Unboxing: Finding Your Authentic Self
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by La Shanda Sugg on the podcast Labors of Love Podcast. Listen in as two Enneagram Twos discuss how they have used the Enneargram to heal and help others heal.
Listen to the podcast or scroll down for the transcript.
Transcript
La Shanda: Hey everyone, it's La Shanda, the co-host of the Labors of Love podcast. Today I am super excited to have a conversation with my guest. She is the owner of Inviterra Counseling and an Enneagram Therapist, Melinda Olsen. Hi Melinda.
Melinda: Hey, how are you today?
La Shanda: I wish y'all could see the dance that she's doing, like the happy dance. I too am doing a happy dance. So, Melinda, I'm going to start with you like I do all our guests and ask, what is your labor of love?
Melinda: I love this question. My labor of love is learning to use the Enneagram both to help myself be a better person, to be more aware and care for myself, but then also to use the Enneagram to help other people know and understand themselves. Not just our coping mechanisms, but our true and deep essential selves. Which is what I think the Enneagram ultimately does.
La Shanda: I love it so much. So, over the years, I've had multiple guests on who have engaged with the Enneagram in various ways, but I have tons of new listeners. As a refresher, can we just start by you telling folks, what is the Enneagram?
Melinda: Absolutely. So, at its most basic, the Enneagram is a personality descriptor. Nine personality Types. Nine different constellations of showing up in the world or ways to show up in the world. Get a little deeper and those nine different ways of showing up in the world really come out as coping mechanisms that we needed to take on in order to survive, in order to get what we needed. It shapes our needs; it shapes what we feel like we need in the world and ways that we get them. So, that's one layer deeper. Then when you get to much more depth in the Enneagram it can also show us a way to get out of this box that we had to place ourselves in. That personality, that ego, to get out of that, to become aware of the ways that we trap ourselves, and then ultimately find a way out so we understand who we really are.
La Shanda: Beautiful description. What I appreciate about the Enneagram, and let's be clear, if the Enneagram is ocean deep, I'm up to my ankle. In previous episodes, I said I got a toe in, so I feel like I've grown and learned some more. But a few things that I really appreciate about the Enneagram is, one, there's no good Type or bad Type. It's not aspirational. Sometimes people can do things and be like, I want to be a blah, because there's how I show up in the world, but I value helping, so I want to be a Two.
It's not something about how do I become something else? It really is a mirror that allows you to look and go, oh, the constellation of where I was born, to what family and social system I was born, the timing that I was born required me to develop a certain way of showing up in the world so that I could survive in this. The Enneagram provides a nice mirror for folks to kind of look in and go, oh, that's there.
The beautiful thing about it is we have aspects of all nine Types. We just lean very heavily out of certain ones. And I love what you said about it providing almost a roadmap for us to de-box ourselves. When I think about that use of language, the image that came to me are, think dolls or action figures. Those who don't take them out of the box usually have an intention of preserving them as they are so that they can look at them as they are and actually, in some cases, wait until they accrue value and then sell them. And there's something about those who immediately, my kids, not only do they de-box stuff, but they have absolutely no value for the box. Like, they open things and it's just like, it didn't even have to be open that way. Like, why did you have to just rip it to shreds just to get it open? In saying this, I realize how tense it gets for me when I watch my kid destroy a box to get something out. There's always this part of me that wants to be like, there is a neater, there is a better, there is a right way to open that box. In some ways, like I've said countless times, my kids are my greatest teachers. What if I shredded the box? What if I valued what was inside more than I valued the packaging? That's the whole word right there. So, that's what I love.
Before we dive further into Enneagram stuff, is there a person, situation, instance, whatever, where is this labor of love in the Enneagram rooted for you?
Melinda: I think in the very beginning there was something inside me that has always been, maybe it was gifted to me. I don't know. I don't know why, but it's always been motivated for myself to grow, like for myself to know who I am and grow. That's probably because I came out of a background of a lot of trauma in my childhood.
Though I would never wish that on myself or anyone else I do believe that out of that suffering can come, sometimes, a motivation to grow beyond or to figure out why am I the way I am? How can I not repeat this? How can I resolve not to visit this on the next generation should I decide to have children? How can I make myself and my relationships better so that I'm not… Because trauma, when we have trauma, it finds its way into our bodies, right? It finds its way into our DNA. There have been studies that it gets passed down. So, how can I start to do that work of healing in myself so that I can continue to maybe reduce that in the generations beyond myself and hopefully for my own life. God, I want that for myself, too.
I think out of that trauma began that journey toward awareness and just deeply wanting to know who I am, how I can grow, and how I can care for myself and my relationships better. Not to visit that kind of trauma on others around me. That's where it started. Then I had a kid and it's like, oh man. Like you're right. He is my greatest teacher. I've been married for 18 years and to an Enneagram Five. So, he is my opposite in every way.
La Shanda: I call Fives aliens, by the way.
Melinda: Yeah, and they feel like aliens, which makes my heart so sad. But yes, they feel that way. So, we are so different. And that has been a huge teacher for me. But my kid, he came bursting into our lives. And I was like, oh man, like I thought I knew myself and I do not.
La Shanda: How old is your son?
Melinda: He’s six. So, I would say that I've known the Enneagram for 20 years, but I got to say the depth of the Enneagram for me, and like really digging into that labor of love, was when the rubber hit the road and I had my own kid. I was like, oh man, I don't know anything. It just really became very real for me, and then I really noticed how that work, my own Enneagram work, really helped me become more aware of what I was needing in ways that I never thought that I would grow because it's just so antithetical to my coping mechanisms and I went from there.
La Shanda: Yeah. Healing from our own trauma being the impetus or launch pad for healing work for others is definitely my story. It's the story of many people that I know.
I feel it necessary to go back to the Five. I want to shout out Leslie Hershberger, former guest, I learned my Enneagram stuff from her. What I love about it, she's rooted in the narrative tradition. We do a lot of panels. Because one, Shanda's not going to read a book. She's just not going to do it. But sit and connect with another person around their story. Heaven. So, being able to hear people on panels and there's one particular Five that I get to engage with often, working to get 'em on the podcast. We are aliens to each other. It is just so amazing this Two and Five sitting together. When you said you were married to a Five, I was like, now that's a level of intensity that I don't know that I could manage.
Melinda: And we’re the most intense Types of our Enneagram Types.
La Shanda: There is an intensity around the Twos. There's an intensity around the Five. We still laugh about how differently we embody the world in such a way. So, I love that.
Now, I am always intrigued around how a person navigates whatever their labor of love is based on their intersecting identities and their relationship to the oppressive systems that we are constantly engaging with, particularly in our world, in our culture, in our country. So, can you talk a little bit about that and what that journey has looked like over the last 20 years? Maybe starting with letting the listeners know what are your intersecting identities?
Melinda: That's a great question. I identify as biracial. I am both Caucasian and Black. I am bisexual in a straight marriage. I'm white assumed. So, there's a lot of invisibility in my identities. I'm Fem AF. I am just a girl's girl. I would say those are my three major identities.
I've noticed, probably even in the last four or five years, how these intersect with my Enneagram journey. Being white passing, being straight passing, being femme, I fit into all of these very stereotypical identities, and I can have a lot of privilege. I do have a lot of privilege in that. But then having to wrestle with the fact and deeply wanting to integrate the fact that my essential, true self includes these other things. And how do I navigate this world in this place of privilege and sometimes oppression, but also claiming these identities that means so much to me as a part of claiming myself and it can be a little controversial, which as a Two, I don't want to do. I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't want to be controversial. I don't want to enter into spaces where my presence could be hurtful for somebody else. I always feel like I'm tiptoeing around like do I really belong in the LGBTQIA community. Do I really belong in the black community. Am I allowed to make myself known and take up space? But I don't want to take up too much space because I deeply care about people who do experience oppression on the daily, and I get to hide if I want to. So, it's just a lot of navigating internally with all of that. As a Two not wanting to cause any issues, wanting to care for people well and always putting myself last. How do I do that. And so that that has been a huge question mark I have not figured that out. I am still in the middle. I'm 40 years old. I have no idea how to navigate that well.
La Shanda: So, I just want to name like the slight acceleration in my heart rate when you were saying that and a little bit of tension in my shoulders a little something going on in my gut, you know, just kind of naming the somatic response that I'm having as I hear you share. Because what came up for me was how unhidden, how visible a lot of my identities are. And really just sitting with, in some ways, the privilege that I hold in that. I am Black appearing, that is very visible from my skin tone to the texture of my hair. It's interesting because ever since I was younger, before I had any capacity to truly understand why I knew the things I knew or why I felt the way I felt, I've always had this very compassionate place within me for biracial folk. Because there is this awareness that I had, without knowing how, that to be in the middle of something can be so uncomfortable and lonely and isolating. To simultaneously be part of two identities that, let's be real, sometimes neither want to claim, that I've always had such compassion and just empathy in some ways for that intersectionality. When you mentioned being bisexual as well, it seems a lot of times to be one of the invisible identities within the LGBTQIA plus community. Because you can assume either heterosexuality, homosexuality. I will say there is a convenience that in lies these middle places, right? Because you can pick and choose based on whatever feels convenient. Now as a person who has done a lot of shape shifting, but with very visible identities, I've had my own set of struggles. How do I shape myself into something that's palatable for this environment, though what you see isn't going to shift. But I just sat and thought, man, I'm a chameleon by nature, but when you can look like a chameleon, like there's something about that, but then also imagining the challenge and difficulty in coming into authenticity because of that. So, I going to pause there. I saw a lot of nonverbal resonance, but I want to give you time to just kind of process that all out loud.
Melinda: Therein lies the conflict, right? That conflict I have in myself too. Because I am the ultimate chameleon. Even then, if I claim these identities that I know are a part of myself that are more oppressed in the world am I doing harm to the communities that I love so much? So, there's a part of me that's scared that should I claim these things that means so much to me, and that I've grown to really value, and I will say my racial identity is something, I found out that I was biracial in fourth grade. Nobody told me beforehand.
La Shanda: So, I'm gonna have to pause you and say like, can we go on a story time? Like, I could take that on surface, but I got questions. I'm curious. So, fourth grade is about ten years old. That's a decade of living. That's also, you know, three years past when the brain is beginning to develop its capacity for abstract thought. It becomes less concrete. Left brain stuff starts coming online so we can be a little more critical. You know what I mean? Do you mind? How did this come about?
Melinda: No, not at all. So, in fourth grade, my grandfather passed away. My mom's side of the family. My mom's side of the family has always been very light skinned and various siblings of my mom either identify as black or not. My grandfather was identifiably black. So, my grandfather passed away. I hadn’t really connected. We live across the country from them, so I don't really know the side of the family. So, we made an epic journey, a driving journey to New Jersey from Oregon.
La Shanda: That is literally across the country. Got it.
Melinda: And so, we drive across the country. I'm so excited. I've talked to my cousins on the phone. I've never met them before. I'm so excited. They park in front of this old, 200-year-old house. And my mom's like, we're here. Go into the backyard, all your cousins are there. I'm like, Great! I'm extroverted. I love people. Let's hang out. I'm from Oregon. It is the whitest place ever. Especially in the 90s. Right? I've seen maybe two black people in my school. Maybe. It is white. I go into the backyard of my grandparents’ house, and I am one of three white people, like everybody else is identifiably either mixed or black. I'm like, what? And I'm putting it together in the afternoon. I'm like, oh shit. Does this mean…? And it's like all these pieces coming together, like these people are related to me by blood. I am, oh, okay. And then my mom came from a very colorblind perspective, right? People think she's Italian. People think she's Mediterranean. They never think that she's black. She really came at things from a colorblind perspective, right? And so, I can't say anything. I can't ask any question. You're black. I can't ask that question. What is that? I can't ask that question, right? I can't ask it. Does that mean I'm racist? These are all the things going through my mind at ten years old. Then, you know, we're in New Jersey and let's just, let's just claim a cultural difference right now. An Oregonian white girl with identifiably black kids from New Jersey. They say things differently than I do, which I think would probably happen no matter what race you were across the country, but it's just a whole new world. I'm like I don't know how to function in this world. I don't know how to navigate and what is this?
La Shanda: The question I'll sometimes ask folks regardless of their race, but when did you know you were said race? Okay. Fourth grade. My grandfather dies. But how would you, beyond the fact of only having maybe encountered a couple of other melanated kids in school, what was your relationship to just race as a concept before this very pivotal moment in your childhood?
Melinda: Because my mom was colorblind, that colorblind perspective, it's like all people look different. They all have value, everybody's the same inside. So, while I acknowledge that my mom, I think came from a kind place, I think that where that kind of let me down some is white is normative. I will say like I heard the N word for the first time in kindergarten being slung at some other child on the playground. And I was like, oh my god. So that I think was my first conception, like realization.
La Shanda: And you knew word was bad?
Melinda: I knew that word was bad. I knew that word was not okay. I was like, Oh, my god. I remember checking in with the girl who had had that happen to her. I knew that was bad, but it's still like that perspective still sometimes goes like white is normative. I'm normative. Everyone else is kind of a deviation. Everybody is valued the same. So, I didn't really think about my own racial identity in that. And I think that's probably a true story for a lot of white passing, white identified people.
La Shanda: How were you received by your family when you walk into that backyard?
Melinda: I think they were probably more used to the biracial story of our family because they just lived in it. There were other cousins that looked like me.
Do you remember Full House? Do you remember Kimmy from Full House? The whitest, most, I feel like I felt sometimes like I was that white costar on a black sitcom where I would come in and I would bop around with that like very white accent and be like, “Hi everybody, how are you?” And everybody was so chill. I was bopping around. That's kind of how I felt. That's how I felt in that dynamic.
La Shanda: Because when I think of Kimmy, actually, the very first word that comes into my mind is boundary-less. Like...
Melinda: Well, that also describes me, and here we are.
La Shanda: I just think about her unfettered access to a home that wasn't hers, and to the life and relationship that had nothing to do with her, but the casual acceptance of her existing that way and people navigating around it instead of putting boundaries in place. So, that's just the first thing I think of when I think of Kimmy.
Melinda: You're not wrong.
La Shanda: You have this pivotal experience literally across the country, culture shock, all these things at ten. Did you maintain relationships with your family, namely similar aged, family, cousins and things after that point?
Melinda: I tried. I think that kind of distance when you're a kid can be pretty difficult to maintain that kind of contact. I did visit my family for long periods of time over the summers after that point. So, my parents would kind of do family summer camp. I think it was probably like parent break. Parents get a break. Melinda gets to go and play and hang out with her cousins. That happened for several summers after. Then I maintained relationship with many members of my family after. We maintain a casual relationship now, again, they still live mostly on the East Coast. All the way from New York down to Florida. I'm still on the West Coast.
La Shanda: Are you an only child?
Melinda: I am.
La Shanda: Okay. I was wondering what sibling relationships would look like in that, but you're an only child.
I appreciate that so much. I'm glad that we're having this conversation because I'm grateful for you to bring us into that world. There's so much nuance and it's so easy to just things. Oh, it's just this. Anytime you say the word just you're oversimplifying. I don't care what you're talking about. So, I appreciate the nuance, especially having that experience as, as a child, right?
So, you didn't stay in Jersey forever. At some point you made that long trek back to Oregon. Were there any lasting imprints of that experience that you can say stayed with you, let's say throughout your schooling and into adulthood? And if so, what, what were some of those things?
Melinda: I think after that happened, as I grew older, because I was still in the middle of navigating kind of an environment of trauma at home. I think, interestingly, while it produced some confusion, I would spend time thinking about like, what does this mean? I came to discover that there were family members on my mom's side of the family who actually moved away early on, severed ties with the family because they looked white, they could pass. So, there's a painful association in my family with that. So, knowing that eventually, there was a lot of internal wrestling that I had too. Like if I don't mention this, am I passing? Is that what I'm doing? Am I severing off this part of myself that I don't want to? What does embracing this part of myself even look like? What does that even mean? Is it, and as shallow as it sounds, is it, is it getting to know the kind of music that my cousins would listen to that I'd never heard or is it understanding a history of oppression that I didn't really have a handle on until later on. I mean I'd learned some about like the oppressive history of black people in the length of the time that our country and the world has been in place. But yeah, wondering what it meant for me to embrace that part of myself and understand what that looks like for me and how to engage that for me. And I think that's probably the biggest question mark I've always had. And if entering those spaces, like I mentioned before, if even claiming those spaces and trying to enter into those spaces cause harm for that community that I'm entering into.
La Shanda: Yeah, so profound. I really appreciate that. It leads me to this curiosity that I have around how we're talking at the heart level and beyond the body level of this experience that you have with intersecting identities that are some seen, some not seen. It also brings to mind the fetishizing, you know, what I'm trying to say.
Melinda: Yeah, yeah, I know.
La Shanda: Of so many things, but specifically, I'll talk about you, the biracial femme, right? There's so much fetishizing around your identity from my perspective. So, I'm wondering if I'm hitting something, if I'm on target by saying not only is there this personal exploration about what does this mean, but the way that maybe fully embraced by neither identity, yet there's this subculture, if you will, who will look at you and make you a center of their attraction. Honestly, not wanting any of your identity, but just liking the way you look and how you present. Have you had experiences with that?
Melinda: Yeah, but actually this is where we come right back around to the Enneagram. Because I think my personality played into that. I think that while I've been objectified, I've also objectified myself and laid myself out as an object for others to consume. Because if they like me, if they “love”, then what does it matter?
La Shanda: I need us to pause right there. Because that hit, I don't know, my solar plexus, that hits something. So relatable. So, bringing it back to Enneagram, we'll say, okay, wrapped up in my Two-ness, wrapped up in my child of trauma survivor, which included sexual abuse that opened my awareness to my body and sex before my body was ready and prepared to be opened. But the interesting thing is, there are certain parts of my identity that for, let's say the general culture wasn't fetishizable, and how many times I wanted to be objectified. I was like see me as an object as long as you see me. The thought of someone looking past me at someone else hurt so much that even if they were only looking at me to objectify me, I would have welcomed it. I don't think we talk about that enough.
Melinda: Agreed. Absolutely. It's such a deep wound for the Two. And myself, I also have a history of sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, so that as well. And for me, it really hit me when you said, the worst thing is to be looked past. I mean, yes, that has been my experience. I think that is such a Two experience. Don't look through me, see me, love me. Because I don't love myself. I don't see myself. I need you to see me. And I will do what it takes in order to be seen by you.
La Shanda: Absolutely. As a Two, we're externally focused. So, the natural proclivity in a relationship is to see the other person and not see yourself. But still a deep desire to be seen and known. So, I get to see and know myself through you. But you don't see me either. So, I can't see myself and here's the thing. I will put everything of myself into you in hopes that it will yield a return that you will do the same for me. It's so crazy.
Those who have listened for a long time, you will have heard echoes of this. I've been saying for so long, but I really appreciate this. It's like crystallizing right here in my hands in this conversation of that's it. Literally when I realized and discovered that we teach people how to treat us, not by how we treat them, but how we treat ourselves. Yes, it’s true. When I say that to people, ooh, it's so profound, but I also need people to understand how profoundly hard it is for certain people.
I can say it all day, but when people understand that the box that I've been in, those coping mechanisms, the way I've existed has always been to pour into other people desperately because I need to be poured into.
Melinda: I have such a huge heart for Twos, and I do think this is because I've grown my heart for myself in this process. This might be controversial, but I'm just going to say it. I think Twos are the most misunderstood Type on the Enneagram, and I'm just going to put that out there. Because people are like, you're just helpful. You're so kind. You're so sweet. You just want to help people. I'm like, fuck you.
La Shanda: That is my residents laugh, right? And it doesn't feel controversial to me because I've lived my life as a Two. I feel like I would even add, maybe overstating, definitely not as versed in the Enneagram as you, but I would say, not only do I feel we're the most misunderstood, but I also feel like we're the ones people think they get the most.
It's like you said, it's just like, oh, there's nuance to the Eight. There's nuance everywhere, but the Twos are just “so helpful”. They're “so kind”. They're “so selfless”. They're so this and because we are largely beneficial to other people understanding us is not a requirement to receive our help. Therefore, people are going to receive from us regardless. So, putting in the effort trying to understand the Five. I feel like it's like you going in for work, you are signing up to be like, okay, I'm gonna have to really figure this thing out. But for a Two, I feel like they're like, and they like doing it and they're happy doing it. So, there's just kind of a writing off again, looking past all the depth.
I spent so much of my life recognizing one; people don't ask smiling people what's wrong. So, as long as I looked happy, the assumption is that everything is fine. And yet there was this ongoing, pervasive loneliness that I've experienced my entire life. As a matter of fact, I'll say I feel the loneliest when I'm in a room full of people. There's just something about, but you're still going to get my service. I'm still going to be helpful. I'm still going to be kind. I'm still going to be all of these things, but there was no work required to be connected to me. That categorizes my first marriage to a T. There was no work or investment that I required to be in relationship with me because ultimately, I just need someone who's willing to connect with me. And because I required nothing, because of that twelve-year relationship, I've never villainized my ex. Because I recognize what I did. I laid myself on that martyred platter. Because I just wanna be connected. So, I've never felt the need to villainize him. 'cause he was him. He was doing what he was doing. But I just need people to hear us when we save there is a cost, a high cost that exists for us living in that particular way that folks sometimes will never understand because we don't even know how to put requirement. How to put expectation. How to require an investment into the relationship with us when we are not healed because we just want to be connected with.
Melinda: Absolutely. And if we have even just a tiny bit of insight, I think that we'll discover fear of requiring something. It's terrifying because we're terrified to break it. If I require that, you're not going to want to be connected. If I have needs, you're not going to want to be connected.
La Shanda: That's it. If I give you a choice, you might not choose me. Therefore, I'm going to take choices away from you.
When I realized how manipulative I was. I ain't gonna lie. Those who are listening, those who know me, I can almost guarantee you that I'm one of the most manipulative people you have ever met in your life.
The thing is, I know how to manipulate without making people feel manipulated. I know how to manipulate in a way that makes people think it was their idea. You chose me when in actuality I took your choices.
Melinda: I chose you. I chose you and you don't have any choices.
La Shanda: That's it.
And how do I choose? Here it is. I come into your life. I assess your needs. I meet them before you even know they're a need of yours. I make myself indispensable. I make myself such a part of your everyday existence and thriving that if you let me go, your life will fall apart. So, you don't have a choice but to choose me.
I say that, and I get these sensations in my body because I lived like that for 30 years. 30 years. And I remember asking my ex-husband after we separated, but before we divorced, I asked him to make a choice, first time ever. He did not choose me. And while it was simultaneously devastating to me, I can now realize that's when my life began, the moment he did not choose me. Then I had a counter response of saying, “Okay”. Was I devastated? Was I hurt? Did I immediately try to jump into someone else's world to replicate the same thing? I did. Thank God that it was blocked, all of the divine protection that I've had! But that's really where my life started. The thing I had been avoiding, had painstakingly made sure I never felt was the freedom that I needed to move forward in my healing.
Melinda: Yes. And that is what I love to tell my Twos and it's so hard. I'm getting so fired up about this. Because I think if this is true for all Types, not just Twos, but we'll just use Twos, right? We're so scared of being alone, we're so scared of being rejected, we're so scared. When we finally allow ourselves to realize that we are our most important relationship. Sometimes that comes from being rejected. Sometimes that comes from understanding that aloneness. That is the place that we avoid like the plague.
It is so terrifying to go there.
La Shanda: We will put things in place to inoculate against not having to be alone. But I want to fast forward and say throughout the journey, when I tell you I like me, I mean that. I like me. I make it a point to tell my kids as well. I like you. Because loving them doesn't feel optional for me and it doesn't feel optional to them either but liking them is full of options. I want them to know that I like them. But I couldn't introduce that language until I started saying, I like myself. I think there is a difference between a person who finds themselves unpartnered, without a friend group at the moment, in a new location to go out to dinner by themselves out of necessity. There is a whole other thing for me to live in a house with five of us that I never have to be alone if I don't choose to. But I set out and I'm intentional to say, I need to go spend some time with my bestest best friend. That's me. And you know, Jay is my best friend and every opportunity we can get to spend time together with having three kids and businesses and all that stuff, we find time to be together. But listen, I find time to be with my bestest best friend. That's me. But if I had said that to myself. 10 years ago, that that would have been a choice I would have made. I probably would still be crying because the thought of not being connected to someone outside of myself was literally terrifying.
It was snakes, being naked in public, and being alone. Three things that terrified me.
Melinda: For me, spiders and being alone. The naked in public thing as well. That would probably not be great.
But no, you're absolutely correct. That is absolutely my experience.
What I find to be so like profound for the people that I do work with, and majority of Twos I do work with, it's just, it's so hard to slowly bend your energy toward yourself so that you start to take on the gravity in your own world that you give to everyone else. So that you have the same ruthless presence with yourself that you have with everyone else. That is the goal, right? That is the way that we discover who we are, essentially.
La Shanda: Yeah, in such a beautiful way. And I think if what you and I, Melinda, were talking about right now were just a set of behaviors, they would be easy to change. I believe that.
Melinda: I agree.
La Shanda: But because we're not just talking about a set of behaviors, like it's not that we just like helping or choose to help. When we understand that everything we do and don't do is directly connected to belief. So, change is hard when changing a behavior means you have to sit and evaluate the belief you hold about said behavior. In that existence of the manipulator for the sake of connection, there were no boundaries. Boundaries can't coexist with that existence. So, as I start to hear this word and I start to do this trauma recovery and I start to heal and then I gotta preserve and protect that which I'm building. Because what we value, we protect. How do we know this because cars and houses have alarms. When you go to a hotel, if you have something valuable, you try to put it in the safe, you don't just leave it out. Conceptually we understand this. That which we really value we put more effort into protecting. Well, I didn't value myself, so there was no need to protect myself, therefore, I had no boundaries. Now you tell me I gotta to put boundaries in place and I have to learn to start saying no to the things I don't want to do. Well, if it's just a fact of practicing saying no, if it was just the behavior, I probably could have done that a long time ago. But that behavior of not saying no was directly connected to the belief that I'm a good person.
Melinda: And I think probably directly, at least for myself, directly connected to the belief that I need to do it in order to survive.
La Shanda: Gotta do it to survive. I am a good person. My worth and my value are directly connected to someone's response when I do it. See, it wasn't even just doing it because if I did it and you were ungrateful, then I didn't do it good enough. So, my worth and value is directly connected to how someone responds to what I'm doing.
When we understand how deeply embedded those beliefs are we will put some MF’n respect in the healing process. Because I feel like externally people look at the work we do and it's like, oh, that's cool. I'm like, it ain't cool. No, we are in warfare.
Melinda: Oh my god. Yeah.
La Shanda: Oh, that's nice. Oh, that must be cool. And I'm like, see, that lets me know that you really don't know this personal healing and then moving out to help others heal, this ain't no cakewalk. No, this is the depths of going into some of the most darkest, scariest places of someone's essence and helping them loosen the grip they have on beliefs about themselves and the world that it makes 100% sense that they have when you look at their life. They didn't make it up, it made sense. So, I just think there is a depth to what we do that folks genuinely don't understand.
So, if I pause here and say, now let's go up maybe 10, 000 feet and look at all nine Types. When we say, okay, yeah, healing, yeah, therapy, but when we're introducing the Enneagram specifically into how we are helping folks, shepherding folks, Sherpa-ing folks through the healing process. Can you illuminate a little bit about why the Enneagram has been helpful and instrumental for you walking with folks during their healing journey?
Melinda: I think that having a tool that is so comprehensive around bringing awareness to not just our behaviors, but our beliefs and motivations is essential. When I'm looking at the Enneagram from that 10,000-foot perspective, it really is looking at every Type. That first step is helping people to really deeply understand that the ways that they engage in the world have been coping mechanisms based on these beliefs and motivations.
Like Sevens, for instance, have you noticed how positive you are at everything? Have you noticed how you hate getting into these “negative” emotions? Have you noticed how you avoid that when you're with others? Have you noticed how much energy you take out of yourself in order to be in these super fun situations, but you're never really present? Have you ever noticed that? Yes? Let's talk about why. Oh, you're afraid you'll never get out of negative emotion if you sink in it there. Oh, you're terrified of being in that space and truly getting into the depths of yourself and others. And more.
So, when you start to bring that awareness and then get deeper into the motivations and the terror that comes based on your Type?
Eights. Wow. Like, what if you knew that you were way more vulnerable than you would ever own? You take care of and protect all these other people, but what about your vulnerabilities and weaknesses?
And we can do this for every Type.
Nines. What if you knew you were more powerful than you ever thought possible? But you're terrified of being seen.
There's just so much that we do as the nine Types to yes, to cope, to survive. But that awareness and then getting down to the things that we fear, the motivations for those behaviors, the beliefs that prop up those behaviors, only then do we start to engage in change. Often the things that we do, these disrupting tasks, and these disrupting counter beliefs that we try to take in and ponder and really put into action to see what happens. Which is what I tend to do with my clients. Like, try this out, note how hard it is. That's part of the process. Then I feel like we start to just slowly break, shred that box. And I get to watch people and be with people as they're like, I'm scared to shred this. And I'm like, I know, I know, girl. I know, person. I know. I'm with you. Like, is this box holding you back?
La Shanda: And the therapeutic relationship becomes the place where the unboxed thing can practice existing. I call the therapeutic relationship the practice ground for a reason. Because let's be real, as we're starting out people are going to put themselves back in that box and they're going to go back to work and I say, okay, if I took the box from you, that's not kind. That's not regulating. But while we're here in this relationship, how about you come out, lift the top, come out, see that you won't die. The brain needs to know that, the body needs to know that way. I did it once and I didn't die. Right? I love the Enneagram. Like I said, it's a mirror. What happens with mirrors is you can look at it sometimes and be like, oh, my god, look how beautiful. That's so beautiful. But when you start out. If you don't go, uh, what is that? Then it's probably not your Type.
Melinda: I question you have your Type.
La Shanda: If you are not disgusted by what you are hearing or reading, if there is not a defense that comes up and a resistance to go, but wait, uh, then it's probably the wrong Type. Because I'm telling you it is something about looking into a mirror that can see you fully naked and you being like, oh my goodness, that's there. I didn't know.
I can proclaim being a manipulator because I've done the work. But when I first read a description and it used the word seductive. I was like, ew, no, that is not me. And the reality is hell yeah. Listen, if you listen to this podcast and you have been for three years, part of that is the seduction. And we have this habit of only thinking about sexual seduction, it goes so beyond that. So much beyond that. I'm not talking about sexual seduction. I am talking about the way that if you come within six feet of my orbit, you cannot resist me. Period. I'm being for real. You talk to people and the feedback is just, it's something about you that sucked me in. And if I'm not aware of that, now, unhealed unaware, that's great, right? Because we've already shared that being connected felt like the ultimate desire. So, if I could do all of that and bring people into this web and then make them stick and they can't leave, that seems like a gift, right?
But now I realize I work so hard not to take away people's choices. They deserve choice and I deserve choice. Because I didn't have choice either because I wasn't going these are the characteristics I want in a friendship, a relationship, a partner, a job. I was going, who's willing to accept me? Who's getting stuck in the web? And if there are these parts of me that you need me to be different so that you'll stay stuck, oh, of course. Well, then let me just change that.
That word seductive, it took me out. I was so resistant and rejected with that word. No, no, no, no, no. And now I'm like, hell yeah. Let's be real. Manipulative as hell. When I can see myself clearly, I can now look in without shame. Key. Without shame.
Melinda: Thanks for saying that. That's really important.
La Shanda: It's huge. I can notice when it comes up and shows up again and go, ah, there's that automatic response. I see you girl. I thought she was gone. No. Okay. All right. So, hey, let's have this conversation.
Every Type has that opportunity with the Enneagram to see themselves clearly with an awareness. Because what I realized is within that box, even if I got everything I thought I wanted in the box with me, there's such a whole world out here that I wouldn't be experiencing. So, instead of trying to pull everything into the box with me, I went, what if I just left the box. And it's more vulnerable. It's scary. It's loud and wide. But I'm traversing it. And I'm grateful for that, but I also want to tell people the capacity to be self-led in that comes after you're in safe relationship within it.
Melinda: Yes. I think that's really essential. And whether that's a therapist or a close person. That's really important too. I would never be able to do this without the coaches, the therapists, my husband, my best friend.
La Shanda: Supportive community.
Melinda: Yeah, it's really important.
Also, I think that growing and burgeoning relationship with myself. I will take myself out to dinner. I do that, like, every other week. It's the best.
La Shanda: It's awesome. Because I like me.
Melinda: Because I love hanging out with me. And so much more. So much. I mean, I feel like I still have some levels to grow in terms of my own self-obsession, which I'm fully on board for growing. But I'm so much further along than I was before, and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for that.
La Shanda: I have so many tingles. This has been so good. Like, oh my god. I'm sure we are going to find more ways to continue our conversation and collaborate, but for now. Is there anything I did not ask? Is there anything we didn't get to? Are there any parting words that you want to leave with the listeners?
Melinda: I think just if any of this has been intriguing, inspiring, maybe led some of your listeners into questioning, like, what is my Enneagram, or I wonder if there's more for me in this? Then I would really encourage them to open themselves up to that. Maybe do a little more research or conversation with a friend or find a therapist or coach that really knows about the Enneagram. Because there are lots of great tools out there and this is just my way. But there's just so much richness there for you to know who you are without shame and to get to know yourself. In that mirror you see all the things about yourself, like you said, the good and the not so great. That's a part of being human. The only way to grow is to know where we start from, like the factual true place where we begin. So, if any of this is intriguing and you want to go deeper, there's so much there. I just want to encourage your listeners to dive if they feel like it's really resonating with them.
Are you Interested in learning your enneagram & growing through enneagram counseling?
Hi, I’m Melinda
I’m a therapist who uses the Enneagram and Brainspotting to help 20 & 30-somethings understand and change unhelpful patterns, love themselves, and navigate all the big transitions and emotions that come with where they are in life.
What my clients often look like:
1) Empaths and “HSPs” who feel deeply and are afraid that something is “wrong” with them or have been told that they are too “sensitive”
2) Helpers or “over-givers” who want healthier relationships with themselves and others
3) Enneagram enthusiasts who want to grow
4) Premarital and young couples wanting to start their marriage off on the right foot