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
I've
never opened. And in many cases it's a door I've seen and wondered about, but I was
either afraid or 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 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, 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 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 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: rivers 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, 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 dies and everything is 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. 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 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's 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 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 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, 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've 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 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 of 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's 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's 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 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 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're 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's 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
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 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'm 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's
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 I don't exercise but 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
Bart was aware that 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'd 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'd 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 my tending 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 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 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 gambled it
away, another 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 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."
