Enneagram 1-3 Growth Practices (Transformation Part 2) Episode 17

Brent and Janis discuss each of the first 3 Enneagram types and growth practices that assist each one.

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages and families in their private practice.

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

Transcript:

[Brent]: Hello, friends. Welcome to Life & Love Nuggets. Janis is back. Yay!

[Janis]: Yes, it is with Brent and Janis Sharp today.

[Brent]: Brent and Janis this time. It's gonna be much better. As I was mentioning to you last week, that she’s back.

[Janis]: No pressure there.

[Brent]: Yeah. We had some quite a bit of sickness. You were not feeling well and kids not well and grandkids not well and so, hopefully everybody's going the right direction and so--

[Janis]: And we're back.

[Brent]: We're back.

[Janis]: I’m okay.

[Brent]: So, so glad that you're here. We've been talking about this idea of transformation, that each and every person is made in the image of God and the goal that God created these people is so that we would be a reflection of him, that we would be the best reflection of his nature in the world and we get challenged by that. We just have dings in the armor that we pick up through living life. We have kind of bruises that happen that cause us to develop kind of a coping self, this kind of part of us and the way that we try to live to kind of please others. Again, whether that's a coach or a teacher or parents or whoever it is that we want to make happy and then by adulthood, you know, it worked pretty well for us and as little people, we developed these coping strategies and by adulthood, we find that some of this isn't working so well for us and so, we've looked at this and the idea of-- Many of you are familiar with the Enneagram and it's not-- This doesn't tell us who we are, it's just a picture of, it's kind of a way to see a story that we live in and so, the idea is there's kind of nine stories, which is similar, if you're familiar with liturgy-- Not liturgy.

[Janis]: Not liturgy. You might be familiar with liturgy too, but we’re trying to think about literature.

[Brent]: Books and movies and--And literature, that if you look at all the books that have ever been written, all the movies and the stories that have ever been told, they basically follow seven themes. There's kind of seven stories, whether it's a rags to riches kind of a story or overcoming the monster or certainly tragedies. There's comedies, kind of the voyage and return. The quest, rebirth. Most stories are all under those categories and so, it's similar to that. That there are kind of Nine Stories that we can live into. They're adaptive ways that we live to find our way in the world and yet, there are some strengths in that. Of course, in our personalities and who we are, but there's also what we call a shadow.

[Brent]: There's part of us that this coping strategy just isn't so helpful and so, as we started going through these, we talked about one of those last time, which was the one, which is the reformer and so, I kind of told my story. That's kind of the story I tend to live in. I was born pretty naturally structured, I think. We think this nature versus nurture, maybe 50-50. But then I had some influences in my life that kind of set that into hyperdrive, into where I felt like I needed to do everything just right, never make a mistake.

[Brent]: Now, again, there's some good in that.

[Brent]: There's some, you know, kind of principled and idealistic and yeah. Boy, it can just get too far and so, there are some ways that-- Kind of Joy. I lost the joy in life and so, I've had to work at, what are ways that I can push against that? First of all, realizing that and then, what are some practices in my life--? Which is what we're going to talk about.

[Brent]: We're going to kind of talk about the different stories and then, what are some practices that can be helpful for us to mitigate kind of the shadow? That part of us that just isn't thriving so much? And so, the ones who kind of have a fear of making a mistake. You've never experienced that with me, have you?

[Brent]: And so--

[Janis]: But you have to realize I'm a seven. So, I go to a one under stress.

[Janis]: So, I'm sure you've never seen any perfectionistic tendencies just, pop up in me suddenly.

[Brent]: Not at all.

[Brent]: Yeah, but I-- [Unintelligible] know that some-- In our conversations and doing life together, there's been times where you've needed to point out something that I've not done exactly right. Which, you know, again, it just--

[Janis]: I think it was only a couple times in our life.

[Brent]: Yeah, it was so, so few and far between. But that natural defend-- I got defensive, you know? And I didn't want to admit that I made a mistake. It was just really hard for me to do that and also, ones kind of carry a little bit of a repressed anger. I'm-- You know, see a lot of anger in me, you know? I expressed outwardly, but ones kind of go inside with that and then, our desire to have integrity can settle into just, kind of crazy perfectionism. You know, I was talking last time about I can walk in a room and I see the one thing that's not quite right and as a reformer, I just “if we can just get everybody in the world to act right and everybody to do right and all of my things in my life to be perfect, then I can just really relax”.

[Janis]: Good luck with that.

[Brent]: Yeah, and stopping and you know, smell the roses and so, I've had to realize nothing's ever going to be perfect and one of the practices that I have to do is “it's okay, you know? It's not gonna be perfect. It's okay, we do the best we can with things” and I found that I have to do that all the time. I thought “well, I could just-- Okay. Now that I'm aware of my shadow, I'll fix this and I'll work on this and I'll have this handled--”.

[Janis]: You're “right now”.

[Brent]: “And I’ll have it handled by Friday and then I'll be right again”.

[Brent]: And I've had to realize now, it's gonna be just a constant thing. It's like eating, I just keep doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it. Keep this practice in mind to stop and appreciate life and be thankful and if I can do that, then I get to enjoy life a bit and then, God blessed me with a seven. We'll talk about sevens another day.

[Brent]: But one “I’m looking for the next adventure and looking for next fun”, which has been a joy in my life.

[Brent]: It's been-- It's helped me look back in my life now and go “we had so many great adventurers. I just wouldn't have probably ever done those, I would have kept--” You know, ones can turn into just worker bees and just everything's-- Again, trying to get something fixed, you know?

[Janis]: And all personalities have that shadow side and all of us are going to have to continue to work on “this is my Achilles heel and I've got to focus on what I can do to really grow, and how God wants to work in me to help me grow out of that shadow side”.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, one of the practices for me, again, is “it's okay being-- Stop and being thankful”. So, we're going to talk about a few other practices that can help us ones that want to reform everything and make everything perfect. That can help manage that, so that we can enjoy life.

[Janis]: One of them that I really thought about was focusing on basically, Jesus in the Gospels. I think as ones, it's really easy-- I'm not a one, but it's really easy to go “okay, there is a way to do things and if I can just figure out that way, then I'll lock into that”. But really when you look at Jesus in the Gospels, it can be tough, because you go “okay, Jesus healed people by touching them, that's the way to do it” and then you read farther and it's like “wait, he put mud on somebody”.

[Brent]: He would have been freaking me out.

[Janis]: Oh, I know. I mean, it’s like--

[Brent]: What’s the formula here!?

[Janis]: Like, go dip in the river and come back.

[Janis]: Pick up your mat. I mean there's so many different ways and I think part of that was to upset the system. It was to turn some things upside down and to say “it's not this particular structure. You don't have to live in a formula”.

[Janis]: He listened to his father; he wasn't just being recklessly casual. He was listening to his father and there was a variety in that and so, accepting there's different ways of doing things, that are still right.

[Brent]: And he left seemingly leaving some things undone.

[Brent]: He didn't heal every single person, he didn't fix every single problem, but he came to do what he was called to do and then he left and so, that's been-- That's so good, you know? That's-- I need to just constantly be thinking about that, that this is God in human form, that had this variety and didn't seem to have to make everything perfect.

[Janis]: And if you were looking for patterns, I mean, think about the people that were in the multitude that were fed. Telling other people and then them going “oh, he does that? Okay, I'll go get in the crowd”. No guarantee you'd get a meal when you were listening to him, and you could climb a tree and it didn't mean that Jesus was going to come home to your house that day.

[Brent]: That's right, that's good.

[Janis]: So, a lot of variety fits there.

[Janis]: And as you mentioned celebration, celebration is so important and if you look throughout scripture, you know, God's people are people of festivals and celebration.

[Janis]: Jesus was at a wedding when he did his first miracle. So, we're called to be people to celebrate, not just people with my personality.

[Brent]: Janis is a party person.

[Brent]: It's been so helpful for me.

[Janis]: For a number of years in one of our churches, I was called “The pastor of play” and so, we need that, because it gets us off of the seriousness of life and the to-do list and really gets us into enjoying our life and enjoying the celebration.

[Brent]: Do you think [Unintelligible] too much? Is this what you're trying to tell everybody?

[Janis]: Well, I've heard of some people that are. You know, it's just-- It's other people. I know, it's my clients, honey. I have clients that are ones that deal with that.

[Brent]: I always tell people “I can turn any conversation serious in about five seconds”. It's again, a blessing and a curse. I mean, there's some good in that where I do care about people and I want to know what's going on their real life and boy, it can be a curse, though and I can just lose a lot of Joy.

[Janis]: That's why it's good for you to have me when we go out to dinner.

[Janis]: But another exercise that I found that's really helpful is to write down all of the good things in your life and to write down all the ways that you've seen that God is good in your life, and really meditating on those and focusing on those. Because it's getting your focus off of what's wrong and moving into what's right, which is going to be something that ones are going to always need to work on.

[Brent]: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, the to-do lists.

[Brent]: I can have constant to-do lists.

[Brent]: Things that I just always need to be doing and being aware of and checking off the next task.

[Janis]: You just need to put celebrations on that list.

[Brent]: There you go; that's so good.

[Janis]: It is. I mean, seriously, sometimes you do have to remind yourself “this is a time to enjoy life” and you've done a great job of that with grandkids, you know? It's okay to just be with them.

[Brent]: I'm getting a little better.

[Janis]: You're doing good, okay.

[Brent]: So, all you fellow ones in the world, again, there's a lot of good, it's about expressing that good and then just realizing the extreme of good is going to be a weakness and these are some practices that can be helpful with that.

[Brent]: So, the second one is a helper. These are folks that are very caring, they're interpersonal, very loving, empathetic. We see a lot of these in the church world, people just wanting to help and to care and-- But yet, there's a kind of a thing of caring too much, you know? Which is kind of the shadow and so, we're not spending a lot of time talking about all the strengths of each of these, because we kind of usually know those.

[Brent]: And those are wonderful. The thing we usually have to work on is our shadow and so, that's kind of what we're focusing on that, it's not to be a downer, not to look at the negative, but this is how we grow. We grow through recognizing a bit of brokenness and a bit of need and so, there's a general fear in the two. There's a fear of being unloved, that I am afraid that people aren't gonna see that I'm important and necessary and so, they-- Again, care for others in the hope that they're going to get the same response and be--

[Janis]: Which it's natural for them to care for others.

[Brent]: Yes, yes. But part of that, the shadow is “I'm going to do that with the expectation that the people are going to care back for me”.

[Brent]: And so, they deny their own needs, because it's just all giving out. I always say they're a little bit like, pictures that are being poured out and they just get empty real fast and so, their-- This desire to be loved can deteriorate into the need to be needed, you know? So, it's kind of the whole codependency, you know, kind of weakness. Where “I'm not okay unless others are okay with me. So, I'm going to do everything I can to make people happy, so that then maybe they'll love me back and then I'll be happy” and so, that's kind of the weak side and so, I know talking to some twos, I have to talk to them quite a bit about self-care.

[Brent]: And sometimes, particularly people with faith look at me like I've lost my mind or I'm like, growing horns or something. “What!? Self-care!? That's selfish, that's not how we're supposed to be. We're just supposed to be always giving out” and yeah, there's a whole lot of personality types that need to give more, because they are too self-focused. But twos just can focus too much on the other.

[Janis]: Yeah, yeah, and it's hard because twos do such a great job of helping. They are so good at complementing people around them and even anticipating needs of people around them, that it's easy for people to kind of-- I don't want to say purposely take advantage, because it's not purposely, but they can take advantage of that and it's easy to not even recognize what all the person's doing. Because they do it so well and they do it so seamlessly, it doesn't seem like it's work.

[Janis]: So, it's something we all have to be aware of when we're in relationship with twos.

[Janis]: So, some of the spiritual disciplines and you know, I was thinking with spiritual disciplines we also have to remember that, we may mention them for one personality or another, but we all need spiritual disciplines and--

[Brent]: These all would be good for all of us. Exactly, yeah.

[Janis]: Exactly, and so, it's just being aware that some of these practices that we're talking about would be good for all of us. So, you don't have to be this type in order to need this. Yes.

[Brent]: To do this, yeah, and a spiritual discipline it's just a habit, it's a practice that we do and sometimes people don't like the word--

[Brent]: Discipline. But it's just practice. We're formed by our practices, where-- By the things that we do, it forms us into being a certain kind of people and so, if I practice thankfulness and appreciation, I'm gonna-- It's gonna form me, it's gonna-- Again, balance that shadow side.

[Janis]: Yeah. So, one of the practices that I would say that's good for a two is having someone that they're accountable to. Whether it's a close friend or you know, in our world we have spiritual directors. Somebody like that that they can be accountable to, but not accountable in the way of “are you sinning?” or “are you messing up in your life?”, but accountable in the way that they can ask-- The friend can say “how are you doing?” and help remind them of the scripture that we all talk about is “loving your neighbor as yourself”. Well, as twos, we need to flip that and go “are you loving yourself as you love your neighbor?”.

[Janis]: But you have to--

[Brent]: You need to be in balance, yeah.

[Janis]: Yes, yeah or you get drain dry.

[Janis]: And that's hard, that's one of the hardest things for twos, is to really take care of themselves and to recognize it's okay to have limits, it's okay to have boundaries. So, it's having that accountability that someone will help them look at how they're doing and reminding them that they are a beloved child of God too.

[Janis]: That they are worthy of having love and attention and care and sometimes, they have to be their own best friend.

[Janis]: They have to take care of themselves like they would take care of somebody else. But that's hard as a two, because you're so used to always putting people first, that you tend to back away from that.

[Janis]: You know, in the midst of helping, sometimes we have to ask our ourselves if we were a two “am I losing myself?” or our friend says “are you losing you in doing all this?”.

[Janis]: “Are you still aware of who you are? And are you valuing yourself for who you are?”.

[Brent]: Yeah, God's best is that we be the brightest reflection of him possible and twos can kind of meld into others, they lose themselves in the relationship with others and so, they're not as bright, you know, of a reflection as they're supposed to be.

[Brent]: And so, it's not selfish. We have to keep reminding them, that's why they usually need a person in their life who goes “no, this is not selfish”.

[Janis]: “You need to do this”.

[Brent]: Yes. My wonderful amazing 91-year-old mother is a two and she just thinks about others all the time.

[Brent]: And I have to go “mother, what do you want?”. She says “whatever. Whatever you kids want, just what--". “I want to know what you want”.

[Brent]: And so, it's-- Again, it's an amazing thing, it's an amazing gift to care that much. But sometimes they can lose themselves in the midst of that. Many of you know Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile wrote “The Road Back to You”, which is kind of a big thing now, that's what a lot of people are talking about, the Enneagram.

[Brent]: One of the reasons we're even discussing the Enneagrams. There’s a lot of different personality structure types and so forth out there that are helpful. It's all about just introspection, it's not to label anybody.

[Brent]: It's just to get a picture of “oh my gosh, that's the story that I find myself in most of the time” and so, this is one of the most accessible things going on in our culture right now, because everybody is kind of talking about it. So, that's why we think it's helpful to talk about it.

[Brent]: But they wrote this book, “The Road Back to You” and Suzanne self-describes as a two and one of the things that-- A discipline that she has had to-- A practice that she's had to adopt, because she gets asked-- I mean, these are incredibly talented people and they get asked to do stuff all the time. “Will you speak at this? Would you come to do this? Do a workshop here” or whatever and she's learned to stop and go “is that my work to do?” and really ask God “is that my work to do?” and sometimes it is your work to do and she go “okay, I think this is what I'm supposed to do”. But sometimes is like “no, that's actually somebody else's work to do. If I do that, then somebody else is not going to do what they're supposed to do” and so that's just been a good healthy practice to stop, where before she'd just say “Yes. Yes, I'll do that”. But if she stops and considers it and asks God for kind of the confirmation about that, that keeps her healthy. So, that's a good practice for twos.

[Janis]: Absolutely. Lysa TerKeurst probably about five years ago wrote a book called “The Best Yes” and it's looking at “is this the best yes for me?”.

[Janis]: But she also is great at giving you some language for how to say “no” and one of my favorite things is “my heart says yes, but my head says this isn't for me to do”.

[Janis]: And that's just so good to have that language. I think the other thing that's good for twos is to do centering prayer. Prayer where you just get quiet and it's just you and God, and you're focusing on just being in his presence and just receiving that sense of Grace, and it's hard for twos, I think. Because it's “I should be getting this for somebody else”.

[Janis]: Or “is it really okay for me to just sit quietly with God?”. But you need that, you need that because you need to be reminded that you are loved by God, that you are valuable and that he wants to be with you and to care for you.

[Janis]: I think as you were mentioning, it's easy for twos to get in-- To do things that maybe they shouldn't be doing. I was thinking about way, way back when-- This is going to go back decades.

[Janis]: When we were at a very large church and at that point, you were over a Crisis Pregnancy Center and Adoption Agency and--

[Brent]: The Counseling Ministry, yeah.

[Janis]: The Counseling Ministry and--

[Brent]: Maternity home and all the [Unintelligible]

[Janis]: [Unintelligible] the staff a lot of things like that and I was busy. I think it was women's chaplain at that time at ORU and I had an older woman come up with me or come up to me at church and she said “I'm really mad at you”. I didn't know her that well, I'm like “what could I possibly have done to offend her?” and I said “I'm so sorry, what did I do?” and she said “you took dinner to so and so when they were sick” and I was like “yeah? I mean, was there something wrong with it?”. I said “yes?” and she said “you took my job. You helped teach this class and you do this and you do that. All I do is make meals for people and when you swoop in here and take my job, I don't have something to do”.

[Janis]: And so, I remember that over the years, you know? “Am I swooping in thinking it's the right thing to do?”.

[Janis]: But I've moved someone out of their place and sometimes, I think especially in the church, we have to sometimes see a need go unmet for a while until the right people will step up.

[Brent]: That's good. Yeah, yeah. So, possibly the most important word for the helper is to say “no”.

[Brent]: Those two letters, “no”.

[Janis]: “No” and boundaries aren't wrong.

[Janis]: They aren't selfish.

[Brent]: They’re not evil.

[Janis]: And that you are as valuable as everybody else and you can't take care of everybody else unless you're taking care of you. Not fully.

[Brent]: Yeah. I always say the twos are kind of a spectrum. There's, you know, on one end of the continuum there are people that are just selfish, they think about themselves all the time.

[Brent]: And don't even give a thought to anybody else.

[Brent]: And then there are those on the other end of the spectrum that all they think about is others and they forget themselves, and I tell the twos “It’s not possible for you to ever be on the other end. I mean, we're just trying to get you just to move up just slightly, you know? Towards a center ground there”. But they're so concerned that somehow this is selfish.

[Janis]: I always laugh with twos when they're like “I think I'm being selfish”.

[Janis]: And that's where I laugh and go “it's impossible”.

[Janis]: “It's just literally impossible”.

[Brent]: Yes. So, the threes, the achievers. Now, these are some of the strongest leaders we see in the world and they are go-getters, they're busy, they're active, they're always doing things. Very success oriented. Some of our great leaders and pioneers. So, we need-- Again, all of these are wonderful, they're all important and all valuable, but they come with a shadow as well. They have a fear of being without value, so they feel like they need to earn it. I was talking to a three the other day and felt like I-- Something was happening in a new relationship, it was like “I just don't know what I'm worth here. I wasn't doing enough to really feel valued in this” and I was like “okay, why do you have to do something to be valuable?”. That's just a foreign concept, you know? Just like trying to tell twos to do self-care, you know?

[Brent]: Trying to tell threes that they're valuable even if they don't do something, it's just like a foreign concept. All their energy tends to go to developing self, they're always constantly working on things, achieving, thriving. Their desire to be valuable can deteriorate into chasing success. They want to win all the time and life is not good unless we're winning and everybody's winning and so, one of the practices for threes-- Because they're just Energizer bunnies, they just don't know how to shut down and turn off and so, one of the practices is a Sabbath rest idea.

[Brent]: That we shut down at times and we just learned to rest, which is again, pretty foreign for threes and generally the threes that I've worked with, they have to structure this into their schedule. Now, we're not saying that, you know, the Sabbath rest in the Old Testament was, you know, sunset Friday night to sun down, you know, Saturday night. We're not saying that it has to be literally that 24-hour period, but they generally have to have days in their calendar where they just go off grid. They let their staff, they let the office, they let their family or whoever “no, I just need from eight to noon today” or maybe a whole day or maybe two half days or whatever. These are just “I turned things off” and maybe they have to manage their cell phone, they gotta stop watching social media, you know, during that day or they're going to want to crank back up and get into their to-do list.

[Brent]: And so, I've just not seen people-- Threes be able to do this without it being structured and beginning to lock things down and then, learning how to rest. Now, getting rest doesn't mean they have to go lay in a hammock and just look at butterflies, you know? It might be a different kind of-- Go work in the yard or a hobby or you know, developing those kinds of things that don't feel like, unnecessarily accomplishing or being successful, but are just “how do I stop all this?” and-- Because God knew we needed this, we needed rest.

[Janis]: It think it's Richard Swenson in his book “Margin” that talks about we can have restful work. There's certain kind of work that is actually restful. Now, there will be people that go “yes, my work is restful, that's why I work all the time”, but I'm talking about something that's different than what you normally do, but it refreshes you. Just like we've talked about, for you it's construction.

[Janis]: I mean, we all have our different ways.

[Brent]: Or to do remodeling work, you know?

[Janis]: So, we can do, you can go work out in the yard and that might be restful for you. So, that's where Sabbath rest isn't always just laying around, it is doing something that refreshes your soul, that gets you away from everything in your life. Away from thinking about things so that you can really shut down.

[Brent]: Yeah, and with those practices, you know, it just made me think when I think about doing remodeling a bathroom or doing this out of the other, that it's really very restful to me. But I also have to make sure that my shadow doesn't kick in and I have to do it perfectly and I can't, you know, relax, finish or stop until it's all done perfectly and we all have all of these types too and we can see them kind of flare up in us. Because I can see some three in me were, you know, I don't pace myself, you know? And I can get too-- I can push too hard and do too much at a setting, instead of being “okay, I'm gonna work for four hours or three hours or whatever and then I'm gonna stop wherever I'm at in the process”. That's hard for me, but it's really important for me.

[Janis]: I think in our earlier years we both could have been mistyped as threes.

[Janis]: When we were going to grad school and remodeling a house and working full-time jobs and all these things.

[Brent]: Oh yeah, I remember those days.

[Janis]: Yeah, remember that? Yeah, we never do anything like that now. The other thing that I think is really good for threes, which I think is good for everybody, is that concept of awe and we have a whole podcast on awe. But just that looking out in nature, looking at beautiful things and getting your focus on those things that are outside yourself. I think it's helpful for threes to get outside themselves and I think nature is really good for threes. Now, it has to be nature where you go walking and not running a marathon in the woods or climbing the highest mountain and being the first one to get there. It's just being out and seeing God's Beauty, and just resting in that and getting some refreshment from now. Again, I'm biased, I think awe is good for everybody.

[Janis]: I think it's also good for threes to schedule regular time with God. Put it in their calendar, keep it there, but have us as a time where they just sit with God for themselves and not as a business relationship. It's easy. We've talked about it before, it's easy for pastors to get in a business relationship with God, where “I'm meeting with you because I gotta speak on something”.

[Janis]: And of course, we have to do that, but we also have to have that time with God that's just for us and just connecting with God. Even if it feels like you're not getting anything out of that time.

[Brent]: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it usually has to be-- The whole idea fixed is kind of, I think, the key. It needs to be structured, because I think for threes prayer time, study, you know, scripture time or just getting out in nature or whatever. Again, it can turn into a to-do list then and during that process, I'm checking something off, right? Or if I don't have it structured where I do it for these 30 minutes or this period of time, then my to-do list will just take over for the day and it'll be late at night and I go “oh gosh, I just didn't have any time down time today where I was listening and you know and meditating” and so it usually has to be more of a structure.

[Janis]: Yeah. I also think fellowship is good for threes. I think church fellowship obviously, but friendships, social interaction. I think it's really good for threes to have that, so that they're not accomplishing something all the time and it's helpful for them to be with people that aren't threes.

[Janis]: People that aren't as goal oriented to go “you know what? They have good lives too” and have some of that influence to help balance them in their lives.

[Brent]: Yeah, as long as they don't turn into it being a marketing experience [Unintelligible] marketing my next project or trying to sell people on something or whatever and so--

[Janis]: Or “did I spend enough time with friends that I can check this off that I succeeded at the social thing?”.

[Janis]: Yeah, I think another thing for threes probably and again, it's good for all of us, is simplicity. I don't have to have the next biggest thing. I don't need to have the nicest thing of this. It's okay to live with what I have.

[Brent]: That’s good.

[Janis]: It's okay to not be constantly moving up a notch, but to find contentment in where I'm at.

[Brent]: Yeah. Very good. So good. So, these are-- We've kind of looked at three of these stories that people can find themselves in and that-- And again, we all are going to experience all of these, but usually we find that there's one of these stories that's like “oh my, that's my story that I tend to live in” and again, there's a lot of good and it can be mostly good, you know? The qualities and characteristics of these expressions can be mostly good, but it's that part that is extreme or that it can deteriorate into, that we're trying to pay attention to today and it develops, again, some practices that conform us kind of pushing against the natural stream of our personality and that conform us into being healthier and being able to thrive.

[Janis]: Because we'll see some of these practices that are easy for us to do. It's like “oh, yes, I can do that, that's serving”. A two it's going to be natural for them to serve.

[Janis]: Some of them are going to be very natural and go “yes, I'm very good at that”. But it's usually the ones that are like “ugh, that's kind of hard for me”. Those are the ones that really transform us, those are the ones that help us deal with our stuff and so, that's why I encourage people as they're listening or as they're studying spiritual disciplines or the Enneagram, to say “okay, maybe God is speaking to me through some of the ‘ugh’ ones and that may be exactly what he wants me to be doing, even though it's really hard”.

[Brent]: Yeah, we find that even when people are studying the Enneagram, it's usually the one that we hate that's like “oh, that's probably me, that's the one I don't like so much”, you know? And so, we leave you today with the challenge of go do stuff it's not fun. Go do stuff that's hard and simply start one of the new practices in your life. Next time we're going to pick up with another three of these and look at those and what are some practices for them, but until then, blessings to you. We trust that you'll go in peace.