Category Archives: Type 9

Our “Fatal” Flaws

Posted on 10/10/2012 | 4 comments

The words guilt and shame are often used interchangeably, but they have very different meanings. Guilt is the result of something we either did or didn’t do (if we believe we should have done it). In other words, guilt arises from an act we have some control over. The act or omission may be unintentional, but we were still the agent in the situation.

Shame relates to our sense of self, of who we are as a person, our very identity. Some of the things we’re ashamed of are things we may have no control over. People are often ashamed of some aspect of how they look (too short, too tall, freckles, thick ankles) or of their backgrounds, for example. We are often ashamed of our perceived flaws, whether those flaws are physical, mental, emotional, or some combination thereof.

Guilt and shame are both feelings. It’s definitely possible to feel both guilty and ashamed of something we did or didn’t do—especially when our actions seem to confirm our worst fears about ourselves. Continue reading →

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Posted in Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7, Type 8, Type 9

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Type 9 Theme Song: Do It Anyway

Posted on 10/03/2012 | Leave a comment

My friend Donna, a Type 9, emailed me a link to this video. She said:

Speaking of voices in your head, this should be the theme song for 9s!

I agree. Besides, I’m a big Ben Folds fan, so I like the song anyway.

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Songs for the Road: Doing Center

Posted on 08/22/2012 | 6 comments

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.”

Enneagram Voicemail Codes

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.

Road Songs for Doing Center Types

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 →

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Posted in Doing Center, Enneagram, Road Songs, Type 1, Type 8, Type 9

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Type 9 Child

Posted on 08/17/2012 | 8 comments

Third in a series of type comics. Check out Type 7 and Type 4.

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Posted in Enneagram, Humor, Type 9

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Remembering Mom

Posted on 05/28/2012 | Leave a comment

Apparently when she was born in 1917, my mother’s parents couldn’t afford a middle name for her. I think she was offended by that vacant spot—and probably even embarrassed. She righted the wrong when she received Confirmation in the Catholic Church and took her Confirmation name, Theresa, as her official middle name. She wore it proudly to the very end.

Color me Skeptical (age 1-1/2)

A few years before she died, my mother completed an Enneagram test and readily identified as a 9w1: a Withdrawing type with a Compliant wing. If only we’d known from the beginning that temperamentally-speaking we were two entirely different species, we might have grated on each other a little less. She never knew what to make of me, and I was equally perplexed by her. She tended to work herself up over what the neighbors might think about something. To be fair, ours was not the most conventional of families. But I couldn’t be bothered about what the neighbors might think.

Mom’s 1 wing asserted itself at the supermarket, where she wouldn’t allow me to put any of the groceries on the conveyor belt at check-out because everything had to be precisely placed in a particular sequence she was convinced I would mess up. Since I didn’t care enough to learn her system, I’m sure she was right. When we got home to unpack the bags, all the items had to be moved to their appropriate staging areas before anything could be put away. As a Doing type, I would have been happy to put the groceries away as she unpacked them. That would have been so much more efficient. But it wasn’t the “right” way, so we never did that.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Enneagram, Relationships, Type 9

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