If you’re travelin’, you need a road song, and everyone loves a good road song, right? But not everyone likes the same song or moves to the same beat. So here’s my list of road songs by type:
You get a little bonus hit of Down the Road as an intro.
My previous two posts summarized the three Doing center types and the three Feeling center types and suggested traveling songs for each of those six types. To complete the road song set, let’s review the three Thinking center types. People who rely primarily on this center don’t necessarily have higher IQs than those who rely on the other centers. They just trust their mental faculties—their ability to reason—more than they trust their feelings or their gut instincts.
This humorous (or not) excerpt from The Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel shows the difference between emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence:
A frustrated wife looked at her confused husband and said, “You never understand what I am talking about. All you know is what you have learned in books. You couldn’t read my face if your life depended on it!” To this challenge, the man responded, “I can tell from what you say that you’re probably not happy with me. But, you know, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who are too needy, and those who aren’t.”
The Thinking center—also referred to as the Head, Intellectual, or Mental center—consists of Types 5, 7, and 6. This center is concerned with personal power, self-definition, logic, rationality, planning, intelligence, and will. Continue reading
Posted in Enneagram, Road Songs, Thinking Center, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7
Tagged Enneagram, Thinking Center, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7
Last time, I summarized the Doing center in order to arrive at the best choice of road songs for Types 8, 1, and 9. Now I’ll tackle the Feeling Center, which is definitely not my go-to Center of Intelligence. Decades ago, when I was introduced to the MBTI, I tested as an ENTP/J (Extraverted, INtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving/Judging). The alternative to Thinking was Feeling, so no surprise I tested as a Thinking type. But Thinking/Feeling measures the decision-making function, and at the time, I was absolutely confounded that anyone could or would make decisions based on feelings. How was that even possible? (I should add that as a child, I accused my mother of being overly emotional.) After years of attempting to open up to the possibility, I sort of get it now—at least theoretically.
These comments on two aspects of emotional intelligence are excerpted from Daniel Goleman’s book “Emotional Intelligence,” but they come from psychologist Howard Gardner:
Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people: what motivates them, how they work, how to work cooperatively with them. Intrapersonal intelligence…is a correlative ability, turned inward. It is a capacity to form an accurate, veridical model of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life.
The Feeling center—also referred to as the Heart, Emotional, or Relational center—consists of Types 2, 4, and 3. This center is concerned with emotion/feeling, relationship, sexuality, self-gratification, and empathy. Continue reading
Posted in Enneagram, Feeling Center, Road Songs, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4
Tagged Enneagram, Feeling Center, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4
There was a great little piece in the Enneagram Monthly some 15 years ago called “Enneagram Voicemail Codes,” by Lahar Goldberg. It was short, succinct, laugh-out-loud funny—and painfully accurate. As Sheldon said when he explained a joke on the TV show The Big Bang Theory: “It’s funny because it’s true.”
If you know exactly what you want…press 1
If you want to help, press…2
If you have a great idea that could make us a lot of money…press 3
If you’re feeling abandoned…press 4
If you don’t want to talk to anyone…press 5
If you don’t know what you want…press 6
For a good time…press 7
If you want to tell us what to do and how to do it…press 8
If you feel irritated, but you need to take a nap…press 9
So I thought it would be amusing and maybe even somewhat illuminating to compile, with a little help from my friends, a list of traveling songs for each type.
Because there are three Centers of Intelligence within the Enneagram and three types within each center, I’ve decided to focus first on the three Doing center types and cover the Feeling center types and Thinking center types in subsequent posts.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Doing type, but nine points or nine lenses or even nine types all seem entirely too static—thus the name for the blog, Nine Paths. I think the Enneagram describes the different approaches we take to life and the different ways in which we move through it. Type influences the paths we take, as well as how we proceed along them and what we see on the way. So as we travel our respective paths, let’s queue up some type-appropriate road songs. [As a Type 8 with a strong 7 wing, my own impulse is to keep moving, but to enjoy the ride as much as possible.] Continue reading
Posted in Doing Center, Enneagram, Road Songs, Type 1, Type 8, Type 9
Tagged Doing Center, Enneagram, Type 1, Type 8, Type 9
Nine Paths 