Gathering Courage

For Eights to be able to embrace their bigness of heart, they must first gather the courage to reveal it. This requires that they trust in something beyond their own wits and power -- and that, of course, requires letting go of many of their fundamental defenses. No matter how full of rage and shut down an Eight may be, the sensitive child that made the decision to protect itself still lives inside, waiting for the opportunity to contact the world again. (Riso and Hudson, The Wisdom of the Enneagram)

"I've had profound moments in my life," said an Enneagram Eight. "Actual events where I came out the other side." Another mused, "It's like opening a door that I have never opened. And in many cases it's a door that I've seen and wondered about, but I was either afraid or just simply unable to approach the door or open it. And suddenly a whole new place has opened up that you can walk into and look around and see how wholly different it is from where you just were, where the possibilities are endless."  

Are these Enneagram Eights? I think so. Listen to how they describe themselves:

"I remember standing in the shower with my friend at the Y, buck naked, fifteen - sixteen years old," explained the woman I'll refer to as Ursula. "She asked me, 'What do you really wish for?' And I said, 'You know what, I just hope that my life isn't too easy.' I guess I was thinking, 'I want to wrestle, I want to engage, I want it to be full, I want it to be real, I don't want it to be all warm and fuzzy, I want to really live.' I once participated in a native American ceremony where I was given the name, 'She who farts like a bear.' That's where I am -- I want to be who I am without apology! I also want to be able to acknowledge my own shit and I don't want to have to hide it from others, but sometimes I'm less successful than others -- it's part of my history to hide it from myself. You know, I really did think I was doing the right thing. From childhood right on through, I thought that I was attempting to live a good life. But it was a delusion. This can be bad if I'm being hyper-responsible -- which I tend to do -- because then I'm the fixer, I'll take care of it. And tied to this willingness to acknowledge my own shit is the tendency to go too far, taking on too much, and then that becomes a burden."

"Here's how the Eight's 'lust' or 'excess' plays out for me," said Bart: "I have a long history of seeking peak experiences, seeking adrenaline rushes, climbing rocks, hanging from one hand over precipices and things like that. I was always keen on river rafting and I wanted to do it in wild rivers like the Amazon: three or four rivers that you could gauge by the number of maimings they have per season. There's probably nothing more exhilarating than going down a rapids with nothing but a helmet and a jacket and a life vest. And kicking yourself off of rocks as they come to you, and trying to keep your head up far enough where you can see them and presenting either your feet or a shoulder to something you're going to hit so you weren't simply splatted like a fly swatter! That's a kick. Last year I was hit by a truck, and badly broke some ribs and an arm -- with some nerve damage. It was distressing from the point of view that I'm not the same person I once was, in terms of now being only as strong as a regular person." (Note that while Bart's Seven wing is strong, his emphasis is on danger and strength -- more the preoccupations of the Eight.)

Experiences of Change

Some of the transformation experiences these Eights described were events, points in time where something shifted: "I can remember the exact date of what was probably my last big transformation experience," recalled Ursula. "It was just absolutely incredible, gut-wrenching! As if I had shed my skin! I recognized I could no longer live the way I had been living with the man I was married to for twelve years. It was a lie, it was unauthentic, it was so incongruent with who I was and what I believed. It had been impossible to sort out what was me and what was my own internalization of other peoples' expectations. It wasn't a conscious notion that I was setting aside my self. I didn't say, 'Well, this is what they expect so this is what I'll do, even though I don't want to.' But when this shift occurred those others' voices were totally eliminated. Their 'shoulds' and their rules for my life were blown out of the water. Gone. Totally invalid. And it scared the fucking shit out of me! It was terrifying and yet I've got to tell you, somewhere in there was exhilaration."

In a similar vein, but with different content, Bart reported: "My wife and I were sitting in front of our therapist when he said a few simple words that opened a door. It was very much like the movie, 'What Dreams May Come,' where Robin Williams died and everything was sort of Technicolor. There I was in this place that was different from where I just left. I was loaded with feelings and thoughts about what's possible from this new place inside the door, instead of standing outside looking at it. The therapist had asked, 'What do you feel like when you see your wife depressed or unhappy?' and I had at first answered with, 'Helpless in the face of her discomfort.' And he wasn't buying that, especially. He said, 'I would have expected you to say something like, 'I see how badly you feel. Is it anything I am doing, or is there anything I can do about it?' And I thought, 'My God! Such a simple statement, so easily made, so totally different than anything I would have ever thought of!' If I can simply make statements like that in the face of my wife's distress, it's a whole new place to be! It wasn't much, but it was a lot for me. I realized I had grown up in a place where when you're hurt or in pain you go away alone and come back out when you're healed. What I learned simply wasn't the right stuff -- it thwarted my growth in the area of caring for people and being cared for, in ways that I never would have suspected. To me, that was a transforming moment."

Sometimes transformation is not an event, but more of a process: "I feel like I'm moving now," said Ursula. "I'm going through some changes and my husband is seeing a different person. He's sometimes baffled, I think, uncomfortable. And here's a paradox: I'm baffled, too, except I'm moving into this new place of comfort that feels real, like I'm getting down to the core. Do you know the book, The Soul's Code, by James Hillman? The premise is that you come into the world with a soul, a core that's solid, real, warm, and all this light resonates from it. What appeals to me about this metaphor is that oftentimes when we think about spirituality it's kind of a coming up and going out. This is not. This is going in and going down, and that really resonates with me. I'm being drawn down, and yet it's not ever a place I'll reach because it is never-ending. The other thing I know is that it's always been there. It's always been with me."

Being hit by a truck was both an event and a process for Bart: "It forced me to ask for help in ways I never had before," he admitted. "I had always tended to be at sixes and sevens when it came to, on the one hand, having the most qualified person do it, and on the other hand, doing everything myself, approaching every act as a Warrior with absolutely everything he's got. It's a guaranteed burn-out but that's one of the facts of life for Warriors. This was deeply frustrating because you can't do everything. My sense of failure was always with me because I put myself in a no-win. So the experience of being partially incapacitated gave me the feeling that I can say no sometimes to things in a way I couldn't have before. I haven't gotten perfect at that yet -- the habit of doing everything is still with me. It's one of the constant challenges I face, but I'm getting better because the awareness is there that I'm not as strong as I was. That also means I'm not as dumb as I was and I don't have to do all this stuff and I don't have to pretend I can. So I recognized a physical difference but there was an emotional change, too, of facing reality. I mean, what becomes the credibility of somebody who doesn't perform like he says he will, both to himself and to the people around him?"

Results of Change

When asked how they're different as a result of these transforming experiences, Ursula and Bart spoke in tough but poignant ways about opening their hearts, about developing empathy, about taking risks in relationships.

Ursula had been estranged from her parents for three years (when she divorced her first husband to marry her second husband her mother had stopped speaking to her, and her father followed suit). "Then I found out through my son that my dad had a heart attack. When my son called, there was another shift from, 'Well, O.K., this is the way they want it,' to 'Fuck what they want! I'm done! I'm not playing by their rules. I'm not doing this anymore!' I went home, called immediately, and we were there that day. Well, she was a bitch with a capital B for months. It finally warmed up, and relations -- as they say -- have normalized. But here's the way I'm different. Before, she never hugged me, I wouldn't hug her. She wouldn't tell me she loved me, I'd never tell her I loved her. Her rules. 'This is the way she wants it, O.K., I respect that.' Now that's over: I hug her, I touch her, I tell her I love her. And you know what's happened? She's changed. This last time when my husband and I went on vacation and they were nearby, she could not keep her hands off of me. And it was real! When we left I remember especially, she just held my arms and looked right at me. Isn't that amazing! I talked to her on the phone last night, and at the end I said, 'I love you.' And she said, 'Oh, I love you, too.' There you go! That's how I've changed. And look what happened!"

"Well, like anybody who's over fifty -- or forty, or thirty," speculated Bart, "I've had a lot of encounters with people, both superficial and more profound, and the person I brought to them was not a person who could really enrich them or their lives. I'm sure a lot of people saw good stuff in me, but I wasn't able to bring all I could to them because I was far too insular. And I often think of the loss, both to me and to all those people, of what could have been. I was ignorant as a post, simply not equipped to talk about larger issues -- my ability to hear was incapacitated. Now I'd say I'm more participative, somehow. What I mean by that is being with somebody when I'm with them, actually sharing what's going on, rather than standing at something of a distance and pot-shooting at what they're saying. Yeah, and I'm self-disclosing with more ease, and on subjects that I never dreamed of talking to anyone else about. Before, I was always there back in the cave, conjecturing, and I would never share. When I'm really listening to someone now it's like walking down the sidewalk with our arms around each other, in step, making eye contact, walking together. To me it's nothing more and nothing less than being with someone, right with them. I remember when Dad died," he continued, "how awful I felt leaving his bedside with him not having enough strength to open his eyes but being conscious behind his lids, and his life draining away. And I thought to myself that I was truly alive in my grief for him, in my sense of who he was. To me, that was a good outcome of his dying, that all the clutter that can keep me from being in the moment went away."

Resources Along The Way: Personal and Transpersonal

Like anyone undergoing change, Bart and Ursula have been helped along the way by counselors and/or intimate relationships. Sometimes they sought these resources out, sometimes help seemed to show up as if by mysterious force: "I've always had people who have helped me along the way," said Ursula. "In my childhood my Dad was a great dad for a little kid -- playful, active, doing cartwheels, handstands, very physical, fun and funny, and then I got to be fourteen and whoa! I got turned over to my mother, and we know what that was like! I remember in my teens telling my mother I really felt like I was falling apart and she said, 'Well, now I suppose you're going to tell me you need a psychiatrist!' You know what I did? I said, 'I don't need anything,' and shut it all down, and it was gone. But I had a surrogate family, the family of my best friend -- who's still my best friend in the whole world. I lived with her family and they loved me unconditionally -- they thought I was absolutely terrific! People who challenge you can be resources, too. My so-called ex-husband was the ultimate challenge in that he was 'perfect' for all my buried shit. Perfect! I was raised to marry him with the messages, 'Make everything O.K. for everybody else. Don't have a feeling of your own.' It was brutal."

Bart found his wife to be a support in voicing what he was struggling with: "An amazing number of times I'll be in the awareness 'I don't have to…' or 'I shouldn't agree to take this on…' and my wife will say exactly what I'm thinking and it will tip me toward taking an appropriate position. My tendency is to try to bunch things together in a way that creates an impossible set of circumstances, and her efforts are always to spread out what I do to actually occupy times when they can realistically be done. I might still say, 'Nahhh…' but the unreality of the position I've taken will gnaw at me in ways that would never have touched me before."

For much of their lives, these Eights had little success with therapists -- perhaps because they weren't ready, perhaps because the right "teacher" didn't appear, probably because they were pushed into it by others, most likely because they bought the message, "I don't need anything" to the point that it became "It's not O.K. for me to get help." "I did finally find help with one psychologist," Ursula offered, "but before that it was just an intellectual exercise."

Practices Supporting Change

Bart's sense of justice was evident in his description of spiritual practice: "I don't necessarily believe there is any guiding higher power, or any natural urge toward positive direction. I do believe there are laws governing us that, if you were to list them, would become the characteristics of that higher power. For example, there is a law that's built into our humanness of a need for connectedness that's similar to gravity. These are natural laws. We can operate in concert with them or fight with them, but if we had a list of these laws and acted in concert with them, I'm hesitant to say what would ever form our limits as sentient souls. Somehow, I do believe in the soul, in the essence of us. I can't say that it lives beyond our death, but I get glimpses from another dimension that I don't feel compelled to understand. In each of these moments we are going through, we have choices of 'What is the law that's prevailing at this moment, and am I in concert with it or am I fighting it?' For me it's being in touch with the real, being in touch with the same things I was in touch with when Dad died. Moments when everything falls away, where -- without distraction -- you can be wholly where you are and in touch with all that's good. There's an experience -- when I'm drawing or painting or just looking around me -- where I see something that is the absolute, total epitome of what it is: it's a tree that is the perfect sycamore, it's a child's drawing, or someone looking at someone else lovingly. That's what 'poignancy' means for me. What gives meaning to my life is seeing people, not necessarily at their best, but in the wholeness of who they are, unfettered by fears or distractions."

Ursula described her spirituality in a way even more attuned with nature: "I go on long walks and my preparation beforehand is, 'I'm not going to think about anything and I'm going to think about everything! Whatever I draw to me, I'll take it in.' It was on one of these walks that I had an encounter with a Red Fox. Man, it was just incredible, truly awesome! I was leaving a meadow heading into the woods, and being just open. There before me was this creature, just a few feet away, and I thought, 'Is that a dog? Oh, fuck! It's a red fox!' This is really hard to put into words, but we just looked at each other for an endless amount of time and there was no fear. Then as soon as I became self-conscious, she looked at me and turned and walked away -- didn't run, walked away, at the moment I became self-conscious. Did I make this up? I don't even care! But it was absolutely a going down." She also meditated: "That same kind of opening, that same receptive state that I use on these walks, I also use in my meditation. I see steps made of stone that take me into a pool in which I submerge myself, and then I go farther down through what looks like a storm sewer, but I end up in a place where I am literally floating or flying. And that's an energizing piece of this, because that little seed or acorn or whatever comes out, goes above me, catches all the energy that's in the universe then goes back into me. In the next stage there's a vortex. I go down into this vortex and there's a person there, real androgynous. His name is Paul. Boy this sounds crazy! This is anonymous, right? Well, he is constantly there -- he, she, it -- he is constantly there and we have dialogue. He never, ever, ever, ever tells me what to do. He just asks the right questions. Sometimes we sit by a fire and talk and then sometimes I go into his cabin and rest. In the final place is a sea that's similar to the one in Journey to the Center of the Earth. And it's down in the guts because I go into the sea and look up and I can see a heart beating, pulsing." Ursula also used journaling as a way to be present in her journey: "I've kept a diary since I was ten years old. And drawing. As a child, even, I'd go up to my room, close my door, lock it, get my pencils and paper out, and draw scenes." And like most Eights she was very physical: "The other thing I've always done is get into my body: walk, run, feel the burn, treadmill, swimming, those kinds of things. There's this woman who wrote a book called 'Sweat Your Prayers.'"

Bart was more concrete, looking for how-to practices that hold him to the present" "I don't deal in images much. But when the therapist gave me that piece of paper with four or five points of what to do, step-by-step, to get in contact with my feelings so I could speak from my feelings, that did touch me as a path to communication that I don't exercise and that is available to me. This was very similar to what I felt when he said, 'What if you tried this?' in listening to my wife, and I thought, 'Oh, there's something I can do.'"

Resistances to Change

Among other things, Bart was aware of how his unwillingness to seek help had been a source of resistance: "I was a long time letting go of the notion that two people of intelligence and good will can find a way through a problem without outside help. And even though I had been through the Forum, where the concept of the 'box' was brought home to me, I never really applied it to myself, that there are things you just can't see because you're inside the box. My world would have been a different place if I had understood earlier that someone else could help me. It's another facet of my insularity. And of course, when it comes down finally to it, it's not a matter of skills, it's not a matter of adroitness, it's not a matter of sensitivity, it's a matter of being inside the box." He also listed his lack of self-disclosure and his tendency to stereotype people as barriers to change: "People may have said something to me, but I just couldn't hear it . What was lacking in me is what you were calling 'empathy.' It's a trite word, 'listening,' but I just never did it before! And part of listening was responding to make sure I heard what they said, and I didn't do that. I can think of at least two women I lost because I wasn't open enough. The first one knew my feelings were strong and I was dedicated to her, but thought I was just too wild a child to be dependable. And that was exacerbated, I'm sure, by the fact that I tended towards an insularity that didn't give her a lot to hold onto. The loss of the second woman was much the same thing, actually. I cared for her a lot, she knew that, and I was long past being a wild child, but I was still insular and not sharing or collaborative, so she went away. I think in her heart, finally, what bothered her most was that she didn't really feel I needed anybody. I've also tended to put people in a box, hear some words, and say to myself, 'Oh, there they go again' and act out of that assumption as opposed to where they really are. 'Categorize them as soon as possible so you can put them away and let them just rattle on, and mentally go about your own business.' A horrid place, as much for oneself as well as for them, because if you're not there you're not in real time, you're not in the moment. And in truth, you're not anyplace. You're mentally staring off into space and giving up the opportunity to live."

"If I feel threatened I withdraw," acknowledged Ursula. "Maybe it's the Eight disintegrating to Five, but there are times in my marriage where we will have a disagreement and I get angry, then I get hurt, then I go away. It's not conscious, I don't say to myself, 'I'm going to withdraw.' I fucking disintegrate! That's what it feels like! My thoughts are gone, I'm in little pieces, feeling, 'That's enough, go away, stop, I am gone, I am out of here.' So I don't want to paint myself as some paragon. Heaven forbid! When I feel defensive -- when I'm trying to defend my ego -- I get in my own way. This occurs when I feel attacked by someone who's really important to me. You know, there are other people who can attack me and I'll turn it right back on them, or let them know how little their opinion means to me. But when I'm self-conscious, conscious of how I might be harmed, that's when the armor goes up. It doesn't let anything out and it doesn't let anything in."

Metaphors of Change

In interviewing people, I've found a wide variety of metaphors for transformation, without any apparent reflection of Enneagram style. You've already heard how Ursula sought her soul's code, "going in and going down", a place from which she looked up and saw her own heart beating.

Bart's transformation metaphor had to do with "stepping out of the box:" "We spend all our lives exploring the corners of our box, and then when we step out of it into a new, larger box. It becomes the object of the remaining lifetime to explore the corners and pieces of that box. That's what I'm doing and that's what I think the 'path' is, learning what life is all about inside this box. There's an endless supply of boxes, each one containing new wisdom, new insights. As you're stepping across into the next larger box, you are at that moment the epitome of the old box, you are all that the old box can be, you've taken all that it can give you. And then it's time for the new box. It's not only being able to look over the fence and see into the old box, but having genuinely new stuff that wasn't visible to you from being inside the walls of the old box. And by and large, you've got to have help to see outside of it."

Progress Along The Path

These two offered suggestions to other Eights based on their own experience: "You're in the box," advised Bart, "and either you open the door or somebody else opens the door, and on the other side you're in this Technicolor place, a place where you can't, you mustn't stop listening. Listen to everything, make it important: be present and don't characterize. Don't necessarily do anything, but really be there while you're talking, while you're doing things together, and let that lead to whatever changes come down the pike." Bart wished to become aware "in a deeper way" of what he wanted from his life. "I think of that wonderful story Mel Brooks told about Moses coming down from the mountain with two tablets and standing before the multitude, stepping up on a rock, losing his balance. As he was saying, 'I've got to share with you the twenty…' one tablet fell and broke, and he finished, '…ten commandments!' There are other things equally important to traditional values that are on the broken tablet -- like anger -- that don't appear in the ten commandments, but are as life-damaging as any other of the more heinous things that you could give in to. In terms of my own criteria for life, my primary one is illustrated by the story of the ten talens from the bible. The father gave his three sons ten talens each and set them adrift, and they all came back. One of them had gambled it away, another had invested it but lost it, and the third one buried his -- so he still had ten talens. The father took back the first two sons and divided his kingdom among them, but he told the third son to take his goddamn ten talens and shove them up his ass! That was what he was given to make his life from, and all he had at the end was what he started with. So the others may have lost, but at least they risked. And every moment is a talen."

I'll leave you with Ursula's advice: "Well, the only thing that comes to mind is something that I think is pretty commonly known. And that would be, 'When you're in it, stay in it. Don't push it away. Don't leave. Stay there. You may find it's not what you thought it might be.' I was working with my therapist on a dream where I was running away from something, really terrified. I remember running down this hall, and behind me these monsters -- creepy-crawly things -- were after me. And I got to this door thinking, 'Don't open the door! Don't open the door! Oh, God, don't open the door! What if these creatures come and they open the door!' I opened the door, and you know what was there? It was a little Jack-in-the-Box. It came out and went 'Boinggg,' and I said, 'You're kidding!' It had a really ugly face, but it was like, 'And…?' So that's what I mean, don't waste your energy wrestling things to the ground, because you may not need to. Stay with it. And just have courage."

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