Unlocking Enneagram Personality Types with Elizabeth Orr. Episode 318
Unlocking Enneagram Personality Types
Today, we’re peeling back the layers of our personalities with Elizabeth Orr, author of The Unfiltered Enneagram, a book that challenges us to laugh at ourselves while confronting the parts we often hide away.
I was so excited to talk to her as soon as I heard her book was coming out. She has the most hilarious Instagram account that is so accurate about our numbers. You are going to read this, love it, and learn something about yourself that will help you care for yourself and love other people well.
Elizabeth Orr serves as the associate chaplain for spiritual formation at Wake Forest and is the creator of the popular Rude Ass Enneagram Instagram account.
In her new book, The Unfiltered Enneagram: A Witty and Wise Guide to Self-Compassion, Elizabeth illuminates the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of humanity, inviting us to see that the only way to find self-compassion is to embrace wholeness.
Let’s dive in.
Common Pitfalls When First Discovering the Enneagram Personality Types
I asked Elizabeth what are some common pittfalls people can fall into when they are first discovering the Enneagram. And she said, one of the biggest pitfalls people fall into is identifying too much with the type that you land on. For example, saying, I’m an enneagram eight, and that is going to excuse all my bad behavior and explain why I refuse to get along with other people.
So, using the Enneagram as an excuse, as a shield for bad behavior, and using it as a weapon against others can be a real common pitfall. Lastly, she said not recognizing the dynamism of the Enneagram because there is so much movement that is available to us.
A lot of people can also recoil from the Enneagram because it feels like you’re being put in a box, but that’s not how the Enneagram operates. It’s actually much more fluid and dynamic. And so embracing that nature of it that allows us to flow and to lean on other types and to find ourselves resonating with other types. But we have to release the grip that we feel on our type.
The Shadow Side of Each Enneagram Number
In her book, Elizabeth talks about the shadow side of each enneagram number, so I asked her to explain what it is for us. She said the way she likes to reframe it is our survival mechanics. It’s how we are trying to survive in the world as we perceive it. And every type has a very particular way of how they perceive the world, what they believe to be true about it. This is based on each number’s core beliefs.
Where to Start if You Are New to the Enneagram Personality Types
If you’re new to the Enneagram, aren’t familiar with it, and are trying to wrap your head around it, I asked Elizabeth to provide one thing you need to know. And she said one of the best ways to start that practice of self-awareness is to get curious about our own emotional reactivity. So when we get annoyed above a baseline or when we get angry, scared, or embarrassed, rather than trying to resist that feeling, we get curious about it.
Ask yourself, what’s underneath that? What am I afraid that is being threatened in this moment? And if you need a little space from the immediate moment, that’s fine, too. But go back, though, and make sure that you reflect on it and get curious about it. And because there’s all this unconscious stuff under the surface, our emotional responses can tell us so much about what we think, the narrative that we believe, what we think other people’s motivations are, and what we’re trying to protect within ourselves.
So great, right? Thank you to Elizabeth for all this amazing wisdom that is helping us unlock our enneagram personality types. Now, let’s move on to coaching for the week.
How to Rewire Your Mind for Bravery and Resilience
In movies, we often see heroes facing huge challenges and they have wise mentors, giving them a confidence boost, and they go conquer the world. For example, Yoda in Star Wars with Luke Skywalker. But the thing is, confidence does not really come first. It is a result of doing something hard, of pushing out of your comfort zone. That’s where bravery steps in.
Bravery is feeling scared but choosing to try something new anyway. Also, bravery draws strength from knowing others believe in you and remembering that you can overcome hard things because you’ve overcome hard things in the past. It comes from remembering your past failures. The truth is we never hit it out of the park the first time we try something, but remembering how we overcame these things will build our resilience, and that makes us brave enough to try again.
This week, your homework is that I want you to take a minute to revisit your past wins. All those things that you did well and that you are successful at. We don’t do this like we should. I think we don’t do it because we don’t want anything to lead us to being prideful. You probably can’t even remember ever doing that. But I want you to do it this week. I promise you are not going to change your personality and become prideful overnight.
I want you to celebrate the times that you dared to step into the unknown and that you came out stronger. But I want you to think about the mistakes. But this time, I want you to view them as stepping stones toward growth and resilience. Because by shifting our perspective from judgment to learning you’re going to find the courage to face new things head-on.
Identify Our Wins
When I get on coaching calls with my clients, what my clients have to do before every call, is fill out some information and identify wins that they’ve had since the last time we’ve talked. This is very difficult for people, but it’s also important to do it.
Because when we identify our wins, we can identify where God is strengthening us. We can identify where God is moving in our lives. We can identify where we have some momentum, where there is wind at our back, and where we’re moving forward. If we don’t do that, we’re never going to honor it. And if we don’t honor it, we’re not going to step into that more as God is calling us to.
Every experience you have, whether smooth or bumpy, will shape you into a stronger, more capable woman. I want you to embrace that journey in your life. I want you to learn from it. And I want you to know that God is with you. I want you to keep moving forward with confidence. You’re not going to build the confidence overnight, but it will build over time. You don’t need to be ashamed of the mistakes that you made in the past. You didn’t have the resources, the wisdom, and the understanding.
I want you to look back on that with compassion. Because sometimes, when we look back, and we beat ourselves up, we’re going to stay stuck. But if we look back and go, let me have compassion for the woman I was in that moment. Without the painful seasons and the hard work we did, we couldn’t enjoy what we have now.
Listen or Watch now:
Watch on YouTube.
Favorite Quotes:
“One of the biggest pitfalls, no matter where you are on your journey, that can be an easy trap to fall into is identifying too much with the type you land on.” (Audio 13:00)
“Using the Enneagram as an excuse or shield for our bad behavior, and using it as a weapon against others, can be a real common pitfall.” (Audio 13:22)
“Our shadow side is our survival mechanics. It is how we try to survive in the world and perceive it. Every type has a very particular way of perceiving the world and what they believe to be true about it.” (Audio 16:00)
“Our emotional responses can tell us so much about what we think, the narrative that we believe, what we think other people’s motivations are, and what we are trying to protect within ourselves.” (Audio 20:59)
Links to Great Things We Discussed:
- Elizabeth Orr Instagram
- The Unfiltered Enneagram: A Witty and Wise Guide to Self-Compassion
- The Synanon Fix
- Pitch Perfect
- Long Run to Glory: The Story of the Greatest Marathon in Olympic History and the Women Who Made It Happen
- Hoka Bondi 8
- Connections
- Watchman – Josh Garrels
- Beyond the Blue – Josh Garrels
- Farther Along – Josh Garrels
- The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery
- Apply for Alli’s Free Coaching
- Create a Course
- Remaining You While Raising Them
Hope you loved this episode! Make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t forget to check us out on YouTube and slap some stars on a review! 🙂
xo,
Alli
