The Enneagram - Type 9 (The Mediator)
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Ninth of a 9 part series highlighting the Enneagram. Others in the series are:
The Enneagram - Type 8 (The Boss) (GC2DBY6)
The Enneagram - Type 7 (The Enthusiast) (GC2DBXC)
The Enneagram - Type 6 (The Loyalist) (GC2DB71)
The Enneagram - Type 5 (The Observer) (GC2DA49)
The Enneagram - Type 4 (The Tragic Romantic) (GC2DA10)
The Enneagram - Type 3 (The Performer) (GC2D9N3)
The Enneagram - Type 2 (The Giver) (GC2D8RM)
The Enneagram - Type 1 (The Perfectionist)
The Enneagram ("ennea" means "nine") has roots going back to ancient Sufi mysticism, & describes 9 different personality types & their interrelationships. It helps us understand our own type & how to cope with our issues; understand our work associates, family & friends; and to appreciate the predisposition that each type has for higher human capacities such as empathy, omniscience & love.
The Enneagram was popularized by the Jesuit order in the 20th century. It is a typing system (similar to, but quite different from, the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators). Each person is one of nine different and distinctive types, though all of us have characteristics found in each of the types. I am a 9, for example. Discovering this, and working with it, has been very informative and helpful to me.
While it's uncertain whether one's type is genetically determined, many believe it is already in place at birth. Enneagram authors have attached their own individual names to these numbers. Helen Palmer for example names them: 1. The Perfectionist; 2. The Giver; 3. The Performer; 4. The Tragic Romantic; 5. The Observer; 6. The Devil's Advocate; 7. The Epicure; 8. The Boss; 9. The Mediator. People of a particular type have numerous characteristics in common, but they can be quite different. It depends, among other things, on each person's level of mental and emotional health. Unhealthy (neurotic) people from a particular type can appear to be quite different from healthy ones of the same type.
For more in-depth information go to my now archived cache "The Enneagram (overview) GC8A196
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Type 9 - THE MEDIATOR
The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable and Complacent
Type Nine in Brief: Nines are accepting, trusting, and stable. They are usually creative, optimistic, and supportive, but can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. They want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but they can also tend to be complacent, simplifying problems and minimizing anything upsetting. They typically have problems with inertia and stubbornness. At their best: indomitable and all-embracing, they are able to bring people together and heal conflicts.
Basic Fear: Of loss and separation
Basic Desire: To have inner stability "peace of mind"
Key Motivations: Want to create harmony in their environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them.
Examples: Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Queen Elizabeth II, Walter Cronkite, George Lucas, Episcodad, Walt Disney, Sophia Loren, Geena Davis, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Ron Howard, Matthew Broderick, Ringo Starr, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Nancy Kerrigan, Jim Hensen, Marc Chagall, Norman Rockwell, "Edith Bunker" (Archie Bunker) & "Marge Simpson" (The Simpsons).
Type Nine Overview
No type is more devoted to the quest for internal and external peace for themselves and others than 9's. They are typically “spiritual seekers” who have a great yearning for connection with the cosmos, as well as with other people. They work to maintain their peace of mind just as they work to establish peace and harmony in their world. The issues encountered in the Nine are fundamental to all psychological and spiritual work—being awake versus falling asleep to our true nature; presence versus entrancement, openness versus blockage, tension versus relaxation, peace versus pain, union versus separation.
Ironically, for a type so oriented to the spiritual world, Nine is the center of the Instinctive Center, and is the type that is potentially most grounded in the physical world and in their own bodies. The contradiction is resolved when we realize that Nines are either in touch with their instinctive qualities and have tremendous elemental power and personal magnetism, or they are cut off from their instinctual strengths and can be disengaged and remote, even lightweight. To compensate for being out of touch with their instinctual energies, Nines also retreat into their minds and their emotional fantasies. Furthermore, when their instinctive energies are out of balance, Nines use these very energies against themselves, damming up their own power so that everything in their psyches becomes static and inert.
When Nines are in balance with their Instinctive Center and its energy, they are like a great river, carrying everything along with it effortlessly. Nines can have the strength of Eights, the sense of fun and adventure of Sevens, the dutifulness of Sixes, the intellectualism of Fives, the creativity of Fours, the attractiveness of Threes, the generosity of Twos, and the idealism of Ones. However, what they generally do not have is a sense of really inhabiting themselves—a strong sense of their own identity. Ironically, therefore, the only type the Nine is not like is the Nine itself.
Being a separate self, an individual who must assert herself against others, is terrifying to Nines. They would rather melt into someone else or quietly follow their idyllic daydreams. Nines demonstrate the universal temptation to ignore the disturbing aspects of life and to seek some degree of peace and comfort by “numbing out.” They respond to pain and suffering by attempting to live in a state of premature peacefulness, whether it is in a state of false spiritual attainment, or in more gross denial. More than any other type, Nines demonstrate the tendency to run away from the paradoxes and tensions of life by attempting to transcend them or by seeking to find simple and painless solutions to their problems.
To emphasize the pleasant in life is not a bad thing, of course—it is simply a limited and limiting approach to life. If Nines see the silver lining in every cloud as a way of protecting themselves from the cold and rain, other types have their distorting viewpoints, too. For example, Fours focus on their own woundedness and victimization, Ones on what is wrong with how things are, and so forth. By contrast, Nines tend to focus on the “bright side of life” so that their peace of mind will not be shaken. But rather than deny the dark side of life, what Nines must understand is that all of the perspectives presented by the other types are true, too. Nines must resist the urge to escape into “premature Buddhahood” or the “white light” of the Divine and away from the mundane world. They must remember that “the only way out is through.”
(from The Wisdom of the Enneagram, Riso and Hudson p. 316-317) To take a short test to discern your Enneagram type click here: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/dis_sample_36.asp Congratulations to DMB4Life for FTF.
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