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In this episode Joel and Antonia talk with Enneagram expert and author Dr. Beatrice Chestnut about the Enneagram types of 2 – 3 – 4 and the common myths and misconceptions we have around them.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Enneagram Roadmap
- The Complete Enneagram
- 9 Types of Leadership
- Part 1 of Enneagram Series
- This show we are exploring the heart triad: 2 – 3 – 4
- These come more from more of an emotional center
- They focus more on relationships than the other types
- They are concerned with image and may have gotten the message in childhood that they weren’t loved for who they were but for how they perform.
- There is some sadness with these types
- They have an unconscious belief that they must earn love
- The 2 myth is that they are simplistically helpful and giving.
- The 2s way of giving is more strategic than most people know
- The myth is that they are altruistic, but the reality is that they give to get.
- 2s really want to be liked
- In the last podcast, we talked about the head center types and how they aren’t as bad as their reputation.
- For 2s, they aren’t as good as their reputation suggests.
- Pride is the passion/vice of type 2
- Sometimes being helpful can be about control.
- Type 2s get under-pathologized and Type 4s get over-pathologized.
- There’s always two sides to every type: The dark side and the benevolent side.
- 2s need to become more conscious of the underlying motivation of their actions.
- The 3 myth is that they aren’t in touch with emotions
- 3s like to focus a lot on doing, accomplishing, and achieving to escape their emotions.
- One of the reasons why 3s work so hard is to outrun their feelings because they are so emotional.
- 4s overdo sadness/grief
- 3s underdo it
- 2s suppress their sadness/grief
- Antonia is a 3, and she knows when she is feeling something, but she can’t diagnose what the emotion is.
- Part of the function of type 3 is to disconnect from emotions, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t emotional people.
- Heart types often get the message that emotions are wrong, so they struggle to identify and accept them.
- Sexual 3s often believe that anger is more comfortable to feel than sadness.
- It takes more work for them to get in touch with the feelings beneath the anger.
- 3s are pretty good at reading a room and figuring out what people are feeling.
- 3s don’t give themselves credit for their capacity for deep emotional connection.
- Type 4s tend to be over-pathologized because of their tendency to be in touch with their darker emotions.
- Most people tend to avoid their shadow and 4s bring access to the darkness
- 4s can look like Eeyore.
- The myth of the 4 is that they are always sad and unhappy.
- There are happy 4s.
- 4s can overidentify with their emotions and social 4s especially overidentify with sadness/pain
- Self-preservation and sexual 4s are often happy people
- The 4 myth has contributed to a lot of 4s being unable to identify themselves accurately.
- We need to allow 4s to be lighter and not enforce the idea that they are always supposed to be sad.
- Enneagram has always been a growth tool, but society hasn’t always used it that way.
- Enneagram can be just another model, but if you want to honor its intent, you have to go deeper.
- Enneagram types teach you what you are not.
- You are much more than your personality.
- Enneagram helps you break open the shell of your persona to manifest your higher potential.
- It helps you identify who you actually are by knowing what you have mistakenly identified with in terms of your personality patterns.
- The Complete Enneagram
- Enneagram Roadmap
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Podcast - Episode 0285 - Enneagram Myths Part 1 - The Body Center Types 8 - 9 - 1 (with Beatrice Chestnut)
Podcast - Episode 0287 - Enneagram Myths Part 3 - The Head Center Types 5 - 6 - 7 (with Beatrice Chestnut)
5 comments
I’m an ENFJ and I have just discovered Enneagram through my best friend. I’m still trying to determine my type… A test I took said I match 78% with 7 type, 77%- 3 and 76%- 2. My best friend is convinced that I’m a self preservation 3 wing 2. But I’m still trying to understand what that means. After listening to the podcast that discussed 7 I related with being lighthearted and I like to be positive and keep the energies around me light, however I enjoy diving deep with people I trust or new friends. I am fairly self critical and tend to perspective shift (Ni) to what others might perceive me and how I can make them like me… which then pushes me towards the 2 and 3 with the underlying need to be liked and accepted. It really frustrates me when I can’t relate/ hold a conversation with people and make them like and accept me. It rang true when Dr. Beatrice said 2’s have transactional relationships and I definitely feel that way about men I’ve had relationships with but not towards women who I have bonded friendships with. But for the 3 i rang true with avoiding my deep emotions, especially feelings of being hurt by someone and I usually put up a hard front to keep from being hurt. But I don’t always do that by staying busy, I just push thoughts of that situation out of my mind. And while my friends may see me as a workaholic, I don’t feel that I am, I just like building resource and my current job is fulfilling enough that I want to do well and get ahead. I still haven’t figured it out but I’m leaning towards a 3? but I’m not sure how I would find out if i’m self prez, vs social vs sexual.
THANK YOU!!!!!!! I’m a 2 with a 3 wing. First 15 minutes is all you need to hear to just break me into a 4-year-old gleeful at CHRISTMAS IN JULY!!!!!!!! I’m the most considerate chameleon you’ll ever meet, and it means that I might be able to ACTUALLY be a good TEACHER! Which is what I have so desperately always wanted to be.
YES YES YES! This episode has actually help me solidify an almost 2 year journey of trying to discover my core Enneagram type. When I originally took the test (and every subsequent test I’ve taken over the past 24 months) I always typed as a 3w2. And although that felt good to me, I knew it wasn’t the whole picture. It led me down a spiral of obsessing over the Enneagram, consuming whatever I could find on it. I got stuck in this loop between type 3, 6, and 9—with questions about type 1 and 2. I thought for a WHILE that I was probably closest to a 9w1. But something was still off.
I rejected type 4 after reading the descriptions of them wallowing in sadness, always trying to stand out and go against the flow, and their negative countenance. I’m an ENFJ in the Myers-Briggs system, which means Extroverted Feeling rejects the idea of causing others discomfort from my own emotions/state. So, throughout this whole process I never even considered 4. It took one instructor to say that 4’s are in search of their identity that made me look at that type again.
After more research it just made perfect sense. I’m a Self-Preservation 4w3 who always typed as a 3w2. The integration to type 1, the disintegration to type 2, it all makes sense. But I still wasn’t 100% sure. After all, why aren’t there more 4w3 ENFJs? But this episode absolutely solidified it for me. Thank you, Beatrice!
I had been studying the enneagram for about 5 years and could not find my type.I finally discovered I was a SP4 reading Bea’s book and shouted from the rooftops in FB groups how amazing her subtype teaching was. I was one of the people told in those fb groups (even by one of the top enneagram teachers) that I couldn’t be a Four because I was too happy. I had many long fb discussions trying to convince people and at times Bea chimed to support me but some ardent enneagramers refuse to accept Fours can be happy as an ongoing state. In the end I left the groups because it was too much like hard work.
Not long after discovering I was a SP4 I began an emotional healing journey that lasted about 5 years. I went from being totally unaware of my emotions to processing them on a daily basis. It was hard to catch them at first because they would move through me incredibly fast. I remember saying to myself ‘Wait…was that sadness? Did I just feel a little sad?’ At first I really needed pay close attention and make space for my emotions they were so deeply buried. During 5 years of deep introspection, I came to see all of the Type 4 ego pattern (SP/SO). It was quite shocking to me because I had never even considered 4 as a possible type from the descriptions I had read and been taught on Teacher Training workshops (I felt sorry for all the sad 4’s!) I also saw patterns from type 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9! So of course I was told that’s because your a 9 – but I’m definitely not a 9. I’m also an INFJ so going deep within, seeing myself from many different perspectives meant I could easily see all the different parts of me.
I especially love the spiritual teaching of the enneagram and slowly after hundreds of deep dives within my subconscious, nine different aspects of Divine Consciousness.emerged. For example, to give a tiny flavour – I came to see that point 4 is the aspect of the Divine that feels we are ‘home’ back in the arms of the beloved. I believe each of the 4s reacts differently to missing ‘home’ – they strive to find it (SP) feel deeply their loss (SO) or are angry and blame others for their plight.
Thank you for all your amazing teaching Bea, Antonia and Joel.
This is good. I’m always saying this stuff about 2s in Enneagram communities online because the overly simple overly positive stereotype runs rampant.
While I could easily see myself as a 4 I agree that the type is pathologized and that 4s can appear happy. As a SP 4 I was highly aware of being drawn to melancholy but the tendency to “endure” makes me downplay my emotions in my personality. I’m INTP in MBTI and invalidating my own emotions is something I do. I don’t block them out and I fully will feel them – but I will find them embarrassing, unless I can transform it into something that seems significant and intelligent. Sentimental emotional displays will look cheap and stupid to me. It can seem 1-ish or 5-ish.
So I couldn’t relate to the description of dramatic 4s because I’m outwardly contained. Still I knew I wasn’t a 5 and definitely not a 1. The image stuff was too obvious. I had a preoccupation with being authentic, which was actually a ideal I’d imagined and then rejected what didn’t align with it, which perpetuate shame over not being who I wanted to be.