Hi everybody and thanks for listening.
My name is Tom Buschlak and this bonus track,
Introduction to the Enneagram,
Is an edited snippet from my interview with Chris Hewarts for the Contemplate This podcast.
My interview with Chris was so rich and in-depth that I wanted to break out this seven-minute section where he gives a really concise overview of what the Enneagram is or better,
How it functions as a process for spiritual growth and integration.
In addition,
He gives this incredible overview of the nine personality typologies or as he calls them,
The nine universal human paths to God.
If you're totally new to the Enneagram and even if you're not,
This is one of the best quick introductions I've ever heard to the Enneagram and the nine typologies or paths.
So it seemed worthy of its own little mini episode.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did listening to it and after you listen here,
Be sure to head over to the full episode and dive all the way in with Chris's wisdom on the Enneagram,
Which is the full episode five of the podcast.
You will not be disappointed.
Okay,
With that,
Here's Chris's intro to the Enneagram.
Our ego set of coping addictions that we've wrapped up around a childhood wound so that we don't have to tell ourselves the truth about who we really are.
So essentially it's sort of our maladaptive coping strategies of sort of fortifying the projection of our own ego mythology.
Yeah.
And I think if you really dig into the teaching,
If you really work with the tool,
It actually helps you begin to tell yourself the truth,
Which is painful,
Which can be devastating to the ego,
Which is a severe mercy.
But it's really the only way I think forward for all of us.
Type one is sometimes called the perfectionist or the reformer.
This is really in the early days,
The Jesuits and then the Catholic communities that disseminated the teaching used sort of nine fundamental needs.
And that's how I also learned this.
Type one is the need to be perfect,
Right?
And these people are principled and hold high standards.
Their basic fear,
Which is really tragic,
Is that they're somehow inherently flawed or corrupt,
But they're the best people we know.
They're sort of caricatured as fussy and grumpy and angry and critical,
But man,
That's just the sort of leftovers of them beating themselves up all day long for failing to live in to their own sort of idealized and unrealistic standards for perfection.
And so the pain for the one is really that they're not good enough,
But they're the best.
They're the best people in our lives.
Type two,
This is sometimes called the helper or the giver.
This is the need to be needed.
This is the really nurturing embrace of the Enneagram.
This is the person who knows your needs before you know them.
This is the person who gives himself away at their own expense.
And so the caricature of pride is an unfortunate one because it's really more self-abnegation.
It's really sort of the giving tree of the Enneagram.
Just take this,
Take this,
Take this.
And I'm going to convince myself that I'm happy.
But at the end of the day,
When I've given it all away and I'm left with myself,
I'm actually deeply sad.
And so the fear there is really more along the lines of not being loved for who they are because they love everyone else so well.
Type three is sometimes called the performer or the achiever.
This is the need to succeed.
And this is the empty heart of the Enneagram.
This is the person who mistakes recognition and affirmation as love.
And so they chase that sort of external validation their whole lives to be seen rather than pressing into their own true value,
Recognizing it and seeing themselves for who they are.
They're sometimes quietly competitive.
These people will accomplish quite a bit.
And that drive really comes from,
Truthfully,
An ache to love and an ache to be loved.
Type four is the individualist or sometimes the romantic.
This is the need to be unique.
And fours are painfully misunderstood and really,
I think,
The most sort of mistreated in all the Enneagram literature.
This is the person who's afraid that they don't have significance,
That they don't have a sense of who they are or where they came from.
And so what they do is they see significance everywhere else.
And they live into their own frustration by sort of romanticizing what they idealize.
And that creates this trap of longing that then can become intensified and really lead to their ability to express things through aesthetics,
Through words,
Through art,
Through music.
And the beauty that they see,
The significance that they draw out is wasted just on them.
They can't see it for themselves.
And so that's a real pain.
Type five is the observer or the investigator,
Sometimes called the theorist or the analyst.
And this is the need to understand.
And these folks live in their head and they retreat into their mind palace,
As my friend Seth Hain calls it,
So that they can concess out every question and get to the bottom of it.
And really,
That's their social gift.
And that's how they love us is uncovering the essence of all things.
Type six is the loyalist or the skeptic.
This is the need to be secure.
And these are the great threat forecasters.
These people are contingency planners.
They sadly doubt themselves,
Second guess themselves.
And they double down on that as a way of trying to protect everyone else by creating stability and security in our lives.
And so they're incredible friends.
They're incredibly courageous when they tap into that.
And really,
Their gift is faith.
Type seven is the enthusiast.
This is the need to avoid pain.
These folks are ridiculous.
They're winsome.
They're charming.
They're playful.
They trick us because we think they're a heart center,
But they actually are one of the two anomalies of the enneagram.
They don't have a direct connection to that feeling center.
And so they live up in their heads and it's painful for them to be present.
And so this is their constant distraction that becomes their addiction,
Anticipation,
Thinking about what's next,
Planning,
Anticipating,
Ensuring that options,
Opportunities and access to freedoms are never limited sort of drives them.
And then type eight,
It's called the challenger.
This is the need to be against.
These are folks who hate bullies,
But they're the biggest bully.
They are not as tough as they come across because they're really trying to protect their inner child from being exposed,
But they are as mean.
They're painfully afraid of not being in control.
So they exert control through really confrontation and serve as great contrarians for the good and the bad.
And then type nine is called,
Sometimes called the mediator of the peacemaker.
And this is the need to avoid.
And as kids,
These folks somehow felt that they needed to minimize and repress what was important to them as an act of love so that they could put the needs of their imperfect,
And we all had imperfect early holding environments,
But the imperfections of their early holding environments,
They were sensitive to what the needs and unmet needs were and then centering those began to lose themselves.
And so in their adult lives,
Their basic fear is of this inner fragmentation.
So what they're trying to do is stitch the external world together by arbitrating and harmonizing it as a proxy battle of what they're not doing inside.
They're very understanding,
Incredible referees in high stake situations and they can really,
Really bring the energy down when things escalate.
But there's this sense of lostness within themselves that once is activated,
Their gift is love and action and nothing and no one can stop them.
So that's a quick sort of run around.
All right.
So that's the quick fly over.
Feel free to listen to that again if you need to soak some of it in.
I hope it whet your appetite to hear more from Chris in my interview with him.
And if you're looking for more information and resources on the Enneagram,
You can also head over to the show notes page,
Which is at thomasjbushlak.
Com forward slash episode five.
That's episode and the number five with no spaces where you can see the Enneagram diagram visually as well as more resources on this ancient deposit of spiritual wisdom.
