How You Became You

Hello and welcome back to the Pastor Talk podcast.
We are thrilled to have you join us for our second episode in the Lenten study as we journey together through the Enneagram as a tool to learn about ourselves and to seek to grow in our faith and our discipleship of Jesus Christ.
As part of this podcast study,
we’re also recording the sessions that we are doing on Sunday evenings and that is already uploaded and available to you.
If you were unable to join us on Sunday,
you will find the link for that in the show notes right here in the podcast.
But as we get kicked off here in this discussion,
we do have to travel just a little bit of that ground.
We talked a little bit about how the Enneagram is a typology and not necessarily a personality descriptor.
And these things are slightly nuanced,
but that nuance matters in this case.
So Clint, if you were going to summarize that,
how would you summarize the difference between those two?
I think there are lots of ways we could talk about personality.
Michael, we could talk about how we’re wired.
We could talk about our specific traits,
those kind of personal quirks and unique features of who we are or how we act.
And those are great.
And there are lots of inventories that group people along those lines.
I think the Enneagram being something that seeks to be more spiritual in nature probably is less concerned about those traits and more what’s behind them.
We’ve said that consistently.
The Enneagram kind of asks us to look behind the curtain as to what motivates us to do and be the way we are.
And it feels like there’s a fairly significant difference.
I mean,
people in the congregation,
people listening may have done the Myers-Briggs,
they may have done the color test,
they may have done some of those other things that seek to tell you how you are.
I think is it overstated to say the Enneagram is really trying to tell us who we are and maybe more than that,
invite us to an improved version of who we could be.
Yeah, absolutely.
This gets really muddy.
I think when you look at the Enneagram in relation to psychological study,
and you mentioned it last night,
Clint, it’s helpful to say again,
the Enneagram is thousands of years old.
The history is a little bit blotchy.
It’s not entirely clear how it makes its way through history, but it’s ancient.
And what we now think of as personality is not ancient.
It is something that really has flourished in the last 200 years,
even conservatively.
So when you think of personality,
I think we like to think of the sum total of the stuff we were born with,
and the stuff that was hoisted on to us.
A lot of psychological writing and time is spent on childhood and childhood experiences.
The Enneagram cares about that stuff,
but it’s not deterministic.
It doesn’t believe that you’re a sum total of everything that’s been thrown into the blender.
It says that you in a range of living have a wide variety of choices,
some of them healthy,
some of them not healthy.
You might be living in those choices subconsciously.
In other words, you might not be aware of the actions that you’re choosing,
but that’s what the Enneagram seeks to do is provide a mirror for you so that when you look and see yourself from a different light,
that you can see that action,
and then therefore you can have agency to change.
So for Myers Briggs,
the idea is that you’re never not going to be an extrovert if that’s what you are.
If you’re an introvert,
you’re going to stay that way.
But that’s not the case with the Enneagram.
The Enneagram says this is a woundedness that is deep within you,
but a healthy spiritual growth is going to lead you in this direction.
And the Enneagram holds out the idea that at the end of all things,
we might share in the life of Christ in a total and complete unity so that these numbers are less descriptors of our differences and more descriptors of how we’re living into the strength of who God made us to be.
Yeah, and to overlay the language,
Michael, this isn’t language that the Enneagram would use,
but to try and get to the point that it really asks the same things of different people.
Let me try this.
If you are an extrovert,
your tendency is never going to be to shrink to the corner and disengage from people.
If you are an introvert,
your temptation is never going to be to jump in the center of the crowd and try to make everything about you.
Those are two very different struggles that both represent a kind of brokenness,
the fear of engaging with people and the temptation to hide and to close myself off,
or the fear of facing myself and the temptation to substitute the attention of others for really taking care of myself.
And so the Enneagram doesn’t care too much if you’re an introvert or an extrovert or if you’re organized or disorganized.
It very much cares about how you might use that to either help yourself grow or keep yourself from growing.
I wonder if you would agree with this,
Clint.
I feel like
personality study in the modern sense is very much concerned with that stuff that lives at the surface level.
So for instance,
to use the extroversion example,
modern psychological study says we’re interested in the fact that you seem to like being in front of people and therefore we want to draw your attention to it and that maybe then you can learn how to function in quiet as opposed to upfront.
It’s not to say that the Enneagram doesn’t care about that,
but like you’re saying,
what the Enneagram cares to say is why do you need to be in front of people?
Is it because you’re hiding from a deep brokenness and a concern that if you don’t keep adding experience and accolades to your life that you’re going to be worthless?
That there’s not a life within you that would exist without those people?
That, as you can, I hope here, as you go deeper down the layers,
you’re going to get much closer to an actual living thing within you as opposed to the surface results of that thing.
So instead of managing the symptoms,
we’re trying to talk about the deeper diagnosis.
Yeah, I think the question of how we become who we are is fascinating.
And there’s lots of great material on that,
you know, how much of it we’re born with,
how much of it we learn from our parents,
how much of it is positive reinforcement,
how much of it is negative reinforcement.
But again, these aren’t pressing questions,
I think, from an Enneagram perspective.
We will talk in the next couple of weeks about some of the connections the Enneagram may try to make with our type,
our number, and our childhood experiences.
But on the whole,
the question of how we got this way is not high on the Enneagram list.
It very much prefers to talk about how do we function within the type that we are.
And if we’re very, very organized,
that’s wonderful.
Unless we’re using that organization to pursue the myth that we can have control,
that if I can make everything perfect in my home or my garage or my office,
then the inner chaos that I never quite am able to control will somehow go away.
That’s the stuff the Enneagram,
I think, gets interested.
That’s when it wakes up and goes,
“Oh, yeah, let’s talk about that.”
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that’s true.
I think we,
as individuals,
like to focus in on things outside of ourselves and to therefore divert our attention from what is true inside of us.
And the Enneagram, on some level, says that there’s nine different ways of not looking inside.
There’s nine different paths in which you can keep all of your focus on stuff that doesn’t matter so you don’t see the thing that does matter.
And, you know, what I think is interesting,
Clint, is I think as you learn more about these numbers and as you engage with this way of thinking,
I wonder if you’re going to find a number that you love,
that you just are drawn to.
That you think, “Yeah, that’s the number.
I want to be that number.”
Because,
at least in my own experience,
there’s some habits I’ve built up in my own life
in which I’m drawn to the stuff that seems like it’s better than my stuff.
In other words,
some of these other ways are attractive because their distractions from the thing that I have to confess is actually true in me.
Sure. And I think even within your type or your number,
Michael, you can do that.
You can focus on those traits that are positive and that are healthy and that are good and say,
“Well, I’m that kind of seven or I’m that kind of four.”
And lift up those things that are better and still not pay close attention to the places that are less encouraging to look at.
You know, we have a wonderful ability to kind of give ourselves an out sometimes.
So,
in my case, for instance, I can easily chalk up not being patient to just the way I am
when I’m unwilling to wait,
when I’m impatient with others,
when I’m frustrated that things don’t happen on my timetable.
I can easily just say,
“Well, I’m just not a patient person.
That’s it.” Well,
again,
the Enneagram and really spirituality,
it’s not going to find that answer very satisfying.
Let’s talk about why you’re impatient.
Let’s talk about why you think your timetable matters more than others.
Again, it’s easy to maybe try to gloss over our faults as a part of who we are or who we think we are and then not really want to deal with them.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was thinking along the same line,
Clint, that we do sometimes allow this idea of identity and maybe in a smaller sense,
personality to become an all cover for our action,
especially in incredibly unhealthy situations.
We may even go so far as to say,
“That’s just who I am.”
Maybe you get to the end of yourself and you’re having a debate with a loved one or a spouse and you just say,
“Well, you got to put up with it because that’s who I am.”
The moment that you draw that line in the sand,
you’re falling back to this idea that there’s some nature in me that is unchangeable and you’re stuck with it.
The Enneagram is going to say,
“Well, maybe that is part of your way,
but you’re called and enabled by the Spirit of God in you to walk through that.”
That if you fall deeper into it,
you’re going to find that there’s someone even closer than that reality and that is Jesus Christ.
There’s faith intertwined in the Enneagram in a way that you’re not going to find in personality descriptors.
Because fundamentally,
the Enneagram trusts that Jesus lives at a level deeper than where we can operate naturally.
If you can trust that,
then you could admit some of these truths.
For instance,
I think we spend a lot of our time moralizing or to say it differently,
we spend a lot of our time being concerned about things we do or don’t do.
Say that there’s a particular thing that you’re tempted to do,
you become fixated on, “Don’t do that.”
Or, “I need to do more of it.”
The more and more you become fixated on it,
the less you realize the thing that’s driving it.
If you gossip,
where you know, “I’m tempted to gossip.
I’m tempted to put other people’s information out in inappropriate ways and through inappropriate channels.”
And the more and more you confess the act of gossip,
the less that you’re engaging,
what is it within me that needs to do that?
Address the deeper reality that says,
“There’s something in me that will not rest until I put other people’s information out there.”
The Enneagram might ask,
“Is that because you are unwilling to engage with your own information?
Are you blocking having quiet and internal reflection and doing that with other people’s stuff?”
Yeah, I think, Michael, that the Reformed Church has perhaps been guilty of that frequently.
We often put an emphasis on dealing with our sin,
and rarely do we talk about dealing with our sinfulness.
Beyond the particulars,
as you’ve said, there is this idea that our brokenness at some deep level drives all of those various failings and those various mistakes and sins and disobedience.
But we think those are the thing.
We count those things as our sin and not that underlying brokenness that is sort of responsible for them.
In essence, they become symptoms of the problem,
not the biggest problem in themselves.
There’s a pastor that you and I both admire that said in a sermon,
“The pain that we do not transform in our lives,
we inevitably transmit.”
And I’ve always thought there was deep wisdom in that.
If I am unwilling to wrestle with my brokenness,
I’m going to cast it on other people.
I’m going to fly off the handle.
I’m going to spread the gossip.
I’m going to be impatient,
whatever it is, the various ways it manifests itself.
But it’s going to come out on others.
And if I gloss that over with this idea that,
“Well, that’s just me,” and if I’m content with that,
I’m not pursuing the kind of relationship that Christ has invited me to have with himself.
Absolutely.
And relationships have a way of changing us.
If you have gotten to a place in your life where,
for any reason, you’ve decided,
“This is the best that I can do with what I have.
This is who I am.”
And you mean it in the worst sense.
I’m angry.
And there’s no way beyond that.
The Enneagram is not going to be able to converse with you at that point.
It’s going to say,
“You may have forged a deep rut in anger,
but there’s a way beyond that in which health and restoration and real relationship
with Christ and with others happens.”
But that is only going to be available to you if you’re willing to,
for a moment, open your heart and soul to the proddings of the Spirit to ask,
“What is fueling your anger?”
And that’s a terrifying place to go.
Not everyone has anger.
For some of us,
it’s sloth.
And some of us, it is performance.
If that doesn’t speak to you,
the Enneagram is going to have something that does.
But the question is,
are you willing to allow it to enter into that place?
Because all of us have a part of our soul that we would love to keep shrouded in darkness.
But the Enneagram demands that we illuminate all of it,
because it’s confident that when you do that,
Christ is there already.
But it does not feel like that is true as you’re going through the experience.
Yeah, and I think the language helps us there, Michael,
because the Enneagram will talk about that unwillingness as unredeemed.
Not in the sense of saved or not saved,
but in the sense of not moving toward wholeness,
stuck in your type.
So the unredeemed five,
the unredeemed nine, the unredeemed one, is whoever they are in a moment of being unwilling to pursue wholeness.
They’re stuck there.
And that language of unredeemed is powerful language,
I think.
I think it’s a helpful way to think about it,
that I’m not moving toward who Christ calls me to be.
If I am content,
or if I’m afraid,
or if I’m too proud,
or whatever it is that keeps me there,
I’m stuck.
I’m not making progress finding wholeness in Jesus’ invitation.
This may sound like an incredibly elementary question,
so bear with me.
But strip it all away.
Dig to the rock bottom.
Do you believe that there is a someone at the center of who you are?
Can you answer the question,
“Who am I?” And I don’t mean by that,
what are the things I like and dislike,
and the habits I’ve made,
the family I came from.
Do you really believe that if you strip it all down,
that there is something in you that lives with the spark of divine life,
that God created within you,
life that is unique and known and named?
It sounds elementary, but if you’re willing to really live with that question for a moment,
you might find that instead of living in the hope and the promise of there really being a you there, that you’ve identified
that you with all of the thinking and habits and stuff that you do.
If you’ve identified yourself,
in other words, as an angry person,
what is left when you take away the anger?
Is there something left?
If you have a soul that’s been put in you and created by God,
if you have been made with a purpose,
then there is something there more than anger,
but you have to trust that.
Yeah, I think again,
Michael,
the language of the Enneagram may be helpful there,
because as I understand it,
it would talk about those illusions as our false self.
If we think we are the pride, the success,
the intelligence, whatever it is that we would use to answer that question,
who am I?
If we think that is pinned to something about us,
then we are pursuing,
I think, what the Enneagram folks would call the false self,
which is keeping us from discovering our true self,
which is both richer and deeper than that little piece of the story.
And it’s our hope that through this conversation,
we find that we are all,
in God’s eyes, a beautiful vessel waiting to be filled,
but we all leak.
In some way or another, we’re all cracked.
We have this treasuring clay jars,
as Paul says it.
We all have leaks,
and to the extent we won’t face that,
we’re not being honest,
and to the extent we’re not being honest,
we can’t really grow.
Maybe this is a good juncture to do a little bit of foreshadowing,
to give a little bit of a sense of why we’re taking the path that we’re taking.
And that is, it’s from this juncture,
especially this coming Sunday,
where we’re really going to start diving deep into these numbers.
We’re going to spend our time together looking at what the Enneagram has to say about these nine different ways of being in the world.
And we are going to go around the circle.
Think of the circle and think of running around it,
because that’s really what we’re going to do.
We’re going to go through it with a number of different lenses.
We’re going to look at it from the perspective of what it looks like to be healthy in a type,
and what it looks like to be unhealthy.
We’re going to look at it from the perspective of what messages did you hear in your childhood?
What are the fears that you bear with you in your daily life?
What are the needs that you respond to in how you live?
What are the sins that you’re particularly drawn to?
What does a true self look like?
What is a healthy versus unhealthy self look like?
All of these are lenses by which we will evaluate these nine different ways of being in the world.
I say all of this to say that as we look at these nine types,
what you’re going to discover is that there’s layer upon layer upon layer.
And each layer is going to invite us deeper into the question of who are we when things are stripped down and when you get to the bottom.
And if you submit to that process and if you allow these things to converse,
I think A, you’ll become confident what your number is,
even if that does take time.
And I think B,
you will at some point see how that’s true in you.
And if things go well,
you will also see the map that leads with some suggestions on what the next steps to take will be.
Yeah, I think the folks,
Michael, that are listening by podcast and not able to make it to the Sunday evening sessions,
I would really encourage,
if at all possible,
either to attend this coming Sunday or to check it out next Monday when we go through each type with some detail in the hopes that it helps them find a place.
But I think from this point on,
for whoever is involved,
either by podcast or by session,
it’s going to be increasingly helpful and increasingly important to begin to feel like one of those numbers is speaking to you.
It’s going to be hard to get through the rest of this without some sense of I think I’m beginning to understand where I fit in this scheme.
Each time we make a pass around the circle,
you’re going to have a few numbers that jump out at you.
And as we get deeper and deeper,
especially as we get towards the discussions of basic fears and needs,
there’s really only going to be one that kicks you in the gut.
And so if you trust yourself in that circling process,
I think like you’re saying,
Clint, if you trust yourself to come and to listen to the description of these types and you’re faithful to listen and to reflect,
these things will become clear with time.
But this being a spiritual assessment and not a personality assessment,
it isn’t just a cut and dried,
take this test,
boom, you’ve got it.
It takes a little bit of personal reflection and a little bit of personal honesty,
and it may take some time,
especially I think of like the number five.
If you are a five,
it may take a while for you to come to grips with the fact that you’re five.
And that may make sense to you next Sunday.
So even within the numbers,
the Enneagram is going to say we may have more or less receptivity to seeing the truth of ourselves.
You know, and I would argue,
Michael, that that’s a good thing.
People have 20, 30, 40, 50,
60 plus years invested in layers and growth and successes and failures and inner messages and outer messages.
And you shouldn’t trust anything that says I can sort that out for you in an afternoon.
It shouldn’t be that simple.
We should be willing to follow a path that asks us to take step by step into this journey,
this kind of spiritual exercise and take the time to stop and listen.
You know, as Americans and as first world people, we,
to name my own sin, are so impatient.
And again, one of the gifts of the Enneagram is I think it will say to those of us who are in a hurry,
slow down,
spend a little time here,
see if it fits,
see if it works for you.
Let’s talk about it,
you know, and unpack it.
And this isn’t something that should be rushed, I think.
So at this point in our study,
in our journey through Lent,
if you can begin to work on some sense of your number within the Enneagram,
you’re on track.
That’s a good schedule.
If you can join us Sunday,
that may be helpful.
If not, it will be posted Monday morning.
Michael will have it on the website for you.
And I think you’ll be able to access everything without any problem in terms of the study.
From here on out,
we will begin to get into the Enneagram very specifically and in a lot more detail.
And thank you for being willing to go this far with us.
We hope you’ll continue to listen in.
We’d love your feedback.
We’d love your questions.
If you can’t get to some of the sessions and you want to know more about how do I get my Enneagram number,
email us,
stop us at church,
give us a call,
be glad to point you in some directions and see if we can help.
Absolutely.
We’re grateful that you have been willing to wade into these waters,
even with us sort of teasing that the numbers themselves are coming around the corner.
So we’re looking forward to that.
And I just want for sake of clarity,
make sure that the schedule is out there.
We released the Sunday conversation on Monday morning.
This podcast releases on Thursday morning.
And our hope and intention in that is that we can catch as many people in a cycle of conversations as possible.
Also, I’ll make you aware that we do have a dedicated page on the website.
All of the handouts and materials will be listed there,
as well as access to the podcast and the videos.
That is FPC Spiritlight dot org slash Enneagram.
That link is in the show notes if you want to get access to it.
And the only other thing to note is if you would like email updates of when these things are posted,
you can find at the bottom of that page a sign up form to give us your email so that you make sure that you get those if you have not gotten one already.
That being said, friends, we’re glad that you’ve joined us for this conversation and look forward to the continuing conversation as we continue together on this Lenten journey.
Thanks a lot.