's Type Eight. What about Type Nines?
Type Nine
Joanne: Type Nines would be like a car that is on neutral gear. Forgets that they have a gas pedal, forgets that they have brakes. Let's just keep things neutral, keep things chill. If someone pushes me from behind, I'll keep my momentum going. If something stops me from the outside, I'm just going to stop and stay stopped. So, Nines sometimes they're known as The Mediators, Peacemakers, Harmonizers, and it's easy to think that that's what they intentionally do. But again, it's all reflex. The main reason why Nines end up taking on those positions is so that they don't exert the gas or brake pedal. There's a resistance towards exercising choice, freedom, action, agency, and it's like it's too much work. It's too much energy. I want to just take whatever path of least resistance I can. A lot of that is to go along with someone else's agenda or an already established pattern. So, Nines in a lot of ways are the opposite of Eights. Eights tend to be very unleashed and unrestricted. Nines tend to just disconnect from their gas tank altogether and I'm just going to go with whatever has already been done. It's a very low energy, whereas Eights are sometimes known to be larger than life.
Nikhil: Very domineering Types, right?
Joanne: I guess the toxic trait of Nines, because often people think that they're super sweet and super mellow and they are, they're very chill. But often the people who will be complaining about Nines are partners and coworkers because there's an under exercising of one's voice. Nines are very good at seeing through the eyes of everyone else, except for them. That's one thing that makes them great team builders and mediators in helping smooth out the rough edges so that there's a lot more harmony within the group, but they often forget themselves and they don't include themselves in the picture. It'd be fine for a group project and whatever helps to move that forward. But when it comes to more individualized experiences, like marriage, it creates a lot of problems. It's like those who are in relationship with Nines are like, I feel like I'm married to a shell. There's no person here. I have a physical body, like the lights are on and no one's home. That would be a common source of stress in Nines underly exercising their rightful power.
Nikhil: So, what can they do specifically to help expand or really be a little more assertive?
Joanne: It's to recognize that they have a gas and a brake pedal. That there are some things that they actually do want as a reflection of their individuality. That they go for what they want, even if it means bumping up against other people and also recognizing when is the time to stop because of one's own voluntary decision instead of being stopped just because of momentum or circumstances. Sometimes Nines might procrastinate because they can't choose between all these different options. They all feel equal because they're so disconnected from their individual sense of self and their own values. So, the big growth step for Nines is to reconnect with one's own core, to see oneself as an individual, and to put forth the individual in the world instead of just being a wallflower.
Nikhil: Right, it's kind of like they need to establish or discover what their character strengths are, what their values are, and just spending more time in self-awareness and self-discovery. From those anchors and foundation, they can move forward and make decisions based on things that will actually benefit them in ways. I feel like a lot of them probably have a lot of built-up resentment in some ways because when you agree and you're this total people pleaser or making sure everyone is always feeling good and not in any argumentative ways I feel like there's a lot of anger that starts building up. Because you didn't have the guts to bring what you felt needed to be done to the forefront because you wanted to keep the peace.
Joanne: Yeah, I think Nines would probably have a hard time getting in touch with their resentment because it's like the anger is so locked up in there. It's like Pringles like, one, two, pop, you can't stop. So, there's that deep fear that once Nines get in touch with their anger, they won't know how deep that tank goes. So, before Nines think about just how resentful they are, it might be more of just how tired they feel, just how uncomfortable they feel with discomfort. How much it stresses them out when they think about talking to someone or bringing up a request or pushback. Starting from that fear place as a way of getting connected with the emotions and then how eventually coming across anger and then that takes a lot of deeper work.
Nikhil: It's amazing how any uncomfortability in most humans automatically resorts us to get scared and then run back to what makes us feel comfortable. We see that when people have difficulty leaving their marriages, leaving relationships, leaving jobs, it just goes on and on, but all that uncomfortability it can start presenting itself, it manifests itself on our body and we tend to start feeling and acting in erratic ways. So, we don't like that. Then we will just go back to what makes things peaceful and comfortable until we kind of explode.
What I've learned up in this process has been when my body is telling me something, whether I'm having neck pain or having issues in my stomach that means for me, hey, Nik, you're having some stress that's going on in your life. You need to kind of delve into what your body is telling you. It's important for us to not ignore the signs that our body lets us know. The body does keep the score. So, it's very important for us to be in tune with our body and have all Triads being in tune with each other. That's the ultimate success.
Joanne: They're called body ties for the reason that the physical body is itself one of the best ways to gather information and also to digest them. So, for both Eights and Nines and Ones, whenever they are feeling any kind of tension in their body, whatever the emotion is, eventually it's good to process and tease that out. But if right then and there is not the best time for them to be doing that kind of work, find some way to release that pent up energy. For Nines, especially because they can often go numb, in moving their body until they can feel connected with it again.
Nikhil: And then we have the Type Ones. How are they typically presenting themselves?
Type One
Joanne: Yes, Ones are the cars with the emergency brake on all the time. So, despite how much gas they push, there's a lot of precious energy that turns into heat and irritation because it's kind of chafing against the emergency brakes. The big thing about Ones is that kind of like Eights, they tend to be very outward focused in releasing their energy. Ones have that ambivalent connection with their anger. Which is an outcome of their repressed desire. It's like desire wants them to move forward, but then the Type One structure pulls them back into repression. There's a lot of energy, precious energy that gets lost in things like perfectionism, irritation, obsessing over details. Eights are like the big sledgehammers. They're like, I just want to focus on the big picture. I don't want to deal with the details. Ones are like scalpels, exactly the opposite. They overly focus on the details to the point of missing the big picture. Like with scalpels they're very delicate instruments that you use them a couple of times, and it gets very blunt very quickly. Ones need to recognize just how many opportunities they miss out on, because they're focusing on the fine tune details at their own expense and mistrusting their own desires, assuming that their own desires are impure or bad and repressing them so much that they're actually kind of extinguishing their own life force.
On the surface, Ones look very put together, focus on right or wrong type of stuff and often we judge them for being very judgy. But what people don't know about Ones is that there's a lot of pain and suffering they experience because they can't help it but to restrict themselves and also end up restricting others. So, Eights underdo control and they overdue anger or outward energy. Nines disconnect from their own sense of self control by going with other people's agendas or what's already been established. Ones overexert control and end up extinguishing their life force.
So, the growth path for Ones involves letting go of the emergency breaks because they still have breaks that they can voluntarily step on. Take turns pushing the gas, pushing the brakes, based on what's happening in that moment, instead of pre-establishing the brakes for forever.
Nikhil: Yeah, this is all amazing stuff here, Joanne. Hopefully our listeners and our audience have, despite if you're not a Body Type, that's the whole thing, it's for us to better understand the different Types that are out there and then being able to try to improve upon where we feel that we may not be the best in and especially being able to use this as a resource for that.
As we're kind of coming to the end of the conversation, is there a takeaway that you can give the audience and the viewers to go home with and then something that they can try to use starting this week to help them along in their personal growth journey?
Growth Tips
Joanne: As I mentioned earlier, all the nine Types are archetypes of the universal human experience. So, we're supposed to resonate with at least a little bit of everything, but one tends to stand out the most, because that's what we're used to. Often people can defend their own personality Types, but that actually is reinforcing the ego that's keeping us trapped.
So, if any of the three Types, Eights, Nines and Ones really triggered you today, then chances are it's either because that might be your Type or the Type of a close one, a loved one in your life. Sometimes that might be because that Type is in your shadow. So, if whatever I mentioned today does resonate with you, if you're an Eight, reinforce some of the breaks. If you're a Nine, practice pressing the gas and brake pedals. And then if you're Type One, let go of the emergency brakes.
If you're in relationship with any of those Types, recognize that a lot of our patterns are reflexive. We don't do this on purpose. We don't even know that we're doing it. So, instead of judging any of the Types, be curious and be more open about asking what each person's individual experience is.
Maybe the reason why any of those Types might be driving you crazy is because maybe that's what you're supposed to do yourself on purpose. So, maybe you can learn from whoever is of whichever Type.
Nikhil: And just remember, I think people don't realize, and I didn't realize this recently, is that our personality Types were developed at a very young age for us. Literally in childhood. They were developed as a survival method for us to be able to grow up in the environment that we were in. However there came a point in our life where we have grown up and that personality trait has kind of caged us in, whether the good parts of that personality and then the bad parts of it, and it's up to us to realize how to break ourselves free from that mold that was created for us at a very young age. That's why I love the Enneagram and the model, because it not only helps us, but you’re also giving us vital information about who we are, it helps us develop strategic plans of action that we can use to slowly start breaking ourselves from those shackles I want to say that were built throughout our whole entire life.
Joanne: There's enough suffering in the world as it is. Let us not reinforce that by going with our egos and summon whatever compassion we can for ourselves and also other people. This is hard work. And this may be one of the hardest things we ever do is to recognize our own autopilots that we don't even know is there and to grow beyond that. All that means is we are all venturing into very unfamiliar, scary territory and we can use all the support we can get.
Nikhil: That's right. Step by step. There will be people along this journey who, when you start changing, can say things to you out of projection because you're changing. That might make you feel a certain way inside and make you feel like you have to revert back to being who you were. But just remember, like Joanne said, personal growth is a journey. It can be very hard. It can be uncomfortable. But usually in that discomfort, you're usually going along the right path. It's just about surrounding yourself with the right people who will support you on that path. It's truly a beautiful journey. I can speak only for myself, but it has truly transformed who I am. It's because of the support system that I have surrounded myself with.
About Dr. Nikhil Sharma & AlignUs
I’m Dr. Nikhil Sharma, founder of AlignUs and for the last 10 years I had dedicated my life to working with patients with liver failure due to alcohol or obesity, who suffer from addictions and was a part of their rehabilitation process and helping them to get to a new liver and a second chance at life. During that period, I thought to myself, what if we could prevent people from suffering major physical health issues by helping them heal from their traumas and improve their mental health?
So, I created AlignUs where our mission is to inspire a world of wellness and philanthropy through compassion, connection and competition.
AlignUs creates a high vibrational atmosphere that involves self-care, physical competition and charitable donations. AlignUs will revolutionize how we do philanthropy in this digital age, while making it fun and rewarding to help each other.
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JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:
“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
I was a panelist at the EnneaSummit 2024 for the Enneagram Practitioner Panel.
In this panel, we share our experiences and observations about what different Enneagram types think they need in therapy, what they actually need, and some important growth steps so they can grow beyond their type.