Episode 21: Understanding Enneagram Types Part 3 – The Challenger, The Peacemaker, Introversion, Extroversion, and the Highly Sensitive Person
Episode 21:
Understanding Enneagram Types part 3 –
The Challenger, The Peacemaker
Introversion, Extroversion, and the Highly Sensitive Person
Why study typology? What do Enneagram types have to do with recovery from addiction?
The richness of the Enneagram helps us understand our strengths and challenges. It provides a window into the behavior of our partners, our friends, our families, our colleagues, and even the behavior of public figures and world leaders.
Understanding the unique characteristics of each of our types shows us our challenges and our hidden strengths. The Enneagram illuminates our shadow material and shows us the path to continued growth. By working with our innate typology instead of struggling against it, we have the opportunity to embrace each aspect of ourselves and to transcend any lingering internalized shame, whether that shame was the cause of our addiction, a result of our addiction, or (for most of us) both.
The final two types in our Enneagram series, the Challenger and the Peacemaker, appear to be polar opposites. Their strategies for dealing with life couldn’t be more different. And yet, both of these types are rooted in the instinctive center, and both, (underneath the 8’s bravado), share the same and vulnerable core.
Our typologies played a role in our reasons for substance use and even the type of drugs we were drawn to. Understanding why can help us learn to fulfill our unmet needs in healthy ways that lead to the growth and development of our characters, and ultimately, a life of self-actualization.
During our addictions, though, and in early recovery, is it possible that we assume the behaviors of other types as a strategy for coping with shame, regret, unworthiness, or fear?
Beyond the Enneagram, the emerging science behind the “highly sensitive person” provides a fascinating new lens through which to understand our experiences and the behaviors and orientations of others in our lives. This fascinatingly rich field of study offers tremendous potential for understanding and working with HSP’s in recovery from addiction, depression, and more.
The Enneagram, and typology in general, especially in relation to addiction and recovery, are ongoing fields of study and enquiry, and we’re learning new things every day as we continue to pose new questions, form new hypotheses, and seek the answers through research and self-examination.
One thing is certain, though: the better we understand ourselves and the others in our lives, the better prepared we’ll be to meet our challenges and continue to ascend the spiral of development. As long as we continue to do the work, we’ll continue to grow.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts
Don’t know your Enneagram type?
Take the free test at 9types.com
Take the full RHETI at Enneagram Institute
Episode Resources:
The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types
SensitiveTheMovie.com (documentary on the Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Elaine Aron)
Dr. Elaine Aron’s Website – HSPerson.com
Profound Meditation Program — Full Spectrum Meditation program by iAwake Technologies
Stealing Flow: Brainwave Suite for Flow State Mastery (by iAwake Technologies and Douglas Prater)
Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY series in Integral Theory)
Deep Recovery – a guided meditation from iAwake Technologies
Free Meditation Tracks from iAwake Technologies
In this episode:
[1:28] Enneagram type 8 – what are the strengths and challenges of the challenger type? How the eight overcome their tendency to be an angry victim and learn to use their power for good?
[4:26] An Ennegram 8 challenger has the power to change the world if they can get through their shell to the center of who they are.
[6:00] Our Enneagram types show us the path to development and what we need to do. Self-Awareness is the beginning of wisdom.
[8:19] The pathological narcissism of president Donald Trump – working with others with pathological narcissism is challenging because the narcissistic ego recognizes no fault.
[10:49] Meeting strength with strength to get through to difficult people
[12:04] The correlation of stage development and egocentrism and the path of transcending and including.
[13:44] On power, responsibility, and changing the world: why developing to our highest self-capacity matters
[14:44] When the type eight unites communities in a powerful and evolutionary way to make a meaningful difference
[15:57] Enneagram type 9: The peacemaker – how do the wings affect a nine?
[16:27] Permeable and diffuse boundaries – the peacemaker’s capacity for empathy, compassion, and understanding
[17:33] When a nine avoids conflict – sensitivity and external threats
[19:17] Can we adopt the behaviors and strategies of another type as a coping mechanism to deal with shame?
[21:50] The way we grew up, our childhood friends, families, teachers, and environments directly affect our vulnerability to addiction and behaviors that surround it
[24:02] The relationship between addiction and shame for each of the nine types – the shame of imperfection, the shame of codependence, the shame of underachievement, the shame of feeling misunderstood and criticized, the shame of not knowing and feeling incapable or dissociated, the shame of fear and underlying anxiety, the spiritual bypassing of the seven, the shame of pain or powerlessness, the shame of oversensitivity and the desire to numb out
[29:44] The Highly Sensitive Person and the research of Dr. Elaine Aron
[30:52] The four characteristics of the HSP — Depth of processing, tendency to feel overstimulated, emotionally attuned and empathic, sensitive to subtlety and nuance – and the challenges these characteristics pose – and the incredible richness of gifts they offer
[33:25] Turning the characteristics of the HSP from a liability into a superpower
[35:02] The highly sensitive person and gender stereotypes – 30% of HSPs are biologically male
[35:25] Gender stereotypes of the Enneagram type 2 Helper and the intuitive gifts of the phobic six
[36:58] Introversion, social anxiety, and the HSP – misunderstood and often confused. Social anxiety as an unhealthy manifestation of internalized shame and the methods of transcending it
[39:54] When an introvert has extrovert gifts – making peace with our strengths and our challenges as we strive to become the best versions of ourselves.
[43:02] Sensitivity as a strength and gift and the importance of courage in the face of the things that scare us the most
HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!
If you enjoy the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and helps people find the credible advice they need.
07/14/2017, 48:23, 33.2 mb (Audio)