Towards Eden, an Enneagram Podcast
The Enneagram is an amazing tool to help us have way better relationships - and grow emotionally + spiritually.
On this podcast you'll hear stories of people using the Enneagram personality tool
to understand themselves and the people in their worlds.
& I (Elyse) will teach you how to use the Enneagram system so that you feel empowered to use this tool in your own life.
Let's get curious about each others' stories and grow together 🌿
Towards Eden, an Enneagram Podcast
#4 - An Enneagram 7 Learns to Feel All the Emotions with Emily Barnes (7)
Elyse welcomes her dear friend Emily, an Enneagram 7. She offers a deep dive into her personal journey, especially how she’s embraced all the emotions as a 7- and that’s not easy!
Emily shares her emotional growth and strategies to let herself feel the sadness and grief of life - and it might involve a story about crying in the car. Also, the pain of losing a community - and the joy of finding a new one.
⚡ HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE ⚡
- Mistyping 7 and 8
- How to feel the whole spectrum of emotions - not just the comfortable ones
- Sevens’ love for freedom + joy
- A season of winter ❄️
- Spiritual practices for Sevens
- The power of community to harm us or heal us
📚 RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE 📚
Join us at the upcoming event Enneagram at Work 👩🏼🏫 to learn about the 9 types at work & discover how you can get along better with coworkers.
- Saturday, October 12th
- Valparaiso, IN
- 1-4pm
______________________________________________________________
For resource recommendations, click here.
The Road Back to You by Ian Cron- start here to find your type
Links for Towards Eden Enneagram 🌿
Instagram
Facebook
Website
Email me 📩
elyse@towardsedenenneagram.com
Get my FREE Guide to the 9 Enneagram Types 🌱
This guide is a great quick-reference to help you remember the types.
Before we get into this episode, I have a quick story to share with you. Several years ago I worked in a school setting. It was a private alternative school and the majority of our students didn't fit into the public school system and so that's why they came to us. And it was really hard. During those years at that job I was learning a bit about the Enneagram, but I'd actually mistyped myself as an eight when really I was a one, so I wasn't really doing a lot of good Enneagram work at that point. So I was getting frustrated daily because the students in my classroom just didn't really care about the rules, and I also had coworkers who didn't seem very bothered by our students who weren't following the rules. And, of course, as an Enneagram one. This was a huge trigger for me and I was assuming that everyone saw the world like I do as in. Oh, everybody wants to do our best to follow the rules and to be good, but the truth was everybody wasn't seeing the world like I was, which I didn't understand at the time, and so I was frustrated and I felt pretty alone and pretty misunderstood towards the end of being in that job. The problem was I didn't know myself well enough to understand my type one fixation on rules, and I didn't understand why I was so bothered. I didn't understand why my coworkers weren't getting upset at the same things that I was, and actually some of them seemed to be thriving in an environment. That was really hard for me. And, honestly, it wasn't until after I had a mental breakdown at work and then eventually quit that job that I started learning a lot about myself as a type one and I started to understand why I had slid into a place of such extreme stress at that job. If I had known the Enneagram and understood my type back then, and if I had understood my co-workers Enneagram types, it would have made a huge difference. I actually do wonder if that knowledge would have allowed me to stay in that job longer instead of burning out, if I had simply understood a lot more about my type. So I want you to have a better experience than that. I want you to understand your Enneagram type so that you know your stress triggers, you can tell when you're moving into an unhealthy place at work and you can pivot, understand your stress and then pivot into a place where you can be more healthy and thriving at work. And I also want you to understand the nine different lenses that your coworkers are wearing, so that you can communicate better with them. So this fall, I'm hosting an event called Enneagram at Work, and at this event you'll learn how to leverage the Enneagram to become more successful at your job and, hopefully, how to avoid falling into burnout like I did. We're also going to have a panel of three professionals who use the Enneagram in their jobs so that you can hear examples of how this tool is impacting real workplaces.
Speaker 1:I hope you can join me in Valparaiso, indiana. Bring a friend or a coworker with you on Saturday, october 12th. There is a link to register in the show notes. See you there. And now onto the episode. So I am reading my email to see to remember which topic we decided to talk about. And, emily, I see that you actually never responded to the last email I sent you, so I do not think that we chose a topic.
Speaker 2:Well, I did just assume that we were just going to talk about all of them, and why limit ourselves to just one topic? We need to talk about all of the things. They were all great ideas, so I'm ready for all of it everybody.
Speaker 1:This is my friend, enneagram seven, emily barnes. You're listening to towards eden, an enneagram podcast. The enneagram is a tool that helps us tell our stories. I'm elise and I'm here to teach you all about the enneagram, so this tool is accessible for you. So emily is my good friend and we've had so many Enneagram conversations together over the years we actually so many for a few years and I just you know Emily might be the person I've talked the most Enneagram with in my life really.
Speaker 2:That's an honor. Maybe you I need a badge or something for that shoot. I should start making badges. I need that. I would wear it, yeah, with pride.
Speaker 1:No one would know what it means, but I would oh, I think that's a great setup for us to tell everybody about you and about your number and about how you discovered your number. So you can answer that, however you want, take a few minutes, introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, so my name is Emily, I am an Enneagram 7. And I, like everybody else, every Christian person in the world, I came to know the Enneagram oh man, probably like 2015. And so I took the test and the test told me I was a 7 and I read it and I was like, oh, that sounds about right. My big crisis came in when my sister, who is very similar to me in some ways, but also very different to me, came up with the same number. So we thought we were the same number for many years and I struggled with that because I was like we are so different. How can we be the same number? We think through things differently, we approach things differently. And then there was a couple of years where we all we coined the term Enneacrisis, where all of our friends realized that they were different numbers and they actually were. And so my sister realized she was an eight you know the enneagram quite different than the seven, but next to it. So, um, yeah, so figured out, she was an eight, which made me feel much more secure in my number.
Speaker 2:But I am very much a. I love to do everything like I want. I it's the, the insatiable part of a seven I definitely envelop of. I just want more of everything, or I don't want to be limited, I don't want to. I don't want someone to tell me that we can only do one thing, like I want to do all of the things, and that definitely spoke to me and definitely the way that they looked at I think the part where I relate the most in it is how emotions are. Sevens communicate and feel emotion, and when I read that, it was oh yeah, this is absolutely me. So that's kind of a little bit of my journey, but it's been years of processing and figuring out new things about myself, which has been fun.
Speaker 1:Can you say a little more about what specifically did you read about the emotional part of the seven?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they look at emotion as kind of a spectrum, and sevens tend to live on the upper part of the emotion spectrum, so in the joy and the happiness, but they don't access the full spectrum.
Speaker 2:And so I lived in I use lived because I've done a lot of work in expanding this but for a long time I lived in a very small piece of the emotion spectrum where it was a little bit of sadness but a lot of happiness, and I really related to that, where I didn't feel things incredibly deeply but I also didn't feel things incredibly joyfully either. I lived in that space for a lot of my life and they related it to the four, which the four is similar, except they are on the lower end of the spectrum. So fours feel more in the lower part and I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense and I feel the upper part more in the lower part. And I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense and I feel the upper part. And so it's taken a lot of work to intentionally try to expand my emotional spectrum, because that's where I go naturally you know they say Enneagram sevens.
Speaker 1:See the world with those rose colored glasses yes painting the world in pretty colors, seeing all the great things about this world we live in and it's a gift.
Speaker 1:It is a gift for um those of us who could be more pessimistic or tend to um feel a lot of the harder emotions. You know, sevens are good at helping us reframe but, like you say, there's valuable work to be done for a seven to learn how to experience that full range of emotions. Yes, and we are gonna um come back to that in a little bit because I want to hear more about that. Um. I did want to ask um because you spoke about how you and your sister both thought you were sevens but then you kind of realized she's an eight and you were a seven.
Speaker 1:Could you speak about a couple of the big differences that helped you guys determine that you are two different numbers?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I think that one thing about the intensity from both of us is there we both have very high energy, we both we love fun things. We're like let's go do this, let's go do this. But one big thing that's different thing for me and Katie is eights hate to be controlled and sevens need freedom, which those seem like the same thing but they feel so different, I think, for me and Katie in that, um, I don't want any expectations put on me. Um, this is me and my unhealth mostly. Like I know, expectations are normal, but I don't like when people put expectations on me. I don't like it when I can't just go and do, so schedules feel really limiting to me or things like that, where I like to just like go and do.
Speaker 2:And but one thing about Katie is she hates to be controlled, in that if someone is like micromanaging or saying these things, like she doesn't like that and so then yeah, it just feels really different in that like I need to know I have freedom and she needs to know someone's not trying to control her. And that felt really different with us where, in all honesty, katie can be a little controlling and so it doesn't bother me when she tells me to do something or asks me to do something, because I still feel like I have freedom in that relationship to say no or to do this. But then I trust her. So I was like oh yeah, that's fine, I'll do that. Um, but for her I think that if someone tells her to do something, it's like this control and she kind of clams up and or not clams up, she pushes against it and fights it.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's. That's a great distinction between the seven and the eight. That's really interesting way that you put it. Um, sevens and eights are both assertive numbers, so they both are moving against people to get what they want in the world. They are future focused, which means they like looking to the future, planning, looking ahead, casting vision, setting big goals. Um, and sevens and eights because they sit with the other assertive number, which is three. So three, sevens and eights, um. A lot of times people do mistype between three, seven and eight because they can look alike in a lot of ways, like you've said.
Speaker 1:So three, sevens and eights like to um. Well, I would say three, sevens and eights. They don't always have to be in charge, but if they can sense like incompetence in leadership, then they would be more than willing to step up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another thing is I I hate pain, and so I feel pain and conflict. It feels like in some ways unnecessary, I guess, and so, which I know, conflict is necessary, but I'd rather run from it than take care of it head on. And Katie is a take like I will just I will do this conflict, I will fight for this cause, I will take on this head on and I don't do that. And so I can handle conflict and I if I have to. But that was another big difference where she was not afraid of conflict and she saw a lot of value in it, and I struggle to find a lot of value all the time. So that was another big difference between our types.
Speaker 1:That is a great distinction between seven and eight and again with the seven. That goes back to you know, if you're entering into conflict, that's potential to feel some of those emotions like sadness, anger, feel some disconnection with people.
Speaker 1:And yeah, eights typically eights don't have a problem with conflict. A lot of eights feel like to engage in conflict is to be emotionally honest and confront things head on. So yeah, that's a good distinction between sevens and eights. Yeah, emily, we forgot to talk about this at the beginning. So could you just tell the world a little bit more about you beyond just your Enneagram type? What do you do?
Speaker 2:What's your life like.
Speaker 1:What do you want people to know about you?
Speaker 2:Enneagram type what do you do? What do you want people to know about you? Ooh, okay, sum myself up. I have a. I'm a therapist. So I graduated with my clinical mental health counseling degree about a year ago, so working on my licensure for that. And before that I was a. I was in ministry, so I was a campus life director working with teens and sharing the gospel with teens, and then switched career paths and became a therapist. I have a dog named Peggy, who you know where she's. She's great, but she's a little anxious herself. So the big joke with Peggy is that I bought her intentionally to be a therapy dog and she herself needs therapy and so she doesn't hold that job. She will never do that, but that's okay because she's she's my little pup, so I love her. Um, and, yeah, I love plants. I love, I love hanging out with friends. There's a lot of things I really love to do.
Speaker 1:Emily represents Enneagram sevens with helping her friends and her family have a good time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate that. One of my greatest joys.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I just thought of a question I'm going off script. I love that. So you and I lived together for quite a few years. Yeah, four years. Pretty well, almost I'm an Enneagram one. Do you have anything you could say about what the one seven relationship dynamic is like in a friendship sense?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that, Elise, definitely. Yeah, how do I say this? She gave me hope for Enneagram one relationships. Let's just say that, yeah, I've had some struggles with Enneagram ones in the past, in that I always felt judged by them and I guess I think, as a seven, I I want to stay lighthearted, I want to stay like I don't want to go deep a lot of times which has changed in the past couple of years but the I just want to have a good time.
Speaker 2:And then I felt like ones a lot of times would like bring me down and would be critical or would judge me for things that I had no idea that I was being judged about. Be critical or would judge me for things that I had no idea that I was being judged about, I would relate it to. It's like we're in a competition that I don't even know that we're in and so I'm being judged for things that I'm not even aware of and that feels really vulnerable to me. But, living with you for all those years, I never felt judged and never felt like I had to be anything that I wasn't. And if one of my favorite things about Elise is that you know exactly what she's feeling at all times, good and bad. There are no masks, and that felt it was.
Speaker 2:It honestly felt like one of the first friendships where I was like I know exactly where I stand with her at all times and if there was so much freedom in that which we're seven, like I said, is so healthy and good, and so I felt so much freedom in our relationship of I didn't have to fix anything, I didn't have to, like, change her emotions. I know exactly what she was feeling and we could just sit in the heart or we can go do fun things to lighten things up, and yeah so, and she also brings a lot of depth. I think the ones can bring a lot of depth to the seven, of giving them space to go deeper and think about. Think about the things that maybe aren't as good and then together we can dream about how to make it better us ones, we can be very serious like we take life really seriously and it's this is not, you know, something I ever anticipated to be like for my growth path.
Speaker 1:But like, literally, I have this mantra lately with myself which is just like it's not that serious, don't take this so seriously, because I can feel myself falling into. You know, that's kind of where some of the perfectionism of any gremlins comes from. Is like I, I take life very seriously, I take the parts of life very seriously, but it doesn't always have to be that way and sometimes, yeah, to relax and that's something that my Enneagram seven bestie, emily, has helped me with, like you know being bringing the lightheartedness and the joy to so many different parts of life you've really helped me like learn how to um like life can still be good yeah
Speaker 2:it's not super serious yeah, yes, I love that, and I think that you brought a lot of seriousness out in me by asking a question, um, too, and so there was that good balance.
Speaker 1:But also getting a one, an enneagram, one on a vacation there's seven comes out and it is dreamy elise on vacation is the best okay as an enneagram one, I think this is, if you guys have ones in your lives like this is a really important thing I want you to know about once. I am advocating for all the ones right now. Okay, we have a never-ending to-do list. Okay, because we look at the world saying there's always room for improvement. I see all the things that could be better and and it feels like we cannot rest until all the things are done. But the problem is, all the things are never done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that means you're never going to rest, okay. So it's like I'm walking through the world feeling the weight of these expectations and these responsibilities to make things better, and when I know that I'm going on vacation, it is like a very strong permission for me to put down the responsibilities and just have fun for myself, to play and to rest. And so I've heard so many Enneagram teachers say that Enneagram ones need to go on a vacation once a quarter or get away once a quarter.
Speaker 1:I love that you have to carve for a person who doesn't naturally carve out that time and space for rest and play like having a vacation where it's like for vacation. The expectation is I'm not working and. I'm resting, so I feel like I'm checking a big box still by resting and playing.
Speaker 2:You have one big check box and it is to do absolutely nothing. I love that.
Speaker 1:Not to make this episode all about me.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. The last time we went on vacation, we deemed Elise the passenger princess, because she was like I have no responsibility, I don't know what's going on and I don't want to know what's going on. Just tell me what to do and where to go.
Speaker 1:I turned my brain off. I just followed along with all the sevens and eights of the group. Okay, emily, so let's switch gears a little bit, and you've been talking to us about this spectrum of emotions which I think is such an important growth path for sevens. I am going to read a paragraph from this book. It's called the Enneagram for Spiritual Formation. It's by AJ Sherrill, subtitle how Knowing Ourselves Can Make Us More Like Jesus. I love that. And there is a chapter in this book and it's called spiritual practices for each type. This chapter I really like it because it's been really eyeopening for me as a person who who grew up kind of interpreting the messages that the church was was giving me to understand that I have to do my faith in a way that looks like everybody else around me and I have to pick.
Speaker 1:You know spiritual disciplines and spirit or spiritual practices.
Speaker 2:You can call them that match up with everybody else and that's how I do faith the right way is by you know, doing these very specific ritualistic steps going back to checking the boxes, where you have to check all these boxes or you're not a christian totally and what.
Speaker 1:What I I've learned through Enneagram work by people who know the Enneagram and love Jesus and are following him, is that there are. There are actually, like, different ways that we connect with God, based on our different personalities and, when it comes to, you know, spiritual practices we can implement in our lives. It's important and valuable it could be really valuable for us to pick some practices that come really naturally to us and then some practices that challenge us, because that's how we get out of our comfort zone. Yeah, our faith.
Speaker 1:Um, so this chapter called spiritual practices for each. Any type gives what he calls an upstream and a downstream practice for each type. Um, so the downstream is like the easy one that comes easy to the types which I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that, one for sevens, but it is called feasting, the downstream type, the downstream practice. So feasting is like celebrating and connecting with others, enjoying the abundance of god's world. Um, probably that's around food and that's just like a really beautiful way to live in community yeah love that and that is like a great practice, that sevens love.
Speaker 2:That sounds familiar because it sounds like my favorite thing to do amazing being around.
Speaker 1:Friends eat a lot of food and that's awesome, yeah and so I'll read about the upstream practice for sevens and let you respond to it. Okay. The upstream practice for sevens and let you respond to it. Okay. The upstream practice for sevens is solitude and silence for a specified period of time each day. Sevens must discipline their lives to look within. Solitude releases them from performance for others. Sevens should set aside time each day to try solitude and silence. Mornings, before the rush of the day begins, are a good time for this. This sacred time serves as a reminder to sevens that their identity is not based on how others feel about them, nor is it based on how they feel about themselves. Rather, it is grounded in god's pronouncement of their belovedness, which the practice of silence and solitude allows them to recall and live from for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:I love that. Definitely sounds like one of the more difficult practices for me to do.
Speaker 1:I appreciate how he gives like a purpose right Like it's not. It's not silence and solitude just for the sake of silence, and so yeah, because that can feel really hard.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you're like what am I supposed to do with this silence and solitude?
Speaker 1:but for sevens it's about. It's about um the identity shift of not not buying into just what everybody else says, that you are, yeah and resting in who god says that you are.
Speaker 2:I liked that, where it's even how your own feelings are, where I think we can get so swept up in. Okay, I'm feeling this way. Why am I feeling this way? How can I fix it? But not even focusing on that, but focusing on okay, how can I sit in who God says that I am and sit in his expectations, and who like our relationship rather than focusing on everything else around me, and who like our relationship?
Speaker 1:rather than focusing on everything else around me. Um, just from knowing you and being friends with you, I know that you've had sort of a prolonged period of this that you didn't choose, but due to life circumstances, um, you were kind of forced into a season, um of kind of like prolonged silence and solitude, and we're also going to tie in the emotional growth that you've done as far as accessing some harder emotions like pain and grief and sorrow, that are not natural for you.
Speaker 1:So I just wonder if you could just share whatever you want to share about that season and how you've grown from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I, as looking back, it's easier to of like silence and solitude, of where am I? What am I supposed to be doing? Why do I feel lonely? What is this feeling? What is this feeling?
Speaker 2:And one specific year, or I guess, multiple years in it, but something happened where I had this, really from my perspective, great friend group and everything felt. It was very surface level, but everything felt really good. And then it kind of came out that there was a lot of struggle, a lot of distrust and, um, conflict underneath the surface. That was not being talked about, that, um, I had no idea about, and so, um, everything kind of blew up in a couple months of like, I lost my whole friend group, I lost a lot of relationships and this like friendship group that I thought was so amazing and so fun and so great of like, oh, we were hanging out all the time, we were playing all these games, we were happy all the time and that felt really genuine for me, but realizing it was not genuine for everybody around me and that felt like a betrayal a little bit and kind of tainted a lot of that time for me. And then something also happened that caused me to need to forgive most people in that friend group, and so that sent me into this really lonely and like kind of forced those hard emotions onto me of everything that I thought was good, everything that I thought was light and good, like happy, actually wasn't. And so then I kind of had to like, look at myself. I'm like who am I Like? What am I doing? Am I actually this happy? Do I need these people to be happy?
Speaker 2:It was just a really big internal struggle came and um, I don't know if this is a pretty common practice for a lot of Christians, and I don't always do it, but they choose a word for the year, and so a lot of people around me were doing it and it doesn't happen very often, but I was every year. I kind of open it up and I'm like, okay, god, if there is a word for me to hold on to this year, please give it to me. But I don't force anything Like if a word doesn't come on, I don't, I don't do it. But this year it felt like really clearly, god gave me the word winter as my word and as a seven I can be like, oh, I love winter, I love the beautiful snow.
Speaker 2:I love the like playing in the snow, I love the outfits, I love this and that you know where. At first I was like, oh winter. But then, when I really thought about it, sat with it and prayed about it, it was God was calling me into this winter season of desolation and not a lot of growth, and the winter, honestly, you don't really see much like hope for the future. Plants are gone, Things are. You don't see any of that and it's very. Everything feels dead. And so that was the winter that he was calling me into and that felt really hopeless for me of I have nothing to look forward to.
Speaker 2:This year, and it was a really unique year. It was 2022. It was the. I had just started grad school in 2021 and I'll have graduated in 2023. And so it was the one year that was fully full time grad school, full time working.
Speaker 2:My friend group had just I mean, it'd been a couple years probably of them being disintegrated, but still felt like like I didn't have that established and so felt like there was a lot of not a lot of hope and I was like, what is this year going to look like? And I would say I cried every single day of that year. No one would know I'm not. It's really hard for me to feel sadness or show I can feel sadness, but show sadness through tears around other people. It's really hard for me. But if I'm by myself and a sad song comes on or if I'm put into a place like I can cry pretty easily. So I was just really intentional on every day I listened to a sad song or I thought about something sad or I went there and I cried and it was a hard year Like there really nothing good happened that year, in a sense like God kept his promise and that there was not a lot. But then there was also some really hard things that happened that year too, really big hard things that I had to walk through and it made me comfortable with the sadness. It reminded me that I can feel sad and not feel trapped. I can get out of it. If I can touch into sadness and cry every day, that also means that I can get out of it every day and that I don't have to be trapped there. I don't have to stay there.
Speaker 2:I remember in college I went through a lot of hard things in college too, like every college student I feel like does. But I remember thinking I just need time with the Lord, I need silence, I need solitude and I need to be with the Lord. But I looked at it as I can't just spend an hour alone, I need to be a whole weekend Like again my big sevenness of like all or nothing. I need to give a whole weekend to figure this out or I can't do any of it. And I remember I was like it's going to feel like when I open those emotions it's going to feel like a fire hydrant that's been open and it's going to drown me and I'm not going to be able to get out of it and I'm going to be trapped in it.
Speaker 2:And I think the more that year that I just kind of tapped into it, the more I realized, okay, it's more like a hose that's been kinked of. Like when there's no emotion coming out, the hose is kinked. But when you unkink it, a rush comes out and it does feel like a little bit of a rush but then it trickles pretty quickly back to steadiness. And it reminded me that emotions are not overwhelming and they don't have to destroy me. They're actually not going to drown me, but they're healthy and good and I think it allowed me to feel more of the range of emotion. So I tapped into more sadness, but then I think I felt a little bit more joy after the fact.
Speaker 1:I like that picture that you painted of the hose. I've never heard you say that before. Oh really, that's a really good metaphor, thanks. You guys might have noticed that Emily just used the word trapped several times. Might have noticed that Emily just used the word trapped several times. This is, this is a. This is a way that you might know that you're an Enneagram 7 is if you're sensitive to feeling like you're trapped or limited, because one thing that the Enneagram 7 desires is to keep their options open, to have a lot of possibilities, um, to have, um, a lot of potential for all the different things they could be doing.
Speaker 1:next, and so to feel trapped or to feel limited is really scary for a seven and sevens um also want to avoid pain. That's the thing they're trying to avoid is pain. That could could be physical pain or emotional pain.
Speaker 2:I hate pain.
Speaker 1:And pain is something also that can make you feel trapped and limited because, pain limits your opportunities, and so, yeah, I think that was a really beautiful telling of how you experience feeling trapped or not feeling trapped, and how you've actually actually done some really intentional work to get some freedom from that. Yeah, if I'm understanding you correctly, sometimes you, sometimes the emotion was just there and you cried, but then other times you were like I know I need to access the sadness. Let me play that sad song and go get by myself so that I can like allow the tears to flow. Yeah, and I just like think that's an awesome. That's awesome. Like we there's ways that we can like allow the tears to flow. Yeah, and I just like think that's an awesome. That's awesome. Like we there's ways that we can like train ourselves to access that emotion more easily. Like there's things that we can do. If you're a person who knows I need to unlock that sadness, like take a cue from Emily.
Speaker 1:Here's an idea of a way that you can start to try to feel those emotions a little more deeply than you normally do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they're there. I mean, there are sad things that happen all the time, or it doesn't even have to be that deep, but you just see something and you feel sad, but then you push it away because you're like I can't deal with that sadness right now, and allowing to have that space where, oh, I know that there's sadness in there, and trying to access it and like go there so that it doesn't get stuck and feel overwhelming.
Speaker 1:And I also heard you say that accessing the depths of the hard emotions also allows you to access the heights of the quote, unquote positive emotions, which we don't. We're not saying negative and positive, but yes, just that's how we can understand. I like to say comfortable and uncomfortable. What are? What's your most comfortable emotion?
Speaker 2:oh joy, I love it, I can. I can sit in that for a long time pretty easily how can you tell when you're?
Speaker 1:you know just at like your typical level enneagram seven average joy versus like feeling the heights of like the super um.
Speaker 2:Rare joyful moments yeah, yeah, I think and actually that taps into a little bit of some of the growth work I'm doing now is I got so used to tapping into the low emotions and being comfortable with those that now I'm a little afraid to tap into the upper height joy emotion, because I think I'm so afraid of going back down to the low emotion again.
Speaker 2:And so in a sense, like right now, I feel like I'm out of that winter season. I feel like there are so many really great things I would say I'm probably in a summer season right now it's literally summer but in my life of exciting things to come and new growth and new things. And part of me is so afraid to sit in that really high joy because that also feels really vulnerable to me, because I think I'm so afraid to lose that joy and go back down to the negative sadness again. And so it's even this comfortability of where I'm at, where I'm like OK in this spectrum is where it feels comfortable and where it feels normal, of where I'm at, where I'm like okay in this spectrum is where it feels comfortable and where it feels normal. But I know that there's parts in both sides of the spectrum that it's hard for me to access. So even the upper, upper joyful moments feel really vulnerable to me and it's really hard for me to share that with people.
Speaker 1:Do you, do you feel like you have a small circle of people that you can express like your most joyful self with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think that they they create space for it or they say they feel that joy with me or that sadness with me, and so if I can have someone feeling it with me, then it feels more comfortable. But it's hard for me to go there without that leading.
Speaker 1:I guess.
Speaker 1:So, emily, you talking about how a lot of your growth is letting yourself be okay, experiencing some of that emotional pain, some of that sadness and grief and sorrow, and then seeing yourself come back from it and not staying trapped. Yeah, because that's a reason a lot of sevens can never go there in the first place, because they are so afraid of getting trapped in the pain. But for a seven, this is a really important kind of trial through fire thing that you probably will go through at some point in your life. And just to know to be able to go through something like that and realize that you come out the other end and you're not trapped and you're okay and you're still living life. And I'm just kind of thinking um for a couple other numbers, like there's kind of similar, there's kind of these similar like milestones or similar things that we can kind of experience to gain some freedom from our type. So, for example, I'm thinking um for enneagram twos, who who are, you know, fixated on being loved and wanted and um their relationships with other people.
Speaker 1:For an enneagram two to experience someone like really not liking them or someone really rejecting them yeah but then coming out the other side and realizing like I'm still okay, um, for an enneagram, one, um, maybe like making a really big mistake, that brings like a lot of shame or being wrong about something, but then being able to recover from that and realize, like I'm OK, like I made a big mistake, but I'm I'm still a whole person.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And for an Enneagram three. It might be like experiencing a huge failure that feels like so shameful and feels like it really rocked them, but then being able to come back and be like, okay, I'm still like that doesn't define my worth. Yeah, I failed at this, but that's not my whole identity and I'm still like a valuable person and my people still love me even throughout this. So, yeah, you know you could go around and around, but I think for every number.
Speaker 1:There's a thing where it's important for us. It it sucks and it's hard, but sometimes it's important for us to confront that thing that feels the scariest and nice for us just to have that validation of like okay, but I can still. I can still move on in life, and maybe we don't.
Speaker 1:Maybe, by going through something like that, we don't need to fear it as much yeah and I think, I think what I'm hearing you say is like you're not so scared of the hard emotions, you're not scared that you're going to get trapped in pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause there was even a season where I was in that pain and my personality felt like it changed and I think this was even this was actually even before the my whole winter year. But when I was dealing with forgiveness and the betrayal, I remember thinking is this my new personality? Like am I really sad all the time? Am I like boring? Am I this? You know, if I was like, if I was like six months in and I was like is this my new personality? Do I need to come to terms with who I am now? And really it was just more healing that needed to happen. It was more sadness that I need to come to terms with who I am now. And really it was just more healing that needed to happen. It was more sadness that I needed to dig out.
Speaker 2:Actually, there's probably a lot of sadness that I didn't deal with for the first 20 years of my life and it all came out at once and, yeah, now I'm like oh yeah, my personality is back, like I can go through something hard.
Speaker 2:I can go through those depths of pain and sadness and still come out being me and I won't get trapped in that, and it allows me even more freedom to feel that sadness, of to feel the emotion without judgment in the moment, without always having to put on a happy face or twist it to be good. Yeah yeah, my whole friend group felt like it fell apart and I had not a lot of people I could trust. But then and we kind of became roommates randomly a little bit and um, but finding safety in someone in your home too, that was, I think, was really healing for me to where you did. You didn't expect me to be the happy, go lucky person all the time and that wasn't an expectation at all. It was. You brought the seriousness and we did talk about the hard stuff and we did talk about the struggles and it wasn't like I had to be someone I wasn't or pretend I wasn't going through something hard yeah, and I I value authenticity and honesty so much.
Speaker 1:I and I think you've always been willing to go there with me and willing to be open, and I really appreciate that and I think that's why we were able to grow such a deep friendship as we. You know, we live together in COVID, we live together during some really hard times and just got to process those things together and I, you know, I've heard a lot of stories of um people who lived together during covid and of course, it was such a hard time for the world, but also there were some really great things that came to a lot of relationships because people got to spend time together.
Speaker 1:Shout out to jocelyn and evan, who got married two months before covid started, and then they were. They got to be three weeks during during covid wild. So there was yeah, there there are some in an enneagram seven fashion, looking to the positives and looking to reframe. There were some good moments. Yes, came out of a really hard season for the world definitely what do you love about being a seven and what gifts do you bring to your friends, your friends, family, talking about myself, my favorite subject, he's just kidding I have to.
Speaker 2:no, it's um I, whenever I hear podcasts about with sevens, I can relate so much because everyone's like, oh, I read the chapter and I cringed and I was like, oh, I'm this number and but every single seven I know was like I'm seven, exactly who I am, and I relate so hard to that and that I love your love, that I can have fun at any time or bring fun to most situations and I like feeling happy and so that emotion comes really easily for me and so I enjoy that aspect of it.
Speaker 2:And with friends, I think that in my health of like growing and being willing to go deep, I think that in our friend group we are able to talk about really hard, deep things, but then in the next moment, talk about something really light and be okay. And I like the lightness that I can bring to a friend group or to a situation to where, yeah, I'll hear the sadness, we can sit, sit in that, but then also there's like a lightness that I can bring about and it doesn't feel fake or inauthentic, but it just is. Sometimes you just need to think about hope or think about something good and, um, I like bringing that aspect of relationship in that absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm gonna share a couple things that I appreciate about you. Um, one's serious and one's more fun. So the serious one is when I moved in with you, emily, I was kind of, at the beginning of my um, some deconstructing the beliefs I grew up with. I used to have a faith that was really very rigid. So, kind of learning how to not be so rigid with the things I believed in the way that I like practice my faith in God, and to be able to move in with you while whilst I was starting to experience that was really important for me because you taught me a lot about the joy of knowing God, but in a way that it doesn't have to be rigid, it doesn't have to be so serious. There can be, like, so many, so many beautiful and good things about um, enjoying the world that God's given us and celebration and fun and like all those really important aspects to like living in this world that God has made, where I have told you this before earlier today.
Speaker 1:Everybody, but I do tend to take things very seriously. So it's so great for me to live with somebody who, like, loves jesus so much but loves the bright and light sides of life. Um, so that was really, um, really awesome for me. Thanks to learn from you and that. And the other thing that I appreciate about you this is something I've seen with other sevens too is your generosity. Sevens have, like this abundance mindset of like I don't want to run out and I don't want other people to run out, and so, literally during covid, you love to cook, you love to try new recipes and you are always cooking and you guys, emily, let me eat the food she made.
Speaker 1:Every single time she was like, hey, I tried a new recipe, you want to try it? Yeah, of course I want to try the new recipe you made. Amazing. Shout out to Tegan from Big Harvest. Tegan Gerard, so many recipes, so many of her recipes and you're just so generous. That's your talent and your hobby is making food and being creative in the kitchen, but then it's not for you, it's for you, but then also to share with other people. Oh, thanks. So that was a really fun memory, yeah.
Speaker 2:We had some really good times during COVID. Our world went through some really hard stuff. We went through hard stuff, but we were able to find some good, good memories and good things.
Speaker 1:We had. We had a three week, three week instagram show called corona kitchen live.
Speaker 2:It didn't last very long did it, but it was fun it was fun for a couple weeks I forgot about that.
Speaker 1:Wow, access the memory you probably can find it if you go to valvo campus life instagram and scroll back. Sure Sure can.
Speaker 2:Probably it's still there.
Speaker 1:Do you have any favorite Enneagram resources to share?
Speaker 2:Ooh, yes, I mean I've read the Road Back to you Game Changer and trying to figure out your type and the Path Between Us is really helpful with relationships. But one thing that most not most a lot of people that I heard when they were trying to figure out their type they listened to Annie F Downs' Any Summer Podcasts and there was one specifically that was a panel. Typically that was a panel, so it was like a panel of all nines or all twos or all threes, and listening to them talk and interact was how people figured out what their type was. They listened and they were like oh, I'm definitely like them, or, you know, they could tell that they were not a certain type because they're like oh yeah, I don't think like that at all. So any of Downs, any of Summer Podcast Podcast there's like five or six years of different podcasts, but they're all very informative and very helpful.
Speaker 1:It's a great series.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's it. I don't have anything else to say. So I hope you like this podcast. Again, we would love some validation, so send me an email or give me a shout out if you liked this episode. I hope you text all your Enneagram 7s in your life today and tell them how much you appreciate them. This episode was recorded using equipment provided to the public by the LaPorte County Public Library System. If you liked this episode, let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Tell me what other topics you'd love to hear covered on this podcast and, as always, you can find more content on my Instagram at Towards Eden Enneagram, as well as on Facebook Towards Eden Enneagram and my website, TowardsEdenEnneagramcom.