I'm Brian Beatty, producer of Restoring the Soul. All summer, we're bringing back conversations worth hearing again. This one first aired in the spring of 2020, the conclusion of Michael's two-part talk with Counselor Chuck de Grote on how narcissism hides inside each enneogram type, the quieter ways it shows up in all of us. It's honest and not always comfortable, but seeing ourselves clearly is its own kind of grace. Here's Michael and Chuck.
Michael John CusickDr. Chuck de Grote, uh, welcome back. This is the second of two conversations about your new book, When Narcissism Comes to Church, Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse. And we had a great, albeit incomplete conversation about your book and the topic of narcissism because there's so much fear, so much fear. And I just want to comment, I love the quotes that you have. I'm a big quote guy, but you you know you deeply draw upon Merton and Nowen and um some of the early church fathers and mothers and just good, good stuff. You took a really, really interesting turn in that you wrote a chapter called The Nine Faces of Narcissism, corresponding to the Enneagram. So why did you go that direction?
Chuck DeGroatUh that's a good question. I've got a webinar tonight where I'm talking about this with a bunch of folks, and I need to figure this out. So thanks for the opportunity to think about it this morning. Uh and it really grew out of my clinical work. Uh I was exposed to the Enneagram in the late 1990s, the work of Richard Rohr, and uh was immediately intrigued and curious about it. And uh as I studied the Enneagram and started teaching on the Enneagram maybe five, six, seven years later, uh, if if you look carefully at the Enneagram, and particularly Rhyso and Hudson's work, they talk about levels of development from health to unhealth. And I noticed that in the levels of unhealth, you see personality disorders, borderline, histrionic, narcissism, antisocial, or propensities toward personality disorders. And that's when I began thinking about the implications of the Enneagram
on uh the personality disorder conversation. Uh, the thing about narcissism that is particularly intriguing is that as we talked about in the first episode, it doesn't only show up as grandiose. We typically think of the caricature of narcissism as the guy on the stage talking about all of the great things that he's done, uh, giving himself high marks for his response to some global, not talking politically right now, of course, but giving himself high marks in response to some global pandemic. And um we don't think about what we uh described in the first podcast as the vulnerable narcissist. And that's the one that is a bit more subtle, a bit more passive, passive aggressive, looks a little bit more like what we call the cluster B personality disorders, like borderline personality disorder, perhaps. And so I walk through each one of the nine Enneagram types and I talk about how each one is a sort of subtle manifestation of either grandiose or vulnerable narcissism.
Michael John CusickSo, first of all, I'm impressed that you read about the Enneagram in the late 90s, so that was long before it became a thing. And you know, now you're an automatic hipster if you know what the Enneagram is. But just say one or two sentences about uh the nature of the Ennegram, and then you talk about the triads, which I think is very helpful to understand each of the nine numbers.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, the Enneagram is a system that is really rooted in an early church understanding of the deadly sins that get at root passions, root sufferings in the world. And so each Enneagram type describes a kind of uh root passion or suffering in the world, a cardinal sin. Uh, it's not a personality test. I like to say that really loud and clear to people. If you want a personality test, use something like the 16 PF or the Myers Braves or one of those. This really gets at how we show up as our false self, how we cope in the world, um, maladaptively, problematically, sinfully. Uh, and so it's it's uh it's quite helpful in really exposing our shadow side. I often say that when you discover your Enneagram type, there's some shame, there's some humiliation, there's some sense of, oh God, no, that can't be me. Uh whereas when you do a personality
test, it's like, oh, well, that's cool. I'm pretty special. It's quite different.
Michael John CusickYeah, and then for me with the Enneagram, there's the Enneagram envy, where when I found out that I'm a two, I was like, no, I want to be another number, which is narcissistic in and of itself, because that would be a better, more spectacular number.
Chuck DeGroatAnd you know, our conversation a while ago, whenever we did a previous podcast, uh, when we were talking about the benevolent narcissist, I use your language in the book. It was so helpful for understanding Enneagram twos, by the way.
Michael John CusickYeah, thank you. I highlighted that in multiple colors, and then I Xeroxed it and I posted it on Facebook where you quoted me. Well, I and seriously, I I'm glad that that was helpful. Somebody passed it on to me a long time ago, and uh it was helpful in understanding myself as a two. Yeah, that's right. So talk about the triads before we jump in, because again, uh the clusters in personality disorders, A, B, and C, are what used to be referred to that, and these triads, and then we'll go through the nine numbers.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, so uh we we talk about head types, heart types, and gut types in the Enneagram, and each is a kind of style of of coping uh in the world. Uh the head types learned at a very early age to kind of uh to sort of um uh uh resign themselves to a life uh in their heads, to protect themselves from all the emotional emotionality of the world, drama of the world. Um the gut types are really intuitive types. They feel deeply in their body. They might not be able to speak to you exactly what they're feeling, but they'll say, I feel it in my body, I know it intuitively. Heart types are the deep feelers in the world. Although sometimes they can be quite disconnected from their feelings, they're living out of their feelings rather than living radically in touch with their feelings. And so those are the three triads that we talk about.
Michael John CusickAnd again, as an Enneagram 2, in that heart triad, the the key passion there is shame. Yeah, that's right. That really drives that.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, when we think about that, that triad, the twos, the threes, and the fours, that there is always, and when we do this work in counseling and pastoral care, spiritual formation, spiritual direction, I always invite people to look for the shame that's lurking just underneath. Uh, that sense of insecurity, that sense that that's not enough. I mean, I I will inevitably, as an Enneagram 4, walk away from this thinking about all the things I could have said differently, all the things that weren't enough that I didn't describe in a way that I'm I feel particularly happy with. There's always shame lurking underneath. Uh, and each one of these, the twos, threes, and fours, they're personalities that are kind of like we call in the psychology world compensatory strategies
for dealing with our latent shame.
Michael John CusickSo shame is the twos, threes, fours, five, six, and sevens in the head triad. What's the core passion there?
Chuck DeGroatYeah, the core passion of the head triad, I'm forgetting. Uh is it is it uh fear? Yeah, shame, fear, and anger.
Michael John CusickSo now this was a great opportunity for you and I to embrace shame because I talk about the Enneagram all the time, like to consider myself very well-versed, and I don't know what feels like a basic thing that I should know. But each of these triads has a core passion. So as we head into this, I remember I asked you this question, and let's pause for our readers to fill in the blank. I said to you, what is the Enneagram number that is most prone and most likely to be a narcissist? And I was really surprised by the answer.
Chuck DeGroatWell, yeah, Claudio Naranjo says it's a seven. Uh Naranjo was who's one of the early psychologists who embraced uh the Enneagram and sort of helped the transition from Latin America to the United States. Uh, he says it's the seven, the seven that's always living in a kind of flight from reality, always living a kind of fantasy, right? And so when we think about fives, sixes, and sevens in that that triad, that head triad, underneath, uh, you know, even with a seven, sevens seem like they are spontaneous and they're going along with whatever happens, you know. We're living in in the midst of a global pandemic, and sevens are talking about baking a cake tonight or something like that. Sort of a flight from reality that you see in the sevens. The reason Naranjo calls the seven sort of the prototypical or the archetypal narcissist
is that they're about as out of touch with their human limitations, their humanity as any of the other numbers. Now, I I see, I think you make a case, and I try to make the case that you can see narcissism in each and every one of the numbers. But people don't often guess. I mean, what would be your guess out of all the numbers of the archetypal narcissists?
Michael John CusickWell, I was just gonna say that although what you're saying makes sense about the seven, uh, I immediately go to the eight, you know, because they're challenging and they may seem on the surface to lack empathy. But, you know, as we know that under the surface of an eight, there's often a tender-heartedness and just a thick skin that's developed. And when eights can be vulnerable, um, it can be so powerful and compelling. But then my second guess would be the three.
Chuck DeGroatThat's right. And that's what most people say the eight or the three, the three who likes to be on stage, the three who is likely most out of touch, even though he or she is in that heart triad, right, is probably most out of touch with their emotions, right? So uh, and this is where I think probably for me early on the conversation sort of gravitated to well, I I bet you could see some narcissism show up with each one of the numbers. And so the hypervigilance of the Enneagram six in that head triad, right? Uh, the the really anxious narcissism who's always in control, or the intellectualism of the Enneagram five, I know better than you do. Uh, it shows up in these really unique ways for each one of them.
Michael John CusickIt's so subtle. And, you know, as you said that again, every number, I just I just kind of smiled, like, yeah, I I'm very aware of how as a as a two and as a as a human being it can play out. And I'm I'm pretty random. So my my mind just went to uh an old cassette tape, one of the very first sermons I heard Brennan Manning give. And he was talking about his ego. And you know, the ego for our listeners is akin to the to the false self. It's it's what we construct to protect ourselves and uh to keep ourselves from being seen. So Brennan was talking about his ego, and he said, I, you know, I'm so preoccupied with stroking my ego. For example, and then he made this list of things, and he said, for example, um Amy Grant said publicly that I was her favorite author. And
and and I thought, yeah, I mean, Amy Grant hasn't said that about me, but you know, the propensity to name drop or the propensity to promote myself, or for a long time, I remember being in conversations with others as a young believer and knowing, you know, that that being loving is being more concerned with others, but in conversations, waiting for people to stop talking just so I can talk about myself. Yeah. And and I don't think I'm a flaming narcissist, but it's just so inherent that there's a real freedom to be able to just go, yep, it's there, and then to to bring it into the light.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. And jumping back to twos, threes, and fours, that's a that's a worthy tangent, right? And that that shame lurking beneath. There is always that question, do you see me? Um, am I worthy? Right. And so uh that's the question that I I have to acknowledge as I come to a podcast like this, as you do a podcast, do you see me? Am I worthy? Um, will will you will you listen to this? Will you think that I'm okay? So ego is always at work. And that, I mean, we we talked about this in the first podcast. Uh, we don't ever get over ego. Ego is always at work. It's are we aware of it so that it doesn't surprise us? So that when, you know, three hours from now I look back and I say, oh, golly, I could have done, I could have answered that question so much better that for the next 48 hours, I'm not in bed under my cover saying I'm never ever going to do a podcast again with Michael, right? Uh as we do our work, we become more resilient and we realize that we're fragile, limited, broken human beings that can live as God's beloved, that God delights in us, even with all our quirks and all of our messiness.
Michael John CusickYeah, so that part of how the false self, the ego, loses its power, and it's important to come back to what you said, that it that it never goes away. How it loses its power is through compassionate acceptance of it, which is totally counterintuitive. And to begin with, uh, some people have to begin with that that starts with God compassionately accepting those parts of us. Yeah. Here's a very provocative statement, but I like to say to people sometimes, God loves your sin. You know, so He doesn't he doesn't love the effect of it, or He doesn't love the uh well, I don't have to qualify that, that God loves your sin because He loves all of you. He loves the ego, He loves the false self, and knows that that that stands in the way of actually living as the beloved.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. Yeah, Brandon Manning in Abbas Child talks about this the false self
as the imposter, right? Right. And at one point, I forget exactly how he does it, but it's been a little while since I read it. But he talks about as as you grow, the imposter gets smaller and smaller. And then it it's sort of like you know, it's like this little thing that's sitting on my laptop right now. It's like, hey, buddy, I know you're really worried about what people think about you right now. That's okay. It's okay. I love you. You know, for so many of us, and I know for me, for so many years, it's been so large. And on some days it's so large. But yeah, there you are, little buddy. I know you're scared right now.
Michael John CusickIt's okay. And how how cool that doing that, you know, I think of Matthew 18, where Jesus says that we have to become like a little child to enter the fullness and the reality of heaven here, the kingdom of God. Yeah.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, that gets back to our fragility, our weakness, right? We were uh we were just uh, by the way, uh maybe I'll draw us back to the Enneagram for a moment. You know, we were uh we left out the eights, nines, and ones, right? And when I think about that little child, I think about my friends who are eights. I think about my my closest friend here in town who is an eight who lets me see the little boy, uh the fragile little boy, the scared little boy. Um I know my friend can show up in ways that are intimidating, scary. You know, this is, by the way, underneath is that root stint of anger, right? So we know that there's some anger underneath there. Um, but he's just a little boy, like me, like you. And when we come to realize that there's such freedom, uh, such self-compassion, such self-acceptance, which is really getting back to our first podcast, The Essence of Self-Love.
Michael John CusickYeah. So we'll talk about the Ennegram, but just one little final uh uh trail. For anybody who's listening, look this up on YouTube. Paul Young, our friend who wrote The Shack, um, was on uh the Today Show with Maria Shriver, and she was interviewing him. And it was this amazing conversation about the heart of God as she was talking about the book, The Shack. And at the end, Maria leans forward as if to kind of really get close to him. She says, Paul Young, who are you? And without hesitating, he said, Maria, I'm a child. And the answer was so disruptive, it was so unexpected. You know, he could have said, I'm I'm a guy that sold 26 million books, um, but I'm a child. And he said it with a twinkle in his eye that when you know that you're loved, you don't have to be defended and you don't have to be a big,
powerful grown-up. You actually get to inhabit your life. Yeah, yeah.
Chuck DeGroatIt's so beautiful and it's so freeing. And the reality is that if we're honest, most of us live pretty disconnected from that child most days. I know I do because I'm busy and self-important. I've got lots of things going on. But when we get in touch with that child, it feels like from that place we can live vulnerably, honestly, uh in our brokenness, in our fragility. We can be known, right?
Michael John CusickYeah. And so when we're disconnected from that child, we are disintegrated. When we are connected and living in belovedness with those parts, we are integrated. And as you discussed in your book, Wholeheartedness, that's actually the meaning of wholeness. And wholeness is holiness.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, that's right. It's about inviting every part of ourselves, even the parts that we don't like very much, into what I like to describe as the inner family room. Like internally, I've got this inner inner family room, and everyone's welcome. Uh, they all they don't always all want to be together, but uh everyone's welcome, and Christ is at the center, and they're all loved. And when we're fully integrated, we can live from that space. There's nothing to hide, there's nothing to prove, there's nothing to protect.
Michael John CusickYeah, so uh this this inner work, this soul work, this this healing of our wounds, that it's not uh disjointed or separate or off in the corner somewhere from the spiritual work of becoming holy. So, you know, as as you and I are sitting down with Christian leaders and we find that there's a resistance or an unwillingness to go into those dark spaces, if we were to ask them, do you want to be holy? they would go, Well, of course. Of course. You know, and that's defined by things like reading your Bible and certain Christian accomplishments.
Chuck DeGroatYeah.
Michael John CusickUm cutting off parts of themselves, right? Yes, yeah, as opposed to embracing part of themselves. So, Chuck, around this, uh, there's a quote that I highlighted. Would you read this? It's on page 48 of your book, um, under the Type II, which again is me. It's a quote from Marva Dawn and Eugene Peterson.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, Marva Dawn, Eugene Peterson write, the constant danger for those of us who enter the ranks of the ordained is that we take on a role, a professional religious role, that gradually obliterates the life of the soul. Humility recedes as leadership advances.
Michael John CusickWow.
Chuck DeGroatThat's a hard quote, but it's so true. Yeah. I talk to my students sometimes about the MDiv. They've mastered divinity, they've made it, right? And then they get the rev next to their name. And it's often really scary. I've done lots of ordination services over the years, and uh there's this moment in an ordination service with a pastor where hands are laid on the pastor. It's really weighty. They always cry, but then I I I grab them, we go backstage afterwards, we talk for a little bit. I say, Do you feel any different than you felt 24 hours ago?
No, I don't. I'm still messed up, I'm still thinking the same thoughts, you know. Yeah, okay, live from that place. Uh, that was a really special thing on stage, but mdiv doesn't define you, rev doesn't define you. This moment, your humility defines you. Wow.
Michael John CusickSo, how important for church systems to somehow build humility as a value and a practice into how they do leadership is in fact humility recedes as leadership advances.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. Really, what you're talking about, when you talk about humility, you're talking about uh character, the larger conversation about character. And having been involved in dozens of church planning assessments over the years, we don't often talk about character. Uh there was just a pretty well publicized uh dismissal of some leaders within Acts 29. And uh the conversation was around leadership style, right? They have a different leadership style, not around character. Sometimes we use leadership style or gift. It's a you know, it was a different gift mix than we needed. Those are ways of avoiding conversations about character, about humility.
Michael John CusickYou wrote an amazing blog about that. That again, I thought it was kind and compassionate without uh uh attacking people, but it really addressed that. Uh, what's your website, just so people can check that out in other resources? Yes, ChuckDegroat.net. D-E-G-R-O-A-T. That's right. Chuck Degroat. So we'll get into the Enneagram because we promised people that, but um, you you talked a little bit about humility, and people are probably sick of me quoting Merton's definition of humility, but he said that humility is being precisely who you are at any given time before God and another.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. This is where the language of masks or faces, I use the language of faces of narcissism or masks is so profound, I think, because we're constantly, as uh Frederick Biegner says, taking on, putting on, what do he says? He says something like taking off and putting on masks,
like the world's weather. Like, here's the mask for the day. What's the mask that I need to wear for Michael today in the podcast? What's the mask that I need to wear as I interact with my launch team? What's the mask that I need to wear as I speak to my students? You know, and and some of us, uh, and I know this has been the case. For me over the years, the mask becomes the only face that we know. And that's pretty scary. And so I think what Merton is inviting us to is uh a really sort of harsh confrontation with who we really are. Uh, if we take off the mask, we've got to, as we've talked about in the first and part of this podcast as well, we've got to reckon with our fragility, with our brokenness, with our humanity. And I think that's the hardest thing. When I'm talking to leaders, uh there is a sense, they don't say it like this, but it there is a sense in which they're saying, I don't want to be human. I don't want those limitations, Chuck. Uh, I like feeling superhuman. I like the feeling of getting on stage and and I like the feeling of people buying my books and uh, you know, the the sense that they adore me. I love that.
Michael John CusickFeels good. Well, there's something so subtle about that too, because there's this underlying message in a lot of modern uh Christianity that the more spiritual we become or the more mature we become as Christians, the less human we become. But it's really the opposite that should be true. Yeah, it's really the opposite.
Chuck DeGroatAnd you you know this, I know this as we interact with people who are you know 15, 20 years older than us, even, and there is sort of uh what Richard Rohr calls uh the wise person, the old fool. Um, they're just over-ego, uh, there's no face anymore. They delight in attending to what's going on in your heart. Um, they show up as their full selves, um, they they laugh and they cry um and and they experience every emotion in between. And that's really beautiful. I've got 50 on my mind now, and I one of the conversations I'm having with men who are about 15 or 20 years older than me is what's my challenge in the next decade? Uh, how do I do this next decade? What did you experience as the obstacles and the pitfalls and the challenges of 50 to 60? Uh, that's significant for each one of us on our developmental journey.
Michael John CusickYeah, Gordon McDonald has done some really good work around that. And I actually have a podcast where he walked through each of the decades and uh the the work that we need to do and the question that we're asking and some of the impediments. And I forget what book it is that he wrote that in, but you know, he's he's one of those sages. So let's dive in to the numbers and start on whichever number you like, because I know that often we don't start at one when we talk about the ennegram.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, well, let's start with nine. You know, nines always feel like they're the last ones anyway, they're left out. Nines are what I often call the passive-aggressive narcissist. Uh, nines will not show up as grandiose, they'll show up as more vulnerable. They're out of touch with themselves. And and when they're out of touch with themselves, remember, remember the baseline for the eights, nines, and ones is anger. There's a kind of latent anger that people feel. They don't know that they're angry. People might not even say that they're angry because they're not experiencing the anger like they might experience it from the eight, but they feel it. And for for nines who are elevated on the narcissistic spectrum, it's sort of like you tiptoe around them, and you're not entirely sure why, but there's a sort of invisible force at work. Uh, so it's really, really subtle, probably the most subtle in the nine of any one of the numbers. What about the you want to go to one? One, let's go to one. One I call the perfectionist. Imagine the uh sort of the confident uh lawyerly type,
you know, that sort of slices and dices your argument. Um, the perfectionist always needs to be right. They live in a really binary universe. Um, I remember back in the day when I was a Presbyterian, uh, I was I was uh I was a young pastor and I was the head of a committee and I was introducing a young guy and I said, uh, this guy's gonna be a great minister. He's a really good man. And one of the presbyters stood up and he said, uh, uh Reverend De Grote, point of order. Can we call anyone good? Right. And uh I was a little anxious, and everyone else was a little anxious, but you know, the the sort of the arrogant perfectionist can we call anyone good? Uh we live in uh we live in this moral universe, and there are good people and there are bad people, and nothing in between.
Michael John CusickSo part of how that uh narcissism plays out is by being right. Yes, being right. Which often fits into doctrinal categories as as was the case there, but um Yeah, they're they're uh they're all over the place in the church, you know, and they make um they probably make really good theologians, but really frightening theologians at some level too, right?
Chuck DeGroatThey're full of certainty. The two uh you helped me with with, and I call it the benevolent narcissist now, pivoting off of our conversation from a previous podcast. And um, I'm gonna let you talk about the two since you know it so well.
Michael John CusickYeah, well, don't you also call it in your book in terms of the narcissistic type, the savior? I call it the savior in the book, but yeah, and it's often called the helper or the giver. And you know, as as I was reading your book um with more than just a little bit of shame initially that I had to practice compassionate acceptance to, I thought one of the ways that narcissism narcissism plays out uh for me is by uh affiliating with other people that are successful or or great. So it's not just name-dropping, but it's let me get close to this person. And then another way is through flattery, you know, of uh, and I and I made a joke about this at the beginning, but I I really need to be aware of it by you know by saying, Oh, your book is the greatest book on this whatsoever. And then by that, I'm quote, encouraging, helping, giving to you. But if that's coming out of a place in me that needs to affirm you so that you will then like, accept, affirm me, and want to come back on my podcast, then that's really unhealthy and self-serving.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. And the beautiful thing is I've seen you in a context where uh you're doing your work, uh, which is if if you've not seen it before, it's really beautiful. Um, and Michael, Michael doesn't show up as the people pleaser in that work. In fact, it's it's uh I think you've probably done enough work to show up in ways that you say the tough things, you challenge, you call out, and um, and so I've been able to see the I I I guess the Michael on the other side that's really beautiful.
Michael John CusickWell, thank you. And you're referring to the the Surfing for God weekend intensive that was so so cool to have you a part of, and you're you're welcome to come back anytime, hopefully in September to staff that.
Chuck DeGroatI learned so much in that. So yeah, that's the that's the save you're the benevolent narcissist. The three, as we talked about earlier, seems like you're sort of our our type narcissist. Um, this is the person constantly on stage. Uh I like to talk about when I'm doing work with these men in particular about the stage self. It could be men and women, but I I work with a lot of men who show up as their stage self. Even in the counseling room, they'll be on stage. And that's it's really fascinating. Uh, they're the performer, they're the winner. Um you know, this was the guy who is uh, you know, the high school quarterback, uh the homecoming king, you know, but now he's 45 years old and uh life is starting to get a little harder. And uh he's trying to maintain his space on the stage, but it's not working for him anymore. And often, often my invitation to this person is to say, take me behind stage. Yeah, take me behind the curtain. I want to know who you are uh apart from your stage self.
Michael John CusickThat's great. I remember you saying that before. Let me see that guy. Let me see that guy, yeah.
Chuck DeGroatThe four uh is is often called the individualist. Uh, this is this is more that vulnerable narcissist that we talked about earlier. I was using words like unique and special. You know, this is the pastor of that small church who says, you know, we're the pure church, we're the really special church. Look at me. I'm doing it in a way that no one else is doing it. There is uh underneath, I think, the the four, as we talked about earlier, that that profound shame, um, that deep sense of being misunderstood. And so the four wants to stand out. It's a sort of contrived way of getting people to say, you you you really have what it takes. You're really special, you've really got something to offer. And I know as a four, those are words that I long to hear. And if you don't do your work, you're you're sort of grasping at those words and those affirmations. Uh and so I'm I'm thankful that you would say kind things about my book. Um, I don't need it quite as much as I needed it 20 years ago, if that makes sense.
Michael John CusickYeah, it does make sense. And regardless
of the number, when we need that, um, certainly for myself, it can feel like we're so unanchored and like that sense of self is just deflated on the inside. Before we go to number five, um are there gender differences? Because I I think there's almost uh an assumption that, well, narcissism is about men, you know, because they're selfish. But we both run into a fair amount of women. They don't tend to be senior pastors in the evangelical world, but what are the differences in gender?
Chuck DeGroatUm, I haven't really explored that. And there aren't good uh statistics, I don't think, about that and around that right now, and certainly in this conversation where we're connecting narcissism to the Enneagram. Um, I don't I don't have any hard data on that. I have I have an intuition uh at times that uh that uh, for instance, uh a man will show up more narcissistically because men in our culture uh have uh more privilege. Uh they're able to lead. Uh in certain denominations, they're the only gender who can lead, right? Um women may show up a little bit more vulnerably as uh as the borderline personality disorder, as the Enneagram 4 or the Enneagram 9, because they're put in their place, they're told to, you know, they're they're not allowed to speak, they're not allowed to lead. And so I have hunches, but I have no real hard data.
Michael John CusickWhat's the other difficulty is that when women do show up with strength, they often get labeled, you know. So the the female eight is often labeled the bitch or uh controlling or something like that when a man might not be labeled in that same way.
Chuck DeGroatHe's just a good leader, you know, he's confident, but she's too much. If she shows up in that way, she's too much. You know, she's angry. I've heard I've heard it. Uh I I happen to serve at a seminary that's egalitarian through and through, and um I've heard many women called angry uh who are Enneagram eights, right?
Michael John CusickSo ultimately that comes back to the wounds of men.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, that's right.
Michael John CusickIn a in a narcissistic system.
Chuck DeGroatUh how about number five? Five, I call the distancer. This is the intellectually distant uh narcissist. Uh when I'm doing marital counseling, he's got a yellow pad out and he's taking notes, and uh she's she's sharing her heart, and she's taking he's taking notes about what she's sharing instead of looking at her, right? And then he he's able to tell her what she said, but he's not able to sort of cross that that breach to make contact, emotional contact with her. Um he he lacks empathy. Um you'll see some of the power show up for this person at times because they've got they've got the knowledge, they're experts. They they they really do know a whole lot more than I do. When they show up in a room, they command data. Uh, they can use that in forceful ways and arrogant ways, but they can also, fives can also be kind of socially distant or awkward or behind the scenes uh and lack empathy. That can be really hard if you're in a relationship with them.
Michael John CusickSo this might be a stereotype, but very left-brained instead of right-brained.
Very left-brained, right? So um they're logical, they're ordered. Uh, and again, you you want them, uh, you know, I want the the architect who's remodeling my kitchen right here that I'm looking at right now, uh, to have a little NARAM five, you know. Um, I want the details, the measurements to be just right. Uh I'd like my nuclear physicist to be an NARAM 5. Um, you know, when you bring the nuclear physicist into a marital relationship, it can be painful though.
Michael John CusickYeah. It strikes me as we're talking about all these numbers, that whether it's uh the unhealthy narcissistic piece or whether it's the healthy part, that these Enneagram numbers, and this is not a new idea, but they're also uh a pattern of how we relate to God and how we seek Him out, as well as relationships on the horizontal level.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. Yeah, so so fives um may experience that distance from God, or uh they might have boxes for God, you know, or they might have definitions of God. Uh but what's interesting is that uh I've I've seen some work on this, and I don't know, I mean, it's it's probably not research-based work, but it may be a little bit more speculative that some of the great mystics, like a Meister Eckhart, uh, have a kind of Enneagram fiveness to them, the apophatic mystics who uh, as they grow, discover that God is ultimately mystery, right? And so the surrender is in surrendering, having to know it all. And that's so hard for the Enneagram fives.
Michael John CusickHow about the six?
Chuck DeGroatYeah, the six I call the Hawkeye. Uh, sixes are often behind the scenes. Uh, you don't see as many sixes as organizational leaders, CEOs, uh, lead pastors. You do at times, uh, but when they show up, uh, they show up with a kind of hyper-vigilance. They're rule followers, they tell you what's wrong and what's right uh uh when they're unhealthy, right? So they can show up in ways that feel very judgmental to others. Um that hyper-vigilance is is that sense that they see everything. So you might find yourself tiptoeing around them because you know, if you you know that they might see something that you're doing that might be just a little bit off. I remember uh working with a particular accountant um in a church a long time ago uh who, whenever I brought a receipt, I was nervous because I inevitably not have like the itemized receipt or something like that. And I get the look, you know, the look of like I'm disappointed in you, Chuck. I'm not saying at all that she was a narcissist, but I'm just saying that's the feel sometimes is I'm disappointed in you uh when they're in unhealth.
Michael John CusickHmm. Okay. We talked a little bit about the seven already. Yeah. Come back and summarize that.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, I call the seven the optimist, seven is the visionary. Uh let me just tell you how I've seen this play itself out. Uh, I I knew a uh a megachurch pastor who was a seven who was constantly thinking about what's next. And so he'd talk about a great vision for the church, and then his team would begin implementing that vision. And then lo and behold, in the next staff meeting, he'd come in and he'd say, Last night I came up with something that's even better than what I came up with last week, and we're going to do this. And people are in a constant state of turmoil, a constant state of anxiety. And so they're so forward-looking that they exasperate people who need to sort of live in the present moment and deal with the details, if that makes sense.
Michael John CusickYeah, it would be very difficult to trust a leader in that position.
Chuck DeGroatAbsolutely. Yeah, it's exhausting to be uh to be under a leader in that position. Yeah. How about the eight? Yeah, the eight is the challenger. Uh this is, as we talked about before, you know, it begins with a little boy who gets bullied and decides I will become the bully. And so now he's 45, 50 years old, and he's uh command and control leader in an organization, and he only knows how to command or control. Like um, he he's not good at listening, he's not good at empathy, he's not good at participation or collaboration, and so you'll experience him as the bully, uh as intimidating, uh, until he gets in touch again with that fragile, limited, childlike part of him.
Michael John CusickSo I want to wrap this up, Chuck, with talking about the hope and the healing.
Chuck DeGroatYeah.
Michael John CusickUm, first of all, people don't come to counseling saying, I'm a narcissist. They usually come because either they have to or they come for other reasons where there's some pressing pain and then this is exposed. Yeah. So how do narcissists get help?
Chuck DeGroatYeah, that's a good question. Well, uh, let me just first go back to what we talked about in the first podcast and uh those three descriptions of a narcissist along the spectrum, right? Narcissistic style, type, and disorder. And oftentimes I'll say if if someone is diagnosably narcissistic, they have narcissistic personality disorder, um, transformation is tough, really tough. I mean, healing um is is incremental. And uh at that point, sometimes all we're doing is minimizing damage. Uh I'm just trying to engender some sort of collaborative conversation to minimize the impact or the debris field of someone
with narcissistic personality disorder. Um, but for the rest of us on the narcissistic spectrum, and I and I'd say also, I this is my approach with everyone on the spectrum, uh, I approach that person with patience, with grace, and with um curiosity. I was schooled in a kind of way of uh engaging uh people with personality disorders that was more directive and more confrontational. And I discovered early on that that only pushes a narcissist away. Um, they're so defended that there's no way that they're ever going to trust that you are the one that they can engage in a conversation with. But what I found is that if I can establish some sort of rapport or trust or relationship enough so that I can be human with them, that they begin to see some of my own limitations, some of my own fragility, that we might begin to be able to work towards some sort of way of talking about their brokenness, their fragility, their limitation as well. I remember working with this man who drove up in his uh to my office in his Lamborghini, and uh he'd parked right up front in a specially reserved spot for someone else because he was entitled to it. And he came in because I was Dr. De Broke, right? And he came in because I was an expert in my field. And it took some time, but what I what I discovered, this man was rich, he was a CEO, he had all sorts of research uh resources, but as he began to see that I I wasn't uh I wasn't a I wasn't a magician, you know, that uh I wasn't maybe as good as he thought I was going to be at my job, um, as he began to see my limitations, as I'd show up late to an appointment every now and then or double book or whatever it is. Uh that was an invitation for him to begin to talk about his own screw-ups, how he blew it you know, with his wife the other night, or how he uh runs all over his staff at his at his organization. And it led to some really beautiful conversation. There was minimal change with him, but there was some curiosity that I I love to see and that he he was open to. And so that's how I look at it.
Michael John CusickAnd my experience has been that that oftentimes, especially with certain numbers on the Enneagram and their narcissism, that they will initially use those vulnerabilities and weaknesses against us.
Chuck DeGroatYes.
Michael John CusickAnd we have to be non-defensive and non-reactive, and that then becomes uh a model like, wow, I I really can't shake you.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. They're so used to shaking people, right? And so if we're able to remain non-anxious, and that means paying attention to our own bodily responses and trauma responses and doing the work on our stories, and so this is what therapists have to do and pastors have to do. But if if if we're able to sort of hold them, hold the tension, right? Hold them in in their stuff, they might actually let us see them. And that's a really, really beautiful moment when they do.
Michael John CusickYeah, I remember in the old days, I've been doing this about 30 years now, that I didn't hold that space very well. And I would get very reactive, defensive, and mostly on the inside, and go into a mode of trying to appease or something like that. So this is very um delicate work. It goes without saying.
Chuck DeGroatYeah. It's hard work, it's delicate work. Uh, it's it's work that if if you do it over the course of time, uh, you might not find it a ton of success. You know, there have been uh, at least in my work over the years, a lot of men who've uh men and women, I should say, uh, who left, who've stopped doing the work. Uh so it's hard work. We know that when we deal with personality disorders, uh we're we're dealing with something that we we call characterological, you know. And so that means that it's been going on for a long time and it will likely be going on for a long time, and it requires a lot of patience. Um, but I think change, one of the things that I often say is that um I wrote a book, my first book was on the Exodus story, uh, a journey from Egypt to the Promised Land that should have taken 11 days, but that took 40 years. And that's really the story of our lives. It's slow growth. Uh, we're yeast and bread, we're like the mustards. You know, it's growth is always going to be slow and incremental. And part of what we uh can offer is grace and patience and love and that holding environment, that space for people to take the risk, have the courage to change.
Michael John CusickAnd we've both been part of cultures, um, not always in the church, that have provided a language and a framework for understanding our own stories and even the safety to explore those. Can you talk a little bit about what that culture looks like and maybe even how to cultivate that? I know that's a separate podcast and probably a separate book, but you do have a chapter in your book about um creating a healthy culture.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, creating healthy cultures is so important. And oftentimes, uh, as we talked about earlier, uh when we're we're rooting out the narcissist in the system, the system refuses to do the work of rooting out the narcissism in the system. Uh, I really like the work of uh Peter Sangi and the fifth discipline, uh, systems thinking, where he talks about, in his own way, talks about going beneath the waterline. And when he talks about going beneath the waterline, he says you've got to look at patterns within systems and structures that enable those patterns, and then mental models
underneath that that enable those structures. In other words, mental models are those beliefs that we're not even aware of, you know, the latent misogyny or racism or and when we when we're willing to do that courageous work within a system, not just put a band-aid on it, but for us to look at our mental models. Oh, wow, we're a megachurch that really does believe we're better than all the other churches. What's that about? What enables that? What motivates that? How are the structures complicit in that? People are willing to uh see the implications on structures and do the internal work of diagnosing mental models. And if a if a whole team or organization is willing to engage this, well, my goodness, you can see you can see profound change within an organization and health and honesty and transparency and humility, and churches that actually participate in the self-donating, self-giving love of Jesus, you know, churches that actually give themselves away rather than posturing themselves against. And that's really a beautiful thing and a hopeful thing.
Michael John CusickWell, Chuck, um, I wish you all the success with this book. I know it's gonna open up even more opportunities for you to consult and counsel. So thank you for your time, not only on this uh podcast number two, but on podcast number one. It's really been stimulating and a blessing to my heart.
Chuck DeGroatYeah, thanks. We're in it together and uh grateful for our friendship.
Brian BeattySo we've wrapped up another episode of Restoring the Soul. We want you to know that Restoring the Soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, our intensive counseling programs in Colorado allow you to experience deep change in half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more, visit restoring the soul.com. That's restoring the soul.com.