Type 8: Power to Control, Connect and Protect

Creek: 00:00:02

Welcome back to another episode of Fathoms and Enneagram podcast. We are finally getting into types and we're gonna start with our wonderful friends at point 8.

I'm curious, what the eights that are in your lives, you two, what's something that you thoroughly enjoy about them?

Lindsey: 00:00:23

I like that question. I have something.

Abram: 00:00:26

Go for it.

Creek: 00:00:27

You may speak. That's why I asked.

Lindsey: 00:00:29

Um, I'm thinking of 1:8 in particular, and she is a phenomenal gift giver. Phenomenal. Like, it's not like I don't have to tell her what I need or what I want.

She just is, like, giving me this gift that I didn't know that I want and then I'll use it like, every single day. That's great.

Creek: 00:00:51

Wow. It can be thoughtful.

Lindsey: 00:00:53

Yeah. Incredibly abram.

Creek: 00:00:56

What about you?

Abram: 00:00:57

If there's like a defining thread line or. I think it's. There's one guy in particular who I just always know he's gonna show up. You know, there's.

There's nothing about him that when I hang out with him that is like, where are you at with that? I can't tell. Or how do you feel about her? You know, it's like, I know this guy's coming with what he's got, you know, every time.

And I really appreciate that. And it actually, when I'm around that kind of energy, I feel. I actually feel more free to be myself because I feel a safe quality.

Usually with people that are, you know, with a person that holds Satan as well, that is that it kind of empowers. Yeah, just the. The. I don't know. The. This is a classic, you know, enneagram eight word. But vitality of life. But just like the.

Like, just bring me everything you've got. I don't. I don't give a damn. Like, you know, just like, give it. Give it to me, you know, And I just feel a. It.

It's easier to be that way around, around them, you know, so that's something that's normal, an empowering quality, a safe quality, protective one. I don't know how Mario would think of this, but anytime I've been around him physically, like, in person, I feel like he's like, taken care of.

Yeah, right. You know, I really do. Then it's not like anything about it.

Like, kids don't cross the street, but it's like, I don't know why, but I feel like you've got my back for some reason, you know?

Michael Naylor: 00:02:44

Yeah.

Lindsey: 00:02:44

I was thinking about Mario too, along the lines of what you said Abram. Like Mario really gives me a break from and other eights. I know the one I mentioned before, the gift giver.

They give me a break from, like, worrying about offending people. Like, I can literally just say the thing I want to say and I don't have to think twice about, like, are they going to be mad at me? It's so.

It's such a gift.

Creek: 00:03:12

Yeah, absolutely. I, I mean, I, I echo what you guys are saying. And so one of my. One of my best friends is an eight and Steven. Shout out to Stephen.

Lindsey: 00:03:27

Shout out to the UK Steven.

Creek: 00:03:31

And I think I'm just. I'm looking back over my life. There's a. I. I've encountered a lot of eights on varying levels of maturity.

But regardless, there's something with the eight and the four of just. We both love intensity and realness and off color things and dark things. And it's just. I love eights and eights. Love me.

I mean, it did require me to kind of learn how to stand up for myself in some ways and learned some things, took on some strategies that they implore sometimes. But yeah, it's just. I love the. I love the intensity. I love the. Just no bs.

And it's so insanely refreshing that I don't have to find what people aren't telling me. It's just like, if they want to tell me something, they will tell it to me. And that's just so comforting to always kind of know where they stand.

And yeah, they, they care deeply. I remember. So Stephen and I were driving back from Wales and we were driving down this road and a car flashed their lights at us. That was weird.

So then we turned this cord and all of a sudden we saw this object in the middle of the road. And he, like, slammed on the brakes and swerved. And there was a woman who had passed out drunk in the middle of the road.

Abram: 00:05:09

What?

Creek: 00:05:10

Yeah. And it's like, is she dead?

Lindsey: 00:05:14

And the other car's contribution was like, I'm just gonna give you a heads up about this.

Creek: 00:05:19

Yeah, well, because he. Well, heads up. And he was getting ready to turn around.

Lindsey: 00:05:22

Oh, okay.

Creek: 00:05:23

Because he had just driven around. But anyways, to watch Steven like, switch modes because he used to work security and was a bouncer for a while.

Just switch into that mode of I'm gonna handle this situation. I know how to keep it all together, keep the person talking.

And anyways, he was able to like, kind of move her into the car, keep her chatting and like, so she doesn't Puke and.

And get her to comply with what he was asking her do and figuring out why she's been out and do we need to report anything to the authorities and all that other stuff. And it was just like. It was. It was crazy just to watch him take control of that situation. I'm like, all right, yeah, cool.

Michael Naylor: 00:06:11

I'll.

Creek: 00:06:12

I'll just chill here. This is fascinating. But, yeah, watch. Watching that the swagger come out was just really, really fun to see.

Abram: 00:06:22

I wanted to, initially, right off the bat, distinguish the difference between a person and their type. Because we're saying eights, right?

But so far, I think we're talking about people we know that hold eightness rather well, where I have experienced people who do not. And eightness not held well. You know, I mean, anybody can be this way. Any person with whatever type, right?

But eightness not held well, you know, is overbearing. Like, way over the top. Like, this is way too much. And I'm. Some of. It's like, as a.

With sensitivity, as a 9, but also just experiencing certain things growing up for myself, but, like, too much aggression, just aggressiveness is highly offensive to me, you know, or just, like, triggering. And I think sometimes a person who doesn't hold their eightness well can definitely come off that way. So we're talking about.

I just think it's helpful to just be thoughtful about talking about people as eights here right off the bat.

Creek: 00:07:33

All shapes and sizes, for sure.

Lindsey: 00:07:35

I'm curious, too. Can I ask a question, Greek? What you mean by having to learn to stand up for yourself, I think is how you phrased it.

Creek: 00:07:44

Yeah, I mean, like, how. How innate moves through the world is by pushing on it and testing what holds up. And that is offensive.

It can feel offensive, and it can feel aggressive when it's really just like, they're just wanting to know what's real. And when I was able to do that perspective shift, then I'm like, oh, I cannot offend you. Awesome. Well, then here you go. I can bring my intensity.

I can bring my passion towards something. And they're like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. Nice.

And then when a person that is not doing eightness very maturely, then it's like, I'll bring some intensity. But if it starts getting out of control and there's been moments in relationship with particular eights that I'm like, I just stopped talking.

And I'm like, hey, we're not having this conversation until you stop doing what you're doing. So go cool down. And then we'll Think about it. We'll think about having this conversation.

Abram: 00:08:51

And that's more about the person than the type.

Creek: 00:08:55

Well, again, maturely or immaturely, because they're doing the same thing. Striving to feel powerful in some. In some aspect.

And so when the power is misconstrued or being taken out on me when I'm not the problem, I'm like, no, that's. We're done here. Like the, the conversation has ended now. So instead of just, I can take it.

There's a difference between I can take the punches versus, hey, you're punching me. And that's not. Okay, we're done here. And I think that's.

That's the thing that I've learned with certain Nates that, that are on the immature spectrum. So.

Lindsey: 00:09:39

Well, thank you for that. Riveting. And so.

Creek: 00:09:47

All right, so as always, we're going to jump into defining some terms before we get into the three schools talking about how they talk about eights.

Abram: 00:09:59

When you said defining your terms, I heard like a little defining our terms. You know, I just heard a little.

Creek: 00:10:05

It's going to be so much singing in these episodes.

Lindsey: 00:10:07

There is.

Creek: 00:10:08

There is. All right, so some of these may be self explanatory, but you know, we just want to be clear about our terminology. Lindsay, why don't you do this?

Abram: 00:10:21

We get clear when we define our terms.

Lindsey: 00:10:26

Term number one, critical thinking. Type. Okay. The first term we want to define is type. We're going to be talking a lot about type. You'll hear it a lot.

So what we mean by that is a category of people or things having common characteristics. Also a person or thing symbolizing or exemplifying the ideal or defining characteristics of something.

Creek: 00:10:56

That seems to point more to archetype.

Lindsey: 00:11:00

Yes.

Creek: 00:11:01

Yeah.

Lindsey: 00:11:02

Nice.

Creek: 00:11:03

Okay, next one. And awareness. Action.

Instead of saying type, they're not opposed to using the word type, but oftentimes they'll just use strategy and instead, which is more of a. In line with their model, which is more about action and verb states instead of noun states.

Strategy, a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. Second one, the art of planning and directing overall military operations or in movements in war or battle.

Which, you know, that fits for the eight episodes for sure.

Abram: 00:11:40

Yeah, yeah.

And then we've got pattern, an arrangement or sequence regularly found in comparable objects, and a regular and intelligible form or sequence discernible in certain actions or situations.

Lindsey: 00:11:56

I also want to say, I think that it's across the board for all the schools when they talk about pattern. They're speaking in terms of unconscious.

Yes, Just to be clear about that, we're talking about unconscious patterns that keep popping up, which is what helps define the strategy or the type.

Creek: 00:12:19

Yes, exactly.

Abram: 00:12:20

Yeah. And to the degree that you become conscious is how you use the Enneagram for growth.

Lindsey: 00:12:27

Yes, yes.

Creek: 00:12:30

And a reminder, we're probably just going to do this every episode, so you will get this definition in your head. Because we are talking about the Enneagram, but there is no the Enneagram. There are models of the Enneagram. That is our stance.

We're not apologizing for it. Stand in our power and just.

Lindsey: 00:12:52

Ooh, good, Good one.

Creek: 00:12:56

A simplified and provisional description of a system or process to assist calcul and predictions.

Abram: 00:13:06

Didn't know you were using a model, but Tiar chyar chiar.

Creek: 00:13:13

And finally, because we're talking about eights, you know, power is a common theme among. I mean, really, this is the one type that is. Pretty much all the schools don't have a lot of. There's not a lot of difference.

So we just wanted to define power. So there's a few definitions you'll actually hear Mario say about power, which is skillful means or capacity to produce a result.

And then from Oxford Dictionary, the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or a quality, and the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. So power has a lot of baggage along with it. So if we just kind of break it down into those more at the core of what it is.

I personally love the definition capacity to produce a result, that that could mean a lot of different things, but that in and of itself is not anything good or bad, per se. So, Lindsay, what are some things that the listener should keep in mind?

Lindsey: 00:14:29

Well, I wanted to say something about power, too.

I think with all of these features or characteristics, as we go through by type, something to hold in mind is that when we're talking specifically about power, every type wants to feel powerful in some way. It's not that that desire is only present in eights.

So I think that's helpful to just keep in mind that as you're listening through, if you're having this thought, like, well, I like to feel powerful, you know, in my job or what. Right. Yeah, exactly. Who doesn't? So that feature, in and of itself, it's how it's showing up in eights versus other types, not that it's showing up.

Creek: 00:15:21

Yeah. So some things to keep in mind here as we talk about, as you listen to the schools talk about the type, right.

It's really hard to talk about it without leaning into some sort of stereotype. That's why they'll use tend to or may or often or something like that.

And also keep this in mind that it's also hard to talk about just the type without also including the instincts or instinctual bias that create that sort of subtype because each type is going to have a certain bent toward one direction or the other. So just kind of keep that in mind that this is, we're talking just about typh, but.

But the variation within that type is something that you don't wanna miss.

Lindsey: 00:16:13

Also for any beginners if you are struggling to keep up, this is not a comprehensive explanation of these types. And so there may be moments where you're kinda like ah, what do they mean by that?

We are including as much as we can in the show notes for you so that you have plenty to, to study and go back and make sure that you're following and tracking. But we just didn't have the kind of time to stop every time and explain everything. So don't worry.

Check the show notes and reach out to us if you have any questions. If there's anything that felt confusing and you want more resources or more clarifications, we are happy to do that.

Abram: 00:16:53

Also it's really easy to kind of oh that person too, I think at least also think of how does this, it's important to think how does this relate to my experience of myself in the world too?

It is, you know, as I say, I think it's a really natural part of how the psyche works to keep our self concept intact with stuff that we maybe we don't want to know or feel is comfortable could be true of us that we keep it on other people. It's safer, it's more secure for us to you know, project that aspect of ourselves on other, on other people.

But yeah, and, and you know, along with that it is very easy especially in the beginning when you're, when you're learning to see type in places.

You know, like you then associate type with a certain person that you know and well if that's the person that has the best example of that type, well then anytime you come across somebody else that says they're that type but they, you don't, they don't see, they don't show up the same way as your like initial friend who is that type, then it can be confusing. So it's not. There's many ways that that type can be expressed, you know.

Creek: 00:18:08

Yeah. And as you go through this episode, weird language, but where's the eight in you?

What, what, what things do you relate to about eightness and what are you uncomfortable with? What are you attracted to? All those sort of things are great data points for self awareness and for growth.

So I guess, final thing, they do mention centers in this episode and don't really go into specifics as to what those are. In the Enneagram community, different schools handle them different ways.

Basically, it's the idea, the original idea is 8, 9, and 1 is a body or gut type, and 2, 3 and 4 heart type in 567 head type. To sum up the. The theory is that there is certain emotions and certain habits of mind and behavior that are associated with those groupings of types.

So I. I don't know. That might be more complicated. That might have complicated it more for. For the newbies out there.

But again, show notes, show notes, show notes, show notes.

There's a bunch of resources and you can find your way to the questions that you have eventually, either through our links or just do a Google or a gipity chat gippity. So without further ado, here we go. Type it.

Lindsey: 00:19:35

Enneagram Institute.

Maria Jose Munita: 00:19:39

When we teach the types from the Hudson Enneagram perspective, one of the important. Well, there are several important pieces to it. One is that we stress the three centers. That's sort of the foundation of it all.

The body center, the heart center, the head center. And we introduce those centers. And then we always start by introducing the types in the belly center, the body center first.

And those types are 8, 9, and 1. And then we go to the heart center types 2, 3, and 4. And then the head center types 5, 6, and 7.

And the reason for that is you have to be in your body first. You have to establish the ground. You have to establish the, you know, the foundation.

So we start also with type 8 because it's just a great place to start. Type 8 is a very. It's an assertive type. It's a dynamic type. If you have an eight in your life, you generally know that they're an eight.

We call the eight the challenger. And as you know, lots of different schools have lots of different names for the types.

And Don and Russ spent a lot of time trying to come up with names for each type that were illustrative but also neutral and that had a parity that were at sort of the same level of what they denoted, the same level of health. Same level of development for all nine types.

And so what they came up with for the type 8 was the challenger, simply because eights are the kind of people that love to take on a challenge. It helps them to feel alive and real in the world and they also like to challenge other people.

But one of the things that was also very specific to how we taught the types was in relating it to the essential qualities that each type, each of the nine types was known for having particular essential qualities, which is to say that when the personality gets out of the way, when you're able to face and deal with and work through ego personality aspects of type, then what you actually, what we come back to, what we come home to, is our essential selves, our true nature.

And so we would always lead by talking about the particular essential qualities that each type embodied, that each type leads remembered from a precognitive time, from before the ego personality set up shop. So the essential qualities for the type 8 challenger are strength and aliveness and immediacy. And this is what Type 8 lives for.

This is what the Type 8 loves about life, is that feeling of being strong and alive and in my body and in that sort of animal body, animal instinctual body, if you will, the immediacy of life.

And we also had like a little two phrase description of each type that sort of, in a nutshell, if you could remember that description, it could bring to mind that type.

And for the eight, it was the eights were we referred to as the powerful, dominating type, meaning that they had the ability to be powerful and they could also become the potential to be dominating. And then we would include a couple of words from healthier down to less healthy descriptors.

And so for the eight, those words were self confident and decisive, which is how aids are in the healthy realms. And then in the average realms, they become more willful. And then in the lower average realms, they become confrontational.

So there were lots of other names for the aides, the boss, the protector, the champion, the leader, the hero or heroine, the warrior, Amazon, the controller, the boss, top dog, lots of names like that. But as I said, the challenger was really sort of hit on the head.

What was behind what the eight really wanted, which was to be challenged in life, to feel his or her aliveness through that, and to challenge other people. So every type also had what was called a basic fear and a basic desire. And this had to do with how the whole personality ego structure was set up.

And it was the basic fear and basic desire became in effect, the sort of Twin engines of what ran a person's. What runs a person's personality, ego story, ego trip throughout their life.

So for the eight, the basic fear is of being deprived of life, being or feeling weak or impotent or castrated, as it were, or empty or lifeless or dead.

The eights have such a strong instinct to live, to live life to the fullest, that what they most fear is the loss of that feeling of aliveness, that feeling of strength and just being really. So when we have that basic fear, what the ego does is it sets up what we call the basic desire as sort of to counter the basic fear.

And most people are not aware of the basic fear.

For instance, if you ask an 8 what's your basic fear, they're probably not going to say of being deprived of life or being empty or dead, because it exists on an unconscious level. But we set up the basic desire as what we hope is an antidote to that basic fear.

So the basic desire, which is something that we can pursue consciously for the eight, it's to be and feel strong, to be and feel vital and real and alive. So this is something that eights, pretty much to a person will do and pursue and go after, is that feeling of being strong and alive.

And of course, each type has a, you know, a passion and a fixation that really also triggers us and runs the show and gets us into trouble. And these go back to the nine deadly sins.

And for the eight, that passion, the emotional operation, which is also a kind of suffering, it's how we suffer. For the eight, it's lust. And it's not just sexual lust. It's really lust for intensity. That's that lust for living in an intense way.

And then the mental counterpart of that, which we call the fixation, which is a habit of mind, is for the eight, objectifying, objectifying myself, objectifying other people, like forgetting or overlooking or disregarding that there's a human being here and thinking of myself as a thing or thinking of other people as things, particularly things that are in my way. And then there are lots of other particularities that we assign to each type. Like there's a life script for each Type.

For the 8, it's to be in search of impact and realness. There's an overall quality that is present up and down the levels, whether they're in the healthy or average or even unhealthy levels.

And for eights, that's expansiveness.

There's the social role, which is a kind of role that we play in the average levels, which is a way that we are in the world, that we, it's a role that we expect to play and that others come to expect of us. And for the eight, that role is the rock. Like I'm the rock, like I'm the person that you know, you can count on that's, you know, immovable force.

And then all importantly, lastly is the wake up call, which is something that when you're sliding down the levels and you're losing presence and you're becoming less present, less there, less healthy, you can notice this happening and it's a way to turn it around and start moving back up the levels. And for the eight, it's about using too much force.

When I notice as an 8 that I'm like, I'm talking too forcefully, I'm gesturing too forcefully, I'm stomping around, I'm using my voice too much or I might even becoming, you know, physical, that using too much force, much more force than is needed. That's the wake up call for the eight to stop and take stock and possibly, you know, turn the ship around.

Michael Naylor: 00:29:00

Gail has laid out the structure and for your own self study, go to wisdom of the Enneagram or personality types to get it on each type. And then we're going to talk about maybe more general themes and not go into all those specifics.

Christopher Copeland: 00:29:19

First I want, I just want to talk about how we, we teach about type and there's a few categories that we do. And the first I want to name is. David Daniels called this the basic proposition.

If you look at his book in the Essential Enneagram he talks about, about the basic proposition. The way we tend to talk about that now is the world view of the type. How does the type see the world?

Like what's the perspective through the lens of type? And then what's the response to that? So that's kind of how we began. And then we really emphasize motivation.

I mentioned this earlier, but it's like the motivation of type, what drives the type. That's really why we don't type people in terms of observable behavior because we don't know what the underlying driver is.

So we talk about motivation. We like everybody else, we talk about kind of what are the strengths and challenges of the type. And then we, we do this kind of map, if you will.

And you can imagine it like there's a, there's a person in the middle and there's the head and the heart and the body.

And on the left hand side we talk about what are the automatic patterns of the type in the mental center, the emotional center, and then the, the body center. And then we also talk about on the right hand side, decide what are the spiritual dimensions.

That's the language that we use in all three of those centers. So that's, that's how we're, we're doing this work.

And you can think if familiar with language of like traditionally in the head center in the automatic pattern it was called the fixation. We typically call that the mental habit. For example, in the heart center, traditionally called device, we call that the emotional habit.

And then in the body center we call that somatic pattern. So that gives you kind of a sense of how we talk about that.

And then on the spiritual dimension side, we talk about the holy idea in the head center which we call the greater knowing, the, the virtue in the heart center which we call the open hearted quality. And then in the body center grounded presence. So I just want to kind of frame that in terms of how we teach about the types.

And then we, we want to share this from the perspective of centers because we think it's really important to get the type types by center. So we'll move on then to the body center. And in the body center we have types 8, 9 and 1.

And the focus here in the body center is about control, particularly control of self and control of one's environment and the needs.

We, this again language we're, we're hearing from our colleagues who've been doing a lot of work around this agency and empowerment, the needs of those in the body center. I need to have a sense of agency or autonomy, we might say, and a sense of empowerment. The core emotions are anger. And we can also say resentment.

And we hear anger shows up differently of course in all three in the body types. But underneath this sort of core emotion here is anger. And the gifts are a real. They bring those in the body center a real sense of, of groundedness.

When they are there is. They demonstrate for us. They teach us about groundedness, about stability and about really being able to listen to that gut instinct.

So for type 8, called the protector, the worldview is that the world is, it's a hard place, it's an unjust place. And actually it's a world where powerful people use their power and take advantage of others and particularly vulnerable others.

And there's a sense of like, that is not okay, that has to be resisted. So this, this view of the world from the perspective of the eight, which is like it is a hard and unjust world.

And you can think about that, like if that's the way you see the world, then what might the response be?

Christopher Copeland: 00:32:56

Right.

Christopher Copeland: 00:32:57

And so eights tend to respond in a way that they can have protection. They can be protected from this unjust world by being strong.

If I'm strong, if I'm powerful, if I kind of impose my own truth, as it were, that's going to keep me safe and that's going to keep me protected. And in order to do that, aids have to hide vulnerability.

You can kind of, I think of AIDS as like this soft squishy center and then this really harsh shell. And of course all of us have some kind of armor and protection. This is part of what type does for us, keeping us safe.

And for the eight, it's like there's I have to be strong, I have to be powerful and there's, that's where that have to comes in. And when eights feel safe, when they feel like somebody's got their back, they will begin to show some of that more soft, squishy interior.

But most of the time AIDS are not going to show that vulnerability. Vulnerability because the belief in the sense and some of their lived experience is I'll be taken advantage of in some way and that is intolerable.

That will not happen. So the strengths for the eight are, as you can imagine, they're super strong. They are strong people.

They might be physically strong, emotionally strong, mentally strong. Kind of there's a fortitude. I often say we're going to make stuff happen.

This is sort of one of the gifts of the eight is this doing determined, persistent. And then they, they bring this power and this strength to protect others.

And often it's, it might be partners or people in their community, their family. Often it's sort of the vulnerable one. So the child or the, the small animal or something, something or someone who is vulnerable.

This is where that, that tender heart comes and then that protective strength to bring about justice, to bring about fairness, to be truth. This is another gift is AIDS will speak the truth. Like be direct.

I'm going to just tell you like it is because like, and I want you to do the same, right? It's like no BSing here.

And they have access, we might say sometimes that AIDS have more access to energy than probably all of us do there, there's just a connectedness to the life form Taurus energy. And so man, that's amazing the kind of stuff they can get done.

Challenges here are like, they can this, this sort of need for not wanting to be controlled. This is big can lead to or controlling situations. And this can be a real challenge.

AIDS also can bring their intense big energy which they have and this can feel to others intimidating, dating and kind of overwhelming. This is hard for AIDS because they're like, I'm just showing up as I am. Why are, what's wrong with you that you can't handle all my energy?

And it's true. I say to eights like you don't, you don't have to be different.

And if you want to be connected, there needs to be some softening of that and that can be a real challenge in patience. This is really hard.

You know, it's like I, I have worked with AIDS and it's like, it's like okay, we know the thing and now why isn't it already done? I mean it's just like wham, bam. So there's a kind of impulsivity and intensity as well. The motivation for the eight is to feel in control.

I want to be in control of myself, my environment, my people. And I want to protect all those things as well. And I want to make an impact. And attention of course then goes to power and control.

And also what's fair we hear this is actually true for all the body senses center types in a way. And so the open hearted quality for type 8 we call innocence.

And innocence is this ability to meet each situation as it is without prior expectation, prior ideas of what might be unjust or harmful and really kind of meeting it with an openness or a willingness and I love the word here, tenderness.

Some aids hate this when I say this, but it's like the, when, when I experience AIDS as open hearted, there's a kind of tenderness that comes and it's to me exquisite and moving and, and powerful in its own right.

Abram: 00:37:13

Ata.

Mario Sikora: 00:37:17

When we present the material to people, we usually start off with the instinctual biases first, first and teach the types second. There's a number of reasons for that.

The first reason is that we find that it's really difficult to get somebody's enneagram type right if you're not accounting for the instinctual biases. So for us it helps to start with that because it makes it easier to see the type. The other thing is there's only three instinctual biases.

So it's, it's easier to teach people three of something than it is nine of something. And it's easier to get proof of concept that way.

Meaning that when people see, oh yeah, I see preservers, navigators and transmitters around me, it makes it Easier to see the nine types. So it's just simply easier to teach three of something than it is to teach nine of something.

We usually frame the instinctual biases as a set of priorities or a focus of attention. Okay?

So we say that the reason we call somebody a preserver is because they focus on preserving needs more than they focus on navigating and transmitting needs. So we frame the instinctual biases as a set of priorities.

Now, when we present it, we always like to, whatever we're presenting, we like to give a quick kind of overview first, right? So we'll talk quickly about all three instinctual biases, and then we'll go a bit deeper, Right?

So you're kind of going around and circling and making sure that you're talking about each element pretty regularly, Right? If you spend the first half hour or so just talking about preservers, well, then the navigators and transmitters are going to be bored, right?

So you need to make sure that in the first five minutes you're mentioning preservers, navigators and transmitters, and then the next 10 minutes you're talking a little bit about each one, and then you can go a little bit deeper because you've already gotten their attention. So after we teach the instinctual biases, we go to the nine types, and we think of the nine types as adaptive strategies.

So we talk about them in relationship to the instinctual biases. If the instinctual biases are what are important to us and what we value, then the strategies are how we go about getting those things.

We see the enneagram types, kind of like Claudio Naranjo talked about, as adaptive strategies, ways of getting our needs met, of solving problems. So the instinctual, I'm sorry, the strategies fundamentally are the way that we satisfy our instinctual needs.

When we present the strategies again, we talk about all nine of them in, very briefly, a couple of minutes each, go through all nine of them again. So everybody feels like, okay, I see something related to me, so I'm not waiting around for 45 minutes or hours to find out about my enneagram type.

And we circle around each one. So we introduce the concept of the strategies, give a real quick thumbnail of each of the nine types.

Then we go back and we go a little bit more into depth. We talk about what each one looks like, kind of typically, right, under normal, everyday circumstances and what they look like under stress.

Then we go around again and we talk about more detailed strengths. We talk about blind spots, we talk about vulnerabilities and weaknesses and so forth.

So we're always kind of looping around, talking about them and circling back.

After we talk about the fundamentals of all of them, then we will talk about the connecting part points, because we do see a significance to the connecting points. So we tend to think of the way we present the material as a spiral. Right.

You're always going around coming back to the same place, but from a different perspective and getting more in depth about each one. Finally, we get to the most interesting of these enneagram types with type 8, which we call striving to feel powerful.

Now, we've talked, I think, before how some of these terms don't seem consistent with striving to feel unique. Whereas other people talk about creativity, striving to feel detached where other people talk about investigation.

I think this is pretty consistent striving to feel powerful. And for us, power is the capacity to produce a result. And this is what's driving aids. I need the feeling that I can make things happen.

So typically with Eights, you know, the way we think about it is they're very action oriented people and they do like to be in charge. Now, one of the things, you know, whenever I ask Eights, do you, you know, is it important to you to be in control or to be in charge?

They kind of say, well, yeah, sure, but, but, but, you know, I, I don't always have to be, but sure.

Maria Jose Munita: 00:42:26

Only when it's important.

Michael Naylor: 00:42:27

But, but they do. Well, that's exactly what it is, right? You know, if, if it's something that matters, then yeah, I want to be in charge. If I'm an 8, if.

And usually what I hear from Eights is if the leader is competent, then I'm okay with not being in charge. But the moment I sense some kind of even hesitation, I need to step in.

The other thing we say is they focus on getting things done and seeking challenges to overcome. Right. So it really is just about getting things done. And I don't know, something that always comes up for me is this idea of resolving ambiguity.

Eights are really uncomfortable with undecided things and ambiguity, and so they want to close the loop on things.

Maria Jose Munita: 00:43:17

There's something around the word power that some people kind of resist. They see it as power abuse or it has a negative connotation in some circles or some people. And here it's getting things done.

It's moving things in the direction that I want them to go. And it's not like a three that has a checklist and will get things done. This is more kind of moving things in a Particular direction.

Michael Naylor: 00:43:53

And it is an interesting distinction between, you know, because some of the things that we talk about can sound, well, yeah, threes do that too. But there's just a completely different feel to it between those two types. Under stress eights.

You know, as with all the types, when we feel stress, we become contracted. You know, we start to feel contracted and the strategy plays itself out in a less adaptive way. And so the eights can be more aggressive.

And the distinction between aggressive and assertive is. Assertive is I'm standing up for what's mine. Aggressive is I'm taking what's yours. They can be forceful and they can be domineering.

They can be impulsive and not adhere to the rules or norms that others follow. So this is the old joke about rules are meant to be followed. Rules are meant to be broken. Rules. Rules are meant for other people.

Usually with eights, the rules are meant for other people.

Maria Jose Munita: 00:44:50

Hopefully it's my rules.

Michael Naylor: 00:44:52

Well, and that is the thing.

There is a tendency to be the one who is establishing the rules and setting the rules and being very rigorous and vigorous about following those rules as well. But they're self determined. We did an episode of the Enneagram in a movie. Enneagram. In a movie video recently on.

On the movie no country for Old Men, it talked about the main bad guy, Anton Chigurh, and that. And he's very rule driven.

But it's rules that he's created about how the world should be, which differentiates between the one and the eight in this way.

Lindsey: 00:45:31

We have a really special guest today with us, and I'm so delighted for you to meet her. If you don't already know who she is. She's fabulous. Mandy Capehart, welcome to the show. How are you?

Christopher Copeland: 00:45:42

Oh, hello, Lindsay. I'm well. Thank you so much for having me and for saying nice things.

Lindsey: 00:45:47

Yeah, we've. Did I make you blush?

Christopher Copeland: 00:45:50

Yes, a little bit.

Creek: 00:45:52

Can you just continue doing an English accent for the rest of the episode?

Christopher Copeland: 00:45:56

That'd be great. I'll join you.

Creek: 00:45:58

All right, then. So today we have.

Abram: 00:46:05

Oh, my gosh. This is nuts.

Lindsey: 00:46:07

So, Mandy, we've been getting to know each other for, I guess, about a year now. We've done some Enneagram. You came onto a group I was hosting and did some training that was wonderful around grief.

And so I would love to just hear a little bit about who you are and kind of what you're doing in Ennealand.

Christopher Copeland: 00:46:28

Oh, goodness, yeah. Joining your group was so fun, and it was a good stretch for me.

Because it was all Marco Polo based, which is such a great tool if you have the capacity to keep up with a beautiful Marco Polo group. And I admire your ability to do that. I am very committed to where I am committed.

And so those little moments of like, oh, Marco Polo group, that sounds brilliant. I could not keep the energy up because I put my energy into so many different buckets already.

So I am an author, I'm a grief coach, I am a podcaster, I'm a mom, I'm a soccer coach in my real life.

And Enneagram has become such a beautiful framework for me to invite Grievers into when they're at that point of ready, ready, dig out what is going on and who they've been and where they've been and. And where they're heading.

Because it gets such a wonderfully expansive track to run on, as opposed to a very restrictive kind of prescriptive grief approach that we see in a lot of different resources that are out now. So that is like the way I use it professionally, personally. I found Enneagram a long time ago.

I can't even remember how long it's been now, but I was one of those, hey, everyone I know needs to learn this so that I can understand you better kind of a thing. And it annoyed people for a while, and then they were like, oh, okay, this isn't so bad.

And the church I was at at the time, of course, got behind it, and they were doing all of their own things around it. And so it really kind of expanded into my social community quickly. And so it became a very fun, like, oh, that's such an eight thing to do.

That's such a two thing. And being able to get beyond that. Yeah. And say, well, actually, I love that you acknowledge it. And here's where to go with that. Instead of like.

Because the first personality type thing that everyone was into, of course, was Myers Briggs.

And so that was the precursor for, okay, now learn Enneagram and let's let go of that other one for now, because it's just leaving you in a box instead of letting you grow into who you are becoming.

Creek: 00:48:37

Love that.

Abram: 00:48:38

Since Eights don't do grief work, tell us how. Obvious joke. Obvious joke.

Christopher Copeland: 00:48:45

Yeah.

Abram: 00:48:45

I'm really curious, though, how you got into grief work.

Christopher Copeland: 00:48:48

Yeah, well, my feelings are right here in this little box. Perfect. I don't have to ever use them.

I got into grief work because initially I started speaking at different events, and I was running church in a bar for a while, which was just this gathering of women who met in a bar and talked about church in some capacity.

And then my mom died in: 2016

I had this moment after about a week after she died, where I just decided, all right, I'm all in learning how to grieve and doing this well and learning what this means for my faith and my future, or I'm out. Like, I can't. I can't either or this anymore. And after a couple of years of realizing my faith community does not know what to do with me.

They have no concept of still grieving. Years after that loss, I decided to step down from the role that I was in and start writing my story and really just looking for both.

And instead of either or, how can I live in a both and state?

How can I embrace my understanding of faith and continue to let it dismantle and expand and grow and become a fuller human when everything I've been told about faith hasn't applied? In my grief experience with losing my mom, that was on the heels of years of infertility and uncounted miscarriages.

And it was undiagnosed infertility. Like, there's no reason why. It just is.

through, really coalesced in: 2020

And then our community had a wildfire In September of that year that destroyed 2,500 homes. I realized, well, I have this resource. It's not published yet, but maybe it's something practical and helpful.

So I ended up turning it into this coaching group and realizing, well, I'm unemployed. So if there's ever a time to build something new, now's the time. It changed so rapidly. It became this beautiful resource.

gling. And it really began in: 2020

But it was this, like, moment of not just, I've lost my job, let's write my story, but a recognition of, I cannot function In a world where generational grief is about to be untended globally, I can't. I don't know how to exist in that world without contributing in some way. And I. I would feel irresponsible as a human to not do this thing.

And so, fortunately, I had done a lot of my own work leading up to it. I wasn't just this, like, obnoxious person that says, hey, I can lead. I know best. Listen to me. It was this.

I have done a lot of work in myself and as a shadow person, really embracing the heaviness and. And getting comfortable with it and deciding, learning how to decide what I want matters and what I believe is true.

And I don't have to capitulate to everyone around me just to fit in. I can find belonging within and translate that into space for other people to do the same for themselves. So it's been a very wild.

It was never what I thought I would do. Who wants to go into grief? Work professionally for us? Maybe. That's a great question. Right? But. But truly, it's.

It's been so cool to be able to be like, I am not what you expect out of an eight. I know from a distance I look exactly like what you expect. And up close, you get this.

One of my best friends says, you know, when it's just you and you're safe, your wing seven comes out fast and furious.

But when you are in a leadership position, your nine wings, really, you have so much access to that, and it makes that approach to us and 8 so much safer for people who are grieving. I said, thank you for noticing that. I appreciate it.

Creek: 00:53:06

Yeah. And I think that that does speak to the. I mean, all the types get kind of pushed into a box really easily.

But a lot of eights, I've been, I guess you could call it blessed to have a lot of eights in my life over the years, and each one has taught me something different. And I've been surprised every single time at their level of compassion and care and just. They've all given me permission to just go like that. Just.

You don't have to be paralyzed by over analyzing. You can also just do it, you know, what if you know?

Abram: 00:53:48

Yeah.

Christopher Copeland: 00:53:49

Yep.

Creek: 00:53:49

And that's. Yeah. The turns out, eights are as complex as any other human.

Christopher Copeland: 00:53:55

Well, who knew?

Creek: 00:53:56

Yeah.

Lindsey: 00:53:56

Multifaceted, probably.

Christopher Copeland: 00:53:58

The eights we probably knew.

Creek: 00:53:59

Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Abram: 00:54:03

Well, I wanted to say I appreciate you sharing right off the top, just some of the loss in your life.

I just feel privileged to listen to that And I know having done some grief work, you've probably worked through a lot of that, so it might not feel as difficult for you to share now. But I do just. I think our listeners appreciate that.

And I think anytime somebody can share something difficult about their life, it gives other people a little more ability to do the same. So just. I appreciate that right off the bat, even though you don't really know us that well, so.

Christopher Copeland: 00:54:38

Oh, absolutely.

Abram: 00:54:39

Or at all, really.

Christopher Copeland: 00:54:40

Yeah, It's. Thank you for saying that. I think that you're 100% right. Grief needs a witness.

And the easy answer for me would be to say, like, hey, I do this all the time. I'm easy. I have a curated version of my story that I can tell, and to some degree, that's what that is.

But at the same time, I also recognize my story is permission to anyone else to say, you can, if you choose, open up here as well.

You can take permission from this space to become a softer version of yourself, to ask questions of yourself, to say the thing you may be nervous about saying, and recognize there will not be judgment or condemnation from this side toward that story. Because our story is where we find so much of our transformation.

It's where we not just say, and I'm very averse to the purpose in your pain kind of messaging around grief work.

But there is a richness that we don't uncover until we start to embrace the story and tell it in a new way, because our head will give us lots of caveats and narratives from other people that are supposed to be like footnotes to our stories. And I have found that the more that I speak things aloud, the less other voices play into it, and the more my voice becomes very distinctive and.

And the priority. Anyway, yes, of course. You're welcome. Thank you.

Abram: 00:56:07

Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is from Sumac Kidd, who said that there's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness. And I really.

I think it usually requires somebody to be vulnerable first for other people to feel safe to share their own pain out loud. So, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we are, like, right off to the races. And usually we start in episodes.

Usually we start our episodes with, you know, kind of some more general disclosure with some silly questions. And so I was gonna do that, and then I'm like, well, hold on. And that. I just want to still try it because I have an idea.

So I think I was gonna ask you, what's the last TV show you binged? But let me frame it up a little. Bit differently.

And ask, in light of the fact that especially in grief work and in pain and loss and ambiguousness and all that stuff, it is appropriate to use coping mechanisms to a degree. Right. Just not overdoing that. So what, in your grief work, what coping mechanism has been used appropriately? Well, for you?

Christopher Copeland: 00:57:12

Honestly, binging shows because there's a safety connected to it. And the reason why we go back to favorites, right? Like, we're all addicted to the. You know, the office, parks and rec and Name the Others.

Although I can't get into New Girl. Every time I try, I just get so mad that Nick and Jess just scream at each other. I tried again last night.

Lindsey: 00:57:31

We're out now.

Christopher Copeland: 00:57:32

Bye. I tried so hard. And what's funny is I love Schmidt so much. I could watch Schmidt clips for days, but I can't handle.

And I listened to Nick Miller, Not Nick Miller, Jake Johnson podcast, but I can't do something about it. Anyway.

Creek: 00:57:48

Well, they're kind of talking around each other, never actually saying.

Christopher Copeland: 00:57:51

There's no communication. It's just angry monologues.

Creek: 00:57:53

And there's no directness, which is something.

Christopher Copeland: 00:57:55

You value, which is really. Thank you for naming why I Can't do it.

Abram: 00:58:00

Yeah, they haven't grieved anything in their life. That's what.

Christopher Copeland: 00:58:02

Yeah, maybe, maybe not. But all that to say, being able to sit back and binge something, it's a familiarity. There's something that we know we can trust this.

It's not going to surprise us. It might delight us, but we've already been here.

So even if we know there's some emotionality coming that's very intense, we've been familiar with it, and we've witnessed this before. Our nervous system knows how to resonate there. So coping mechanisms are a protector. They are a safe space.

They are okay when they are something we do intentionally. When we are being less intentional or reactionary and trying to just create.

Create a sense of safety and push things away, we are insulating ourselves with our pain and saying, this is the only way to heal. This is the only way to feel safe.

And so a lot of what I try to do is draw people into a space where we say, okay, but what if we could move gently toward the pain spot with a sense of safety, with a created world of security around us, and then move back away from it and then check in and see how that felt. It's okay to risk a little bit when our nervous system knows, I can get out of this, this is my choice, and I can move back toward myself.

So I'm a big fan of very consciously deciding. And I did it yesterday. I wasn't feeling great. I was in a conference for two days online and I was completely overwhelmed.

And at about 1:00, I ate lunch and thought, you know what? I'm going to go work from my bed and if I don't work, that's fine.

And I threw below deck on television and I just sat back and like zoned out and rested and snoozed. And then I did a little work and I just recognized this show is nothing to me. I haven't even watched all of it. I was just like in the background.

It's going on. There's a sense of safety attached to. I'm not going to be shocked by anything here. I'm not going to be offended.

I'm not going to be like, oh my God, let me google these people and see where they are now. It's meaningless. It's noise and there's safety there.

And then on the other side, there's lots of TV shows that I said, I used to watch Brooklyn Nine Nine. That show got me through losing my mom.

I've watched it probably 15 times through because again, I had built rapport with these characters and I can trust the storyline, even the hard parts, even the devastating parts. And when Andre Braugher, the guy who plays Holt, died this year, I so heavily knowing.

And now when I go back to watch this comfort show, there's going to be a layer for me and I want to honor that because it's completely normal to grieve when celebrities die. But that's a different conversation.

Lindsey: 01:00:34

Mandy, that was an incredible answer to your question.

Christopher Copeland: 01:00:39

Poor Abram. Did I answer that question at all? That was incredible.

Lindsey: 01:00:42

Also, you made me feel so good about binging shows. Like Mandy said that this is good for me.

Christopher Copeland: 01:00:50

Hold it up. Is this. Is this the safe place?

Abram: 01:00:53

She was clear about the distinction.

Lindsey: 01:00:54

Yes.

Abram: 01:00:54

Yeah.

Lindsey: 01:00:55

Okay. I have a question. I have a question. Mine is not related to anything that's been said so far. I'm not even sure if it's an appropriate.

If it's appropriate or not, but I'm going to ask it anyway. If you could add another body part to your body, what would it be and why?

Christopher Copeland: 01:01:11

It would be like a little filter that we would wear here, like, like a permanent, I don't know, intake valve or something where we could let something in and actually have a mechanism that slowed us down instead of that reactionary automatic autonomic nervous system that we have. Because I feel like, so many of us are in survival mode and reactionary mode. It would be really lovely if we could just have, like, a bonus.

Hey, God, you missed this part. How do we cope with the onslaught of chaos and cacophony around us?

Lindsey: 01:01:43

Yeah, I want that technology, too.

Christopher Copeland: 01:01:45

I will look into it. Maybe it's my next thing.

Creek: 01:01:50

What's a skill that if you could learn instantly, you would take that Spanish and what would you do with it? Spanish.

Christopher Copeland: 01:01:58

I have always studied Spanish in little spurts. I mean, I took it in high school.

My daughter and I are both on duolingo right now, and I think my nature of wanting to learn a thing very quickly and then be good at it makes language very hard. So my daughter's like, wow, you're so far in the system. I'm like, yeah, girl. I can answer the question when it's in front of me.

But when I'm faced with a Spanish speaker, I really am like, slow down. Mas espacio, por favor. And then I'm listening so intently, and I just. That's vulnerable, right? That's vulnerable to not be good at a thing.

So I would love. And I have a friend that moved to Peru for a minute, and he came back after, like, two months, and he was fluent, and I was so frustrated.

I'm like, two months of living in the culture, he's like, yeah, it came very naturally. Like, within a week, I'm like, ew.

Creek: 01:02:46

Okay, don't like you anymore.

Christopher Copeland: 01:02:48

I loved that we were friends, but now I'm.

Abram: 01:02:53

Yeah.

Creek: 01:02:55

So you kind of mentioned this already, but what was the experience like when you found your type? I don't like that language, really, but, like, yeah, what was that. What was that experience like for you?

Christopher Copeland: 01:03:06

Yeah, learning. And I'll address that, too, because learning the language around, like, the. Where I resonate the most on the enneagram type was really difficult.

I spent. So I did the test online, like everybody does. I got equal parts. 3, 7, and 8. I think they were, like, half a percent or a percent apart.

So I remember laughing like, well, we know I'm an aggressive type. Where everything went crazy for a couple of years was. Everyone saw that and said, oh, you're a three. You've been a performer for life.

You're in charge of things. You're always. They had all kinds of labels. I was so uncomfortable because at the time, all I thought of threes are ashamed, and threes are salesmen.

Threes are hard to trust. And so this base understanding had me going back almost daily because I knew I wasn't a 7, but the 3 did not resonate.

I kept saying over and over, I'm like, threes are locked off from their emotions. I'm pretty damn quick to check my emotions. I'm actually very aware of them.

And I'm often leading from a place of, let's embrace what the emotional state is. But I kept looking at eight and saying, but I'm not angry. Not angry.

It took years of literally every night comparing the two, like the mistypes between three and eight and thinking, yeah, but I'm not angry. First of all, yes, I am. But I'm not angry in a Hulk smash way. I'm angry in a. Oh, that's anger. What's underneath it?

I metabolize through anger so quickly that I look when I am reactionary. Yes, I am scary, and I can be loud, and I can be. I had a student the other day or a player ask, were you a referee once?

Because that was a really loud ref move. And I'm like, no, I am a parent and I am a coach. And I am frustrated at the screaming on the field. That's all that was.

But I recognize that anger comes up so easily. Someone described ready, aim, fire to me, and I was like. Or firing, ready, whatever it is, right? Yeah. Fire, aim, ready. That backwards version.

I was like, yeah, I get that. But I'm not firing on nothing. I'm firing. Firing on intuition and experience and embodied wisdom that I have spent time cultivating.

And so when I finally was driving out with friends to a winery, and these are my closest friends, and I was just chatting with one of them, and we were talking about a family member of hers who's a three. And I said, see, that's the thing. He and I are very different. We have similarities. But he knows that. He knows that.

He knows that he leads with three energy. I don't resonate. This is why I keep wondering if I'm an eight. And she slowly looked at me and she goes, are you going to land there yet? We all know.

We all know. And that night, I went home to my husband. I was like, do you know? And he goes, let me just quote you back to you. Don't tell me what to do.

You're not the boss of me. I'm 18. I'll do what I want. All these, like, silly, like, refusals to be controlled and desires for autonomy over my lifetime. And it. It.

It finally felt like coming home when I decided, okay, maybe this is where I land. Let me sit on it. I had to learn about subtypes, because as a social eight, I look very different than the eights that I know around me.

And at the time, all of the eights that were around me were introverted or extroverted. That didn't really matter so much, but they were all self preservation. And I'm like, but my anger looks so different than theirs.

And I am concerned about how people perceive me. And I do want to be connected and I do feel disappointed in whatever name the differences. Right. It was really fascinating.

So finding that social subtype and then reading about an 8 wing 7 with a social subtype and a female 8, I was like, oh, no wonder, no wonder. I have been pigeonholed into this type that really. Shoot. The reality is no one really knows me except for these few people.

Okay, what do I want to do with that? And it became this whole new exploration of myself. But it took years.

Creek: 01:07:14

Yeah. What sort of schools of thought have you studied under? Like, what, what are you kind of basing your definitions of social innateness off of?

Christopher Copeland: 01:07:23

You know, every one of them that I can get my hands on has been meaningful in some way. I love Beatrice Chestnut's work and I love Suzanne Stabile. I also really love the narrative enneagram.

I wish I could afford their time investment again, that wanting to be like instantly good at something, because I think it goes back for me to story and recognizing that part of what we tell ourselves and really how we perceive our story and who's been contributing to it are crucial to what we get out of it and how we decide where we're headed next.

Abram: 01:07:56

Well, one of the things that we've been doing with each of our human interviews, since you are human, is that we've been asking the question, if you could give us five adjectives, five words that you would best use to describe yourself with. Because for one of the things we're trying to do with this, this interview is help see the person behind the type.

Because I like to say the person is what contextualizes the type.

And you were just describing that actually pretty well in that a lot of times the content that's been written for so long is actually only describing a certain version of that type, not actually allowing enough space for the person to make sense of how that type can show up uniquely to them and that their experience. So I wondered if you could just give us five words that you would describe yourself with.

Christopher Copeland: 01:08:52

Direct, sassy, empathetic, curious and open.

Creek: 01:09:01

Interesting.

Christopher Copeland: 01:09:03

Ah, so interesting.

Creek: 01:09:08

Has so empathetic and direct seem like contradictions? Has.

Christopher Copeland: 01:09:13

Oh, no, no, no, so far from each other. They're part and parcel. They need each other. So I'll compare the two with strength and vulnerability in the same thing.

So it's the idea that people will say similar strength and vulnerability. How can those coexist? They need each other.

Because when I choose to be vulnerable, I am dipping into a place, place that is trusting whoever the audience is or trusting myself that I will be okay, that I will be strong enough to survive confessing this vulnerable experience. So the same idea is true with directness and empathy.

Directness is perceived as aggression and conflict and threat when the reality is, if I am directing you to tie your shoes, I can be abusive with that language. And then it is conflict and, and then it is unkindness.

If I am recognizing this seven year old on my soccer team does not know how to tie her shoes, I can be direct with her on how to do it and empathetic to her state. And as a grief professional, one of the things I have to learn how to work within at all times is a state of empathy.

Because otherwise sympathy is just a kind of, I don't know, it's like a withheld judgment of, I see that you're in pain, but I don't want to get too close because I don't feel the way you feel and I don't want to feel the way you feel. And to me, empathy says, I will come directly toward you. This is going to suck.

But in my self, in my own vulnerability, I am open to the discomfort and I am open into entering into that discomfort with you. Doesn't mean I'm going to catch your grief.

Means I'm going to experience your humanity and more of my own in a way that I've been pretty insulated from. Right.

Our Western culture is very good at separating us and keeping us apart and keeping us really focused on our individual experience and health and safety. And our safety, security and belonging as individuals is crucial.

But our collective health is only as healthy as our individual health and vice versa. So to be direct with someone is to be loving and clear.

If I am in an argument with my husband and I can't be direct, I am failing to understand that he doesn't get where I'm at and I want him to come with me. Right. Being direct means in a loving way. This is what you get. I'm not gonna mess around, I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm not gonna manipulate you.

I'm going to be direct about, hey, I don't like that. It's not you. I'm not attaching you to your experiences or your behaviors. I'm saying as a person, that behavior doesn't resonate with me. Right.

Here's a boundary, here's a place to say, like, I don't want access to that. So, you know, empathy for me is me and you. It's we, it's the both and it's. I can resonate with that because my humanity sees yours and honors that.

It's a different experience than mine. But I will come to you and I will be here with you, I think.

And this might have something to do with like being a part of evangelical Christianity for 20 plus years and really realizing I never quite fit in because my directness was always very like, do what you want, be who you are. And it was never good at evangelizing. Very, very bad at it.

And because I wanted to be empathetic to where people were and let them be who they are, that direct was not so appreciated. But I can empathize with that too. Like, I'm not online with your mission. I get it. We have different values. That is okay.

Lindsey: 01:12:51

Mandy, talk to me about Sassy. Sassy specifically, I want to know. You can say anything you want to about it.

But I'm particularly curious about if that was an attribute of yours that was embraced as a girl growing up or if that was something you had to embrace as an adult.

Christopher Copeland: 01:13:10

Let me think back to little me. I remember being really shy as a young person. I'm a firstborn and I was the oldest cousin on all fronts, both sides of my family.

So I had a lot of expectations on me. And I think as a teenager, I was trying really hard to figure out where I landed, where I wanted to be.

And I don't think I really did a great job with that. When I got to college, I was able to start embrace. Embracing this version of me. And truly it does not come out with everyone. It is a.

If you are in the inner circle, you get this side of me. I also wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was an adult. And so I think that I'm sure there's a layer there. I have no real understanding.

Everything seems to be a symptom of ADHD these days. So it's hard to nail anything down.

But I think as an adult, I started recognizing when I let those outside thoughts become or my inside thoughts become outside thoughts in a way that I'm not harming people. I'm not being sarcastic and mean. I'm just letting that fire Aim ready wit come to the surface.

And people are turning and saying, oh, my gosh, you're really funny. Oh, my gosh, I really like you. Oh, that's really insightful, or whatever it is.

It allowed me, like, one more little click on the dial of belonging with myself and choosing. It's okay to be with me. It's okay to be myself. It's okay that they don't like me. I don't like them.

And now I can say with, like, the most love and compassion, I don't like you either. You can go that way and we don't ever have to interact again. And you don't have to be obsessed with trying to make me fit into a shape for you.

And that was a lot of work as a social 8. Like choosing, I don't like you, you don't like me, and that's okay.

That did not come naturally, but I think it was finding people who, again, recognize how your 7 Wing is really outgoing and playful and hilarious and fun. And I want that. That childlike part to come back to the surface. There was so much loss in my childhood. It, I think, was a safe place to be quiet.

I could create belonging wherever I was, and I did. I fit in everywhere because I was not honest with who I was. I was very quiet.

And I would think, okay, well, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't agree with them. But if I say anything, then I'm also now on the outside.

Like, as an adult, one of the areas I studied in college was anthropology, cultural anthropology.

And so now I can see a lot of what was happening in the tribalism and the understanding and the way the leadership of whatever the group was would create space for me to fit and no more, no growth, no room to wiggle. So I think the sass just came out of me where I was tired of the BS of being told, this is who you must be. Why?

Creek: 01:16:05

Yeah, tell me a little bit more about. I think most people don't think of eights as caring what other people think. Of course, everyone does to a certain extent.

Christopher Copeland: 01:16:16

Yeah.

Creek: 01:16:17

To different levels. So what's that experience? Like, how would you frame it in contrast to maybe other types?

Christopher Copeland: 01:16:24

When I was younger, and I say that meaning, like, in the last decade, I think I made sense of that, and that was in the timeframe of that 3 versus 8 identifier as well, with recognizing as someone who has something to say and who has been trusted, a modicum of authority or leadership in some way, it mattered to Me what people thought because I was securing my belonging in the in group through leadership, whatever it is, through a valuing of myself, a valuing of me. If someone looked at me and said, we trust you. You're in charge of this, it felt good. And I did not have a great sense of myself at that time.

I was really, really lost in feeling like I need them to like me because I really like them, and I see what friendship looks like with that person, and I want that right. I have now come to this place where I realize, whoa, I am really boundaried. And no one in those places got to know the real me.

No one really got to see the real me. And that version didn't come to the surface. So this whole eights don't care what you think. We do. And we don't.

We care what you think because we care about you having a grasp of your value.

So if I value someone and this other person doesn't, I care what they think because I want them to have an experience of how wonderful this person is, and they've shut themselves off to that. And that's. Sorry, stupid. Get to know people. Drop your judgments and come closer. Right.

Everything we do is always moving us closer to each other or further away from one another. And so for me, that's where I care what people think. Do I care what they think about me?

Not as much anymore, because they think lowly of themselves in so many ways.

And while I would love to see that break off and be something where they can find their own self awareness and healing and compassion toward themselves, I would much rather be removed and be able to say, like, I'll just take a step back. Because I get that my constant desire to grow and move and shift is very uncomfortable. I know it's disruptive. I know I'm looking right at your box.

I used to say this before I knew myself well, but it still tracks. I see the box that you're in, and I don't want you to unpack it. I would like to take the box and light it on fire and help you build from the ashes.

Like, it sounded so odd as a. As a young person saying that. And now I say it and I'm like, wow, there really was a thread of me through all of that.

There really was this knowing that I can trust and I can go back to and say, I wasn't wrong. I was just in the wrong garden. Okay. Okay.

Creek: 01:19:17

Love that.

Abram: 01:19:18

That was a really, really helpful, insightful way to describe to get some understanding around that. I think for people around eights.

I wanted to ask one more question around these five words that you gave, which were again, direct, sassy, empathetic, curious, and open.

I'm curious myself if any of these five words seem to have come more naturally to you from the beginning, and if there are any of those five words that you've had to learn to belong in you before you could name them as true of you today.

Christopher Copeland: 01:19:50

Yeah, openness is the one I've had to learn about a lot. It is very unsafe as a word for people who are not used to being open.

And I learned that one probably in my early 20s when I started recognizing the phrase I'm an open book is very reckless. No one's an open book. Everybody has curated pages.

You can see an open book is that desire to belong, but it doesn't have a sense of belonging with self. And I don't mean to disagree. Discredit people who say that. I just want to grab people who say that and again, say, what pages?

Why are you sharing this? Does that create resonance and attunement with you and with others? Or is that just something that you are desperately trying to be seen and accepted?

Because that was me. I was trying to do that with everyone. And so I thought, oh, I'm an open book, you can ask me anything. The truth was absolutely not.

I don't trust any of you to know my, my real story. But I've got pages that I've picked out. But as a young person, curiosity has always been so easy. It was everything.

I am still an aggressively curious person and not in a oh, that's really interesting because someone said that to me the other day and I was like, that's not interesting. You don't like my answer, you're not interested. You're judging me and I don't want to hear that. Curiosity to me is I would love to know more.

And I was just telling my husband about this yesterday. When someone says that's really interesting, I wonder why that is versus I would love to know more about that.

You can feel the difference in the energy. And I, looking back over my life, can name and pinpoint moments where I recognize that was me being intentionally curious.

That was me being judgmentally curious. I want to break off that judgmentally curious part and lean back toward curiosity.

Because if I ever get to a place where I think I know, frankly, anything, I've lost the plot. I am a 40 year old woman living in the Northwest. There is very little of the world that I know.

And instead of approaching Life with this, like, oh, well, ah, this is what I know to be true. What about, this is what I perceived to be true. And I wonder what else there is. It's again that like, embodiment of both and. And being with.

Willing to open up and be more engaging and present with whatever is in front of me in a way that I'm not just. I don't know what was the fear based sentence before? If you'll. If you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for anything.

I fall for everything, I think was the phrase. I remember hearing that and thinking like, oh, well, I will stand for no, that's black and white thinking. That's fear driven.

And so if I can approach anything curiously and with a confidence about I know who I am, I'm not gonna. If I get manipulated here, I will grieve the loss or whatever it is, and I will be able to integrate that and move forward still.

And still be a whole person on the other side of that. Curiosity has always been really important for me, especially because there are times when I can name, oh, I've set that aside just to fit in.

And I regret those moments, you know.

Creek: 01:22:55

That's so interesting. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Christopher Copeland: 01:22:58

But why is it interesting? Because I'm wrong or because you want to know more?

Creek: 01:23:02

You know, let's just sit with that tension for right now, you know?

Abram: 01:23:06

Yeah, yeah.

I'll just say what I hear you kind of describing is the difference between being an open book, you know, and the misconception around that versus taking meaningful risks.

Christopher Copeland: 01:23:17

Yeah, I love that. That's a great way to put it.

Abram: 01:23:20

There's a big. There's a big difference. Yeah.

Christopher Copeland: 01:23:22

Yeah. It's about intentionality.

Creek: 01:23:24

So another thing we're asking all of our participants in this season is what's something that you've had to learn the hard way that you would to eights or just to anyone who's like, yeah, you really should do the hard work because this is worth it.

Christopher Copeland: 01:23:44

I think boundary work is the hardest thing to figure out. I don't know if it's necessarily cultural or if it's part of being an 8, if it's part of being a woman.

I have no, no understanding of where it really comes in difficult because I think we all have different struggles with boundaries.

I do know as a trauma professional, part of the story we function within is that, you know, relationship to the parent and as children we are trying to behave, trying to belong. And growing into an autonomous, independent person means learning about what a Healthy boundary is.

And as children, we have really porous boundaries, and they serve our parents really well and our caregivers. So we'll do what we need to do. My daughter's in public school, and I think every day I'm like, it's okay to be subversive.

It's okay to not be the behavioral model. It's not okay to be a dick. There's a difference.

And I think boundaries around healthy boundaries around your life really require you to reckon with your values and your sense of self and what you want in life and the strategies that you use to get those wants and those needs met.

So learning boundaries the hard way meant 20 years in communities that took advantage and did not love me for who I was, but loved the potential of me or loved the service I offered and the way that I showed up. And when Covid hit. My husband has an immune disorder. And so we were very cautious. We didn't know.

We pulled out of community and found pretty quickly who was able to tolerate our absence and who simply allowed it to be a moment of forgetting that we existed or pile on even further, right? So that recognition of I have been very unboundaried and very porous in how I've let people access me and what I have given into.

But I don't want to swing to the side of rigid boundaries either. I don't want to just wall up and live in this isolation. I want to have a healthy sense of self that says, this is my boundary. Here's why.

And this is not a guard. This is permission. This is how you get access to me. And if that is upsetting to you, consider why.

Become curious about what you might be disappointed in me about and why that's not about me. Right. So, yeah, that lesson is still ongoing and it still sucks. And I will preach about healthy boundaries until the day I die.

Because there is no, nothing more corrosive than recognizing, like, for your sense of self than recognizing. I have been their version of me instead of my version of me. For how long? Too long.

Lindsey: 01:26:42

Preach.

I'm wondering, Mandy, what is a habit that you've learned over time that's been hard earned for you, that you've really practiced, but it's been really important and changed how you approach your life.

Christopher Copeland: 01:26:58

Embodied decision making. So as a somatic practitioner, I'm one of those people that says, and how did that make your body feel? Where did you notice that happening?

Which is annoying for a lot of people. It's annoying for me, but it is also one of the Most overlooked sources of intuition and wisdom that we have.

And as a gut type, I know I have access to it. It's a lot easier for me to like notice that intuitive experience. But I also am married to a five. Bless his heart.

Decision making is hard when there's decision fatigue or overwhelm or just trying to gather all the details right. We were just talking this morning about how my quick fire decision making and his very methodical have often not coalesced in the right way.

They've coalesced in it. Why haven't we made a choice? It's been two years that we've been having this conversation and my impatience just turns it off.

So I think being able to recognize that embodied wisdom when it comes to decision making, I mean, and it's as simple as just doing this.

When I make a choice of like noticing or like using my body, no, I'm going to say, no, I'm going to do this, or I'm going to say, yes, I'm going to do this. Or just paying attention to the little tiny shifts that are happening, whether I feel my heart begin to race.

And we use it really well when we're hungry or we don't want food. This is how I introduce it to people who are not gut types who are like, well, I don't know how to listen to my body. Yes, you do. What about hunger?

And if you deny hunger and that's you can work through without eating for 12 hours, that's a whole different conversation. But when someone says, let's get Chipotle and you're like, ooh, that's embodied wisdom. That's something in me says this is not the right fit. Perfect.

Start applying that level of awareness of yourself and intuition and compassion to listen to it.

So you're not just eating chipotle every week because so and so likes it and you want to be their friend that you are able to embody and really lean toward what is good for you, what meets your needs, what shows up in an authentic way for you so that you can be more confident in the decisions you make. So that you can start going to Applebee's if that's what your heart desires once a week.

And have a relationship that's back and forth instead of just one sided. Right? So that embodied wisdom and learning how to honor our intuition and the intelligence we carry, it's not just for body types, guys.

It's for everybody.

Abram: 01:29:30

Well, interestingly enough, my embodied wisdom told me to eat chipotle about 47 minutes ago. Wait yeah, I had some right before. This is what I'm saying.

Christopher Copeland: 01:29:39

What a delight.

Abram: 01:29:41

It's fancy you say that. Yeah, you guys are vibing well. Well, yeah, I think we're all in agreement that this has been enriching. You've, you've actually, you've.

I think you've taught our listeners things about just valuable insights around grief and, and trauma and other other things that you've become a professional and which is really great as well and alongside kind of giving us some insight into the human behind an expression of eightness.

So just really appreciate you coming on, giving us your time and just wanted to see if there was any specific areas in the online world that people might be able to find you.

Christopher Copeland: 01:30:25

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me.

I know this is such an easy thing for you guys to do, to have these conversations, but I don't get to talk about enneagram stuff very often in this kind of context. So I have loved being with all three of you. I am Andy Kpart everywhere.

So my website, Mandykpart.com has all of my patreon and podcast and social media stuff and all of the writing and just.

I don't know when you're going to air this, but this week my book restorative Embracing Our Losses Without Losing Ourselves has been like spiking in sales on Amazon and I hit number nine in the top 100 death and grief books. And I was like, what is happening? Everyone's like, did you appear somewhere? I'm like, no, I appear places all the time.

This is happening without any intent. So I don't know what's happening.

Creek: 01:31:14

But amazing.

Christopher Copeland: 01:31:15

That's really exciting.

Creek: 01:31:16

Congrats.

Christopher Copeland: 01:31:17

Thank you. Yeah.

So Mandykpart.com has links to all the things and I love connecting with people on social media too, so anybody can just reach out and talk to me.

Creek: 01:31:26

Wonderful.

Abram: 01:31:27

Awesome. Well, we'll be sure to put a link to the book in the show notes since I think I'm officially taking those over.

Creek: 01:31:34

Yes.

Christopher Copeland: 01:31:35

Congratulations.

Abram: 01:31:36

Anyway, so it's my job, but yeah, man, you've been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on.

Christopher Copeland: 01:31:42

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, you guys.

Creek: 01:31:44

Thank you.

Christopher Copeland: 01:31:46

Type Talk movie.

Abram: 01:31:47

Talk about the type. Well, that was a ride. That was an experience. I would assume at this point, however, how much time has passed? 2 hours, hour and a half.

I don't know that you've really got a sense for eightness and how that can show up in the world and maybe you've even got some people in mind that this type gets expressed through, but we wanted to just kind of unpack it a little bit. Unpack kind of some differences we maybe noticed in the school's presentation of eightness.

And also just talk a little bit about the beautiful interview with Mandy and how she holds, I would say, her eightness very well and how. Yeah, and by that I just mean like how power. How she uses power and how beautiful it is as a way of.

Not a means for control, but as a means of connection. And. Yeah, let's get into it. Let's talk about some stuff.

Lyns, did anything come up for you regarding just seeing or hearing some differences or uniquenesses or distinctions between the school and how they present type 8?

Lindsey: 01:33:06

Yeah, one thing that really stood out to me was the. The. I felt like the narrative Enneagram model is more heavily focused on like a somatic awareness than the other two schools.

I feel like that's a defining feature of their school. So much so that like, you know, you heard Christopher talking about how there's the holy idea.

They call that the greater knowing in the narrative tradition. There's the virtue. They call that the open hearted quality. But then they have this third category that they use called the grounded person.

And there isn't really an equivalent for that in the other models. I thought that was really interesting.

Also in the Enneagram Institute model, you have the levels of health and you don't hear the other school really, really emphasizing that or using that. It's even so important that Gail talks about like there is a wake up moment that happens that's essential for understanding. I need to make a change.

And that happens in this model. It happens as she says. You know, you're sort of falling, falling down the levels of health.

I don't know, I got like a cartoon image there, like the roadrunner Coyote kind of like falling through the levels of health. And then there's this wake up moment, you know, when you kind of have the anvil dropped on you.

Abram: 01:34:39

Yeah, yeah.

Lindsey: 01:34:43

So, yeah, those. Those features I felt like were. Were important. And then just, you know, the different language.

I think there's value to maybe thinking in terms of passion fixation, those ideas. But then also I loved the narrative way of talking about a worldview and then a response to that worldview.

Thought that was really helpful language too. Awareness to action, as far as I could hear, is the only school that really emphasizes going the route of the instinctual biases.

First, as a point of clarification, the other two schools, the other two models were fine, kind of jumping into Trying to find that. That main type first. And ATA is really saying you get more clarity if you go through the instinctual biases first.

Creek: 01:35:37

And you kind of almost can't. In their view. You can't necessarily. It's really hard to type without including that instinctual box. On some level. It was interesting. I mean, they.

Everyone. I mean, especially in this episode. And you'll probably. Listener. You'll probably hear some more differences as we move forward.

But a lot of similarities in how they were talking. But they're all just kind of trying to paint vibes. Like it's.

It's really hard to talk about about 1/9 of humanity in such semi specific broad terms at the same time. So you kind of have to. If you zoom in too much, that's when it starts getting troublesome.

I think being able to zoom out and take more of a vibe check on what is this? What's the trend of what everyone is talking about and what does that look like in a different human?

Of course, you can't necessarily go around and just test people's vibes or auras. It's not a.

Lindsey: 01:36:54

Yet.

Creek: 01:36:56

Okay. Yeah. I'm sure some people feel like they can trust their vibe checker, but I don't think it's a. It's a reliable way of understanding people.

Lindsey: 01:37:11

Well, maybe you need to spend more time with your somatic patterns.

Creek: 01:37:15

Okay. It's data. I just don't think it's complete data. And we will project our own views on it anyways.

Lindsey: 01:37:25

Yeah, for sure.

Creek: 01:37:27

No, yeah. I think that was just a takeaway from me.

You gotta take a step back and look at the overall picture and not get too fixated on really specific things.

Abram: 01:37:42

One thing I do see that's similar to the Enneagram Institute and the narrative is that in different ways, of course. Course they're both communicating type from a place of presence and lack of presence.

So the Enneagram narrative, I do think communicates type in a sort of more open, if you will, like Lindsay was talking about with. But then, like what? Like David Daniels language is the basic proposition.

Or then what I came to believe because of my sensitivity to the world and what happened to me growing up and the disconnection that I experienced from this original undifferentiated state. You know.

But I think both those schools are kind of communicating the type in that sense versus the awareness to action approach is more so looking at type as. Creek, what you've already said about. As a strategy for trying to make their way in the world. But yeah, I Think that's a distinguishing feature.

And I also, I. I really value, like, especially in.

I remember early on when I was learning the Enneagram, and I really value how like the Enneagram Institute, Gail was naming all these different kind of categories, if you will, within type, like the social role, what's. They've got all these different categories for. For each type, like what the inner critic sounds like.

And I just found that very helpful because you can add all that up. And if you see yourself in more of the categories within that school's understanding of that type, then I found that helpful.

Whereas also what I heard from the narrative was that their type is also primarily meant to be understood within the context of the center. And what is the. The values of the center, you know, like specifically belonging and autonomy. And for the, you know, for the. From the.

For the center's model, you know, as for body types.

Creek: 01:39:50

So let's talk a little bit about possible mistyping.

I'm sure, I'm sure some people are listening to this in order to kind of just try to discover what their type is, get some more data on how to type other people.

So let's talk about like a few mistypings you've seen or you've heard about and why that is, why it's difficult, you know, to find your type sometimes. So, Abram, what have you seen in the past?

Abram: 01:40:18

Yeah, you know, I think one thing I've experienced is when you try to understand type, which is why I value the Enneagram or the awareness to action approach is trying to understand the type without how it connects to the instinct or the instinctual bias, you miss out on a fuller picture. And so like, for example, there might be type qualities that are similar to instinctual bias or instinct qualities.

So, for example, you could run down the whole thing here.

But if you look at like preserving or self preservation, there might be six, a similar vibe to sixness, you know, when it comes to security, because there's a security piece to the preserving instinctual bias. Right. But sixes are striving to feel secure. So I think that's a easy mistype.

And you can do that with all, all the ways in which there's similarities between type and the instinctual arena.

Lindsey: 01:41:23

Another one I've seen a lot is eights and ones, because there's this commonality around justice and wanting to care for, acknowledge, speak for reform on behalf of those who are underrepresented or being mistreated. So that's one that I've seen too.

Yeah, I think that justice word can be really, really tricky when we're talking enneagram because there's not a single type that. That would say I don't care about justice. Sure. So I think that that's one we need to watch out for. Be careful of.

Creek: 01:42:06

Investigate more something that people will latch onto in the beginning stages of like oh, I care about justice, I must be an eight. Just like for four it's like oh, I have emotions, I must be oh, I do art, I cry, I must be a four. So we gotta be careful on those simplistic takes.

But I think again highlighting the awareness to action instinctual bias and the instincts are not a one for one switch. There are some overlaps, that sort of thing. But I think you can also say any sort of.

I would say almost, almost any of the types that have sexual transmitting as their instinct. Instinctual bias could be misconstrued because there is a more aggressive nature to it. There is a more conflictual nature about it sometimes.

And again that is stereotyping the 8 of like if I feel insulted or I feel offended in some way, then that person must be an A. And that's a terrible stereotype to give an 8. But I've seen that over and over again. It's like no, no, no.

So you know, and oftentimes like sexual 6 or transmitting sex categorized in that in that area. Much more aggressive sexual 4. Transmitting 4 as well occasionally I think so Lots, lots of those sort of things to kind of keep in mind.

I think also we can talk about threes. Just that hard drivingness can often be seen as eight. Yeah, I've even, I mean I've seen eights that are actually twos.

Especially men eights, men twos thinking they're eights.

Lindsey: 01:44:09

Well, when you said that about transmitting a light bulb went off for me and I was like oh. So I just flipped through it. The instinctual leadership book and your theory checks out for all except transmitting nines.

They have a common mistype of 8 for every single transmitting subtype in this book.

Abram: 01:44:29

Interesting.

Creek: 01:44:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean not. I could even thinking of some transmitting nines. I know there are moments where it's like whoa, bro.

But it's, it's not nearly as aggressive and not as consistent. But if you have a singular, you catch A transmitting 9 on a bad day, like you might get slapped sideways with some anger.

Abram: 01:44:53

Yeah, I'll say I have met one or two people that identify with seven that for a long time thought they were an eight. Just, just the more the common sharing Of, I don't know, more.

More out there, more external, more energized qualities I think can easily be, you know, seen as eightness as well, or just in general because of. Because of the energy piece there. And I do think there is.

I actually think I've come across at least one or two friends that identifies a type 5, who, if you catch them in the right moment when they are defending something that's important to them, that you could see some mistyping as well as eightness, and they do, you know, have a connecting point to that as well. Anyway, so eight.

Creek: 01:45:58

Well, and I think. I mean, this.

This kind of segues us into our conversation with Mandy where she even talked about having some trouble nailing down exactly what she identified with. And this is something. We'll keep bringing this up so you guys keep remembering. This is. We didn't necessarily take our.

We're calling it our human interviews. People that have a particular type. We didn't do a ton of digging to make sure that we agree with how they type themselves.

So obviously, based on self reporting and the school that they learn things through how they're categorizing their behavior, all of that. So we're just kind of putting that disclaimer out there to kind of wash our hands of this is what they say they are.

And they could be right, they could be wrong, but it is, hopefully, regardless.

Lindsey: 01:46:56

Regardlessly, it's irregardless, I think, is the word you're looking for.

Creek: 01:47:01

God, I suck right now.

Lindsey: 01:47:04

Regardless.

Creek: 01:47:07

So just keep that in mind as moving forward, that they may be mistyped, but they are still trying to represent how they see themselves and how they were taught at the Enneagram.

Lindsey: 01:47:21

And there's something about this style, this type, that is resonating with them, and they're experiencing transformation, which is valuable, I.

Creek: 01:47:32

Will say, and I probably won't do this with all the types, with all the episodes, but Mandy feels eight to me. I don't really doubt it that much.

Abram: 01:47:43

I still remember when she came on, we were interviewing or recording all of these around the same time, and it was just like, well, Mandy's here. Like, whoa. In a great way. Not at all. But the energy was noticeably different in comparison to all the other people we had just interviewed.

Creek: 01:48:05

So, yeah, I mean, we're not. We're not here to talk about Mandy behind her back, but what'd you notice about Mandy?

Lindsey: 01:48:13

Well, one thing I thought was really surprised me was when she talked about her struggle with boundaries and needing to learn. I guess I had this impression of eights is not struggling with boundaries, at least not with their own boundaries.

Maybe over overriding other people's boundaries at times just from lack of self control or lack of awareness. But I had that perception of eights. And so it was really interesting to hear her talk about that.

And I think the question that came up for me was wondering if male eights would talk about boundaries the same way that female eights would talk about boundaries. Just as a woman, I think I can attest to the experience of sort of a conditioning and an encouragement to have weaker boundaries.

And so I think women in general have to sort of find ways to deal with caring for themselves in that way and navigate that territory. But yeah, that was just a question that lifted from me around boundaries.

Creek: 01:49:26

Yeah, I had a similar thought of. That's an interesting data point.

And I'd really want to explore that further because that could lead to a different conversation about type or subtype, or it could be a nuance of how cultural overlays, gender overlays, that sort of thing of, oh, well, that's interesting.

Lindsey: 01:49:50

Yeah. And same for anger. You know, she talked about having. Why she thought she was a three because she couldn't see the anger.

And I thought, well, I think anger is a misunderstood emotion in general. We just need to do better about broadening our understanding of anger and the vast expressions that exist with anger. But also the.

There is the conditioning of women to suppress their anger. It's acceptable for men to be angry. It's even desirable for men to be angry. It shows some sort of power that we find refuge in.

This is a real man, you know, because he's not afraid to show that he's angry. But a woman is not valued in the same way when she expresses anger.

And so I wonder if there are a lot of women out there who are eights and they don't know it simply because we don't talk about anger. Well, to begin with, but also girls. And if, I guess maybe this is like a psa? Is that what they call it? Psa?

Creek: 01:51:00

Public service announcement.

Lindsey: 01:51:01

There we go. PSA for parents with daughters. Like, encourage your daughters to express their anger.

Encourage them to express all of their emotions, but especially anger in healthy ways. I think that we're just in need of that in general. And sorry, I don't even want to limit that PSA to girls, to parents with girls.

If there are women in your life, encourage them to be angry. Encourage them to explain, express their anger. Health literally depends on that. I feel passionate about this in a way. I wasn't aware of.

Creek: 01:51:39

Yes, keep preaching. Yeah, all of that. That's good.

Abram: 01:51:44

Yeah. I think one of the things that I noticed from Mandy was this is a person that is more mature in their holding of eightness.

And I very much hear that in what she's allowed her pain to shape her into as a person. You know, she talked about grief. You know, that's. That's not. That's not a field that many people get into, I think. But. But I.

But I think that is what shapes some. Actually, I do think processing your grief and what you've lost, grieving what you've lost is a really beautiful way for.

For any enneagram type to be held well. But what was noticeable for me around Mandy was that she carried nuance really well. Like, you know, she talked about empathy and directness and just.

And these different, like vulnerability and power and how they have to be held in tandem in order to. For power to be. And directness to be not aggressive, you know, in a unhealthy way. And I just sort of nuance.

The nuance is what I heard balancing how she is powerful in the world, you know, So I just. It was a. There was a soft quality to her and a strong, hard quality to her. And I think that is a.

That's the kind of person that holds 8 well is someone that knows. I mean, I said this earlier. I think that power is true, healthy power is not based in control, but in connection.

And I think she was showing that really well.

Creek: 01:53:37

And I think Mario talks about. If you talk about the connecting lines between 2 and 5 of, you know, an 8 at their best are going to be drawing on those two different points of.

Abram: 01:53:50

Right.

Creek: 01:53:50

Caring deeply and also staying objective, that sometimes hard decisions have to be made in order. In order for something to happen, sometimes you gotta fire somebody, and that's the best thing you can do for them.

And that's, you know, insanely hard to do. It. It. It makes me think of going back to what you were saying, Lindsay. I don't remember what this comes from, but anger is not transformative. It's.

Initiate initiatory. Initiatory. Initiatory in that we need. We need anger to. To show where we're at, what boundaries have been crossed, what's valuable to us.

But it doesn't change anything until you start doing something in a direction. But it. It does give you that animating energy to like, okay, something's got to change. And okay, so what's going to change? All right, let's do this.

And it doesn't mean the anger goes away, but it's there to drive you towards something, not just to sit there. I think that's true with most emotions. There's. There's a. All right, what you. What do you. What is this emotion calling you to or towards?

And sometimes it is just sit there and feel it. Maybe that's all the action is required. But I think anger especially is a very animating emotion that if we just let.

If we just let it be there, it may feel good, you may feel justified, and maybe you are, but then what are you going to do about it? I think is the next step.

Abram: 01:55:27

Yeah. And I actually think this is why there is value to at least looking at the idea of the concept of the centers in some way.

Because there is a way that the type does anger differently. Anger is not okay for nines. For most nines, it's just very, very dangerous, very scary.

And the suppression of anger is where a lot of the nine behavior comes from or stems from.

And the just natural flowing, which is maybe even hard to recognize it's even there because it's so just okay and regular and normalized, you know, is the. Is how a lot of eight behavior is expressed. You know, not that eights are always angry and nines are always angry or body types or whatever.

It's just there is a uniqueness to how the behavior is expressed from that type. Largely around, I think that different way that emotion is expressed or loud or. Yeah. Moves or doesn't move. Yeah.

Lindsey: 01:56:41

Yeah. I like this. This is from the Essential Enneagram by David Daniels and Virginia Price. This is a Myth about type 8.

A common perception is that eights are just aggressive, tough and excessive. In fact, eights can be quite reserved and quiet as well as very giving, generous and kind hearted. In part because of eights.

All or nothing style of relating and then kind of like I was saying before, but also in women because of the cultural mandate to tame their assertiveness. But I really like that about being reserved and quiet.

Creek: 01:57:18

And I think that is. I mean we've all hung out with Mario in person. I remember my first time meeting him in person. He is a. He's a big guy and. And yeah, you do.

Michael Naylor: 01:57:33

You.

Creek: 01:57:33

You both feel watched out for and cared for. And also he's not going to say anything unless he has something to say. He's not running around pushing people over. It's just.

He's just kind of walking through life and it was just a really interesting. Oh, that's a way of being an 8, too, of just a steady, strong presence doesn't need to be hyper aggressive, but I mean, he can.

He can be hyper aggressive at the same time and push himself out there, make himself known. He has no problem doing that, but doesn't need to do that.

Lindsey: 01:58:07

Do you think that. Has it been your experience that eights enjoy and celebrate when other people feel powerful?

Creek: 01:58:15

Oh, yeah. I mean, when they're not insecure. I think it's. That's. I mean, again, we're using Mario a lot here because he is eight and we do know him fairly well.

But he says. I feel. He said those that I let into my circle, I feel deeply responsible for. And it's not a. It's not a codependent thing necessarily.

It's just like I. If I'm choosing to invest my time in you, I. I just. I. I have to take care of you. And if you're not, and.

And I can trust you more when I feel like you can stand on your own two legs, and I'll help you get to that point, but if at some point I'm dragging you around the battlefield like, this is not helpful for anyone. So let me empower you to go on your own power.

Lindsey: 01:59:04

Let me kick your butt a little bit.

Creek: 01:59:06

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. It's great. I enjoy it. I enjoy it. So we're going to be doing a quote for each of these types and just kind of talking about what. How we.

How that quote hits us and how it relates to eights. So what do we got?

Abram: 01:59:24

Yeah. The quote that I put together for eight is from Parker Palmer, who said that true power is born of love and tempered by humility.

It is the kind of strength that lifts others rather than asserting control.

Creek: 01:59:41

Yeah, that's great. The asserting control, I feel like would need more clarification. But.

Abram: 01:59:46

But I think that's control as a way of control is not bad. Right. In and of itself, as I think you're alluding to. But is it a way to domineer over someone to control them or control the situation?

Or is it a way to just guide something, move something forward, and I'm in control, you know?

Creek: 02:00:09

Yeah. Can you read it one more time?

Abram: 02:00:11

Yeah. True power is born. Born of love and tempered by humility. It is the kind of strength that lifts others rather than asserting control.

I'll say for me, one thing we've sort of talked a little bit about already is just, you know, these kind of gifts, if you will, from each of the types or like, what the type is centered around or you know, they can be in, in and of themselves. There's nothing wrong with them. Right. But depending on the person, how they're used or done can, can get distorted.

And so I think it's really valuable to recognize that power needs to have a connection to its seeming opposite. Otherwise it does get overdone. Right. And so tempered by humility. If it's not like.

Yeah, if power is not based in compassion and humility and love, then that's where it gets distorted. You know, that's where it's power over where I'm trying to protect myself and assert control. Right. Or dominate.

But power, that power that's based in love doesn't need to do that. That's where the power is used for good. Right. For connection, for empowering others.

Creek: 02:01:38

And I think we all have power to a certain extent, you know, obviously different levels of it, different qualities of it. But this doesn't just apply to the person at the top of the food chain.

And I think if we're operating back to that definition of a capacity to produce a result, we can all produce a result and let it be guided by love, compassion and humility and curiosity. I think that's going to serve a lot of people really well.

Abram: 02:02:17

Yeah, I really do believe that healthy power, people that can wield it if you will. It really invites people into more of like a shared agency, if you will. Right. Which is mutual flourishing.

Lindsey: 02:02:36

Yeah, that quote. Immediate immediately. Try again.

Creek: 02:02:41

Okay. Moira.

Lindsey: 02:02:45

Made me think of the whole any triads. So another model that I like to reference when it feels right is the Harmony Triads model which has its connecting points for 8 as 5 and 2.

And I think that that's important for an 8 to consider because part of the transformation path for an 8 include includes slowing down and thinking deeply about your choices and then combining that with the line to two, the compassion. One way that we talk about that in the Harmony Triads model is power combined with contemplative love.

So it's not just power in whatever way I want to bring power, but it's really contemplating the best way, like you were saying, to help everybody thrive, which includes a slowing down process. It includes considering others and a deeper level of compassion. So.

Creek: 02:03:49

So whether you're eight or you're not or you don't know. Great. So here's what we wanted to give a little bit of just some little nugget for you to take away regardless just, just as you as a human.

Right, right. We're all doing humaning things and one of the practical things would be, you know, just act.

One of my friends told me one time, whatever you're going to do, do it. Like. And it's. It's. So just decide, you know? And as someone who probably overanalyzes things too often, some.

Like, the things that I've learned from Eights is just, what if you just did it? And that's much easier said than done. But it can be easy. It can be as easy as, what shirt am I going to wear?

You know, we don't have to do these massive sweeping changes, but leaning into your power to choose and deal with whatever comes next, it's like, am I a green shirt or a black shirt today? I don't just choose, man. Like, just choose. And something like that, where you're turning off the analyzer and you're just going.

And I've learned a lot by doing that, you know, sometimes the hard way.

Lindsey: 02:05:14

Yeah.

I think that even if you are afraid that the choice is going to end up being wrong, I think one thing I've learned from Eights is that they have a tremendous amount of confidence in their ability to make that decision when they get to it. Oh, now I've realized that I made the wrong choice and a new choice is required. I also trust myself now to make this choice that's required.

So even not being afraid of the wrong choice, not being afraid of making.

Creek: 02:05:45

A mess, believe in their capacity. Capacity to keep going.

Abram: 02:05:49

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's along similar lines. I just think of the question when I think of my eight friends, am I willing to show up today?

And whatever that means for you. I just. That's what comes up for me is I'm going to show up in this room with the impact that I know I have the capacity to have.

Because I think a lot of times it's just natural that Eights have impact wherever they're at, whereas I have to work on it. I have to actually be intentional about having impact.

Creek: 02:06:27

The impact that you want. You have an impact on a room. I think that's everyone.

Abram: 02:06:31

Everyone has the impact that I want. You're right. The intentional impact that I'm seeking to have.

Creek: 02:06:36

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, folks, well, thanks for making it through another gargantuan episode. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Moving on to type 9.

Lindsey: 02:06:48

Type 9.

Creek: 02:06:52

Thanks for listening to Fathoms and Enneagram podcast. If this episode affected you in some way, we'd love it if you would share it with a friend or family member.

Don't forget to check out the show notes for ways to connect with us and continue your serious work as an unserious human. Welcome to Fathoms. Finally, we're getting into the type and we're going to be starting with 0.8. I feel like we need to do something fun here. Hold on.

What's something we could do that is hate related?

Abram: 02:07:36

Yeah, that's. I can't take you seriously right now.

Lindsey: 02:07:39

The cat on your hand is really throwing me off.

Creek: 02:07:44

It's staying on there longer than I thought.

Lindsey: 02:07:50

Let your cat tattoo do the intro today.

Christopher Copeland: 02:07:55

Welcome to Floggings and Enneagram podcast.

Lindsey: 02:08:01

Today we're talking about eights. That was the innocence. That was the innocence of innocence coming through.

Abram: 02:08:10

Yeah, that's nice.

Creek: 02:08:12

Starting this episode, I was trying to do some video editing and there's some things that we were saying that were really great. But then I looked at what the others of us were doing while the other person was saying something profound. I'm like, I don't know how to post that.

So just remember to not pick your nose. Or like, at one point, Seth had his hat off and it was just like. But like during the. The clip it was like hat on.

Then like I cut and then it was hat backwards and then I cut again. Like, what is happening? And you don't see the movement.

Abram: 02:08:53

That's amazing.

Lindsey: 02:08:55

I gotta love that though, personally.

Abram: 02:08:56

I do too.

Creek: 02:09:00

Okay.

Abram: 02:09:01

Reminds me of something from. I think from Roar. Action without contemplation is something, but contemplation without action is. Is something.

Lindsey: 02:09:15

Something else.

Abram: 02:09:16

Yeah.