Understanding the Intersection of the Enneagram and Emotional Intelligence (with Scott Allender)

Most of us assume that if we understand ourselves, change will naturally follow. But that's rarely how growth works.

You can know your Enneagram type, recognize your patterns, understand your childhood experiences, and still find yourself reacting the same way in your relationships.

Why?

Because self-awareness is only the beginning.

In this conversation, I sit down with emotional intelligence coach and author Scott Allender to explore the intersection of the Enneagram, emotional intelligence, and emotional healing. Together we discuss why personality isn't the destination—it's the doorway.

You'll discover why awareness alone doesn't create transformation, how our bodies and emotions shape the way we experience the world, and why curiosity is one of the most important tools for lasting growth.

Reflection Questions

• What pattern do you notice yourself repeating most often?
• What might that pattern have originally been trying to protect?
• What story have you been believing about yourself?
• Where do you notice emotions showing up in your body?
• What would change if you responded to yourself with curiosity instead of judgment?

If this conversation encouraged you, share it with someone who is ready to move beyond simply knowing themselves and begin experiencing real transformation.

Be sure to subscribe to Enneagram with JB for weekly conversations that integrate the Enneagram, psychology, emotional health, and faith to help you understand yourself, strengthen your relationships, and continue the lifelong journey of becoming who you were created to be.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Enneagram with JB, a podcast about Enneagram personalities, where you'll uncover and discover more about yourself and others through the helpful tool of the Enneagram.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hey guys, welcome back to Enneagram with JB. Today's conversation is such an important one because I think a lot of people become very self-aware through the Enneagram, but self-awareness alone does not automatically create emotional health. You can know your type, know your pattern, know your childhood wounds, know your defense mechanisms, and still struggle deeply in relationships, communication, stress management, and emotional regulation. That's where emotional intelligence comes in. Today I'm joined by Scott Allender, author of the Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence, and we're talking about the intersection between personality patterns and emotional maturity. Welcome, Scott.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thank you for having me. Delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I'm excited to talk about this. I I love the integration of the Enneagram and emotional intelligence. And it's, I think that people get just stuck looking at social media and like kind of like, oh, that, you know, I'm an eight or I'm a six or whatever. And that's not the point of the Enneagram. So let's just pause there for a second and have you kind of explain through your teaching. I know I didn't tell you I was going to ask you this, but feels fitting, feels like we should do it. Um what, like, what is the purpose of the Enneagram through your lens and how you teach it?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

It's all about self-discovery at the end of the day. Um, you know, as an emotional intelligence coach for years working with people, I was really unsatisfied with the result. And at first I thought, well, maybe I'm just not very good at this. Well, I would do a lot of research and talk to other coaches and felt that I wasn't alone in that endeavor. So the reason I got into emotional intelligence coaching is because all the data points us to some pretty compelling evidence that, you know, developing our emotional intelligence capabilities is going to be help us be more successful than anything else. So sort of 75% is what the number tends to be around our success or lack thereof will be tied to emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

And that's across the board in relationships and work environments and parenting all of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah. I mean, you the number fluctuates a little bit, somewhere between 70 to 75% is kind of the data I see, particularly in the workplace, particularly in leadership, but also just effectiveness in relationships overall is directly tied to that. And that's built on the cornerstone of this idea of self-awareness. That data is abysmal. When you really look at it, we're shockingly bad at knowing ourselves. And so enter the Enneagram. So for me, and the reason I wrote the book is I wanted to try to bridge the gap between that delta of like, okay, so we know that our success, our well-being, our effectiveness is all tied up in emotional intelligence. We know that's built on self-awareness, but we don't know ourselves. In fact, there was a study that said I think 95% of people think they're self-aware, but it was closer to 15%. And that's pretty, pretty bad. So, and and you know what? And I, you know this, right? You work with clients and you start talking about their type and the light bulbs start going off and they're like, How did you know? I didn't even know that. Wait, is that true of me? And so there's all this stuff in our shadows of awareness that we just don't access very, very easily. And the Enneagram just has this way more than any other system I've seen or known to shine a light into the sort of darkness and kind of make the unconscious stuff conscious. And if we're not conscious of the why we do what we do, then we're never going to change the behavior.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

It's so true. I think, you know, I often think about this, and for my own story, like I had to go first. Um, I didn't know, I didn't even know anything about self-awareness. I found myself in therapy for a number of reasons, but just at a loss and overwhelmed, emotionally dysregulated, didn't even understand emotional regulation, didn't see it, married an Enneagram three that was emotionally completely turned off emotionally. So, and I didn't, I didn't know. First of all, we dated long distance for nine months and got married. I had no idea, you guys. So, you know, I was seven, so that felt fitting. It was like, yeah, an adventure, let's do this. And 27 years later, here we are. Okay. I cannot tell you then the uh the dollar amount of therapy that it took to get here. That's what I would say. But it it took that, it took vulnerability, it took brokenness. Like it was like, we I cannot keep going. I don't think I'm okay. And when I read about the Enneagram seven, um, that frenetic escapism, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not broken. I'm not okay. I'm not healthy. And it finally gave me words to like, okay, uh something is wrong, but but maybe it's not wrong with me. Maybe it's the environment. Maybe it's I don't know how to handle all of this.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

What were the signs for you, like when you got to that point of I'm not okay?

SPEAKER_02 5:03

I wanted to escape my life and I had four little kids, and I I wanted to not do this anymore. Um, I wasn't suicidal, it wasn't that kind of escape. It was like I want to go to the beach and and sit in a chair and nobody talk to me or touch me. And just, I just don't want to do this anymore. I and it not that I didn't want to be a mom, I did. I just needed help and I needed there's a lot of different elements in where we were at that stage of life. But there's a pivotal pivotal moment that that pushed Steve and I into therapy. That was a very, it was like, I can't, I don't want to do this alone. I felt like I was doing it alone. And I and he was like, wait, wait, wait, what are you talking about? Like I thought everything was fine. And I'm like, how can you think everything is fine? I'm like drowning. And um, twins by themselves, you guys, twins alone, you know, and they were the babies, and my husband travels a ton. And so, and then one of them has a lot of medical issues. So it's just, it just felt like piled on, piled on. I wanted to get out, wanted to get away from it all. Um, and that was the beginning of me understanding anything about self-awareness and that piece around that emotional intelligence. Like, I just and I teach emotional connection. That's what like I are there's some that's I think is so important, sort of aligns with what you do. So that's kind of the ugly way of self-awareness that I found myself, you know, that I find myself towards. Like, what is wrong with me?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Listen, most people in my experience that go on meaningful journeys like you have have that shock point, that sort of the moment where it's just not working. I had it. I had it driving sort of 70 miles an hour down a freeway, and suddenly my whole body just got tingly, and I my heart was beating crazy, and I thought I was having some kind of cardio event, and I thought, I think I'm still too young for this, but weirder things have happened, and I'm pulling off and I'm calling 911 on myself. And you know, by the time the paramedics arrived, I had already gotten out of the car and I was pacing around and I kind of find found my breath. And I write about this in the book too, but that was my first moment of things aren't okay. I'm not okay. And as a three myself, I never took the time to wonder if I was okay. And actually, I just assumed that I was because if I was successful, if I was helping other people, if I was achieving, if I was meeting goals, all the things, then I'm okay, right? I have a wife, I've got kids, I'm got a good job, I've got all these things. And what just happened? And I had no idea for a while. And I was already doing this work. I was already coaching people in this space about how to become more aware. But truthfully, it wasn't about I didn't know how to become aware myself, right? I knew the tools of how to point people towards changing behavior, which is a lot of times what you're being asked to do if you're brought into an organization and they say, hey, we need emotional intelligence coaching or something. What people are buying or wanting is behavior change, which is fine and that's understandable. But you don't usually have much opportunity to get to the why, you know, what's going on behind the behavior, what's the story, what's the emotional pattern. I certainly hadn't gotten to it myself. And I it took a long time, a lot of therapy. Um, and it wasn't my first time in therapy, but having the Enneagram gave me, as you suggested, with you know, learning that you weren't alone as a seven and some of those patterns, to kind of go, oh, three, this is what threes do. Threes, threes wake up in hospital beds and go, what happened? And that was my sort of proverbial hospital bed. It was a it was a parking lot of in a casino of all places. I don't know. I just rolled off and that's where I landed. And and and yeah, that started me on a I've got to find out more about what I don't know about myself.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

I think I say this line often in the work that I do is that behavior modification is not, it's not heart transformation. And so when I'm working with people, there's a place for behavior modification for sure. But if we're doing deeper work, we're looking at that heart modify or that heart transformation. And that takes time. It takes a willingness to to see it as it is, to own your side of the story. And sometimes you've got to sit with it and you've got to process through it and even see your side of the story. Like what, where, what role do I play in this? Um, and that was definitely a big part of my journey through the whole thing. Is like, okay, I stopped asking for help. I didn't, you know, as a seven, my poor kids, as a three and a seven being raised in this house, uh, both of us suppress our feelings. Both of us go and do and high energy, lots of people around all the time. And then I I've got my son is a five, but my girls are a four, a six, and an eight. They're all reactive. So they're all kind of demanding something from Steve and I that we can't give them because we don't have access to it ourselves. And so I think that the work that we've done, and he he's been so, Steven's been so great about doing it with me and then doing it on his own as well, that we want, we want to be better. And I think that that's a big part of this. Do you want to be better? Do you want, do you, do you want to do behavior modification because people expect something from you? Or you do you want to go to that heart place and really find some growth and movement so that you can be better, not for other people, but for yourself? Okay. As we jump into this conversation, um, so emotional intelligence has become a huge conversation in leadership. You know, and I think about the different spaces that I coach into in and I what I think is funny too is that leaders that are let's say 55 and up sometimes have have thoughts about emotional intelligence and why that needs to be part of the conversation today. And this generation that is probably slightly below me, um, but in then the up and coming, there's a demand for emotional intelligence in the workplace, like they're like never before. Like my grandparents, my parents, like you just went to work and you did your job. You know, our generation, I think we started that way, and I think things shifted and now we ask more questions, but then, you know, the generation below us, like it, they just won't tolerate come in, do your job and and don't ask questions. So what are you finding in that space?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Well, I think you're right, but I think the I think the nature of work has certainly changed a lot since our grandparents, right? Um, I think it's more networked, it's more complex in terms of uh more dependent, I should say, on relational interaction, cross-functional teaming, um, knowledge base, right? Innovation is becoming more and more in a world that's disrupted faster and faster and changing more, you know, more quickly, getting to the next product iteration or inventing something new. There's there's just and obviously I'm speaking in generalities because obviously this stuff existed long ago as well, but I think it's more perennial. It's more of a common reality for work. So I don't get to just go into my job and put my head down and do my job and with maybe two or three other people. Sometimes I'm in a single day, I'm meeting with 15 different people, four different group meetings, six one-on-ones, and they're all different personalities. They're all different kinds of people who rub me the wrong way sometimes. And some people I really look forward to meeting. Some people I'm like, I'm already tired and we haven't even started, right? Like, there's something here. And when those relationships break down or people get defensive, or they don't trust one another, and there's not a safety there to be honest and all these things, you get sub-optimal outcomes. And so that's why people are looking for solutions. And so they bring in a lot of self-awareness coaches, emotional intelligence coaches, workshops to try to help teams figure out how do we create the conditions where we can bring our best to the office, where we can share ideas openly, where we can challenge assumptions, where we can get to the right outcome in a very competitive, more uncertain world. And so I think it's I think this conversation is only it's becoming more and more of a requirement, I think, in many places. I think what I what I'm seeing, though, is as we were talking about behavior modification, I'm still seeing people want the outcome, but to get there can be a longer, kind of messier place to go, right? Even in the stuff I read about emotional intelligence, oftentimes it's the article is almost bypassing the experience of emotions themselves. And it's sort of like getting quickly to, you know, people say, What's emotional intelligence? It's like, well, knowing how to, you know, be aware of yourself, manage yourself, be aware of others and manage those relationships, like, great. But there is layers and layers and layers of stuff under there that I don't even get. And I don't understand why this person triggers me and I don't understand any of that stuff. And when I don't understand it, then I externalize it and I make it everybody else's problem. And then people are dissatisfied with me and I'm called into HR or something, right? So I would like to see more honesty in the room, right? And spaces of trust where people can say, when I say, Hey, Jackie, how are you doing today? You could say, rough morning. My had a tough time with my teenage daughter. It's occupying my mind a little bit. Thank you for asking that. And just by that process, you're able to metabolize the emotion, acknowledge that it's there. You and I have a connection over that. I create some empathy and space for you. And your prefrontal cortex re-engages and we have some productive meeting. If you feel like you're in a space where you can't be honest with yourself or your colleagues about what's going on in your life, and I'm not saying every meeting is a space for, you know, therapy, those emotions just leak out sideways in unhelpful ways. And then it creates a lot of unwanted consequences and poor outcomes. So I think it's a conversation that we need to continue, but I think I think we need to continue it more holistically. And one thing I write about in the book as well is that we haven't even begun. Well, I shouldn't say begun, I guess, but I really haven't seen much about the role of the body in our experience of emotions. So, you know, the Enneagram pointed us back to head, heart, and body. The body is the origin source of all sensing and, you know, information that's coming up to our brains. And when we're depleted or when we're not aware of what's going on in our body, that hijacks everything. And so not only are we not talking about it, I think cultures across America especially, you know, we still champion fatigue, right? Physical fatigue. Like I'm working so hard that I only slept three hours last night and I'm only gonna sleep three hours again tonight because I'm so dedicated and I'm so committed to this work. And, you know, all I hear in that is breakdown coming and suboptimal outcomes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Me too. I I that somatic work is really important to me as well in the work that I do with people as far as like emotions are indicators. And so where do you feel it? What's going on? What is it saying to you? Kind of things like that. I think it's so important to get into in touch in touch with with your body in this culture, this hustle culture. Yeah, this like grind, all of this stuff, that it's like counter to to health. It's it's this is not it, you know, as much as we can, we can say this like this is not it. Um and then again, married to a workaholic that that he will he pushes his body in a way that I refuse to. I'm just like, nope, I've got good boundaries, I'm around my time and my energy. I that's not gonna give I don't want to be sick. I don't want to be run down. And I and I think I've done so much work around um understanding my personality type, which the Anneagram has been so helpful with that. Um, and then understanding those strengths and weaknesses and and where am I best and what does slowing down look like? All of those things that I'm I'm so structured. Like it's crazy. Uh I go to bed the same time, I wake up the same time, I have a couple caught.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Like it's very Was that an outcome of your sort of therapy journey and all the things that you discovered, or was that inborn?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

I think like when I look back, kind of when did I get so structured? I think it was when I had baby three and four. I think it was probably that was like the only way to survive this because we didn't live by family. He traveled three weeks out of the month. I had premi babies, like they were born six weeks early, three and four pounds. We were in NICU. And then pretty early on, like at six weeks, we started surgeries and all kinds of things. And so I think that it was about survival. And so I I kind of went in in a lot of ways and and just try to like, okay, I've got to shut a lot of things down to survive. So I I don't know that it was birthed out of the best place, but then from there, I think that I've learned a lot about myself and then built on that, like the best strategy. Like I'm nice when I sleep. You know, I used to tell the kids, like, don't wake me up in the middle of the night. Like, I love you and I will see you tomorrow. But go to your dad's side of the bed. Like, and they all knew that. They're like, don't even tell, don't, don't go to mom. Um, like I I think I just have learned and and I'm I'm terrible at I'm still, I still kind of function from that. Like, if you're okay, I'm okay. Standpoint, I still see tons of that in what how I function. So it's not like I think, like, oh, what do I need? And I'm gonna put me first. Most of the time I don't put me first. But with my structure, that's where I have found that I'm unwilling to give. Um yeah, what are you thinking? I can see your I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I I'm I've been feeling like I'm talking with a lot of sevens recently and I'm learning more about that. I was curious, um, is there an inborn or sort of type specific need to own your time and because of these and the idea that anybody would intrude upon it feels like an attack on or feels like it limits you somehow. Is that part of the is that part of the boundary? Because the boundaries sound really healthy. I'm just curious because I I feel like I've talked to some sevens where as long as they're sort of in charge of their own schedule, they feel really good. And when people intrude on it almost like a five, but in a different way, because it feels like it's like limiting their options. I just was curious if that plays into your approach to boundaries.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

So this is how I've thought about it. I'm gonna have to think about what you just said too. Like, I'll I'll take that and really process that and and see like what's really happening. My thought on it is if I structure my days in such a way that they're organized, then my free time is free. So, like my I I see clients and I blocked times that I see clients, and that's it. Like I'm I don't wiggle around that much every now and then. And so I'm done at 3:30, the kids come home, I am free. I can be their mom and I can make dinner if I want to. I don't really want to do that anymore. Um I take the dog for a walk, I can call my sister. Like there's there's freedom in that time. I don't, I don't know that I feel like super, well, I guess I do feel super protective around that blocked time. And I've used just scripture for a really long time, and it's Proverbs 8, 12. I'm Lady Wisdom, I live next to sanity, and knowledge and discretion live just down the street. That's out of the message Bible. Okay. So, but years and years ago, I remember praying like I feel insane when my kids were little. And I remember reading that scripture and being like, oh my gosh, if I want sanity, I need to learn how to live within my limits. And that's gonna allow me to have freedom. And so that has been a building block of how I structure my life. But yeah, I can I can see what you're saying though.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Are you what what's your subtype?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

I would be self pres today. Today I'm self pres. I think for For a really long time, that one-to-one was growing up, that was the loudest. One to one was the loudest. Um, I lean into social. I've done a lot of like outreach work and things like that. So I can see the social part kind of come into it. But self-prez today, self-prez. So seven wing eight, self-prez.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And self-prez can really come online for any type when they have that sort of breakdown moment that you described. Yeah. Where it suddenly becomes, I thought I was a self-prez three for a long time because of that sort of light anxious. I'm the one-to-one three, but anytime I've tested the bar graph shows that one-to-one and self-prez are in high competition. But I think there's a lot of small T trauma stuff in my life that kind of heightened the self-prez. But ultimately, I think the one-to-one is still in charge and the social is clearly repressed. But I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

I know. I am too. Well, kind of. I'm not, I'm not you guys. Like you're not.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

You're like, I want to. I want to want to, but I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I want to want less. Like that sell, like that social seven wants less, but I really like them all. So I'm like, I'm not there. I'm just not there. I always think I need something new. It's really funny. But I talked to Beatrice Chestnut about those types. She's phenomenal with with the subtypes. And so I was like, what do you think? Like my the one-to-one and the self-prise. I mean, they are tied. They're so close. Um, and so I think there's freedom to know that that in different different relationships, even I can see the flexibility within it. And I do think that that we have access to all three of those parts of ourselves, right? So I think that that also gives us freedom to to kind of breathe. Like, oh, I can see where in my work environment, self-prise is very loud. Um, but then in my relationships, I want that one-to-one connection. I want, you know, I want that.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Well, and it's all it all in my experience in my coaching and when I give people tests and things, some people have a really dominant instinct that clearly overshadows everything else. And the other ones are barely awake, right? And I've seen some where the profile is much more consistent and sort of like closer aligned, and you see those things sort of turn on and turn off, which is really the goal, right? The instincts at the end of the day are meant to kind of come online and go offline as we need them, right? And it's really when they get distorted significantly that creates some behavior problems that also affect emotional intelligence, by the way. Right. So when I'm, you know, when my self-preservation is super loud and I'm really concerned about my physical well-being and making sure that all my all of that stuff's protected and my social is really offline and repressed. And my wife approaches me with a last-minute request for some social engagement in two hours' time. I'm like, no. Well, you don't, you certainly don't mean now, right? Are you talking about three weeks from now? Because I'll consider that. Um, but I notice it now. So now I notice that I my bodily response is a you know harsh no. But this has given me the ability to create a pause and say, okay, let me actually engage with my head and my heart and really consider some things here. Well, last time I went, I actually really did enjoy it. And there'll be some people there that I had a great conversation with or whatever the case might be. And I can then choose a different response and not just do what I've typically always done, which is shut down the big social thing, you know, be more overly concerned with one-to-one bonding and self-preservation. And we have to pay attention to those things because if we try to work on emotional intelligence or emotional wholeness or emotional, whatever we want to focus on, and we're not aware of how on a sort of survival mechanism, how prone and programmed those biases are to interject, they're trying to protect us from a world that really no longer exists for most of us, right? They're kind of like it's like this body-based wisdom that long before we lived in our air-conditioned homes were super useful. Um, and now they're still trying to find their way and they show up in our relationships and our work and all of it and how we frame frame the world around us. And so I always I like to get into that part of the conversation as well when I'm coaching people because it it's a it matters.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

It does. It does. We teach a lot of the same things, I think. From you do a lot of corporate, um, I do a lot of individuals. So it's, but it's very overlap in our approach. And I think what we care about too, as far as holding people, like holding space for people, helping them understand what's really going on. And those survival instincts, like that fear response, what's actually happening? And and tell me about this, like, and I've I'm sure you've heard this, and I'll tell you what how I've heard it and how say how I say it. But if it's hysterical, it's historical. And so I like to talk about it like this if there is a reaction, there's a reason and there's a root, like kind of slowing it down. I like to give steps that we can walk into. So kind of like your big response to your wife would like, no, I'm not doing that right now. Right. Um, so not that that was hyster hysterical, but it had a reaction. And then being having some some handlebars, some tools to help us be able to slow things down, like, oh, that was a really big reaction that I just had. I think that's the ownership of understanding, like, I had a really big reaction. Okay. And then being able to go into self and ask, like, what was the reason? Okay, can I find the root? So do you feel like that aligns with that self-awareness and that EQ?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I do. It took me a long time to make sense of, had to get into the sort of psychology of the instincts to sort of understand the story of why my instincts show up that way. Um, and it took me a long time to kind of recognize the social instincts, largely thought psychologically, to be connected more to the sort of paternal figure of your life. And that doesn't have to be in any kind of traditional family system, but like the idea that the sort of traditional, whoever that played that role for you, that paternal figure, kind of is often bridges the gap between the small familial world and the larger world out there, right? And kind of introduce you on how to be in the world, right? To be successful and survive in the world. And my dad was, I didn't have the language at the time when he was alive, but was of, I think, a self-very self-preservation six, followed probably closely by the one-to-one and was kind of reclusive in a way, like didn't want to go out in the world and certainly didn't want me out in the world. And so over time, unconsciously, I think I just started to learn to live without it. So what typically happens with the dominant or the repressed instinct is that you have an overdone or underdone experience of it. So I could have easily become social dominant as a response and say, I'm gonna have to tend to all of that myself and then direct too much energy and attention to the social. Or in my case, it was, well, I've learned to live without it. I'll just not, I'll just not engage with that. And I just kind of learned not to trust social interactions and groups and those kinds of things. And so this gave me the blueprint for figuring out the story and the wounds and these, like you said, the if it's hysterical, it's historical. It's like, well, what's the history? And I I I didn't know, and I probably wouldn't have found it without the subtype journey to figure that out.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Yeah. I love the subtypes. I feel like they just help us understand so much better the the type. It's not so flat, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Well, and it really explains the difference between, you know, a lot of times we'll look at like, hey, I'm talking to two different nines who seem very different. Well, it must be a wing thing. I'm like, well, the wing might play a part, but I'll bet money that it's probably more to do with the subtype and the whole sequence, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yes. Yes. I think that all the time. I'm like, and that's where I go with a lot of couples too, right into that. Like, let's figure out subtypes because that's where we're probably missing it, is that one wants this and the other wants that. And we're, you know, we're not speaking the same language. And so that awareness, I think, helps so much when it comes to just relationships in general.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And and what the subtypes, with the instincts within the subtype, the self-preser, social or one-to-one, what that all what's happening is when those feel when something happen happens in contrast to what that dominant instinct wants or the repressed instinct wants, it literally feels like a physical threat. Because these are these are like survival instincts. So it's, you know, it's hard to act with emotional intelligence or you know, maturity when you feel physically under threat. You're not, but on a psyche level, that's kind of what happens. And so yeah, in in couples counseling and any kind of relational dynamics, I think understanding that is critical.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yeah. It's so it's interesting. So I would have in my younger years definitely had more one-to-one um subtype. And Steven is a one-to-one three, but it did not, it didn't play well. Like it didn't, it wasn't like we we bonded together in that. Like it was um, but then I look at attachment. Do you do anything with attachment?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I am not an expert in attachment, but no, I I've I've touched on it, but I don't feel qualified to like I need to do more with it. It keeps it keeps surfacing. I need to spend more time with the attachments.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

It aligns with every bit of what you're talking about. It aligns. So attachment theory, but that that made that was like another level that helps me understand like, oh, I have an anxious attachment. And he has a avoidant attachment. And so even though we're both in the same subtype, this this you know, instinct, our attachments are not the same. So there's we're having some issues there. So, and that is that emotional intelligence there, understanding what's happening inside of that anxious where I'm like, hey, are we good? Are we good? Are we good? You know, and he's like nothing. And I'm like, I don't, I don't know how to read this. And you know, and my my dad left when I was little. So I think I learned I learned to not need that. So then what's familiar, you can tolerate what's familiar.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

And you're social repressed too, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yeah. So for years of just not having that, then when I didn't have it in my marriage, it wasn't intolerable. I just it was familiar. Yeah. So, and there's so many layers to this conversation around emotional intelligence. Like there's there's so many layers to it. And the Enneagram plays it does play a role if you want to use that tool. It does I feel like it's it's I don't know if it's fair for me to say, like it feels like a little bit of a cheat sheet into yourself, meaning that it's it can help us understand faster than like we can read something about ourselves and be like, oh my gosh, that makes sense, as opposed to sitting and journaling and trying to dig something out and not quite know. So that's what I mean by a cheat sheet. It's not like a it's it helps us understand how to do the work. It doesn't do the work for us.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah, it accelerates us to a place that we couldn't get to on our own.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

When you are thinking about the Enneagram and emotional intelligence, what are some examples of that that you see within the types that that maybe are, you know, like with that type one, we'll see that, you know, difficulty accessing vulnerability or emotional rigidity. Like, what are some of the things that you have seen within the types that you try to bring to awareness when you're coaching somebody?

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I start with the centers usually in terms of honing in on patterns. Um, because I know that it's I know everything's type specific, but I kind of like to start at a center level because, you know, like if I'm talking if I'm talking to a one, eight, or a nine, they're all sort of sharing that sort of instinctual knowing about the way the world is supposed to be and sort of, you know, standing against anything that doesn't agree with that instinct and sort of have that like, you know, kind of against others, even though they don't want to be necessarily, there's almost this like immovable quality to them that doesn't make them very malleable. And they just um they need to access the head and the heart, right? And so we we kind of start there. And then I usually usually talking, even if I don't talk about the passion in terms of using the terminology of the passion, I usually speak into and ask questions around what's happening in that space. So, like for a one who might have a really complex relationship with anger because they don't think anger is an acceptable emotion, but yet it's the passion of the type, and how is that showing up? That is going to become a filter for anything else to happen. So in relationships, you're gonna see a lot of rigidity or struggle to be flexible and to sort of, you know, be tolerant of things that are different than what they think is supposed to be, and that sort of letting up of the need to perfect and, you know, let other people experiment and not sort of interject on everything. And, you know, obviously you get to type two. You're in the heart center. And again, I'll stay some time on the relational focus and that sort of uh strategy that all heart types have of trying to get somebody to feed back to them their worth and their value and sort of how do we engage with the head and the body a little bit more, right? Hell how do you get a two into the body and into the into the head in a productive way that's not just obsessing about relationships? And yeah, so for each of the types, obviously, you know, there there's patterns. Um but one thing that I really try to to hold space for is not assuming that I really understand anything just because I could describe their type. Because I'm if I hold true, genuine curiosity about the stories, pretty soon we're not really talking about Enneagram, we're just talking about them. And the Enneagram's been a way in, a doorway to to uh insight. But um, you know, like we said earlier, it the Enneagram itself is not the work. It it points you to where you need to pay attention. It shows you where you habitually go, where your attention goes, and therefore all the things you miss, because what we pay attention to determines what we miss. And each type has sort of nine core hijacks of attention, right? Their attention gets hijacked here every single time, and therefore they miss a whole bunch of other stuff. And so I try to help them discover what they've been missing and then to make contact with that.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

That's really good. That's I like that framing. Yeah. Um, and I like the individuality of how you coach. Um, because we we can know as coaches, we can know your numbers, uh, but we don't know your stories. And and that's, you know, I care about the story and the person and what's happening. I always say, like, I hold things very neutral. There's no judgment in anything that I do or anything I hear. Um, they're patterns of behavior and they're there for a reason. And they were there to get your needs met, to get love or to get connection, you know, keep yourself safe. What and we've got to get curious around why we did those things. And so once you know that, that's where you can begin to change.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

So I love that you said curiosity. I feel like that's the word I repeat more than anything else.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

That's yeah, I think that's the root of my work. Curiosity with kindness.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah. Get curious with yourself and self-compassion and self-friendship, and don't think you understand everything, but don't get, don't try to just don't get shame-filled when you know you have a behavior that goes left of what you wanted to do. Like get curious about what caused that to happen. Like, you know, and with your friend and with your spouse, you know, that you could easily, especially like in the most interpersonal relationships, it's so tempting to think that we know everything about them. And because we expect patterns, we we expect to see certain things, we tell ourselves a story about what's going on, and we lose all curiosity about the story they're holding. What the what are they believing about themselves in the world right now that's causing a behavior that maybe I don't like, but maybe I need to step out of that and get genuinely curious about what's going on for them.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

That has probably been the biggest healing point in our marriage is the curiosity and kindness. And and just because I probably have an idea of what's happening, it doesn't mean that uh like I've got to get to the emotion side of it. So if that makes sense. So if he messages me something today where he's vulnerable and he's sharing how he feels about something, which we're there finally, that if he does that, that my quick response is just to try to fix it, reframe it to the positive. It's gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine. And then I don't like I'm like, that's not what he needs to hear. He needs, he needs he needs mirroring. He needs to know that I hear him and that he's concerned and that he's having some anxiety about that. That's what he needs to hear. And so I think that this emotional intelligence, it it it helps you slow down, it helps you attune to other people. Will you talk about attunement for a minute?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yeah. I think Well, I'll talk about it from my own experience, kind of coming back to my shock point that set me on a deeper dive into the Enneagram and all of this work is the need to constantly come back to myself. I think, I think what the Enneagram points us to, like I was saying earlier, these sort of habitual distractions. We get distracted by these things. You get distracted by possibilities and freedom and reframing. I get distracted by appearance and success, and ones get distracted by perfection, and nines get distracted. And and not just distracted, those are kind of actually ways that we hide our truest selves. Like I hide behind appearance, I hide behind success. And to truly get attuned, I have to be curious to start, and I have to get underneath that story and that frame. And that requires a depth of work and vulnerability with myself and others that not everybody wants to do, right? And I didn't want to do for a long time. But it's critical because it's allowed me as a three. It's it's interesting. I've I just a couple weeks ago cried over a story that happened when I was like 13 years old that I never I had told the story. I like kind of even almost laughed about the story and kind of like just moved on and almost used it as a like, look how strong I am kind of thing. And this work of self-attunement and getting connected to the child within, the sort of person that sits behind the protection mechanism of type and really attuning into that person. It's opened up now emotions that I never processed. And suddenly, you know, I'm at a certain age of life. And I suddenly am experiencing the emotions I should have allowed myself to experience, but didn't know how. And I think the journey is kind of a journey of the personality is part of who we are, but it's not all of who we are. It's a protection mechanism hiding the most essential parts of ourselves that we felt the world was inhospitable toward and that we didn't feel it would be safe to express. And so it's really a journey back in time in a way to kind of reaccess all the parts that we hid away. Um, and so self-attunment with curiosity, compassion, a lot of patience, a lot of grace and a willingness to face the shadows that we step into.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I think that that that inner child experience, like that inner child that you're talking about, that inner part, those all all the pieces of who we are are still in us. All those. And and I didn't realize until I was in my 40s. I didn't realize how big fear was, how, how gripped by fear I was all of my life until I was in my 40s. And and I had been doing this work for a while with people. And I don't, I must have had a session that just it just, you know, chiseled away at something. And I remember sitting there thinking about myself. I can still see it visually as I'm saying this to you, sitting in our little house in Rainham, Massachusetts, in my mom's bedroom while she was getting ready to go to work and all the windows were closed and it was hot. Um, but she was afraid to have the windows open and we didn't have the air condition. And so, but I I remember fear in that moment and and just being afraid, afraid of I don't know what, but fear being gripping. And then I can see how fear just interjected in so many different areas of my life, all through, you know, all through even being willing to step into some spaces in the coaching world or writing books or things like that. Like if I just stay small, then I'm probably gonna uh nobody will say anything about me, you know. Like I'm like, I don't want to hear criticism. So if I just stay small and I realize that that sphere, do I want to live in that place? If I really want freedom, I'm gonna have to feel all of it. And so it was shocking and eye opening for me. Even as I just said that, you saying and living with the windows closed, that was great. But also like that um to live to live in freedom means I have to feel all of it. And As a seven. And so I think that doing the work is is it's not easy. This isn't easy work. But I I think that to have a full life and to be comfortable, um, no, maybe not comfortable, content and at peace within, I think it requires this type of work.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

It does. I mean, I think, and this might be a stretch, but you know, I've thought this more than once with this idea of like when Jesus said, let the children come, and it's like the kingdom of God, God belongs to such as these. And I what I picture in that is are these sort of egoless, innocent beings that haven't yet completely hid themselves behind these sort of mechanisms of personality and protection. And I think doing this work actually gets us closer to the experience of God because we shed the protections. We're not hiding, we're not Adam and Eve hiding behind a tree in a garden somewhere saying, I was afraid, so I hid myself. We're we're able to step out from behind these false protections because they don't protect us. They, you know, the passion of the type is your suffering. So the very thing that you've put on to protect yourself, and it worked for a while, is the source of your suffering. The passion of your type, that not, you know, seven of the nine of them are the seven deadly sins, and it is that's what the passion means. It's not passion, like I'm passionate about, you know, golfing. It's it's an all-consuming, as you know, Beatrice Chessnut puts it, it's like, think of it as like a crime of passion. It's like this all-consuming emotional state that shadows every other experience as a result of having hit ourselves behind this mechanism of personality. And so the process of going deep into the shadows to recover that child within and find out where that healing needs to happen gets us closer to the divine, the end. And that's kind of what this is. You know, I talk about in the book a little bit. It's like the reason I have to talk about emotional intelligence is because there's really not a lot of space to talk about emotional healing, especially in a workplace. And that's really what we need. I've never found anybody on a path of deep healing that would also need an emotional intelligence coach because the latter will take be taken care of by the former, quite honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Beautiful. I mean, I can't, I can't believe how just hearing you talk about it, I resonate so much with your approach. Um, and just kind of like, oh, we we both have a heart for people in the same way. It's really neat to hear somebody else um coach in this space that way. It's really cool. It's really, really cool. Okay. What like if you anybody that's listening to this conversation, what's a takeaway that you'd want them to get curious around if they're like, hmm, I don't know even how to start this work.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think getting a coach or a guide of some kind is super helpful. You know, studying, learning about the things about your type or finding out your type is step one. I think for people that kind of know their type, I I've been doing a lot more focus on understanding, going back to the centers again, kind of like really helping people understand what's happening in the head, heart, and body. Because we talk about living in one center, but we're using all three centers all the time and we're just not conscious of it. I had a story I shared, you know, just the other day. Well, it happened a few months ago, and I'm like, this is such a perfect illustration to me of like the interplay between the head, heart, and the body that we're not often conscious of, but is our is part of our total sense-making system and the foundation of building emotional intelligence. So our bodies are constantly sending signals up through the vagus nerve through a process called interoception, letting us know what's going on and helping our brains then deploy the resources we need to stay alive. And our brains are these prediction machines that are constantly anticipating what's about to happen given the context that we're in. They have no direct access to the world whatsoever. They're in our skulls, right? So they're reliant on signals externally and intrinsically from the body. And then our emotions are usually often constructed to alert us to whether or not there's a delta between what the body experiences and the head predicts. And that's happening all day. And the story I started to mention from a few months ago is I was leaving lunch with my mom and my youngest daughter. And be they got up on the table and I'm like, I'm gonna have one more sip of my ice water before I walk out the door, and I pick up the glass and I take a big sip, and it was Sprite. And I had this like visceral, disgusted reaction. I was like angry about it. I'm like, ah, right. My emotion was like, ooh, right. If I'd have just paid attention to the emotion by itself, I would have said, I hate Sprite. Do I hate Sprite? I don't hate Sprite. I don't seek out Sprite. I'm not gonna come, you know, like I'm not ambivalent about Sprite. So there was real no threat other than a few unwanted calories and a taste I didn't care for at the moment. But my emotion did exactly what it was supposed to do. It alerted me to an unmet need. It said, there is a delta happening between what the brain expected and the body experienced. And that's what emotions primarily do to alert us to met and unmet needs. Now, that could have been poison. That could have been a cleanser of some kind. The emotion's not there to interpret it. The brain has to come online then and go, what's the data from the emotion? And it all happened in a split second. I knew what happened. No real threat. Everything's fine, everything calms down, and we go back to life, right? That is happening all the time. But we tend to, but we all belong to a center. So we try to actually not engage with the centers we're less at home in, and we try to live our whole lives from our preferred center, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of that center and not able to make as much sense of our relationships, our decision making, our stress and everything. A lot can be done by just learning to pay attention to what's actually happening. What frame am I holding in the brain? Employ some constructive doubt about that frame. What am I believing? Is that belief true? What would be an alternative belief? Really connect to what the body's experiencing, tuning in. I recommend doing body scans every day. Like, you know, do a meditative practice where you direct attention from the top of your head down to your toes over a five-minute period and just notice what the body is experiencing, right? And then with your emotions, sitting with them long enough, really feel them. You can't bypass, don't, don't buy anything when somebody says it's all about emotional regulation. That's not, that's where you want to get to, but you'll like get there first if you understand the emotion and then use the brain to question it and engage with the body. That alone, I mean, that's a lifetime worth of work to do that really, really well. But that constant practice will take you far in um making better sense of your moment to moment.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That that is the work that I do with a lot of my people. It's all that is getting into what's actually happening, questioning it, getting curious around what stories we're making up and what is what is the belief. What a great story to be able to really unpack that so that it's it's tangible. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

It's just the simple things. It's I I've been trying to notice more of those kind of everyday moments, right? Like when you have that real visceral emotional experience, it's like, hmm, what's the what's the air signal?

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Why do I get so mad about that?

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

I need one for my teenagers. Why do I get so mad about that? Um, but well, thank you so much for being with us today. And if people want to find you, can you tell us where they can find you?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Yeah, you can go to scottallender.com. You can inquire about workshops or coaching. Um, if you're interested in the book, any gram of emotional intelligence, it's on any online retailer. There's also a resource I created in the pandemic called the ENEA Flip, which is for organizations and it allows you to do a quick side-by-side um comparison of types before you step into a room with a type different than yours, and you might not remember what you need to know. Allows you to flex for the moment, and then you can get that at suede leadership.com/slash enneaflip.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

That's what a great tool. I need to get, I need to get that. But the book. Let me just that book is so good. It's so good. Um okay. Well, thanks so much for being with us and um until next time.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

And thank you for joining us today. Join us next time as we continue our conversation about the Ennegram and what it means for your relationship. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a single episode. And while you're there, we'd love for you to leave a review. Your kind words help others find the show. For more free Enneagram content, resources, and individual coaching, you can visit EnneagramwithJB.com. We'll see you next time on Enneagram with JB.