Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D. 
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: January 21, 2012  

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Worth Waiting For
by Beth Strong, Enneagram Four

I had the good fortune to work with a coach who taught me about the Enneagram. She noticed my “four-ness” right away, and reflected back to me the ditches I would slip into when I began my self-doubts and flagellations. 

A cold winter day, snow coming, they say. We need it, we’re in one of the worst droughts of the last sixty years. I sit in our new room, the one with windows looking out to everywhere, that is, if you consider our yard a measure of everywhere. Beyond our yard’s old, gray falling-down fence, we have a stellar view of our neighbors’ leafless apple branches, and beyond that, someone’s fir trees. I like the fir trees. They seem to hold upright the strength of the neighborhood, as if to say, “We will not let you take us. You can try, but we stand strong. We have been here longer than your grandmother.” There’s something that comes from longevity, a survival mentality, perhaps. We’ve seen it all, baby, and we’re still here. You ain’t got nothin’ on us. 

Thirty degrees to the left I see the Yelenick’s new barn, a few inches of their trampoline, and their ivy-covered eaves on the north side of their house. They are a big family, five kids: three boys and two girls.  Only three are left home now, with Jacob almost ready to fly  At sixteen and savvy he is remarkably kind to my eleven year old son, probably because they share a love for electronic wars that I can’t begin to understand. It seems the male hormones that bring these young men to thoughts of combat cross all boundaries of age. My son will grieve when Jacob leaves for college, just a few months away, leaving two girls my son will hardly notice for at least two or three more years, if we’re lucky. Sophia, a year younger than my boy, will no doubt jump the calendar long before Alden ever thinks of her. Maybe we should think about rebuilding that fence now, just in case.  Don’t good fences make good neighbors?

I imagine I could see beyond the Yelenick’s house, and then I would see the world! I would see the field of an empty lot that some far-seeing old woman stubbornly refuses to sell, bless her soul. It’s not much to look at, nothing compared to these expensive houses that I live so close to; a hoot of wild grasses and scrub grass fill in most of the dirt, and it’s brown most of the year.  You’d think you might see more wildlife there, but the dogs, even our domesticated, coiffed, leashed, and suburbanly-trained pets, must scare most of the wildlife away. Just beyond that field I saw a dead fox today. Maybe some of those dogs aren’t so domesticated after all. But in the field itself, I never see anything, hard as I’ve tried. That’s okay. It’s not the field we all appreciate so much (although some would disagree), but the sky, the sky the field surrenders to. Full, blue, uneven sky. It goes forever, that sky. Beyond the field, horizon dotted with a few large estates, there are more fields, and hills, and birds, dirt roads, horses, and then, finally, the mountains. Seven miles closer to the city I had a full-breasted view of the mountains. Here, I imagine, beyond the apple tree branches, beyond the Yelenicks’ new barn, beyond their ivy-covered eaves and beyond the field, the mountains. They are worth waiting for. 

The room was worth waiting for, too, and boy, did we have to wait! They say to double the time contractors give you to finish a project. I’d say, double it and double it again, add three weeks and several thousand dollars, and a few- make that several- months later, you might have a room. We have a room! Time won out! Not counting the ceiling, there are twenty five windows in this room. And a gas stove, providing an incredibly delicious blend of warmth and just the right amount of chill in the air, not to let you forget that it’s winter outside. A warm sweater that sits in my closet most of the year comes out for a long-awaited appearance in this window-room, dusk surrounding, apple-tree branches becoming a messy web of black against the twilight, football play-offs are soft in the background. Now some of you would think I have lost my credibility here: football on TV is never quiet; it is always loud, or more likely, blaring. But today, I am relishing in the perfection of the afternoon, and Father Time, again, has chosen to bless me with his tricks. Put one tired husband in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon, and voila! he sleeps. I tiptoe to the remote, normally a sure-fire way to wake him up, but not today! Today I am victorious! And football goes almost mute. 

There have been winter days I have known that weren’t so sweet. Years ago I was soon to go through a divorce, followed by several years of little or no work in my new field. But more importantly, on those days my vision was less clear. I couldn’t see past apple trees or trampolines. I couldn’t see a finished room. I couldn’t see a remote possibility of a new husband, or enjoy the worries of having a prepubescent child. I couldn’t see my own contentment with an old brown sweater and knowing the deep blue mountains were only a block away from view. Rather, I saw walls, masking-tape gray, and closing in. I saw life’s inequities and the stillbirth of my potential. I saw hope, unanswered, turn into despair, too fearful to let despair turn into hope again. 

“You’re so bitter!” I remember a friend telling me. She was right. My optimism was thin and one-dimensional, ungrounded and shrill when I had it, but most of the time I didn’t have to worry about the inappropriateness of my optimism, because it didn’t exist. How can one feel optimistic filled with bitterness? I also found it hard to love others. Rather, my “love” was more about finding people who could fill the requirements of having less than me in enough categories so I wouldn’t resent them for having more. Self-love was an idea, an enigma, something I didn’t begin to understand. Sure, I had plenty of exposure to spiritual teachings, but something deep inside me wasn’t budging. I was building my doctorate on disappointment in what life wasn’t giving to me, on my despair in myself, and on self-loathing. I was in the heart of not-seeing. 

It seems like a dream to me now. Years have passed, and, piece by piece, I have sometimes intentionally, and often not, surrendered those fears of non-living. Were things so terrible then that my despair made sense? Perhaps, but not really.  Ultimately, my life was filled with many good things, just as it is now, but then I couldn’t see them.   

What, then, changed? Yes, the conditions of my life improved. But I don’t think that was it. There is only one place that bitterness takes us, and that is down, clearly where I was headed. It is said that our thoughts and attitudes create our reality. I may not have consciously created my suffering, but I can see how I dove into it head first once it was there. Oddly, it was as if I were attracted to it, and almost enjoyed being swept up by its ominous undertow. There was choice involved, and I chose, several times over, to lean into my suffering. 

Thankfully, a distant bell rang off in my mind with my friend’s words. She was right, I was bitter, and bitter most of the time.  Although I couldn’t accept them at the time, I was also, fortunately, immersed in a group of people whose lives were full of grace – magical and wonderful things were manifesting for them on what seemed like a daily basis. If I could get out of feeling sorry for myself for long enough, I could recognize that what I truly wanted was to be open, like they were.  Slowly, I realized that the biggest thing in my way was me. Or, I should say, my attachment to believing that others would always have more, as I would somehow have less. 

At that point I didn’t have much to go on, so I did the only thing I could think of: I prayed. I prayed daily to have the bitterness taken away. I surrendered to the moment, to all the uncertainties that replicated themselves day after day, and I prayed again. And at some point, I stopped watching others and started noticing the wonders of each day. I continued the great way of spiritual practices, in my case, chanting many names of God, meditating, doing seva or selfless service for my meditation group, and contemplating the teachings of my spiritual master. These were the mainstays of my daily life. Yes, I still got carried away by the dramas of my life and forgot my practices, but – was it grace or self-effort – thankfully was able to reinstate them again, and again, and again.   

Maybe the inner transformation that has blessed me is the result of years of spiritual practice, and I wouldn’t doubt that. One practice that stood out among the others is the practice of gratitude, the antithesis of bitterness. I was told once that when we start a prayer, we should start with saying thanks for what we have. So I made a point of finding gratitude, particularly when I thought I didn’t have it. This was getting down to the basics for me. I made a point of being grateful for the things we tend to take for granted, like good health, four limbs, and five senses, sight being the most important to me. I challenged myself when I got caught in my net of self-doubt, but more often, because I surrounded myself with friends who would challenge those doubts for me, I relied on them. Eventually I would come to be strong enough that I wouldn’t need their support, but not in the beginning. Without my realizing it, I rediscovered hope, and stopped questioning the appropriateness of my optimism. I was crawling out of my cave. 

Recently I had the good fortune to work with a coach who taught me about the Enneagram. She noticed my “four-ness” right away, and reflected back to me the ditches I would slip into when I began my self-doubts and flagellations. She asked me what standards I was using when I compared myself against others. Quickly I discovered those standards were unanimously extreme: my cooking was substandard because my dishes weren’t as succulent as in the best restaurants in Denver. My new part-time teaching work was pitiful next to professionally paid speakers who spent their entire livelihoods enthusiastically motivating thousands. I was on an ego trip the size of Oklahoma if I really believed I needed to be the best at everything I did. I got it when she helped me see my own coaching work was better than average as I compared myself with the top of the industry, even though I had not yet completed the first half of my coaching training. With her help I was able to allow myself to celebrate my talent, without needing to denigrate that talent because others have it too.   

“Fours,” I learned, take risks. Discovering this made many of my life choices make sense (taking risks means that sometimes we land flat on our faces, which I compared in myself to everyone else’s apparent consistent success.) We “fours” feel intensely, which tends to pull us toward the melancholic, yet we are also creative and we see things from a different perspective, thinking “outside the box.” We are self-absorbed, but that also makes us self-aware. We are introspective, yet we embrace life. Seeing my own “four-ness” has given me a sure handle on reckoning with the demons of self-doubt, of comparing myself harshly against others, and of despair. Recognizing my need for being “the greatest” in anything I do, as the mistaken belief about what’s required to be worthy of love, was perhaps the most freeing discovery about myself I have made in years.  It was fascinating to see my worst habits fit snugly into a “type,” which allowed me enough distance to see the folly of my fears and self-doubts. 

In our tradition we refer to the spiritual path as a two-winged bird, one wing standing for grace, the other for self-effort.  Truly, I’ve been blessed. But I’m no longer opposed to taking some of the credit. I know that if grace did descend upon me and lift me out of a deep depression, it also came because I did something to open myself to it. I asked for it, and allowed myself to believe that grace is available to everyone, even me. In changing my mind, my life changed with it. Funny how that works. 

The TV’s back up now, and my husband is awake and very expressive. I might lament the end of a gentle afternoon, but instead, I think I’ll join him in watching Sex and the City. Maybe we’ll listen to Brazilian music after dinner and dance the samba in the kitchen, in between bites of chocolate pudding ice cream. Maybe life will be as difficult again as it was years ago, precipitating my divorce. But I know now that I could lose everything, and I would suffer. But I would trust that I wouldn’t lose the inner vision, and that would hold me in grace. Now that’s transformation worth waiting for. 

Beth Strong, MA, LPC, is a psychotherapist, astrologer, and life coach in private practice in Denver, Colorado. You can visit her website at www.BethStrong.com. "My own coach," she adds, "is the Mary Bast of this wonderful website, who asked me to write this article."