Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life
Welcome to Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life — a podcast that brings personality wisdom into everyday moments. Hosted by life and relationship coach Wendy Busby, each episode offers honest conversations, real-life stories, and practical tips for your everyday life. Whether you're new to the Enneagram or deep in your growth journey, this space invites you to explore who you are, how you relate, and what it means to live with more clarity, compassion, and confidence. Tune in, share with a friend, and keep becoming Uniquely You.
Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life
Breaking Free from Perfection (Type One)
What if the thing you thought was wrong with you was actually a pattern shared by millions? For Kristi Rider, discovering the Enneagram was like finally finding a mirror that reflected back not just her perfectionism, but the hidden anger underneath it all.
From the moment she identified as a Type One, Kristi recognized the internal pressure cooker she'd been living in. As a mother of four children, she had mastered the art of keeping everything together - coordinating sports schedules, preparing perfect meals, and maintaining impossibly high standards. But beneath that competence churned a reservoir of anger and disappointment that eventually threatened her marriage and peace of mind.
In this vulnerable conversation, Kristi shares the physical sensation of what she calls "the squeeze" - that moment when her inner critic constricts her body and mind into rigid patterns of control. She describes going to bed angry almost every night, mentally cataloging everyone's failures before sleep. The perfectionism that once seemed like her greatest strength had become her prison.
Whether you identify as a One or simply recognize the exhausting drive for perfection in your own life, this conversation offers a roadmap toward greater freedom. As Kristi now experiences what she calls "yumminess" - moments of pure presence without judgment - we glimpse the possibility of transformation that begins, as our closing quote reminds us, not with perfection but with truth.
Connect with her at: https://www.kristiridercoaching.com/
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right away that type one was my type and when the author started talking about anger and how that was a part of being the type, I was like, oh my gosh, yes, this is it. I'm definitely angry and I'd been feeling pretty angry for the last couple of years Before that. It may be not so explicit, but I definitely was experiencing the anger. So right away it just gave me some language to understand myself and my experience and just sort of like aha, like there's, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Uniquely you, the podcast where self-discovery meets everyday life. I'm your host, wendy Busby, a life and relationship coach who believes that you were never meant to fit into a box. My mission is to help you grow with more clarity, compassion and confidence. Thank you for listening. Today, I'm here with my friend, christy Ryder. Christy and I are both a part of the CP Enneagram community, and we're both part of a small group of coaches and therapists that we gather once a month and just have rich conversation about how we're using the Enneagram, both in our personal life and in our professional. Professionally, christy is an Enneagram One. She brings so much wisdom and insight when she's talking about her growth journey, and I'm really excited for you all to meet her and hear her story. Hi, christy.
Speaker 1:Hi Wendy.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. I wanted to do this for a while, as we've gotten to know one another, and I just really appreciate your willingness to come on and share all things about how you experience life as an Enneagram one.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm happy to do it and a little nervous and a little nervous and that's okay, it happens Well.
Speaker 2:So let's start with the question I ask everyone First off is what is your Enneagram story? How did you find the Enneagram, how did it come into your life and what was the initial impact of that?
Speaker 1:Well, I discovered the Enneagram through a blog, a blogger that I followed in 2013. She wrote about how she was grateful for the Enneagram and how it was helping her know herself and maybe helping her in the community that she was in. Right away I was like Enneagram. I've never heard of the Enneagram, what is the Enneagram? I've never heard of the Enneagram, what is the Enneagram? So, thank goodness for Google. I got on Google and right away, you know, pull that up and like, okay, enneagram. And then it might've been.
Speaker 1:Just in that same time period, I ordered my first book by Richard Rohr and not too much longer I started reading it.
Speaker 1:So 2013 is when I was introduced to it and I started to get an idea of Enneagram types.
Speaker 1:Right away I recognized my type and usually you hear stories I guess not usually, but sometimes you hear stories of people who don't like the type that they read about, that they sort of identify with, or you know that it's challenging, but I knew, I knew right away that type one was my type and when the author started talking about anger and and how that was a part of being the type, I was like, oh my gosh, yes, this is it.
Speaker 1:I am definitely angry and I'd been feeling pretty angry for the last couple of years Before that. It may be not so explicit, but I definitely was experiencing the anger. So, right away it just gave me some language to understand myself and my experience and just and just sort of like, uh, aha, like there's, you know, I don't know, I mean, there are things that are wrong with me, but uh, you know there's a pattern here and being angry or disappointed is part of it. Um, I've since really deep dive into the Enneagram and I really understand so much more about it, but it was just that initial like oh my gosh, you know, being known, being understood and giving me context for some relationship issues that I was having was really helpful.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you were just ripe for it. Were just ripe for it, it came just at the right time for you, when you were open to seeing what it had to offer you. You're, I think, probably the first one that I've heard say that anger was the thing that got them right away, because you know ones try to suppress that and push that down, and you know reaction formation to avoid the experience of anger, and so I really find that interesting that that was forward for you, and it's almost like you. What I hear you saying is that you were given permission yeah, given permission to acknowledge what was happening, how you've been feeling for the past few years and going oh, now I have a framework in which to look at this and maybe it's not bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I appreciate that. Yeah, I hadn't. I will say I hadn't got to the point that it wasn't bad, but, um, you know, it just shows up so much in, um, relationships and relationships are really important to me, um, they're a big priority for me. I have really close friends and best friends and um, I've been, uh, in leadership in my church, um, churches that I've lived all over, and um, you know, relationships are so important, um, in churches or in leadership teams, or you know relationships are so important in churches or in leadership teams or you know, just in general, for you know, connecting with people, and it's like I always knew in the back of my mind and some of my relationships that you know the poop was going to hit the fan at some point. You know that the bottom would come out and all the niceness or the goodness or the connection that I bring is gonna, it's gonna be, you know, blown up at some point by this, this anger that I have, and I really I just didn't understand. I mean I didn't have any lens for it except just for you know I'm not a good enough person, you know I'm not trying hard enough, there's something wrong with me and um, and so, yeah, this, this bit about the anger, I mean this has been an unfolding awareness I've gotten.
Speaker 1:But, um, you know, at the time when I I found the Enneagram and started reading about it, I was on a leadership team at my church. Um, wow, what a, what a terrible place to have a meltdown or not be your best or struggle. I had so much turmoil inside of me but it was more intense than I'd experienced before and I was also having rifts with my husband. We just moved to India in 2012. And we're going to be there for four years on this adventure and this really cool life experience. And you know, what we didn't know going into it was how demanding his job would be and how pulled away he would be from me and our family excuse me and how busy it would be, and and so there was, just like right away, disappointment about how it was going. And you know he's on a trip already, you know, in week two being there, and there's so much going on that I don't have a grip on and and so just ripe for these big feelings, you know.
Speaker 2:And so just ripe for these big feelings, you know.
Speaker 2:So I was just really in the pressure cooker, I would say, with big feelings those big anger feelings with people that are unfamiliar, and then not having things go as you expect, that wanting things to be the way they should be. When we talk about ones, we hear a lot about the what should, what the shoulds, the shoulding, what the shoulds be. This is how it should be, and that is one way to, and a big way for to control, and we can look at the way each type controls because each type there isn't one type that's better than the other or worse than the other. We all have our own stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty darn, controlling though I was. It was keeping a lot together, you know, and I think that's I think India is where I came to the end of me too. Um, I have a huge capacity, um, for being over responsible for things, you know, like if there's a ball that's being dropped, I pick it up. You know I should pick it up. It's mine to pick up All the things.
Speaker 1:I was a mom of four kids. I was a stay at home mom, so there's always this pressure on me, like, well, that's, my job is to do all of this. So I was really picking up so many, you know, so many balls, or trying to juggle them and make sense of my world and make it work. And my oldest was in eighth grade at the time and my youngest was in first grade, and it was just a lot. So, yeah, I was quite overwhelmed with life too.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, you're absolutely right, at the time time I don't think I would have recognized the shoulds. I just knew that, like, I was trying to keep it all together and, um, you know, the the time that my husband was spending away from me was keeping me from keeping it together. If that makes sense to you, so it you know I was able to identify later. I mean he was still at the heart of it and I'm trying to be really gentle. We're married, really happy right now, really in the best part of our life, but at that time I wasn't sure how we were going to last, how we're going to survive, so it was a really stressful time.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for your vulnerability and sharing that, and because that's the, that's what real life is there. There's no such thing as a flawless relationship and, um, so thank you for sharing that. So you've touched on it just a little bit, but just on average. What? What is it like for you to move through the world as a one?
Speaker 1:Um well, I wish I could say it was more exciting. Just even as you asked that question, I can feel the squeeze inside of me, you know, and what do you?
Speaker 1:mean Like a squeeze, oh, just like everything kind of contracts inward, you know, in a fearful, maybe, way. So I'm a self preservation one which is, you know, really oriented towards safety, survival through what I do, what I can make happen, having what I need to survive. So that fear and anxiety is also running through me all the time. And, yeah, so before I really started doing inner work, I have this really strong inner critic that was operating all the time. I should have done this. There's not enough time. We need to hurry. I need to get all of this done.
Speaker 1:Even I noticed when I would wake up in the morning. I was an early bird and maybe I was getting up at six and I stayed in bed a little bit longer, 6.15. And, you know, before my feet Living danger. My inner critic had a heyday with that. You know, right away, before you know, as I'm climbing out of bed, I'm hearing I should have gotten up earlier. You know I'm not going to have enough time to do what I wanted to do. You know it's like it's just operating all the time at that point. So it's like I have these marching orders from a really harsh, I would say, parent, or it's myself. It's like the harsh version of myself just telling me what I need to keep doing essentially to look good in this world, to be successful to you know, not let the balls drop, which maybe is a way of saying to be perfect. You know, like cause I'm just thinking there are all these things I need to juggle and it's all on me, and so I've got all of this, this sort of pressure on myself to to keep it all together. You know, all the time and and it's just on me.
Speaker 1:So you know one point before we moved to India, my four kids were in sports. All four of them were in fall sports, three in soccer and one in football, and one was playing more competitive soccer. So there was more practices. The games are farther away. Everybody's at a different time in a different place.
Speaker 1:You know, in that dinnertime window of you know four and seven and four kids a lot of kids to get dinner ready for and we don't have at that time we didn't have a lot of resources, so we weren't going out to eat for easy food and you know there was never once that I thought I can't do this. So I'm not going to do this. You know, I just did it and I made it happen and I got the kids, you know, to their practices and pick them up and you know, try not to put any of my kids out too much so they weren't waiting at each other's practices and and get dinner on the table and you know that it's going to be hot when they eat it and it's going to be healthy and and so I don't know, do you get the picture of what it's like?
Speaker 2:Yes, what I hear you describing is an immense amount of inner pressure, yeah, and that you said that squeezing it when you said, oh, here comes the squeeze. That's what I hear you describing is that inner pressure to get it all right, and that inner critic is the one telling you that you're not getting it right, because what is right Maybe that's the maybe-on sort of inquiry is well, what is the right way to do this thing that I'm calling getting four kids to their sports and making sure they have a hot meal and never measuring up to whatever that unknown right way is? Is that sound, yeah?
Speaker 1:for sure it was yeah, it's. I think it's um yeah.
Speaker 2:If I had to put it in different words, that's what I would say. I'm hearing you say and I I love the topic of the inner critic, with ones um and with fours which we've talked a little bit about this in the past, um, the one being that inner critic, and especially for you as a self-preservation, one that it's really directed towards you.
Speaker 2:And there's differences in the way the social one hears the inner critic and the sexual one hears the inner critic, which would be fun to kind of touch on just slightly. But it's really that it's directed to you and at you more than it is at anyone else, and I think that that is something people don't really understand when they're in relationship with ones, especially self-preservation ones, because it can feel like pressure to the outside, especially self-preservation ones, because it can feel like pressure to the outside, but it's really there's so much pressure on the inside of the one that you're just trying to hold it together and keep a lid on the anger, keeping a lid on the anger because, like you alluded to initially, well, anger is bad and I can't be bad, because then I wouldn't be good.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you cannot lose your shit, you know.
Speaker 2:You can't have those two things being bad and good can exist at the same time. So that must feel very confusing on the inside, very confusing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so true. You know the inner critic for me is, I think it's the voice that helps me to be good enough. You know it's the voice that helps me show up with. You know all put together to be acceptable, you know, to be enough. I think that's really what my inner critic is working towards. It's also the voice of my dad.
Speaker 1:When there's so much pressure on situations and things need to go just a certain way, you know you need to do something just right the first time because there's, you know, not enough time or resources to you know do it again or make a mistake. You know that's like some of that voice has definitely been brought in from the outside. And then I had some pretty harsh teachers when I was younger, growing up in the 80s, that had no problem being very critical and vocal about it in front of the whole class. And so someone who's attuned to doing the right thing and not the wrong thing, it's like a double whammy for me, or I feel it doubly, and maybe other people do too. But it's like that's what I pay attention to, that is everything to me is that I'm doing the right thing and not the wrong thing. And so those harsh voices from the outside. They came inside of me and it's like you know. I think in some way we're being effective to keep me together.
Speaker 1:You know I'm a fairly shining person. You know my life is pretty successful and I say that you know a little like I feel silly for saying it. But you know I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I've dropped the ball plenty of times, but I have four really great kids. They're all young adults now and my husband and I are really happy together and life is going the way I would have hoped it would.
Speaker 1:So I can say wow, that was helpful sometimes to have the inner critic, I guess. But it is a lot of squeezing pressure inside of me and when I'm living in that space I'm not really living for my authentic self. I'm not offering the world and the people around me. You know an experience of, of, you know, someone who's just able to be herself and relaxed. You know it's almost like it's a persona of someone who's going to get it right and have it all together, which creates a lot of pressure for people around me and maybe it's not the most comfortable, you know, at times I think you know it's that's not an experience people have had with me all the time, for sure, but um, but that is you know, I know that's happened.
Speaker 2:So yeah, persona, personality, that's what it's the strategies we use to get through the world.
Speaker 1:And that's what you needed.
Speaker 2:That's what you needed to have in order to get through the world in which you were in. We all, and we all need them in our own way, and the one it operates in that personality structure framework of being right, being good. If I'm good and if I'm doing good things, if I'm doing what's right, then I'm safe, and it all comes back to safe being safe. So what is your relationship with your inner critic? Now that you have been on this inner work, healing journey and coming to understanding yourself in a new way? What's the relationship that you have now with your inner critic?
Speaker 1:Well, just getting ready for you know, being here with you, I could tell she's alive and well. She wants me to, you know, shine here with you and say things that are meaningful and put together. And so I was just working on relaxing the inner critic, which is really about breathing. It's about regulating our nervous systems. The inner critic is a dysregulated response, you know. It's a response out of not feeling safe and worried about, you know, my survival, you know out here in the world. So, um, yeah, so inner critic is still there, but I would say a lot, lot less Um I I deep dove into inner work when, um, I went through my first Enneagram training.
Speaker 1:I learned the growth path for type ones and I'd never heard this before. I've been a practicing Christian since I was 18. And I've been on this lifelong journey of improving myself, or we might use the word sanctification if we were in church and through church, through sermons, through learning, through reading the Bible, it's like I learned how to be a good person or be a better person. What I didn't realize is that I was just learning how to be a better type one and really kind of more locking myself into oneness. It was at that first workshop that I did, where it was described, you know, the work of ones was described to us. There were three of us, I believe, and the person you know teaching us said you ones probably think that you're, you know, at this higher level. You're probably at level four because you've been working so hard on yourself, and then he is like he just took a. You're probably at level four because you've been working so hard on yourself and then he is like he just took a.
Speaker 1:You know this is kind of violent, but it's like he took a machine gun and he just went and he was like you guys are all. It was one of the most awful feelings we were. I don't know how we ended up in the back together it was a bathroom break or something but it was like we were consoling each other. You know, our fragile egos were just devastated. We've been working so hard on, you know, improving ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yes, and being good and being good and checking all the boxes, confusing, I think, for ones within the, we'll just say, the Christian of what is right and rules and understanding the difference between what are the holy choices and then what are the rules you're trying to abide by and that, instead of unfolding in a natural process of sanctification and relationship which comes over time, over struggle, it's trying to like oh well, these are the rules I have to follow.
Speaker 2:Here are the five right things to say and believe and if I'm not with, if I'm not aligned with those things, then I'm not living up to the standard. Then maybe God isn't happy with me. I'm not doing enough. Whatever the story inside is. About that, about I'm not good enough, and it comes back to I'm not good enough, so let me try harder oh yeah, and I wanted to shine.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like I, I think church was really the first place where it's like okay, here are the rules for succeeding and you know, I, I liked them and I embraced them and that's what I wanted, you know, and it was. It did bring a lot of security to me. I didn't grow up in feeling very secure. Six years old, and there were five of us little kids and my mom worked full time and there wasn't, there was never enough money, at least from my self-preservation perspective, and you know, everything was just really hard and stressful, you know, and it's like I had these new ways of being good that didn't have to do with, maybe, financial resources or resources that we were depleted on in my family. I think there's some of those. Of course, that was all unconscious, I just knew like hey, I can thrive here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can thrive in this place. It's not about going in and identifying all of that. That takes time to reveal itself and we all have our own ways of doing that. Where do you land within the five siblings that you have? I'm the second, you one of five, so you're the second oldest.
Speaker 1:Well, let me tell you, First of all, we have dogs too, so I know everyone says they do it every once in a while.
Speaker 2:I mean, this isn't like the most you know professional production and I'm not trying to be that. And so I was like you know what? If the dogs are barking in the background, that's okay, I'm a real person with a real life.
Speaker 1:Oh, dogs, all right, okay, so I'm out of five kids, I'm the second, but I'm in a really unique place because I'm actually the middle, because the third born in our family was triplets, so it was my brother.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's an experience.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I wouldn't remember because I was only 19 months old when those triplets were born. So I've been really getting in touch with my story and the impact being 19 months old and mom having triplets, you know, really just started the ball rolling there with my oneness and that self-preservation instinct. It just, yeah, my story just goes so so far as most of ours do, but it's kind of unique that I can say, oh, at 19 months old, you know, my mom had triplets. It's kind of unique that I can say, oh, at 19 months old, you know, my mom had triplets and our family was in survival mode for quite a long time and there's some joy there too, I'm sure, but yeah, it was very challenging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big, that's something big, and so I like the way you said that you're. Yes, I'm the second, but I'm also the middle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that comes with its own implications and being so young too, and then having to probably in some ways well, I've got to, you know, take care of yourself. And that's too young to have to do that, as much as you know, your parents were, or your mom was, trying to tend to three babies.
Speaker 1:Right and also I was helping her. I was able to ask her at some point what was that like for me? And she was like well, oh, you were right there with me.
Speaker 1:We were a team Mom's a little helper there with me, you know, like we were a team. Yes, I was, you know, helping her with the baby. So again, that's yeah, just psychologically. You know, I was feeling responsible for myself, probably, and then also caring for my siblings, which has really been a lifelong thing for me, not necessarily caring for my siblings, but caring for people. A very strong two-wing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you mentioned the first retreat that you went to, and it was a little bit of this sort of awakening moment of you know this, I don't know what you called it. You said something.
Speaker 1:Oh, when the poop hit the fan.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, a minute here Now we've got to console ourselves. But yes, it was a harsh wake up. A harsh wake up, there you go. What did you take away from that experience? As something that this is now the work that to do as a one? What was your? You know your homework, I should say what was your homework from that experience.
Speaker 1:Well, fortunately, I guess, because our lives are so hard as ones, our inner work is the best and the funnest. So it was packaged that way, and it is true. We, to you know, break out the inner critic and really take offline this, you know, being good and not being bad we are. Our work is to have more fun, play, you know really get in touch with the inner child. Do bad things. You know wrong things, which you know anything from. You know taking the item at the grocery store, walking around and putting it back in the wrong place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the go-to one. Something off the shelf.
Speaker 1:That's all I did. That's all I did. I don't want to say it, it was just doing that over and over again. No, I have my own rules that I was breaking. I didn't even need to be bad by anyone else's standards. I started making dinner oh, covid happened right after that workshop started making dinner oh, covid happened. Right after that workshop. We went right into COVID mode and my four kids were at home. A lot One had already just gone away to college. He came back, so there was a lot of us here and I just went on my merry way to do my work.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I started doing was I would make dinner and then I would just leave it on the counter and then everybody could just get their own food. It didn't matter if it was cold or hot, it didn't matter if it was chaotic, which it always is if you have six people coming to the table. So I probably would have just really in the past, I would have controlled that chaos so much more by putting on, know, putting on the table and maybe having the table set. And it's so dumb now I don't, I can't even believe I did that but set the table and did all those things. But you can't.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how hard that was for me. It was so dysregulating, it felt so overwhelming, so chaotic for me. Very, you know, I had a big attachment to that, you know, probably for the just getting the chaos, you know, at bay or you know, as the primary, and then maybe my image of what a you know, a perfect mom is. You know what the best mom is, or how my kids feel nurtured. So, yeah, just doing those little things I put that in quotes are just some of the best work to break up the inner critic and that compulsion to always trying to be perfect or do the right thing and not the wrong thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's really, really helpful when we can start to identify what our patterns are, the, the ones that we don't even know we're doing. And that requires paying attention and going oh, oh, there, that thing is again that I keep doing. Let me disrupt that. How can? Oh, maybe what I'm going to do is I'm just going to put the food on the counter. Yeah, when everything inside of you is going, I should. I should be setting the table, I should be making sure that it's hot, for when everyone gets, I should ones.
Speaker 2:If they ones can start to pay attention to how often they hear the word should inside themselves and start to just disrupt that a little bit, they will see some things start to change. And then it's about soothing yourself. Like you said, this regulating from a state of dysregulation, regulating yourself, comes through as part of self soothing. So how do you soothe yourself when, when you, when that inner critic is really, really loud, even though you've done so much work, it still happens? I mean, I had a mini four meltdown the other day and it's like oh yeah, oh hey, Still here. Well, there she is again. Thought we were past that. Nope, it doesn't happen as often as it used to. It doesn't last as long as it used to. But we have to be honest with ourselves. This is our lifelong work. You don't get to a place of being done with the work of holiness. I won't even say inner work, let's just call it the work of holiness. We don't ever get to the place where we have reached some sort of perfection, because that's impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our humanness will always be there with us. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll be honest with you yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I do want to just bring you know, full transparency, that during COVID, I was, you know, one of those people, um, who started drinking more wine. Um, I probably, you know, would have a glass or two in the evening, and it was, I would say it's, it was a pretty strong habit and, you know, I just noticed that I was starting to think about it, even a little earlier in the day, you know, and maybe have three glasses of wine, um, so I yeah, I can see I was just really trying to regulate myself that way, you know, to numb it out a bit. And you know, I caught myself. I could see, like, oh yeah, I shouldn't probably be thinking about this is a good shit, I probably't probably be thinking about this is a good shit. I probably shouldn't be thinking about a glass of wine at 10 in the morning. So I started developing, you know and this was at the beginning of my inner work journey and COVID was such a big deal that it was a lot coming at me at a time. So I just want to give myself grace for that and I just started developing inner work practices, um, of, you know, regulation of, um, you know, cultivating calm, um, I started reading the artist's way Uh, I can't remember the author, uh, julia something and, um, you know, started journaling every day, doing a free write journal.
Speaker 1:I made it my job to be in my hot tub every morning, for you know as long as it took to feel good, I would just float and hang out. And you know, all my kids, you know, watched me be going from this mom who's always, you know, productive, and you know, all my kids, you know, watched me be going from this mom who's always, you know, productive. And you know I'm doing laundry. Everybody, I'm very productive. Yes, bye, honey, have a great day at work. You know, thanks for working for us and doing all that. And I'm just going to, you know, be here on the hot tub, you know, and can you say goodbye to me in the hot tub? Yeah, goodbye to me in the hot tub. You know they're all in school or you're doing online school and yeah, that was that was. You know that was huge for me, because not only am I doing it, but people are seeing me doing it.
Speaker 1:You know, up until that point, I used to feel like I needed to work hour for hour, like my husband, which I didn't really have a good grid for because I was really working like 18 hours a day. I had babies that I was nursing through the night. I mean, it just never ended. But I was always comparing myself Am I doing enough? Not feeling like I was? So it was like, oh, all of a sudden, I have this permission to relax and to play and to know like this is good for me, this is really important for me. Um, the biggest testimony for this work is that I used to go to bed angry almost every night. You know, uh, we don't have a bathroom in our bedroom, so I'd brush my teeth, do my things and, and you know, walk through, say goodnight to people and, you know, bitch at them on the way Like it wasn't good today. And you know this is what you guys need to clean that up. And you know I was just like I was.
Speaker 2:I was angry, pointing at every flaw you saw, totally. I was just worried.
Speaker 1:Yes, every you know it was like a little explosion every night before bed. And I think at that point you know, in the very beginning, alcohol does not help that either, you know, it's just sort of like, becomes just, you know, easier to say all those things. So now fast forward to these days. I, I like I'm just happy, I, you know, I kiss my husband goodnight and I'm like that was a great time. We had a good dinner, we've been playing a lot of Catan or we'll go for a walk or do something, and it's like, wow, I just feel so happy and I think my husband will get behind that. Work anytime, take as long as you need in the hot time. Yeah, he's a type nine, he's probably a social nine, yeah, so that's right, we've talked about that so he's just happy that you're happy.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally, because, yeah, it's like so, you know, so dysregulating for him. You know, putting him in this fight, flight or freeze mode when I'm being critical or when I'm angry or I'm disrupting the peace, I mean that was a regular occurrence. I do feel for him. You know, for a long time in our marriage we were just on this like this fight, flight or freeze mode. Really, you know, we're happy. We were just on this like this fight, flight or freeze mode. Really, you know, we're happy. We just had babies really close together.
Speaker 1:We moved every few years, even moving to India for four years. It's like, you know, I don't know what was wrong with just normal, why did we just invited all of this. But you invited this big life that had big consequences and we were just too, you know, young people not realizing like oh my gosh, that's a lot and it requires a lot of self care to feel good in your day. You know you're going to be working really hard, so make sure you take care of yourself. You know, have quiet moments in the morning, take a walk in the morning, go slow, you know, or gosh, just let the house be messy. You know, like there was just so much, you know it just felt like so much pressure all the time riding on everything.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I love that you can name anger Before you realized it was anger. What did you call it?
Speaker 1:Well, I probably would say irritated, when I, yeah, when, and then when I was introduced to the word anger, I was like yeah, it's anger. And I would say I'm like so damn disappointed. You know, like that would be the yeah, yeah, I would just to say you can edit this out, but it was like damn disappointment. You know, it's like not just disappointment, it's like I'm really disappointed.
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted to ask that question because I think it's important for ones to understand that, that this sense that they have inside their bodies, because, being in a body type, it is happening inside the body, this squeezing to go all the way back to one of the first things that you said it's a constriction to control First, mm-hmm, and I think that people don't really understand that. We talk about ones as being more rigid, but in it's actually the body is rigid, mm-hmm, and you can sometimes yeah, it's physiological, physiological.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you can tell that you're working with a one, or maybe they might be a one, even just in the way they hold their body. There's so much rigidity and it is for control. I've got to control myself, first and foremost, and stay within the rules and do all the things. And so to hear you be so honest and vulnerable and it just and like hey, here's, here are the you know, maybe not so good parts, but this is what's real and this is what's honest. And to say, you know, I went, I went to bed angry every night, that's something that I would imagine is hard to say. And to say, you know, I went to bed angry every night, that's something that I would imagine is hard to say. And to say, well, that's real, yeah.
Speaker 1:If I was still going to bed angry. That would be hard to say if I was admitting to a real time problem.
Speaker 2:Yes, but at some point you had to. At some point it was happening and we have to be willing to be honest with ourselves about what's actually going on. If we're going to make any change, we have to be willing to tell ourselves first the hard thing, or be willing and be willing to look at it, and that's it comes in stages. It is it we. We wouldn't be able to handle like a full on opening of the insides of ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it does come in stages.
Speaker 2:We wouldn't be able to handle it. It has to come in stages, little by little, of what we can reasonably look at and then begin to work on.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. I would say yeah, just to piggyback on that, that. You know, every time I was going to bed mad, it was never because of me. You know, it was never. It was not what I was doing. It's like what everyone else didn't do or what they're doing. Yeah, that was so. You know, it was never. It was not what I was doing. It's like what everyone else didn't do, what they're doing. Yeah, that was so. The. You know the problem. Um, yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, as you're talking about the body and just the rigidity, the contraction.
Speaker 1:Um, some of my favorite work came out of something that was really challenging for me, which was, um, I got plantar fasciitis and both my, both my feet, and I've had that before. It's just very painful. I had been a runner for a long time. Uh, before that, I loved running long distances and I generally ran like a 5k um up at that point. And you know, regularly, almost every day, it's kind of how my body felt better. You know, getting rid of the. You know, regularly, almost every day, it's kind of how my body felt better. You know, getting rid of the. You know the rigidity and the tension and, um, it was just kind of at the right time for um, for the next portion of my inner work, which is kind of like I took almost a year and a half off of life, um, but I was still there, I still had life, you know, going on and I was still kind of maintaining things. But, um, with my plantar fasciitis I could barely walk. So you know I wasn't running anymore, which, um, you know, while I enjoyed it, it was definitely was like a self-improvement thing. It was a way to keep off weight and keep my body fit and you know it had all these rules around it. I got to run the certain pace and this far, and so there was a lot of rigidity to it. You know a lot of, you know, perfectionism coming from that. So, taking that just completely offline and like not even really being able to walk to heal from plantar fasciitis, I mean there's, there's many ways, but almost you just have to rest it. You know, I mean I've tried a few things, um, but it's like it's going to go and it's going to go, yeah, so that was taken offline.
Speaker 1:Um, I started eating whatever I wanted to. I just dropped the rules about eating. Um, I generally like to eat healthy and it's for the reason of staying presentable, whatever that is, and I let that go and just ate what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it, which I mean, that was pretty decadent, and that decadence is part of my inner work. Uh, you know, wearing what I wanted to wear, or just, you know, sometimes I just walked around naked. My husband did not mind this inner work. It was just like really becoming okay with all of me.
Speaker 1:You know, not hiding me in clothes that made me feel, you know, look thinner than I was. You know which never were. You know, it never worked. Even when I weighed 20 pounds less, I was still trying to hide the same stuff that wasn't there. It was like always this moving targets.
Speaker 1:So I really, you know, I just really deep dove into that work. I just want to let it all go. You know, like let go of all of the restrictions I put on myself. I also cut my hair really short. It had been it's kind of mid right now. I used to keep it really long and I just kept cutting it shorter, you know, and I was just like I want to even deconstruct my attachment to my hair and, like you know the attractiveness that it gives me or what people notice about me.
Speaker 1:Um, so that that year and a half was like just a deep dive into deconstructing those things and I'm so glad for it. It was a really special time. Um, oh, the other thing I stopped doing around that time as I stopped weighing myself. I haven't weighed myself in over three years, um, and that I mean so many Americans do that just regular every day, weigh themselves, right, and it's like, oh, that number's up or it's down and I'm good or I'm bad, and I'm like let's get rid of that too. My husband's like why'd you do the scale away? And he did, he bought one, and you know it's since gotten lost again.
Speaker 2:But, um, that can be really powerful. That can be a really powerful thing for ones, because it's if it doesn't just what you're saying right, the the scale. If it doesn't say what you think it should say, then it's a reinforcing of that. You're not okay?
Speaker 1:I love with this thing as stupid as a scale. You know it's like what is that? What is that?
Speaker 2:I love everything you're saying about letting go of the restrictions, and that's an important word for ones if they're listening to ask themselves where they're restricting themselves. Where in your life are you restricting yourself and where can you give yourself some leeway on that Permission to have?
Speaker 1:fun, let it go and do the opposite.
Speaker 2:Let it go. Do something wrong, do something bad? The audacious, the audacity. How dare you Get on with your bad self right? That is incredibly powerful work for a one and we need to be really compassionate towards the experience that you have. Because, as much as other people think that they might be hard on people to grasp and it can leak out on others as rigidity, like we've talked about, or judgment, and that doesn't feel good to other people. But when we can have some compassion for the experience of the other person because we value and love them and go, oh, I don't have to take this personally, I don't have to take it personally.
Speaker 2:I can let this go and show grace to my friend Christy Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's not easy to do. I mean, you and I are both really shiny people, wendy. We're presenting well here and yet you know, we are really closely connected on that arrow with the one in the four. You know, I feel so deficient. You know, or have felt so deficient, there's something wrong with me and all of my efforts are going to going towards feeling like I'm enough. And from what I understand about fours, that's really happening inside too, that there's a sense of deficiency, or I was born without what everybody else has right Like yeah, very true.
Speaker 2:I relate a lot to one, and I think that's partly because I have self-preservation as my dominant instinct as well, and so there is that anxious kind of anxious um fear about being okay good, all the things that go along with that, um the. The way I like to um talk about the inner, how I experienced the inner critic and other fours that I've talked to, is that it's more an inner condemner.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:It's flavored as that because it is about like what's wrong with you, Like what's missing.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The irredeemably deficient inner narrative story of the four.
Speaker 1:That I'm not just feel that, you know, yeah, the inner condemners story.
Speaker 2:It's a similar story. The four and the one half of I'm not good enough, I'm not doing the best or whatever, all the things you've already said, yeah, and for me things you've already said, and for me it feeds that inner deficiency story of I mean it sounds very condemning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That inner condemner, you know. You can just feel the weight of that. You know it's like having a superhero villain, you know, or a super villain, you know, inside of you, like always fighting against you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my work around that has been to speak truth to that.
Speaker 1:Of that I am wonderfully whole, that's my I, that I am, I am whole, that I'm not missing anything that there's nothing broken, I'm made whole, that's my I, that I am.
Speaker 2:I am whole, that I'm not missing anything, that there's nothing broken, I'm made whole, I am made whole.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Mine is I'm enough. Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, I'm enough. Yeah, when I started doing some therapy right around that time too, um, you know it's just, it's amazing how, like when that and too, you know it's just, it's amazing how like when that, even just saying that, you know like that was so such a radical shift to say I am enough and I could just feel it like right here. You know it's just like. You know like there's enoughness here. It's taken a long time to you know, feel that, long time to. You know, feel that and even you know, coming on your podcast, that that's what gets disrupted so quickly is you know that enoughness space and when I can, you know, resource myself with some meditation and you know a talk with a friend and or my husband's so encouraging and like remind me. You know the space, it's like, yes, and I can imagine all that and I can kind of feel that and I can kind of I can bring it with me. You know, and I mean the hope is in this work that we're doing with the Enneagram, our inner work is that we're shifting the center of gravity to that place of enoughness and wholeness and okayness and safety, you know, and I feel like the more we practice it, you know, the more we do it doesn't matter like how many times we go away from it. Or you know, even that I would come here and still feel like, well, you know the constriction. It's like that center of gravity is just, you know, it's getting stronger and stronger. Yeah, so I try to say yes to things like this, just to keep me, you know, really engaged and active in this. You know, when you asked me, I could have said no, thank you, but it's like this is, this is also inner work for me, just saying yes.
Speaker 1:Or I started an Enneagram gathering where I teach about the Enneagram and you know, showing up to teach was just like, you know, I felt like I was going to die. It was so painful and thankfully I had a great coach coaching me through that time. You know also, and I did a website a couple years ago that was just actually last year and that was all going great until he told me I needed to get a headshot done and then it just like whoa, total dysregulation again, you know, and really connecting it to this narrative of if I stay small, I stay safe, you know, and getting a headshot is like putting yourself. It just felt like I was putting myself out there in this major way, you know. And so just I just keep doing these things. You know, I was like an army crawl, like you know. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get that little bit of ground there, even if it's just a little bit, you know, cause I want that center ready.
Speaker 1:I want to, I want to, I want to be able to show up in my resource self all the time. You know, that's that's what abundant living really is, is that I can just show up in this moment. And you know, whatever happens in our time together, you know, it's organic and it was meant to. It takes on a whole life of its own, you know. But I can get in the way of that If I stay in my rigidity and, you know, have my answers written down, you know, and just say them just as they need to be.
Speaker 1:It's like everything changes, you know, and I just know that I know in my heart of hearts and the depths of my body that I was never meant to be so constrained, you know, like I was never meant to live in a body that just operated in this small space. I can feel it now and I feel so bad for kids who are in school all day and have to sit in a desk. My kids are more grown now, but I think of my husband and he goes to work and he's got to be in his desk and operate in this small space. You don't have the freedom to move around. I mean he can get up he does have more autonomy than that but eat when you're hungry and go to the bathroom when you need to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1:There's so much rigidity that's poured over us, all of us at an early age, in school, and I just don't think we're ever meant to live like that, you know. And the lasting effects for some of us, you know, are well into adulthood or, you know, even until death. You know a lot of people never get to experience the sheer. I don't know just this sense inside that everything is okay, as it should be. You know this serenity is okay, as it should be you know this serenity, okay, as it should be.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I have. I feel that more regularly now. When I go outside, I I just see the beauty of my yard, as opposed to like it's very natural and it it hasn't been landscaped, you know, and it's not comparing. You know it's like it's not comparing. You know it's like it's like no, I just got and I'm like, wow, it is so stunning out here and look at those birds and look at the squirrels, and and the air is like the right temp, like it just feels just perfect. It's not too hot or too cold, and and those moments I'm like, wow, you know, it's like I call it yumminess and that's what I think you know that's where we move towards. Is that yumminess place? You know, where we can just respond to life as it comes? You know, as opposed to, in this, you know, rigid space, protecting ourselves, and you know, keeping all the order and all the chaos at bay. And, yeah, so I'm, I'm so hooked on this inner work. You know, and I want that for everybody. I think you do too.
Speaker 2:Come on everybody Just do it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's so good, it's worth it. It's so much work, but it's worth it. You know, just like when I found out about the anger, it's like okay, that's yeah Not great, but like yay, there's like a little bit more freedom with that, and it's just like a little bit more freedom and a little more agency. And you know, it's like I have the, the, the capacity to choose. Now, you know, when I'm angry and not angry, Um, it's.
Speaker 2:It's like the, the greatest freedom um, really, yeah, I know that's one of the things that I love about the Enneagram so much is that it really does help us make sense of the questions that we already have about ourselves that maybe we don't know how to ask. But everybody that I have done this work with, there are certain questions that we have about well, why am I the way that I am? And we don't have an answer to that question. We just keep plugging through life the way that we do because that's what's worked for us in the past. Or if we keep repeating things and we don't know why we're repeating them, maybe we don't want to keep doing the same thing over, but we don't know how to do things differently. And it helps us get some of those answers Like, oh, there's so much hope in that. I just remember for me it felt so hopeful. It's like, oh, maybe there's not something wrong with me.
Speaker 2:I remember that was really a forward message. For me initially was oh, maybe there's not something wrong with me. Maybe it's okay that I'm emotional, maybe that's okay. And then it's the oh. What are the strengths and the challenges that come along with being emotionally sensitive? You know because, there's beauty in that, and there's also. It can also be trouble.
Speaker 1:Right, there's two sides of the coin. It's always a fine line here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So for yeah, for to say like I want it, I want everyone to want it, yeah, People have to come to it on their own. And or to say like I want everyone to want it.
Speaker 1:People have to come to it on their own, and they do. We all do.
Speaker 2:I mean, most of us we do. Well, christy, this has been a really just amazing conversation. Thank you for your vulnerability, for sharing your inner world as a one, and the really beautiful work that you've done. I hope that we'll have an opportunity to do this again, because I think we have other things we could talk about and share. Yeah, there's a topic I think that we could talk about that we can talk about today, and I'd like to do that sometime. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do it, wendy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I like to finish my podcast with a little closing quote and just something to leave with people to think about, and the one I chose for today is by AJ Sherrill. It says God meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be. Transformation begins with truth.
Speaker 1:Yes, beautiful Amen to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.