The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types (Part 2: Body Types)
Melinda Olsen (Inviterra Counseling) & Joanne Kim (OliveMe Counseling) are Enneagram therapists who love helping people grow beyond their reactive patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing.
Our Enneagram type patterns used to be helpful when we were actually vulnerable and powerless (often in childhood), but when we grew up, our autopilot patterns didn't update accordingly. What used to be our greatest strengths eventually become some of our greatest liabilities.
In part 2 of this 4-part series on The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types, learn about:
The main themes of the Body Triad.
The central emotion for Body Types: Anger
How Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones navigate anger.
Growth steps for each Enneagram Type.
Watch the video below for Part 2: Body Types (or keep scrolling past the downloadables for the transcript!)
Downloadables
Download each of these separately!
Video Transcript
Joanne: I'm glad you can tune in to our episode today in the series, “The Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types”. Today we'll be covering Body Types, Types Eights, Nines, and Ones, who all have a specific relationship with the emotion of anger. Part of that is because all Gut Types, all Body Types, tend to have some focus around the themes of agency, will, power, action, forward movement, or the lack thereof having a great impact.
Anger, as a very expansive, action-oriented, present tense feeling.
Melinda: I know it well.
Joanne: Tends to show up for each of those Types in different ways for their corresponding reasons. Let's start with Type Eight.
Melinda: Type Eight. Their relationship to anger is probably fairly stereotypical.
If you know anything about Eights they really lean into it. They overdo anger. It's usually organized around the theme of vengeance. Which if you think about it, is a very anger forward thing.
Joanne: Yeah, focus on justice and correcting wrongs.
Melinda: Yes, protection, Protecting others, protecting self. Defense against whatever is out there. And vengeance, not just defense, but also vengeance against whatever has hurt them or their people or other people.
They tend to overdo anger. Usually this gets them into trouble a lot because Eights, as they overdo anger, they have no problem with conflict. They're very direct. They tend to move forward, as a Gut Type, without thinking. It's probably the Gut emotion or like the Gut intelligence is a very quick intelligence.
It shows up like that. There isn't much pausing, considering…
Joanne: What's pausing? Haha!
Melinda: For Eights there really isn't much of that. Usually they tend to know what they want to do without even thinking about it. Then they just do it.
That tends to mean that they show very intensely and in a big manner. Unfortunately then, Eights have a hard time understanding their impact on others as they don't tend to pause and consider before they make a big splash.
A growth step that we think is great for our Eights is… Actually, I think you should probably talk about that.
Joanne: Yeah, if we think about Eights as cars that have no brakes, a growth step would involve introducing a little bit more breaks. Slowing down, even if only for two-three seconds, would help a lot. Because the part that Eights struggle with is having limitations, self-imposed limitations on themselves. So, kind of reining it back, dialing it back.
Making oneself smaller. Eights even in their body language tend to be very expansive and open and outward. So, if you can dial back your energy a little bit more inward this would help also reign in any habits of anger that tends to show up, going from 0-300.
Melinda: I think one thing, too, is to try to be aware when you jump to action. The first thing that's really important is to just put some awareness on the times in your day that you have just jumped to action without pausing, jumped to reaction without pausing. Then try to think about how you can introduce, like Joanne said, even a two-three second pause before you react or respond.
Joanne: Even if you don't catch yourself in the moment and you just carry on ahead. If you come back to it later, let's say, if you had a meetup with someone and you were very expansive and you realize later, maybe that would have been a good time for me to pause. That's okay! Go back to that person and say, “Hey, I realized that I might have been very forward. Can I get some feedback”, or, “How was that like for you?”, just so that you can do some repair work in case you might've been inadvertently stepping on some toes.
Melinda: Good luck, Eights. I know you can do it.
Joanne: Nines will be, in a lot of ways, the opposite of Eights in that Nines tend to under-ly tap into the emotion of anger. A lot of it is because Nines see anger as big, bad, scary, destructive, explosive, etc. That goes exactly the opposite direction of what Nines tend to value, which is harmony, peace, not disrupting the waters, etc.
Nines can go too far in overly disconnecting with anger. Part of that is how the passion of sloth shows up in disconnecting from who they are and what agendas they have personally. Anger can also go with it.
Whereas Eights are cars without breaks, Nines are ones who are always on neutral gear. So, sometimes there is a time to intentionally move forward or stop or change directions, etc, and anger is one of the best emotions to help us do that. It's in sensing, “Ooh, that's not okay”, or, “Something doesn't feel right." Then responding to that. If you disconnect from your own anger then you're not going to be able to catch those things and then course correct in the moment.
I know anger is a tall order for Nines to jump straight in, but that's okay. A smaller, lighter dose is for you to connect with joy. I would say that anger is a flip side of desire. Like when something you want doesn't happen, you feel frustrated. You'll eventually connect with anger once you tune in with yourself and know what you want. Nines are notorious for not knowing what they want. If anything, start with finding out what you don't want. Then you find out what you like, then you find out how to go for what you like, and then being frustrated that it doesn't happen. Take the backdoor approach. Totally fine.
Anything that you'd like to add to for Nines?
Melinda: I love what you said about frustration. In my work with Nines, I found that though anger is a difficult emotion for Nines to tap into, a lot of them can identify, a lot of you can identify frustration. Which I love what you say, it's a desired thing that doesn't happen. If you can tap into your feelings of frustration, I think that will help you to tune into your feelings of desire because it's that thing that you wanted that didn't happen. That will help you to understand better who you are and what you want, which is a great step for Nines.
Joanne: If you have some connection with the other softer feelings like sadness, I say that Nines tend to overdo numbness and being overly chill. Allow for some disruption of the waters. It's a muscle that when you exercise you build more tolerance for discomfort.
Discomfort is a very good thing for Nines.
Build your way up towards anger. You don't have to start off as your first step but this is how you wake back up.
Melinda: Good luck, Nines.
I think we're going to go over Ones now, right?
Joanne: Yes, Ones are also the opposite of Eights and Nines in that they tend to overly press on the brakes in not allowing for things to just happen and to flow very smoothly. There's a lot of conflicted relationship with anger. It's like they have anger, they feel it, but they also suck it in. So, it’s really hard on the physical body, actually, in like clenching all the time.
Whereas Eights are very expressive and expansive and kind of limitless with their outward energy, including anger, Ones tend to overly shove it on the inside. It does end up leaking sideways anyway through irritation, frustration, resentment. That's a favorite feeling.
Melinda: As a Two, I understand that.
Joanne: Often Ones do so because they sense that there's a huge gap between the ideal and the actual. Often Ones can be more frustrated than is actually required. It's a by-product of them having standards that are actually kind of unattainable. If that ideal is a moving target, and it's technically arbitrary, then you can actually move it closer so that you will have actually achieved things moving in a better direction anyway.
A growth step for Ones would involve recognizing that anger is actually a very important emotion. It's not a bad feeling because it carries some important messages. It's best to actually sit with it, take it in, find out what the important message is and to go along with it rather than shoving it aside and only having it come back and hit you in the face, because that's what emotions are supposed to do. They're supposed to catch our attention. So, instead of repressing your feelings and having to turn to resentment that leaks out anyway, you may as well be more honest and direct with it.
There's a growth line to Type Four. Fours tend to overly connect with their feelings but it's a very good movement for Ones.
Anything that you'd like to add or kind of change about what I shared for Ones?
Melinda: I think I just want to emphasize again, the importance of anger. The fact that it's not a bad emotion. In fact, there is no emotion that is actually bad. Emotions are neutral. They're all good in the sense that they all give us information. It's how we use them that matters. How we pay attention to them and understand our needs based on what those emotions are telling us.
Ones you might not be able to fully connect with that yet, but sit with that. It's really important for your well being because the more you're able to connect with all of your feelings the more freedom you're going to have internally. The less restricted and stiff you're going to feel and that's only for your good.
Joanne: We do have some really important resources for your own growth journey.
As we mentioned before, each of the Nine Types do have their own corresponding pattern. Today we focused mostly on anger because it is the central feeling for all Body Types. But it's really important for you to also learn about the other emotional habits you have because when you overdo one feeling you tend to under do something else. Actually the unde-rly done feeling might hold the key to what you're really needing.
You can grab this resource also with more details about each Type and their relationship with each emotion. This also includes information regarding the instincts and how they might show up in specific ways.
Melinda has graciously also provided her own resource as well. You want to share a little bit about that?
Melinda: I've made a little resource for you, “Growth Tips for every Enneagram Type”. I find that in the deeper work of the Enneagram we really need to challenge ourselves, challenge our habits, our beliefs, our thought patterns. This little handy dandy guide is going to help you to challenge those things in the ways that you need. I encourage you to download it, pick it up and good luck. I think it'll be really helpful for your deeper journey.
Joanne: If you're watching this as someone who resonates with being a Body Type or you're in really close relationships with one, thank you and you're welcome.
It's super important for all of us to know, regardless of our Types, that this is a really hard journey, but a really important one as well.
As a way for you to do your own work or to cultivate greater empathy, definitely revisit all the things that we mentioned about each of the Gut Types, Eights, Nines and Ones, and also check out the other Triads as well.
Next, we're going to move on to Heart Types, Twos, Threes, and Fours.
Melinda: Thank you so much for tuning in. We're so excited to share Heart Types with you next time. See you then.
interested in learning your enneagram & growing through enneagram therapy?
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