Sitting in the Fire
I'm a One. With the
Enneagram I found out the numbers of people around me and what drives them, and sometimes
feel I can do something for them, but they all seem lost in space. How can I help a
Nine who doesn't know what she wants, without being intrusive? Most of all, how can
I help a lost Seven who is getting into big trouble? Also, please tell me what I can
do for myself--I sometimes feel I'm more relaxed, but there are certain things that really
drive me mad. How can I be patient if I've never experienced patience?
You're right. You can't "try" to be patient.
Patience
isn't something you can just dredge up if you're feeling angry.
The way to learn patience is to stay with your anger. Don't act on it. Just stay with it. Arnold
and Amy Mindell help groups
resolve conflict by owning and working openly with it. One of Arnold's books
describing this process is called Sitting in the Fire -- a
good image for
Ones, who often resolve
their basic anxiety through anger, instead of
staying with the anxiety and learning from it.
Let's say something "drives you mad," as you described
it. Generally the battle is between "Do I say something or do I sit here and
boil?" I'm suggesting you ask a totally different
question: "What's going on with my anger? Where do I feel it? What does
it feel like? What does that tell me about myself?" Focusing (from Eugene Gendlin) is one way
to stay with your anger. With this technique you bring up the feeling and keep trying on
"labels" until you feel a shift that signifies you've targeted what your
anger represents for you.
Another useful technique (from Mindell) is a
particular kind of bodywork: Think of a time when you were furious, bring up
that feeling again and even exaggerate it. Now "talk" to your anger,
asking one or both of the following questions: "If I could see you, what would you
look like?" "If you could speak, what would you say?" Then play with
whatever images come up and see what you learn from them. This is a way
of inviting your unconscious to show
what's
been hidden
in your Shadow (aspects of yourself you haven't
yet owned). Here's
an example from my own experience:
I
was feeling frustrated and experiencing a
lot of neck pain. When I asked my neck pain what it would look like if I could see
it, I conjured up an image of the wooden yoke that holds two oxen in place. When I
asked the pain what it would say if it could speak, I got "I'm feeling the burden of
oppression." I just kept talking to it until it became clear I was having a
physical reaction to not having stated my own wishes clearly (a typical Nine dilemma)
and then not liking the decision others made (a typical Nine reaction).
The psychologist Carl Jung called this process of talking to yourself
"active imagination." You
can use it separately or in conjunction with the focusing process described above.
Usually a One's anger is frustration at impossible
standards that are either self-imposed or projected outward. So your
drive to "fix" the people around you is a
way to resolve the anxiety raised by unconscious forces that drive you to
"fix" yourself and everything around you. It will be healthier
for you to pay attention to those forces in yourself (without
judgment). When you focus on fixing,
you feed the One's dysfunctional pattern.
You can become acquainted with your internal critic. Here's a technique
I learned from Tom Condon: When you feel yourself getting angry, picture that anger being
spouted by the "part" of you that's angry. Capture the tone of
voice, what that part would like to say, and where in physical space the voice is
located. Is it talking into your right ear? Does it live inside the front of your brain?
Where is it?
Once you've become familiar with the internal critic as a separate
entity, you've learned to dissociate yourself a bit from your anger. To weaken its influence over you, imagine what you could do that would be slightly
humorous (strengthening your Seven connection). Humor's often used to break people out of
an outmoded way of thinking - that's why it's standard fare in creativity training. Below
are two examples:
A client I worked with saw his internal critic as a little
devil that sat on his left shoulder, snarling into his left ear. He pictured the
"devil" as Jiminy Cricket singing a little song about anger. Subsequently, every
time he got angry he couldn't avoid seeing the singing Cricket--again, a way to dissociate
himself from the anger in a healthy way (dissociation can be unhealthy if we do it without
choosing to).
Someone that I saw Tom Condon work with years ago described the
tone of voice from the internal critic as exactly the same as her mother's. Then she
imagined the voice coming from the sole of her foot instead of shrieking into her ears.
Naturally it needed a megaphone from that distance, which just increased the
ridiculousness of the image.
Now create some images of
your internal critic that are unique to you.
Most important, I recommend that you develop a contemplative practice
-- relaxation, counting the breath, meditation,
and/or centering prayer. You'll begin to notice a more centered
attitude toward your ongoing existence.
Regarding how to help a Nine or a Seven. The first question is
why do you need to fix them? They may truly need help, but this is also an
aspect of your perfectionism. It would be
much
healthier for you to sit with the
wanting to help/fix them without actually doing so, and to do some of the above
exercises, only this time use the feeling of "wanting to fix them."
However, if you're really determined to do something with/for
them, you can extrapolate from the descriptions of type dynamics that are available in any
number of books. It's true that both
Nines
and Sevens can seem "lost in space," as
you so aptly put it.
According to
Michael Goldberg (The Nine Ways of Working) Nines can be
gentle, empathic, receptive, and nonjudgmental among other fine qualities. But they
can be frustratingly unassertive, spaced-out, overly accommodating; even stubborn and
passive-aggressive. Some of his suggestions for relating to a Nine:
Don't mistake silence for agreement--and don't
necessarily take yes for an answer (Nines won't immediately know whether they really mean
it or not).
Ask the Nine to repeat and summarize agreements;
it's even better if the Nine writes it down.
Remind them of their own importance, that people
are depending on them.
Asking for their input helps Nines focus--and
makes them feel valued.
In my experience it sometimes helps to offer a Nine alternatives
(like choosing from a multiple choice question). You can also start by asking what they
don't
want and gradually work them toward what they do want. For example, my mother's a
Nine and when we go to a movie together I say "I'd be happy to see X, Y, Z or Q.
Which of those do you least want to see?" It's kind of funny, but it works.
Goldberg describes Sevens in part as enthusiastic, fun-loving,
curious, and generous; but also self-centered, restless, defensive, unreliable, and even
self-destructive. Some of his suggestions for relating to a Seven are:
In my experience it sometimes helps to be playful and inventive
in trying to help Sevens move toward realistic action (and commitment). If you can
start where they are it's sometimes possible to use what's fun to help them go
deeper. The best example I have is a Seven friend who got interested in
Tantra Yoga because it was sexy and fun,
only to discover, as he got further into the practices, it was also a meditation
practice that brought him deeper into his true self.
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