My therapist colleague Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) and I are writing several blog series about the Enneagram, a comprehensive yet compact personality framework that reveals our reactive, “autopilot” patterns of thinking, feeling, doing, and relating.
In this series, someone from each Enneagram Type (Types One through Nine) will be sharing about their own journey of discovering and using the Enneagram for deep healing and personal growth.
In this post, fellow therapist, Lorren Penner, shares what it’s like to be a Type Nine.
Here are the other posts in this series that are published so far:
Type 1 - Josh Chan
Type 2 - Melinda Olsen, LMFT
Type 3 - Morgan Hancock, LMFT
Type 4 - Joanne Kim, LMFT
Type 5 - Alyssa Harris
Type 6 - Jonathan Siu
Type 7 - Stefie Dominguez
Type 8 - Marianna Torres
What does it mean to be an Enneagram Type Nine?
Lovers of Comfort
My “happy place” is a crystal-clear, glass-smooth lake surrounded by tall redwood trees that block out the noise from the rest of the world, making for a quiet, truly serene environment. I want so badly for my entire life experience to match that tranquil lake scene.
This leads me to do things such as ignore my own anger in an attempt to keep my inner lake from turning into a boiling hot spring. I might also stick my head underwater for a bit when I feel something unpleasant arising, in hopes that the disturbance will have passed by when I resurface.
Other times, I might stuff my desires away when they contradict someone else’s so that a stone of conflict is not thrown into my lake, causing ripples to spread across the entire surface. I like my life to be comfortable and peaceful, making any change difficult, even when it is something that I strongly desire.
Tendency to Merge
As a peacekeeper, it is so easy for me as an Enneagram 9 to go along with everyone one else in order to not stir the pot. It is so easy that I often forget to even stop and ask myself what I want - I tell myself that all I want is for those around me to be comfortable. If they are comfortable and at peace, I am comfortable and at peace.
It’s like that saying, “happy wife - happy life,” except for 9’s it’s more like, “happy partner, family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, grocer at the supermarket, and guy passing you on the street - happy life.” Just writing that out feels a bit exhausting, but that is how I can tend to spend most of my time if I am not making an effort to tune into my own experience.
It can feel so essential to me that the people around me are taken care of that I forget about the fact that I have feelings and needs as well. If how I feel or what I want goes against the feelings or desires of those I care about it feels incredibly risky to make that fact known.
What if I upset them when I disagree?
What if they cannot accept how I feel?
What if we cannot come to a compromise?
Will this state of disagreement/conflict last forever?
Can I handle that?
If I am completely honest, it is so easy for me to go to this space. And that is when I tend to merge with everyone else because possible negative consequences of being different feel too overwhelming.
Learning how to be more authentic myself, especially when that involves disagreeing with others has taken a lot of practice. Having safe people in my life to practice with has allowed me to discover the gift of being loved and accepted.
Passive Resistance
Just thinking about my own passive resistance makes me cringe! Enneagram 9’s are generally thought of as easy-going, understanding, patient, accommodating, and the like - which we are! But, we also have a very stubborn side to us, and it usually shows up in passive resistance.
Passive resistance is my way of not being controlled by others or made to do something that I do not want to do. I might not tell you “no” outright, but you will soon come to find out that whatever it is you were hoping to have me do is NOT going to happen. Just ask my husband, he’s unfortunately been on the receiving end of this behavior more than I would like to admit.
For me, this tends to show up as taking my time to respond to a question or situation, or not giving an answer at all. On the occasion that I do have to (or choose to) do whatever it is, it looks like carrying out the task in a way that will make you regret that you even asked. See why I cringed? It’s not easy admitting to this stuff!
It is so easy to tell myself that I am a loving person because I do so much to keep others happy. But all of the things I do or do not do in order to keep the peace are for my own selfish gain - to avoid facing uncomfortable feelings.
Living authentically and being in a true community with others very often requires facing uncomfortable things. I have had to learn how to do this first for myself before I could extend this gift to others in my life. Admitting when I feel angry, sad, hurt, embarrassed, or ashamed is so hard for me to do. But it is necessary if I want to avoid inflicting those same feelings on others, intentionally or not. Being honest about my “negative” feelings with myself first gives me the freedom to choose not to act out of passive aggression and instead choose authenticity.
When did you first learn you were Enneagram Type Nine?
I became aware of the Enneagram about four years ago while I was working at a therapy center. Everyone there seemed to be talking about it and knew exactly what they were. It was hard for me to figure out my number at first. I took a few online tests and came up with different results at first, similar to other personality tests I had taken before such a Myers-Briggs. I could identify with aspects of each number and did not really know which one was most “me.”
Once I learned that 9’s tend to identify with all of the other numbers before they identify with themselves, I was pretty sure I was a 9 since that was exactly what I had been doing. I also strongly related to being a peacekeeper and could see that throughout my life I had taken on that role in almost every setting I had been a part of, sometimes at the expense of my own sense of self.
It really hit home for me that I was, in fact, a 9 when I learned about the 9’s tendency to avoid their own anger in order to maintain a sense of inner peace. I really did not want to admit that this is something that I do. “I am accepting of everyone and every feeling,” I told myself, but when I took a deeper look I saw that anger was actually something that I avoided like the plague. Whether it was my own anger, or someone else’s, I had convenient ways of tuning out or just removing myself from the situation.
I had heard that it is often through a dislike or denial of certain aspects of your number that you can confirm what you are. The 9’s relationship with anger and tendency toward sloth did that for me. The sloth part is still something I am in a bit of denial about!
What do you wish people knew about Enneagram Type Nine?
Any little thing you do that might brush aside our preferences or ideas feels 10 times stronger than it may have been intended. Because we tend to live in a space of denying ourselves, when we are brushed aside it feels as if it really is best for the world that we do not have our own thoughts/feelings/desires. We need constant invitations and reminders to show up as ourselves and share our gifts/ideas/talents with the world. And we need you to be ok with us showing up as different than you.
We are not trying to be difficult when we say we don’t know - if we haven’t taken the time to really check in with ourselves we honestly don’t know how we are feeling or what we want or need. Our default mode is to be aware of all other perspectives and go along with everyone else. It is what feels like the best way to keep things calm and steady. We are not used to having our own agenda, so please be patient with us as we figure out what we want or how we feel.
It can be hard for us to recognize when we are tuning out our anger or acting in sloth, and we need you to be gentle with us when you call it out. It takes effort for us to connect with our own experience, and we can easily feel overwhelmed.
When we tune out or stop doing the things we need to do, we need a safe space to connect with ourselves and figure out the source of our overwhelm. A gentle acknowledgment of our experience when you see us acting out our overwhelm can help us move into processing it - harsh words will likely cause us to spiral deeper.
One Thing You’re Working on to Grow Beyond Your Type
I am working on being more tuned into myself so that I can live more authentically. I am trying to see this as a gift, not only to myself but to the world around me. When I can hold space for all of my feelings, including anger, I can choose how I want to show up in the world. When I can admit my feelings to myself and others I can have honest conversations that deepen and strengthen relationships rather than passively sabotaging them. If I am to be truly present as myself I have to include all of my feelings and desires.
Keeping the peace at the cost of showing up authentically with all of me is not really keeping the peace, it is putting up a facade. Things might look peaceful, and they might even feel that way for a bit, but the turmoil is still there.
In order to create true peace, I have to be brave and face the things that scare me. I have to accept that peace does not mean my inner lake is never disturbed, but that I can be ok even when the water gets rough.
What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?
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© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. 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)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
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!”
The three Enneagram instincts (Self-Preservation, Social, and Sexual) instincts show up in the way we engage our lives and creative endeavors. Check out this conversation with Rim from The Empowered Sensitive and Creative Podcast!