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
#8 - The Rich Inner World of an Enneagram 4
Rachel and I recorded this episode two months before her WEDDING…so of course we had to talk alllll the wedding planning details!
Have you ever met someone who made their own wedding dress? Look no further - Rachel’s amazing creativity and imagination are on full display as she DIYs her own wedding.
Rachel gives great insight into the inner world of Enneagram 4s, explaining how her imagination was formed at a young age as she made up her own bedtime stories to self-regulate and help herself fall asleep.
We discuss the dynamics of maintaining open communication in relationships, particularly for Type 4s who feel and empathize deeply.
⚡ HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE ⚡
- Rachel’s story of how she met her fiance… and how their wedding will be located at the very place they met 👰🏽
- The rich inner world and vivid imagination of an Enneagram 4 - Rachel goes back to childhood and tells us about how she befriended her imagination
- What goes into a DIY wedding & allll the dresses she’s making herself 👗
- The Withdrawn Stance (4s, 5s, and 9s) and what it’s like for a 4 to withdraw/retreat
- Getting out of your own head in order to have healthy communication with a partner
📚 RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE 📚
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For resource recommendations, click here.
The Road Back to You by Ian Cron- start here to find your type
Links for Towards Eden Enneagram 🌿
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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.
Welcome to Towards Eden, an Enneagram podcast. This message is for Ian Morgan Cron and Anthony Skinner of Typology Podcast. If you guys can hear this, my dream is to be on Typology Podcast as a guest. It's been my dream for years and now that I host a podcast, I think it's time to try to start making that dream a reality. If anybody listening to this knows Ian Cron or Anthony Skinner, please give them this message. And now on to the episode 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 that you can understand your own story better and have way better relationships.
Speaker 2:I almost left the house without my water. I like this cup at home, but I don't like bringing it places, because then your whole hand is dedicated to holding this cup at this weird angle.
Speaker 1:The only thing I can use my hand for is holding this cup.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. I don't even like take this usually out of the house. It's your house cup, it's my house cup, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to have my friend Rachel here with me in the studio. Rachel identifies as an Enneagram 4. And we're going to learn all about 4s today, and also, rachel is in a really exciting season of life. So, rachel, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and your exciting season of life?
Speaker 2:Awesome, okay, yeah. So my name is Rachel and I am an Enneagram 4. I think I have a three wing and I am a teacher at the middle school, and last year actually the last three years I've taught seventh grade, and this year they're doing a little restructuring, so I will be teaching eighth grade, ela, english Language Arts. And right now I am in an exciting stage of life because I am engaged and I'm getting married at the end of September.
Speaker 1:Yay, it's such a thrilling season. I'm so happy for you. It's very exciting. It's very exciting. So your countdown at the time of recording is two months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two months from yesterday. Isn't that crazy. That is so exciting.
Speaker 1:So, rachel, tell me about how you first learned about the Enneagram, and how did you land on Enneagram 4 as your number?
Speaker 2:All right. So I've always been into personality tests. I think they're cool, I think they can tell you stuff about yourself as a teenager. I feel like I would take them a lot and I would get different answers. And I think as teenagers you kind of you know you're still discovering who you are. So I felt like that's kind of been a common thread. So I had taken like the Myers-Briggs personality test and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then when I was in college to get my teaching degree, I had a class I believe it was my last semester before student teaching um that went through just a bunch of different things about helping us, um, deal with different learning styles in the classroom, and one entire like seminar day was dedicated to the Enneagram.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we had like this hour long presentation of the different, uh, the main traits of them and like their strengths and weaknesses, and the activity was to type ourselves from the lens of as a teacher, you're going to have all these different personalities in your classroom.
Speaker 2:So, like our whole teaching group I think there was maybe 15 or 20 of us in the class at the time all spent like the next hour like typing ourselves and talking to each other, and thankfully I did have like sort of a friend in the class, so you know, we could bounce sort of oh, do you think I'm like this or what about that. And so we were able to type ourselves and come to an agreement about what we thought we were and also kind of what we thought the other person was too. So that was helpful. And then I think a bunch of us presented on oh, I'm this type and this is how I know, and then we talked about it. We brought it back to like how does this affect the classroom, sort of thing. So that was the lens that we were looking at it through.
Speaker 1:Very cool exercise to do that with college students who are getting ready to be teachers. And I think it's cool too that you kind of were typing yourselves in a group, because a lot of times I think I've heard a lot of people's stories and their typing journey happens like by themselves or they're trying to figure it out themselves. But it's kind of a cool angle that you got to do it as a group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I felt like more confident I think about. I know you're not supposed to type other people, but it is sometimes helpful to ask people who know you really well. Hey, does this sound like me? And they'll usually be pretty honest with you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, absolutely, and that's yeah, like we don't want to put types and labels on other people. But it's kind of different when you're like, well, I'm trying to type myself and you're going to the people that you trust and who know you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly that could be so helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very helpful so do you remember some things about fours during that initial time that stood out to you or made you believe that you were a four?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the thing that really made me was like, oh, I think I'm a four was when they talked about like your rich inner world and you have like this deep imagination, and I was like, oh, I was well. First of all, as they said it, I was like, wait, everybody doesn't have that. And then I, and then I was like, oh well, that's definitely that was a big one. Actually, over the creativity part of it was like the really big, like green flag for me that I was like oh, a rich inner world that you retreat to. Yeah, that sounds like me. So, yeah, that was the. That was a big one for me for helping me discover. And then, just looking at all the other little points, I was like, oh, yeah, a lot of this applies to me.
Speaker 1:So that is awesome. Okay, like I want everyone to take note of what Rachel just said, of you said oh, everybody isn't like that and like that is that could be such an aha moment. Like that's a key for us to know. Oh, this is my type If we say wait, I thought everybody was like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they're not. That is a good point, that's a good point, yeah.
Speaker 1:So a couple other things about Enneagram 4s, just so everybody has a baseline is the desire of the Enneagram 4 is to be authentic, to have a significant identity, to be unique and to be special. And Enneagram 4s really care about significance and the depths of life and finding meaning in things, in things, and what fours are, um are fearing at their core is of being mundane, of being like everybody else or just um, just being ordinary.
Speaker 2:Yeah how dare we be ordinary?
Speaker 1:and another thing, um, another thing to know about fours is that they care a lot about belonging and they're sensitive to if I belong here or who belongs, and what is it going to take for me to belong. But at the same time, maybe I don't want to belong because I want to be unique and I want to be my own person. Do you relate to all that, rachel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely For sure, most of that stuff I don't think I think we all like, especially all fours, have like varying degrees of those things, but definitely can relate to all of them on some level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. So let's talk about your wedding planning. Yeah, the DIY things you're doing for your wedding. I think it's a really amazing expression of like your Enneagram for gifts, of like being unique and making your wedding so meaningful and so special. So I would love to hear if you're comfortable sharing a little bit about your how we met slash engagement story, because I think that matters to people understanding where you're having your wedding and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So we met at our local county fair, which sounds not like what you're picturing.
Speaker 2:It's not what you think, not what you think at all we weren't like between carnival rides or something. We actually have this thing called Pioneer Land, where there's a bunch of permanent buildings that have been set up. I haven't found anything like it anywhere else. That's basically this village that is set up to teach people about the early 1800s, so like Regency, into Victorian era, and each of the buildings is like a different piece of pioneer life. So there's a schoolhouse and there's a blacksmith shop and there's a quilter's cabin and all of these things, and so anyway, that's kind of the setup. Okay, and the first time I saw my now fiance, he was splitting wood over by the fire and I just knew I had to talk to that boy. So I like kind of made myself available, you know, made it known that I was there, and he kind of kept ignoring me. Actually, yeah, and I know that's what I was.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I can't. We talk about this. We say, like it had to have been God, because it is not like me to put myself out there like that. That's, I've been a very firm believer that the man needs to make the first move and I still think that. But I also think you can make it real obvious that you're available.
Speaker 2:So that's really what I was doing. I was making it real obvious that I was available and eventually it came out that he had a girlfriend and that's why he was being like aloof to me and being polite Just sort of dist aloof to me and being polite, just sort of distantly polite to me. So that was last July and then he actually liked me as a friend and was like you're so cool. He's like can I give my best friend your number Because he doesn't have a girlfriend. And he's just like you're're cool and we should be able to hang out, so I'm going to give you my best friend's number.
Speaker 2:So we exchanged numbers through his phone, so I used his phone to text his friend and then his friend texted me for like a week after that and then he just stopped texting me, which, by the way, happens when you pray really hard and say God, if this person isn't for me, take them out of my life. Let me tell you what that prayer works so fast. And yeah, within a week he just quit texting me and I've been ghosted enough times to know what that means. So, yeah, so I just didn't text him back. And also I was really still kind of pining after this boy who had a girlfriend. I was really still kind of pining after this boy who had a girlfriend. So for five months, between July and December, we have no contact, okay. This man does not have social media, okay, so I couldn't even stalk him if.
Speaker 1:I wanted to.
Speaker 2:So I pine for five months. I do I pine. It's pathetic. I remember telling my friend over and over again I can't stop thinking about him and she was just like, well, if it's something supposed to happen, then it'll happen.
Speaker 2:So Christmas in Pioneerland is just a weekend and it's the same thing, but it's Christmas themed at the fair, and he was there again and he was just like a little too eager to bring the schoolhouse which I was working in firewood, just like a little too eager to do that. Like you just seemed real available, kind of like how I was real available the summer before. And so we start talking, we stay late on Saturday night to watch the fire go down in there's like a wood burning stove in the schoolhouse, authentically. And so we had to wait, you know, we had to air quotes, wait and make sure that the fire went down so we could safely leave. And then the second night we had to take down the Christmas tree that was in there because, like each of the cabins had a Christmas tree and so we had to undecorate it and take it all down and close up the schoolhouse, which also stayed late.
Speaker 2:So we were just having these great conversations and I was just like man. I like this guy so much, and did you know his girlfriend status at that point? Yeah, I did. He still had a girlfriend.
Speaker 1:He's OK, he did still have. This is the slightly scandalous part. Ok, I'm not a homewrecker.
Speaker 2:I was trying really hard to be respectful and it was difficult because I liked him and he kept saying things that made me think that maybe he sort of liked me too, but we were gonna be just friends and that's all that was gonna happen, right? And so Christmas in Pioneerland ends and I'm like I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm just gonna keep going. I may never see him again, but oh well, uh, you know, over here in my tragic life so tragic in my mind, it was so tragic.
Speaker 1:I'm sure my friends are sick of me talking about it, but OK, but that is also a thing that Enneagram fours do is is dramatize the things. Not not that that wasn't valid, but like make it, make the tragedy big and make the drama big, and there's your rich inner world going crazy that you know what.
Speaker 2:That's true, and up until this point I had never had a boyfriend. So the fact that I really liked somebody was a big thing in my world because, yeah, I guess maybe I'd had crushes or whatever as a teenager, but I'd never gotten past a first date with a guy up until this point Probably part of my Enneagram 4, feeling like I needed to be special and I needed to be perfect. And it never was. It never was perfect, it never was special. And so I just kept saying no to people. After I'd say yes to almost a first date with just about anybody, just to see what it was like. But after that I was like no, and then I would pray, I would be like, oh God, if this isn't for me, guess what. It takes them away real quick.
Speaker 2:So a week after Pioneerland in Christmas ends, he texts me and tells me that he broke up with his girlfriend and he wanted to ask me out. So he went back six months of text messages with his best friend to find my number where I had used his phone to text his friend. This is the epitome of if he wanted to, he would. Okay, I just want to throw that one out there. If he wanted to, he would do it. He would go back six months of text messages. He would break up with his girlfriend just to ask you out. He would do that if he wants to. So that's what he did. It wasn't like a flippant decision. Apparently, he had really been thinking about me for the past five months too.
Speaker 1:You left a mark.
Speaker 2:I did. I did leave a mark, and so it seems flippant, I think, from the outside, but in reality he had been considering actually breaking up with his girlfriend even before he really met me actually breaking up with his girlfriend even before he really met me, because he was just like I'm not going to marry her, which is just.
Speaker 2:It's so sad to me that that's how that went down, but yeah. So then he started dating me and from the first date I was like, oh, this is it, this is it. And that's how he was kind of feeling too. It was really crazy that we had this like just this excitement, and by the third date he asked me to be his girlfriend. Amazing, so still in December. And then we dated until this past July when Pioneerland came around again. Oh yes, Back to Pioneerland.
Speaker 1:Back to.
Speaker 2:Pioneerland. Everything happens there. So that's where we met right and then we got engaged in Pioneerland and it was so sweet and perfect. He distracted me by taking me up in the Ferris wheel and then when we got back, it was dark and he took me into the schoolhouse and while we had been on the Ferris wheel, his parents and his best friend had pushed aside all the benches in the schoolhouse and put out candles and set out this journal that we had written poems and stuff back and forth to each other and he had written a new poem in there. As soon as I walked in I was like, oh my gosh, it's happening.
Speaker 2:Like I knew, I knew I knew what was going on, but I had no suspicion, like the whole day of. So kudos to him for keeping a secret, because I can't do that. But um, and in the poem he had written me, the last line was Rachel, will you be my wife? And dad turned around and he was down on one knee with the ring and it was just.
Speaker 1:It was perfect, it was perfect, it's so special yeah the book of poems was there, the candles, it's like all that. He was so careful, uh, so careful and thoughtful about the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:It sounds like yes because he knows me right and he knows that's what I wanted and it was so sweet and it wasn't in front of a bunch of people or something, you know, and that's that's really like if I could have designed a proposal. That's what I've been like. But he didn't ask my opinion at all about it, he just knew.
Speaker 1:That's so thoughtful of him. I know, right, yay. And now, where are you getting married?
Speaker 2:We're getting married in the schoolhouse.
Speaker 1:In Pioneerland, yeah, Yay.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's, we're getting married in the place that we met, in the place we got engaged. So that's pretty cool, it's pretty special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just means a lot yeah, it's just, it's like you're soaking up all of the of the meaning and the significance from your relationship and, yeah, and continuing out with your wedding day yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so special, it's so like, it's like better than I could have planned it Like you know, you have, like these dreams and aspirations, but like, oh, what's your wedding going to be like?
Speaker 2:And obviously before this past year I hadn't even met him yet. And so, knowing him now and like every time he like, suggests something, I'm like oh, that's exactly what. I want, and so yeah, just like yeah, it all coming together. So that's the story of how we met and how we're getting married in two months.
Speaker 1:Two months yeah, we're recording this at the end of July, so at the end of September is the wedding. Ok, tell me about some of the things you're doing now that I would consider very unique for wedding planning.
Speaker 2:Well, I am making my own dress. Yes, it's actually like done now. I've been making it for I know it seems like fast, like oh, you just got engaged and your dress is done. I've been making it for many months. I knew this proposal was coming. I didn't know when, nowhere or any of that but I knew it was coming. We had talked very seriously about marriage. So I'm sure my roommate thought I was a little crazy, but I've been making it. And the reason I made it is because I like making clothes. I make costumes for Renaissance fairs. I would consider myself decently proficient, especially if I'm making something for myself, because I understand my own body shapes and also when I started looking at wedding dresses I realized I just kind of hated everything.
Speaker 1:Why is that?
Speaker 2:Because they all look the same. Yeah, that's my fourness coming out being like how dare I get married looking like someone?
Speaker 1:else yes.
Speaker 2:And not that they're ugly on their own account. I think wedding dresses are gorgeous and the whole like aesthetic is gorgeous. But there's so many wedding dresses that are all just like the strapless ball gown or the strapless A-line and they have lace or they have sparkles or they have something else you know, but they all like 90% of them, like all look exactly like that and I was like I can't get married in one of those.
Speaker 1:What was it like designing your own dress?
Speaker 2:Did the idea, the whole design idea, come to you pretty quickly, or did you sketch it for a while I did change my mind on a couple of points on the dress, I saw one that was by this Italian designer that was in cotton and that really intrigued me when I saw that, because I thought I've because I've worn fancy dresses to like proms before I've never been comfortable in a strapless, fancy ball gown style Like it's gorgeous and you have a great time, but you just cannot wait to get out of it at the end of the night, right, and that's only for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2:And I was like, well, my whole wedding day I'm going to be wearing this dress. And I saw this one in cotton and I remember actually I found that dress like years ago and I remember sending it to my friends and thinking this is the sort of dress you could just like run out into a field and pick wildflowers, love. And I loved it and it's so, it's cotton and it has shoulders and sleeves and just kind of that aesthetic really was the thing that launched me into the dress itself. I changed my mind a couple of times on whether or not to add a train, okay, and like what the shape of the neckline should be and how long the sleeve should be. I changed my mind a couple of times on that, but like the basic idea for that had been in my mind for a while, so Love it.
Speaker 1:And what about your bridesmaids?
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I'm making their dresses too.
Speaker 1:Making all the dresses. She's making all the dresses.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am. Theirs is a lot simpler. It's got that ruched fabric at the top and then it goes down into a long skirt and it's wildflowers, which I guess I've now decided is. The color of my wedding is wildflowers, because it was going to be my favorite color purple and I was like, oh, gray goes with purple. Maybe we'll do like gray suits for the groomsmen or so, and it's all just come down to know we're just going to have wildflowers on everything. So I love it Like our bouquets are going to look kind of more like wildflowers. Their dresses are wildflowers. We just bought ties and matching suspenders that have wildflowers on them.
Speaker 1:Oh, the suspenders even have that pattern.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, love it they're matching off of etsy, so I'm very excited about that. Um, yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be cool. So I guess our colors are now wildflowers, which nobody else has, because I'm cool like that, because I'm war nobody else has this nope I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, all right, let's see. Um, I'm just so excited for you and your wedding, and every time you talk to me about it, so joyful and you're so excited. And it is a big deal. I got married last year and I love the wedding planning season. I love making all the decisions and making it how I wanted it, and then the actual day obviously is amazing.
Speaker 2:And then the actual day obviously is amazing, right, it's so exciting, and especially, I think, for us too, because, like we, I don't know if you felt this way, but I feel like all my friends are getting married and I wasn't, and that was like really, you know, disheartening for a while and I was just like I can't find anybody. All my friends have someone you know, or at least dating somebody, and I couldn't even date anybody. They just left my life so quick and so I couldn't even date anyone. So I don't know if that's how you felt too, but that was, that was a big part of my yeah, all of my 20s, pretty much so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a real thing being your late 20s and if you're part of like Christian college culture or Christian church culture, yeah, there definitely tends to be people getting married earlier and then the girls in their late 20s to 30s are like what about me?
Speaker 2:did I miss a bus?
Speaker 1:like what happened um, but yeah, I'm. I'm happy that this is your time. This is my time. You found an amazing man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's pretty awesome it's pretty awesome so one one thing that I've been talking about lately on the show is stances. So stances has to do with the way we move in the world to get what we want. So we have three numbers who are in the assertive stance and they're future time oriented. We have three numbers who are in the compliance stance and they're present time oriented, and we have three numbers who are in the withdrawn stance and they're past time oriented. And your number four is in the withdrawn stance. So I did a whole episode explaining in detail about these stances. So if you'd like to know more context, you can listen to that.
Speaker 1:But for today we're just going to focus on the withdrawn stance because that's where Rachel sits. So fours, fives and nines what it means for them to be in the withdrawn stance is they withdraw from other people to get what they want. They move away from other people and it's comfortable for them to retreat into their own minds, hearts, into their own inner worlds, especially like in times of stress. If they're overwhelmed and need to deal with stress, they are probably going to deal with it by going inside themselves. So for four specifically, fours are in the heart triad, so they're very connected to their emotions and their feelings, and it's an easy path for a four to just go into their heads, into their imaginations and retreat. And, rachel, you already said that that's one of the things that connected you to four in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So I'd love to hear a little more about how you see that playing out, and then we'll talk more about the withdrawn stance in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me, like I said, there's this rich imagination, which I've had since I was a small child. I remember it definitely started as a way to like cope with things. I think I invented these sort of I would tell myself stories in my head as I was falling asleep. I think is probably how it started. I was a pretty anxious kid and I didn't realize at the time, but I was actually doing like a pretty good job, like self-regulating by instead of like spiraling off into negative thoughts. I was sitting there telling myself this adventure story instead, and so, because I guess I had a rich imagination, I think that really helped me out to be less anxious as a child.
Speaker 2:And so when you do it for every night for years and years and years, it just becomes a part of your life and I have had these epic storylines that I follow through with and that I return to, or I have like worlds in my head, I return to like specific, like situations, and then, yeah, so all that kind of stuff twists and turns and has come out eventually in the form of a book that I wrote. So it's all just been yeah, so that stuff be retreating into yourself often enough. You just you start to get, yeah, a good idea for plots and characters and all that kind of thing. So what's the genre of the book you wrote? It is science fiction, fantasy, that is very epic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you publish it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. How did you do that? I self-published through IngramSpark and it's available on Amazon, okay so here you guys go.
Speaker 1:You want a science fiction book written by my friend Rachel? Go find it on Amazon.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's called Once Upon Her Veins.
Speaker 1:Oh wait, I'm so hooked by that title. Yeah, no, literally, I'm going to write it down on my Google Doc that I'm keeping notes on right now. Cool title yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so I want to talk about what it means to have a past orientation to time. So there's some numbers who are future oriented, which means they're always looking ahead to the future. It's hard for them to stay in the present moment and they're making the plans and moving ahead. And there's the present numbers who are just very hyper aware of what's happening here and now very hyper aware of what's happening here and now. And then the past oriented numbers. They like looking back at what has been in past relationships and thinking about past experiences and looking at the past data.
Speaker 2:So can you talk about that? Yeah, I guess not until you brought it up that. I think maybe other people don't think about the past as much as I do, but maybe that's another indication that I'm definitely a four.
Speaker 2:Like I base a lot of my decisions on specifically how places or people have made me feel in the past.
Speaker 2:I think is a big one. Now that I'm like processing through that, I realized like if there was a negative experience at, say, like a coffee shop, like even if it had nothing to do with the staff, like maybe I had a negative experience with a friend there or something, I am almost like 0% to go back to that coffee shop, even if I liked it before. If there was just like one negative experience coloring it, I might be like I don't want to go there, or it might be like a long time before I go back there. Um, it can be like that with people too. I feel like they'll give me an impression and then, if I feel uncomfortable with that impression, I may not approach them the way I would approach other people who have given me a positive impression, even if I don't really know that much about them. I think that comes up a lot too. Being backward past, not backward past past oriented yeah, that's where I see it come up a lot.
Speaker 1:You've taught me something new. That's fascinating, yeah, yeah, and I think that, yeah, again, like no, everybody doesn't make decisions that way. I certainly don't, and so that's really interesting to hear you say that, that you're so, so attuned to how places and people and experiences make you feel, um, and so you like to make the decisions for the future based on how you already know things played out in the past. Good, okay, I'm going to read a bit from. It's an Instagram post from Jackie Brewster. Her handle is Enneagram with JB, and if you want a lot of really good educational graphics, jackie's your girl. Her stuff is really great.
Speaker 1:So she has this graphic about the withdrawn stance and I'll read a couple of these bullet points and then you can respond to them, rachel. Okay, so it says people in the withdrawn stance. Again, this is fours, fives and nines. People in the withdrawn stance gain their identity from retreating inward and processing their emotions, thoughts, feelings and experiences. They move away from others as a way of self-protection. When making decisions about their thoughts, opinions and place in the world, they prefer to do this in the privacy of their own hearts and minds. Others can feel shut out because of their need to go inward, to process. They can get lost in their repetitive behaviors as a way of self-protection and keeping a peaceful environment. They can become stuck in situations and relationships because they tend to retreat instead of dealing with what is happening around them. So I heard the word retreat a lot, and how does that word retreat hit you?
Speaker 2:That does make me think about like going home and shutting the door and not talking to anybody. It's been. I think I have a little bit of an advantage over some other people, possibly within the withdrawn stance, because I am extroverted and so being alone for long periods of time. While I want to do that, I want to retreat. There's a part of me that's like I have to go talk to somebody, I can't be alone, and so the idea of retreating does sound safe, like it doesn't sound like a negative word in this context to me. I think, oh yeah, sound like a negative word in this context to me, I think, oh yeah, I'll retreat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I do. So, yeah, retreat is not negative, it's it's. It's a safe and comforting place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I do really so, like my house and I'm kind of a homebody, probably more than a lot of extroverts are, because of, maybe, the risk, you know, the retreat thing, um, but yeah, the extroverted side of me forces me to go out and still talk to people. That's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is there any one of these bullet points that resonated with you that you'd like to talk?
Speaker 2:about Um. When making decisions about their thoughts and opinions and place in the world, they prefer to do this within the privacy of their own hearts and minds. In my relationship with my fiance, he's a very like he'll just set out stuff and tell me exactly what he's thinking.
Speaker 2:And that's been hard for me to learn to do with him, because I'm used to just processing a whole bunch inside my brain before I'll talk to other people about it. And he'll be sitting there and he'll be like tell me what you're thinking right now and I'll be like, well, it's not done yet. That's what I think he asked me to tell him. Like what am I doing? I'm like well, the thought's not done yet.
Speaker 2:I can't share it, um, but it's been really healthy for our relationship for me to share sometimes the half finished thoughts, because then you know we can catch bad things sooner if you don't. You know, let something fester in your own imagination for too long, and so him, like being really honest with me, has helped me be really honest with him and not do so much of the processing in my mind but actually bringing it forward into the light. It's been very helpful for our relationship.
Speaker 1:That's so good, that's really good growth, even to realize that you.
Speaker 2:You know it feels more comfortable and more safe to finish fully processing the thought, but you found that, like for the health of your relationship, actually maybe it's better to just offer like the half-formed thing, or yeah something that doesn't look perfect or ideal yeah, yeah, because I found like a lot of times you'll have like some faulty thought, right, and it's better to catch it now, before it's, you know, been spinning in your head all day.
Speaker 1:It's better to catch it sooner and yeah, and to have that support of your partner, because now you know your fiance is, is there to give, to give his voice, to join into your thoughts, which isn't always natural for you, but but that's what it's like in a relationship, yeah exactly it is.
Speaker 2:It is, and that's been an interesting learning curve for me, because this is my first big relationship, so it's been. Good though it's been, I feel like he's making me a better person.
Speaker 1:So can you think of any other specific ways that he's making?
Speaker 2:me a better person?
Speaker 1:Yeah, or vice versa, that you're making him a better person.
Speaker 2:He tells me all the time I'm making him softer, like I'm getting him to appreciate the gentleness and things he like a very I love him so much. But like a very typical man he could, you know, live with like one blanket and sleep on the ground and not need a pillow, you know, and I'm over here like no, let's have four pillows.
Speaker 2:And he's like, oh, these are so soft. So getting him to appreciate the softness in life and that kind of thing he says, I make him gentle. And then he keeps me really being honest with myself because, again, like catching the thoughts thing, I think I lie to myself sometimes or don't realize I'm lying to myself. But then if I'm talking it out with him, then that for sure helps me to be more honest with myself about how I'm feeling and thinking. And he, he's so kind to, he's so kind to like strangers, but also just to his family, and I love to see his heart in service Like he. Just he's an acts of service person, you know. And so he him like, he'll always offer his help to his parents and to his friends for whatever they need, and it just makes me want to help more people and be a better person and serve alongside of him. So that's, that's been pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love hearing you talk about your relationship. You're so sweet.
Speaker 2:Are you a journaler? I am a journaler, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, tell me about how journaling. Am a journaler, yes. Okay, tell me about how journaling, um, tell me about how, uh, journaling helps you process. And then I guess I'm also curious if that is like an important spiritual practice for you in your faith um, I go through phases in my life where it's a lot more important to me.
Speaker 2:Recently it's not been, I think I have I journal a lot more when I have a lot of like sad feelings going on, sure, and recently I haven't been very sad. So, um, I, so there's like in my mind there's a couple of categories. I've had kept a journal on and off since I was about 10. So I have like a bunch of notebooks that are filled up or mostly filled up, and as far as like how that helps me process, I would write down things in the journal that just I don't know.
Speaker 2:I go through phases of writing things that were more personal and less personal in the journal. But I think having an outlet to just write out I'm angry or I'm sad about this or that really helped me gain a lot of perspective, not necessarily at the time, but more recently when I've gone back and looked at the journals. I think maybe at the time too it helped a little bit. But looking back, sometimes I'd write about I'm so angry and I was so angry I didn't even write down what I was angry about. And it's a year later. I'm like I don't know what that was.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of helped me gain a little bit of perspective when you can go back and think. Even just a year ago I was so upset that I was definitely crying and like throwing a fit and thought I had to write this whole journal entry about it. And now I can't even remember what that was. And so when you can like look at it from that perspective, sometimes when I have big feelings now I think you know what I'm I'm probably not going to even remember what I was upset about in a year and that kind of gives you a little bit of perspective on your own emotions as well, and then not letting them rule your life, which is hard to do when you're an emotional person. So from that perspective I think journaling has helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:And then I like to write things down, like in church when I'm taking notes, like on the sermon and stuff. Like I got a journaling Bible that has those big, wide spaces on the side, so, like when they're preaching on a specific passage, I love to take my own notes on the side. So that part has been very integral. There's been times where I've done really good, like journaling Bible studies, where we'll like read a passage and it'll give you like a journal prompt about it. I'm actually doing one of those right now with a friend. We're doing the book of Psalms and it's like this big, it's this big study book and so each page is a different psalm and have you read the psalm and then do an activity with it.
Speaker 1:That's usually involves some form of journaling, and so it's awesome and what a perfect book to be studying, because talk about all the emotions.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think David was a four. So you know what? I've heard people say that I feel I have a theory. I think it my friends have told me this too like as we're studying the book of psalms together. She's like I think you and David are the same personality.
Speaker 1:Oh so funny. So express it all.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, for me about understanding my Enneagram type is understanding that because we're all created differently by God, we're all designed differently and so it makes sense that we all find different ways to connect with God and we don't all do the same things. So, for example, even something like you could look around in church and during during a worship time, and there are some people who are like very um, excuse me, there are some people who are very um, emotionally engaged in the worship and the singing and the clapping and the eyes closed and all the things, and then there's probably some people standing in the back who are just listening or just you know, and I think that's just one example. But I I used to think that there was like this right and this wrong way to do faith and I had to find the right way. And maybe the right way is like singing really loud, or maybe the right way is like doing like reading my bible at a very specific time every day, or.
Speaker 1:But I think the enneagram has been really freeing for me to understand like we're all made differently. Some of us are, some of us are more thinkers, some of us are more feelers and some of us are more body gut people and that affects like our faith and that affects how we know God, and so so I think for me, it's given me like more grace of, like it's okay that my faith doesn't look like this other person over here who I think maybe, like I used to think, oh, they're superior because you could just like see all these outward signs of all the things, but yeah, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:I think grace is the perfect word there. I think that we are all designed differently. Right, God didn't want us all to be the same, because that would have been, first of all, very boring, but that we all. Yeah, I love what you talked about like figuring out that your way of relating to God may look very different from somebody else's, and I think for me it really helped out when I realized like I was made to have a lot of emotions.
Speaker 1:Like God made me that way.
Speaker 2:And so, instead of getting upset at myself for having these big emotions and having these complex thoughts and imaginations, I needed to embrace them and be like sometimes, specifically when I'm upset, I'll remind myself listen, you are meant to feel big things, but this big feeling doesn't define you right, and this is not something wrong with you that you have big feelings about this and nobody else does. This is just the way you are processing it, and that was my way of learning how to give myself grace, right and that. So that's why I love that you use the word grace there, because, yeah, it can be really isolating when you feel like, well, am I the only one who's crying about this? Yeah, absolutely. And like, is there something wrong with me that I'm so sensitive? I think that's something Forrest Gump told a lot. So we're sensitive. Sensitive, it's like, yeah and uh, embracing the sensitive side of myself that I was.
Speaker 2:I was designed to have big emotions and feel a lot of empathy for other people, and that's a good thing, but that I shouldn't let it rule me. I shouldn't let it be the only reason I do things, and I need to remember that my emotions are just a facet of my personality, um, and that they can like most gifts and, uh, you know, personality parts. They can. They can, uh, they can go negative and you can, um, wallow in them in a way that you shouldn't. And they can also be used to, um, you know, empathize with other people and feel other people's emotions and know, oh, this is what they need, because I felt that emotion, and then be very what's the word I'm looking for? Be very available to other people who've gone through something that maybe you've gone through, because you know exactly what they need. You're like, oh, this is what they need because this is what I wanted.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and there's that past orientation too. Like you're, it's so easy for you to draw from your past experiences and then use that to empathize with people and to help other people.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely. I've walked through some dark places and at the time they were hard to walk through, but now I realize that a lot of them have helped me relate to people on a deeper level because of that. So.
Speaker 1:It's really beautiful. I think that's one of the gifts of the Enneagram 4 is their ability to have empathy and their ability to stay with people in the dark places and in the hard times, because Enneagram 4s have this amazing ability that a lot of other numbers don't have to stay there in the hard times and to stay in the negative emotions and to stay in the hard places there in the hard times and to stay in the negative emotions and to stay in the hard places, and that just means so much to somebody who's going through a dark time to have a friend who's going to be there in it with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause I think a lot of times people are scared to share especially negative emotions with people. But four is really we really embrace it. I tell people all the time like I'm not afraid of your anger, I'm not afraid of your sadness, so we'll be like I can't cry and I'm like, no, I want you to cry around me, I'll cry with you, like I am more than happy. And then being in that emotion I think that's a lot why some fours can tend to be really depressed is because we're just okay being sad. We are okay with that and for some people who don't know how to regulate that, you can just sit and wallow in your sadness for forever and ever and ever and never let it go, because we're not as negatively impacted by being like it's mentally.
Speaker 2:I think is how I like to think about that is like we can be really, really sad somebody else, because we want to feel the emotion, even if it's a negative one, and we want to feel the depths of that emotion and think how far does it go and how sad can I be? From a almost like a curiosity standpoint, I want to say sometimes, like, oddly, unemotionally, I want to be really sad. Just to know what it feels like to be really sad. And so I think it's weird, because I feel like we're so connected to our emotions but at the same time that curiosity to just keep going deeper into an emotion is almost like tempting, like I just want to know what is it like to feel that? And I want to feel that.
Speaker 1:So that's brilliant. I am so happy that you talked about what it's been like for you to recognize and celebrate your emotions but then, at the same time, like recognize that your growth is learning how to manage and to balance your emotions.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like you're aware of them and you can feel the depths, but also you're not using them as an excuse and you're finding ways to grow and be more healthy, which can look like sometimes, sometimes just finding balance and settling. Yeah, because that growth is so important, because when we learn about our Enneagram types, it can be tempting to just use what we learn as a shield or as an excuse. Use what we learn as a shield or as an excuse, but it matters so much that we are keep, we keep growing into, into the people that God designed us to be like. God designed you to have all these big emotions, but to not be ruled by them and to not be to use them in healthy ways.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Yeah, it's like the crutch, I think, of the Enneagram for us to sit in an emotion a lot longer than maybe we should and to, yeah, use it, like you said, as an excuse. Right, like you could be. I could definitely see Enneagram 4 as being those people who mourn somebody for years, like that kind of person who, you know, we maybe all have that one person in our life that like still talks about their loved one, almost like they're still alive and like every conversation is still about them and um, which is, you know, it's really hard to move on from. I feel like those people are probably forced because they're they're sitting in that emotion and it's not bothering them the same way it bothers other people to sit in sadness, so they can really wallow in it for a lot longer, I think.
Speaker 1:Rachel, I have loved this conversation. It's been so cool to hear you like describe like Enneagram fours are so good at that, describing what's going on on the inside and it's just been really enlightening. Is there anything else that you want people to know about you or about Enneagram fours Me?
Speaker 2:or Enneagram fours. Don't be afraid to be emotional around Enneagram 4s. I think I kind of already said that. But we are not scared of your tears, we are not scared of your anger and we want to be angry and sad and excited with you. So, if you like, hold back your anger or your emotions at all. We feel like you're like holding back a part of yourself from us and I always feel so honored when somebody like breaks down and cries in front of me, like literally.
Speaker 2:I'm like this is such an honor that you're crying with me, you know. And then I will of course cry with you because I can do that.
Speaker 1:That is awesome. Well, thank you so much for being with me. I again just loved hearing about Forest. Thank you for having me. Again, just loved hearing about fours. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I have a free cheat sheet I want to tell you about. It's a guide to the nine Enneagram types that I created. It has the nine types with their core fears, desires and nicknames, so you can quickly remember which type is which. And then it also goes into the core vices and virtues of each Enneagram type. If you don't know anything about your type's vice and virtue yet, go ahead and grab that guide and you can start reading about it. If you want to grab that guide for free, just click down in the show notes I linked up below. 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.