Running vs. Remaining | Understanding the Enneagram Type Seven with Heather Berg

The Enneagram Seven's instinct is to keep moving. More plans, more options, more yes. Yet underneath it all is a quiet, exhausting belief that if they slow down long enough, something painful will catch up with them.

In this episode, Amy sits down with Heather Berg, a Wholehearted Enneagram Coach, trauma-informed practitioner, and Type Seven, to walk the Victim, Villain, Hero, Guide framework through the Seven's unique lens. Heather brings both her professional training and her own deeply personal story: betrayal trauma, a dark night of the soul, a season of chronic pain that literally stopped her in her tracks, and the retreat moment where Amy looked at her and said, "Heather, do you think you could be a Seven?"  and then something clicked that felt like meeting herself for the first time in years.

This episode is for every Seven who is tired of running and suspects there might be something worth finding if they stopped. It's also for everyone who loves a Seven and wants to understand what's really happening underneath the energy.

In this episode:

• The Seven's victim role, which can look like "monkey" mind, hypervigilance, and the longing to know who will look after me?
• Why Sevens can't outwit, outlast, or outplay pain, but what happens when they finally stop trying
• The villain role: self-abandonment and how the reframing that protects you can also hurt the people closest to you
• Heather's betrayal trauma story and the moment she realized she'd been MIA to her own kids
• Post-traumatic growth and the heart behind Heather's Created to Move coaching practice
• The fastest way to daybreak and why it means running toward the night, not away from it
• Big T, little T, and chronic T trauma, and why you don't have to have a dramatic story to feel lost
• How to love and support the Seven in your life

Heather Berg is a trauma-informed Wholehearted Enneagram Coach and founder of Created to Move.

Learn more here:https://www.createdtomove.com/ 

The Enneagram can name your patterns. It can't set you free from them. That's the difference between insight and transformation, and it's the whole focus of this summit.

Learn more, check out the speakers & get your free seat!

https://www.simplywholehearted.com/wholehearted-2026

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 1:47

Welcome to the Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast, the Enneagram for Real Life. Here is where you'll find conversations where faith meets story and strategy for lasting transformation. I'm your host, Amy Wicks, here to help you find wisdom and wholehearted rhythms for moments that matter most. Whether you're learning your type or deepening your spiritual formation, these conversations will remind you that the Enneagram shines a light, but Christ is the transformation. Well, over the last couple of weeks, I've gotten to share with you a little bit about the Enneagram 7 with Deanna. And then Deanna had me sit in the hard seat, and I shared a little bit more of my personal stories in part two. And today I get to invite you to explore the framework with a coach who knows the Enneagram 7 from the inside out. So Heather, who's joining me today, she is a wholehearted coach and Enneagram 7 herself. And she's built her coaching practice around the idea that transformation isn't just something that happens in your head, it happens in your body and your movement and the way you actually show up in your life. And she's also been on her own wholehearted seven journey. So today's conversation is going to have some real texture to it. Heather, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Absolutely. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

We're going to dive into a lot of different parts of your story. I know it's going to come up here and there, but I want to follow some of the same pattern that we've done for the Enneagram nine month and the eight month. And that is to unpack specifically the wholehearted story arc, the victim, villain, hero, and guide. So first of all, I want to get into the weeds. I want to get into the details about how you see the Enneagram 7 get stuck in the victim role. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

In my own perspective, getting stuck in the victim role has been the longing of the horror seven of who will look after me, who will take care of me. And so I think it's really been, if I, yeah, it's been in that space of who will look after me, going back to thinking about narratives that I believed as a child that were confirmed as an adult, and then buying into that feeling of like, I don't have what it takes. So who's going to look after me if I if I can't make it? So to speak.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

How does the hypervigilance show up for the seven? Because sometimes that word is used in connection with the Enneagram six, but I think it's really even a phrase that's tied to the longing for security. How has it shown up in your life or how do you see it in the seven world?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yes. So it's funny because I was just reading in one of my favorite Enneagram books by Beatrice Chestnut, the complete Enneagram, and she used the terminology monkey mind. And when I was rereading that and reminding, I'm like, oh yeah, that's what's happening to me from time to time is that feeling of like, where do I put my focus? Where do I put my attention? Because my hypervigilance tends to go to where I may have been wounded in the past. And then it's almost like there's like it feels that there's 10 billion things that I could be doing to help prevent further wounding. And so, and they all can conflict with each other. And so then that's kind of it gets scattered. I think hypervigilance shows up in this like monkey mind scattered, thinking about this and then moving to the next thing and thinking about that. Yeah. Yeah, it can get really messy, really fast and cluttered, very, very cluttered.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Do you think that often propels the seven to outrun things or try to get away? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

In fact, um, in the lat to take a line off of Survivor, the show Survivor, I actually have come to learn I cannot outwit, outsmart, outplay pain or fear of pain. I used to have this narrative that seemed to circle in my brain all the time that I felt like I was stuck in the pain of the past and the fear of the future, and just trying to hyper-vigilantly do everything I can to prevent that pain from showing up in the future. Um and eventually I came to realize I actually can't outrun this. I can't outwit, outlast, outplay. There's nothing I can do. I cannot. My best bet is actually to turn around and redirect myself actually into the pain, so to speak, and into the fear and learn to be with that, with the pain and with the fear, which has been so painful.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

It's painful for a seven. It is, it is. So I think it would be helpful for us to differentiate just a little bit and give this unique nuance for the seven. Because when I've coached sevens and probably in your experience as well, and our personal experience, there's the propensity to outrun the pain. So running forward and so almost not acknowledging the victim role or the times when they've been a victim. But then we've also seen maybe even once a seven is recognizing the pain or having some language around it, or maybe it's even beneath the surface. What does the victim mentality look like for the seven when they're either coming to grips with it or they're looking like they're avoiding it, but they're not really, because they're stuck in a mental swirl.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yes. And I want to be cautious with how I answer this question, just because I my whole business is centered around trauma, being a trauma-informed coach. Um I think when we start to tease out victimization and having a victim mentality, that can get really messy, really fast, and it can actually feel really shaming, um, especially to people who've actually been victimized. And yet it's like I said, it's very nuanced.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

This is great because I really see what you're saying here is an important distinction for me and us to make in the whole hearted space. Because what we are talking about is identifying two different things in this journey. Because it's the reality of we have been a victim often often times to bigger things than we want to recognize and deal with. But we also, any type has a propensity to get stuck in the victim mentality. And I do think it's important, especially with this lens of trauma, to differentiate and to help us be able to know where we're at in our mind. So we're not shaming ourselves for recognizing the pain, thinking we're stuck in a victim mentality, but we're also not on the flip side getting stuck in a victim mentality that doesn't actually allow us or invite us to heal and to move forward as your created to move coaching business does.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

I'm gonna answer this in a couple of different ways. So, on one hand, when it comes to being stuck in a victim mentality, as in let's say somebody has actually been victimized and then they just cannot get out of that space. The first thing I want to say is that in my own personal experience, lived experience, and in my trainings, I very much embody the belief system that trauma lives in our body.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

And yet we are always trying to figure it out in our head. And we tend to vacillate between thinking and emotionally feeling, and to then to tap into the body has been key, at least in my own personal journey, of learning to listen to how is this trauma showing up in the physiological responses of both the things that I'm thinking and my emotions. And what do I do with this? Because we can get very, very stuck and it becomes very, very cyclical. I have, to use a little bit of internal family systems language, I have a very strong figure it out part and a very strong prover part. And so on one hand, I'm constantly trying to figure out how do I get out of this mess? How do I get out of this pain or this fear, whatever it is that I'm feeling? And then on the other side of things, I have this prover part that can tend to get really angry really fast, like my buddy Eightwing trying to prove that I'm worth it or I'm valuable or whatever the narrative is that's circling in my head. Um yeah. So good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Beautifully said. And this is perfect because that leads us to the question around what does the seven look like when their avoidance and protection is actually looking more like a villain, maybe even to themselves. But it's certainly self-protection can harm others or even be experienced negatively by others. So how does that look like maybe in your own life or what you've observed?

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah. This was actually a hard one for me to answer, just literally based on some of the traumas that I've gone through as an adult. Um, and thinking about where does this, where am I the villain?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

How can I be the villain? Yep. Uh yeah. I hear you.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah. So in, I'll use it this way too, like in IFS language, internal family systems therapy, I love marrying the two. It's almost impossible for me to not talk about Enneagram and IFS at the same time because they are so similar. And so if I think about the parts of me that are trying to protect me, um, what how how that shows up in a villain toward myself, to be honest, is through self-abandonment. I'm gonna abandon myself just so that I don't have to deal with the reality of life. And so when we talk about the different, the 147 is the idealist, right? It's like, oh my gosh, like I can I put that on the shelf for just a couple minutes so I can like put my feet on the ground and feel grounded in reality and then know what to do. It's almost like this villainish protector energy clashing with this idealism. It can create a sense of self-abandonment.

unknown 12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

And what I've discovered years later, after living through trauma and working through trauma, that as I abandon myself, I also abandon those closest to me who are also innocent in this in the story of our lives. Yeah. Um, and that's where it's heartbreaking, you know, of just thinking it's the whole, it's the old saying, um, hurting people hurt people. And so it's really challenging when we are actually truly victimized or traumatized or whatever we want to call it, and then we're in pain, and then we turn around and cause pain. Yeah. It's hard breaking. It's tough.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

It is a really hard part of the story. And to be honest, Heather, when I was writing the wholehearted Enneagram book, I have shared this insight with you and a few others, but each chapter focused on each type, I did a fictional story. And I was really excited once I got my book over to the editor and I felt done. I got the work back from her. And as I was reading through the Enneagram seven chapter, and honestly, when I wrote it, I was crying through it. It felt very meaningful. But when I read it back, I realized I had not risked being honest about the villainous part of a seven. And I laughed out loud once I realized that I had done such a seven thing in the seven chapter because it felt so familiar and intimate, it was hard to own and be honest about the villain because it feels yucky. It's almost like a trapped in pain moment that we are looking to avoid. But the reality as I wrestled through even how do I carefully and yet in an honoring way articulate what that can look like, it's a tough thing because sometimes it can look being super positive, but it's also reframing too quickly, or it's even bouncing other people out of pain, which we can often do, especially with those in our home who are impacted by our pain as well and race, you know, maybe the ripple effect. And it's sometimes easier to help us be able to bounce ourselves out of pain to bounce others alongside of us, which is not helpful in the end, right? It is not actually the healing journey that we've been invited to go on for the integration that we long to have. So thank you for going there because it is a little bit hard and sticky. And yeah, other Enneagram types, it's fascinating. That is not as a difficult thing to own, or it feels more obvious. So I appreciate it. And our our friend, who's the seven who's listening, is like, yes, me too. Okay, this is helpful.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah. And I think one of the things that has actually helped me a lot in this is to be able to differentiate the fact that just because I have an experience doesn't mean I'll like name it and I'll name what's going on. Like for me, my story is I went through betrayal trauma and that derailed me, right? And so then all of a sudden, the mom who is fun and exciting for my kids, I have three boys, and I always would say, we are a run and jump and play family. Like we want to run and jump and play, we want to go outside and ride bikes and go hiking and do all these fun things. And then all of a sudden, mom gets derailed through my relationship with my husband. And then mom is MIA to my kids. And so then, you know, fast forward like years later, um, going through counseling and um working through reconciliation and all of the things, it's now circling back to my kids of saying, Okay, how are you? It's almost like I'm checking in, like, okay, how are you? Years have gone by. How are you doing? Um, and my oldest um was actually really angry at me. And that I was like heartbroken at first, derailed number two. Yes, for sure. Um, but when I was able to separate, okay, wait, it was his experience. And yes, he actually did get hurt by me because I was MIA. I and that was like when I was able to own that was helpful. Um, it still is a dot dot dot to be continued as far as that is concerned. But yeah, um, but it has helped me know how to come alongside him as mom again.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah. Wow. So that will preach. It's so tough, but I know you and I are both not the only ones who've lived that out. And that has that's been part of the story, whether we want to or not. And that's why we do the work, because then healed people invite others to heal. And we change families, we change homes, we change communities, we change churches when we are willing to look at these harder parts of our story. So well done. Inside out healing, baby. That's all right. That's all right. Yeah. Okay, now the fun part, the part that we like to talk about. We get to turn the corner to the hero energy. And it can look as simple as the seven stops running, stays a little bit, maybe doesn't resist. So, what has that looked like for you? And what have you also seen play out in those that you've coached?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yes. Okay, this was actually an easy one for me to pinpoint. Totally. I'm right there with you, right? Like, this is the moment. Oh my goodness. Very difficult to actually do. But in hindsight, I was like, that was the moment. That was the turning point. So the turning point for me, funnily enough, it was actually to come to a complete stop.

unknown 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

I and I couldn't, I mean, I couldn't do that perfectly. I still had my little figure it out part, chirping, chirping, chirping, my prover part, you know, communicating all the things. But what I discovered is that when I was sharing earlier about going into the body, I begin to turn toward my body and effectively ask, okay, the I know my trauma is like sitting in my the issues are in the tissues, right? So what does my trauma, what does this need? How do I need to metabolize this and work this through? And sometimes that looked like me going for a run. I have a super steep hill next to my house. And so I would run up that hill until I thought I was gonna die from lack of oxygen. So there was that. Sometimes it meant sitting down and just breathing. And so going back to so with the breath, I think, in my honest opinion, that that was the turning point. So I began to I basically took my quiet times that I had with the Lord in the morning, and I was like, I couldn't take on any more information. I had enough information circling my brain, um, and I just started to focus on the breath. And I did a little bit of research on Holy Spirit. The spirit is ruach, um, which means breath, wind, spirit. And so um, I could cry right now just thinking about this moment. And um I felt I just I was in that very dark night of my soul during this time where I just felt like God was so far away. He didn't, he wasn't, he wasn't, I didn't feel like he was there for me yet. Yeah, he actually was there because I just when I focused on my breath, I felt like he kept saying, It's the ruach in you, it's me in you, it's my breath in you that is giving you life and sustaining you. And it doesn't feel like you're like, woohoo, it's all parties now, but it was sus, I was being sustained. And the more I re returned to my breath, slowed down and returned to my breath, and was like just breathing in the ruach, the spirit of God, and having that spirit connect to my spirit within that, in my humble opinion, was literally when I became my hero. I will like the connection, right? Connecting back breath, my breath to his breath. In fact, I had a saying that I felt like I got in the beginning of this betrayal trauma journey. And I've had other types of traumas, but this one was like a big one, where I felt like the Lord whispered to me, big spirit, as in capital S, capital Spirit, the spirit heals little spirit, like my little, like my like our spirits within. And so I had this saying big spirit heals little spirit. And that was the moment. It was like that was when I just felt like there was that reconnection, and it wasn't perfect, um, but that was the beginning of a new trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Oh, for sure. Wow. Okay, I want to ask you about a moment as well, because this serves this question serves two things. One, as a wholehearted coach in the collective, we're always talking about where we are with our journey, whether it's personal lives or in our business. And even if we become a guide, we have to sometimes go back to those roles or we end up walking in those roles. And so it's about awareness, it's staying awake. I know for you, there was a pivotal moment, even as you were already a guide, where you had another hero moment, if you will, or a hero shift at a whole-hearted retreat. Would you give us a little glimpse of what that was like? Because you've been doing the work and again, it's it's not linear. So it goes up and down and sometimes back and forth, not always up and to the right. Give us a little glimpse. So you've been a guide, you've been walking this out. What was that next level for you? Because I have a feeling someone needs to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yes. Okay, thank you for that. Yeah. So I had been on an Enneagram journey trying to figure out where do I fit? Where am I on this map? What is my core type? It was a journey and trauma, I think trauma um makes this journey really, I'll call it colorful. Yes, that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I like it.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

But also healing also makes it colorful in an exciting kind of a way. And so I was, you know, going through my whole journey, I kept thinking, uh, actually, let me back up a little bit. When I first discovered the Enneagram, it was, I think it was 48 hours after discovery with my husband. And I read through them really quick, and I'm like, I'm a six. I wish I was an eight. I will, but I'm a six. I need that eight, like our energy, but I'm a six. And then I thought I was a four. When I was in my deep dark night of the soul, I really thought I was a four. I resonated on every level of that. And then when I was coming up and out of it, I thought I was a one because I'm like, I need to have organization, I need to have strength. structure and try to gain back some level of control. And so part of that, like not control, like controlling, but taking agency, right? Self-agency for my own life. And so then that was what led me into even joining into the wholehearted team. And so that during that whole journey was still vacillating, what type am I? What type am I? And then going to the retreat when you stopped the like we were in a meeting and then you stopped the meeting and you were like Heather, do you think you could be a seven? And I was like it was literally like you introduced me, it was like you and the Holy Spirit and Jesus and God. Yes. Yeah. Said Heather, meet Heather, meet meet you again. It was like that feeling of like oh my gosh, this person who I feel like I've lost so long ago, you know, like being a mom and being a wife I think as women we forget we lose who am I? Who are we? Because we're so embedded in these roles. And then you add trauma on top of that and years on top of that. And it's like, okay, now I've completely lost everything. And so that felt like an introduction. And then the months that followed that time at the retreat, it just seemed like every time I uh went deeper into understanding the seven, specifically the subtypes, which we I don't know if you want to go into there at the moment, but I began to realize yeah, this is who I am. And one of the things that drew me to the Enneagram at the beginning was learning where our strengths are. It just seems like a lot of like mental health and even trauma informed mental health, which I'm I'm on my, you know, I'm in a master's program now and I'm on my way to all of that. But I feel like one of the areas that's challenging, at least for me, is that mental health and trauma-informed stuff always focuses on what's wrong. But this was a moment where it's like, okay, well what's right? What's going right? And where and look at your strengths. And so when I look at the Enneagram and I look at the all of the character traits and stuff, it was almost like okay as a seven, I have the tenacity and the strength of the eight. I have the problem solving and excellent ability to foresee things and then and problem solve before we get there of the six. I have the organization of the one I have the depth of the five and I still have the seven which there is a lot of depth in the seven right but being able to slow down was helping me to tap into those other emotions. And funnily enough the seven it helped me to be like to be honest with you it helped me to create wholehearted rhythms in my system because I was like wait there is this playful element still in me. Like yeah life has gotten really hard and long and dark but there's still this playful fun energetic person in me. And I was yeah so I was tapping into all of the strengths of the Starburst right from the seven.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Oh this is so good. Thank you for going there and giving us that insight I think even that alone can maybe even this satisfy some of the curiosity people often have by the outward expression of what's very stereotypical for the seven but what's really happening in the inner world and the journey. And I can just testify Heather has been on this journey and she has not let it go that tenacity she shares she has it and has the that has really been a beautiful part of it too of where going after this and getting going through the hard things to get to this core desire and I see the fruit of it in such a beautiful way. Especially I think you've entered in a new era of the guide you've been the guide for a long time part of it even moms where automatically as a mom that's your role you get to be the guide.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

So what has it looked like for you to move from that hero to guide maybe recently in this new level but also when you made that decision a while ago I I want to help others not just through betrayal but to understand that they're created to move so when I think about there's a term or a phrase whatever called post-traumatic growth and when I think about created to move and what is the heart behind created to move, it really is about not being stuck, not being stagnant. And interestingly enough for me the reframing and all of the beautiful things that come along with the seven were also the things that hurt that created a binding thing. But in my journey because I learned so much about all the other types because I think at one time or another I thought I was all the types.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I think you have good job.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Good job trying them all on exactly exactly I think as I show up right as a trauma informed coach, I get it. I understand the turmoil I understand that when it comes to trauma or even integrating into new levels of health it can kind of throw us off and like where do I fit in all of this? I think also when it comes to a guide by the side one of the things that I learned as a receiver is when I was in um chronic back pain, I had a season of chronic back pain years ago and it was like putting a wild horse down. Yes. It was very difficult to testify relate so deeply yeah exactly yes it was really challenging because I work through stress I do all the things through movement. So I was in chronic pain and I had a lot of my body workers whoever they were what PTs whatever always say to me Heather your body is actually created to move if you look at it anatomically it's created and designed for movement. So don't be afraid to move and I had been in chronic pain for so long that I was afraid to move go figure. So take that mindset and put it into okay now we're talking about being stuck mentally being stuck emotionally being stuck relationally whatever it is that idea of movement has been key and vital on like every single level in my life and yeah and I had a person say to me there's nobody out there who's going to give you the magic pill to fix you which I was like shoot I want the magic pill oh yes we all do or at least I'll speak for you and me. Exactly it doesn't exist which is a real bummer but what I discovered and as corny as this may sound my boys are always like mom that's so corny I'm like but it's true as corny as this may sound the magic quote unquote the magic pill is in us we have the magic it's about learning how do I tap into what I have um and during that season I came to realize this is actually my journey. So I may grab a medical doctor a mental health person a coach and they're holding my hand for a period of time on my journey but it's my journey it's mine it belongs to me. And so as a coach I approach my clients like that. I say right out of the gate this is your journey this is your healing journey and the beautiful thing about this is that it is an opportunity for you to not only heal and grow, but it's an opportunity for you to discover all of the amazing aspects of you to discover you and I'm just here for a portion of your journey as a guide by the side.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah I love it.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

As you see it I envision our conversations around building a wholehearted table behind the scenes as guides by the side we're creating wholehearted gathering spaces and inviting people to create the wholehearted table and to discern who's supposed to sit there to help reflect exactly what you're saying the best of you what you're capable of asking the valuable questions that help you see who God is saying you are and also what he wants to do in and through you. So that's really powerful. I love that I want to go now that we've covered the victim villain hero guide aspect and maybe even speak to the seven who knows they're running but is afraid to stop or doesn't even know what stopping would look like for them because it's so opposite of what's familiar and what their coping mechanism has been.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Yeah I love that that's a that's a tough question to answer because it's really tough to stop to do. It's really really tough to stop. Something my grandpa used to say to my mom when I was young like a teenager is she would say Rita you better stop that daughter of her years or life is going to stop her. And I was like whoa in at this point in my life looking back on hindsight I'm like wow yeah that's in more ways than one life has so the reality of that though is that we still live on planet earth we're still humans there are limitations and so for the type seven who is like I don't want to stop it's scary to stop. It's so scary to stop I'm gonna first of all say I get it I so get it and my heart is with you I so understand. At the same time there are beautiful gems that you will gain if you can find at least a way to slow down enough to pay attention to to breath to the your breath in your body I think process of self-discovery gives us the opportunity to learn like with every great quote unquote defect however we want to call it whether it's a defect or a low side or a low point or whatever within the type seven there's also that same it's like a penny right like heads and tails right like one side is the low side the other side is the high side and so when I think about the part of me that wants to figure everything out I'm like now I know I can access that part at will and I'm like hey I actually need this I need this right now you know like for me to figure this out this is important. Yeah but in a healthy way in a healthy contained way where it doesn't feel like hypervigilance it actually feels like intentional learning but that wouldn't have happened had I not slowed down. And so I guess just for me to say oh don't be afraid I don't want to bypass anybody because that yeah I it is going to be it is scary. I keep right now as I'm saying this I keep thinking about an analogy somebody gave me one time where they said if you feel like the night is chasing you and you're trying to avoid it, the fastest way to get to daybreak is to turn around and run into the night.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Wow that's good yeah that's really good. It is it's so hard and I don't it's not intuitive to know how to stop if life isn't stopping you. And I think one of the elements is to invite someone into the that stopping whether it's you maybe you feel like you need permission maybe you feel like you need some ideas and some port tools and this is also where a guy by the side can help you. Even a regular rhythm a meeting with someone who is going to invite the questions allow for silence even if it feels awkward and uncomfortable at first that in itself can begin to bring about what needs to be paid attention to and noticed because this whole process the wholehearted journey is about being aware and awake realizing you're enough and as you live into that the truth of belovedness then that changes how you orient yourself towards yourself but then what you bring to others and that is just the powerful ripple effect that happens through formation.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

So yeah can I love some one yeah please I was just gonna say yeah I would I one thing that is probably a good thing to share at this point is that a lot of times people will say oh I haven't ever gone through big trauma that I've had this amazing life I've had an amazing I've had an ideal we'll use that word I've had an idylic childhood and I've had an idyllic adulthood and everything is really good and yet they may feel exhausted from life. They may feel like who am I? I've kind of lost my identity I've been so busy being wife and mom and the server at church and whatever it may be right and then they sense they've lost their sense of self of the essence of who they are. And so we talk in trauma informed circles we talk a lot about the various levels of trauma. So like big T trauma are these big audacious things that happen to us that are obvious. The little tea trauma is like somebody that's poking you with a pin and it hurts and it's just it's enough there. And then there's also chronic T trauma that just happens every day. It's a drip drip and most of the time chronic tea trauma comes from things that should have happened that didn't happen things that should have been said that weren't said right and it we can then get our identity almost like the Enneagram personality type as opposed to the essence of who we are. And so I think that sometimes it's hard to know well why am I speeding up why am I racing all the time? Why am I filling up my schedule? What am I afraid of if I slow down and I think a lot of times people are afraid if they slow down that they're gonna lose like they're gonna lose it. They're gonna emotionally lose it and not be able to catch them have nowhere to go. Yeah. And so I think that it's about paying attention to maybe even what's not there.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah that needs to be a critical piece. Yeah yeah I think that's really important and maybe even more familiar to a lot of those who identify with that personality type and that lens to look through. As we wrap up here help us love an Enneagram seven help us understand how we support the seven in our life I have one who lives in my home so it's very helpful very meta at times when I'm supporting her and or when I'm figuring out what supports me. But give us that insight whether it's been a personal thing that's been a blessing to you or you found in helping others yeah I think that a lot of times the seven can be mistyped as a cartoon character.

unknown 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

The class clown or the party animal it's just yeah it can be very charactered.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yes. And although humor I do believe humor is really important in therapy including trauma informed therapy like to laugh and to find humor even in grief is a healing it's definitely a healing process. And so I think with the type seven type sevens are very nuanced. I think all of the types all of the Ingram types are very nuanced but I think that because the seven tends to get classified as a cartoon character who goes to a party all the time eating cotton candy it's like that's not really like there me too I wish yes um there's depth there's a lot of depth in sevens and just like any other type us sevens have learned to cope with really hard things by reframing and looking at the bright side of life and although those are really good attributes they can also be the very things that we're using to bypass ourselves and a self-abandonment right and so I think in how to support a seven that maybe to slow down and pay attention to like well I wonder why that like what's going on in their bigger picture of their lives what's really going on and what do they really what do they really need and maybe they are afraid to slow down maybe they are afraid to like stop laughing or whatever you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah yeah and I think it's what we have alluded to here before the sevens invitation is to remain a little bit longer and I've learned that from type fours in particular uh even some of my type eights who aren't afraid of the hard things or even advocate for what has been hard and that has been such a gift that presence of remaining in it not reframing not looking to find the bright side along with me because I'll quickly go there but allowing it to just be hard and to be honest in it and create a safe container to to allow it to stay there if need be but at least be seen and that's that's really powerful. I mean I feel like that that is a true thing for everybody but particularly maybe hard for a seven to receive but one of the best things that you can offer as well. So yeah thank you for sharing all of that. I I believe that you've given us some amazing insight from the inside out not only on a general idea but your personal story. So thank you. Thank you for helping us continue as we explore the desire to be satisfied to deeply satisfied how that looks and I just want to invite the seven who's listening whether they're still on the journey and they're still running or you're finally even in listening to this episode you're maybe catching your breath you're exactly where you need to be and we invite you to take the next one. You don't have to figure it all out even though the figure out is wanting to go there. Just take the next right step that's for you and maybe reach out to someone like Heather and because of her extensive training and life experience can offer a lot of support and help in your journey. So thank you Heather thank you for bringing your true authentic self and your real story to the conversation yeah thank you Amy this is fun thanks so much for joining me for the Wholehearted Enneagram podcast. If this conversation spoke to you please share it with a friend you can also visit simply wholehearted.com to take the free Enneagram quiz and also get your personalized podcast playlist specific for your Enneagram type and remember friend your starting point doesn't have to be your stuff point