Part of the reason for this blog is mindfulness. Writing about a topic forces me to stop and think it through. By writing about why I don’t feel sexy, how bad I am at flirting, or the issues Erin and I had being open with each other about our kinks and fantasies, I need to delve into myself and consider the cause of those issues. I’ve always been keen on self-exploration and discovery. So when Adam and Eve of the Spiritual Swingers podcast started talking about the Enneagram, my interest was whetted.
I don’t recall which episode it was that Eve first mentioned it, but it was early on. I only caught her saying something about nine archetypes of behavior, three of them about avoiding fear/anxiety, three about avoiding anger, and three about avoiding shame.
Later on they dedicate an entire episode to the Enneagram. Episode 22 if you are curious. It’s awesome! If you like this kind of thing.
As you can guess, this post is about the Enneagram. If you want to give that episode a listen as a primer before reading this, I understand.
But please come back! As we’re about to discover, my fragile ego can’t take that kind of rejection.
Pretest Considerations
As I said above, my first introduction to the concept of the Enneagram was just a rough description of the three triads. Given how prevalent I thought guilt and shame were in my youth, I assumed one of the archetypes about avoiding shame would surely be my fate. After all, I thought, I’m not an overly angry person, and I’m certainly not an anxious or fearful one.
Sure we all have our phobias, but I don’t think I tend to make decisions to avoid my fears…except my fear of heights. I make all kinds of decisions based around not doing things to trigger that.
But after listening to the full episode with Eve’s descriptions of the concept, I started to reconsider that shame angle. One thing I came to realize—something I’d never stopped and considered before—is that I actually react with anger very readily.
I’m not sure most of my friends would think of me as an angry person (unless we’re talking about those motherfuckers at the gym who can’t properly rerack the goddamn weights!). But in my desire to dissect my behavior, I realized that my initial, immediate reaction to things is one of unnecessary and overblown anger. A flare of sudden rage and frustration.
Were I Bruce Banner, I’d have giant fist-holes throughout my house.
But I quickly tamp down this anger and rationalize it away. I internalize it in those instances where I feel I deserve the blame. Either way, people around me would likely never know just how angry I was for that 30–120 seconds. In retrospect, it seems an unreasonable amount of anger.
When I mentioned this to Erin, she was like, “Yup, you do that.”
Imagine my surprise when the test results came back with not one, but two, results in the anxiety/fear triad.
Where Did I Go Wrong in My Self Observation?
I’m not sure I did. I just made those guesses before I really understood the Enneagram. And myself.
First, let me list my initial results for those who are interested:
- TypeTwo (Helper)
- Type Six (Loyalist)
- Type Seven (Enthusiast)
I don’t identify with the Six more than passingly so. I view that as a false positive. Eve said it’s the most common result, which makes me think it might be a general catch-all.
I very much identify with the Seven (Enthusiast). I even mentioned in a post recently about how I tend to see the best in people to a fault. I’m generally overly optimistic about things. To the point Erin has said to me, “How can you be that optimistic when you know things never go as well as you think they will?”
Why bother thinking things will go wrong?
My dad (who often says “a pessimist is just an optimist with experience”) once asked me if being so optimistic was ever a problem for me because it meant I lived in a perpetual state of disappointment.
I think I would be more disappointed with my life if I thought the future was bleak. Which in a global sense, I do; on a personal level, though, it’s all rainbows and unicorns.
I might always be disappointed by the present, but that’s just one moment. As an optimist, I have every future moment to look forward to!
What About That Fear?
I’m a terrible procrastinator, but when the shit hits the fan, I get shit done. I buckle in and work through it. One of my common statements at my old old job was, “You won’t believe how much trouble you can get out of if you just believe everything will work out for the best.” (For fans of Neil Gaiman, that might sound familiar as it is based off something one of his characters said.) Another was “Don’t worry, we’ll get it done—and well. We always do.” Because we always did.
But I realized I do have a fear. A big one.
I fear disappointing people.
Throughout school and college, I hated working in groups because I dislike the idea of people relying on me. I don’t like when others’ results (grades or the success of a project, what have you) rest in part in my hands. Give me a task that is mine alone!
As I advanced into my career, this became easier for me. It’s not possible to not be a team player in most professions. I still don’t care for managing people, but I don’t mind managing projects or being on a team under a leader. I also work extremely well with others because I’m social, upbeat, and funny.
Well, I make myself laugh, and me laughing at myself usually makes other people laugh. That might not be what it means to be funny, but it’s close.
When my stress is piling up (i.e., a deadline is falling behind, my mom’s in the hospital again, and I’m trying to do renovation work on the house), I cope by reminding myself everything will be alright.
After all, it always has been.
What About That Anger?
The Enneagram acknowledges that no single type perfectly characterizes a person. I identify with several and not everything about the Seven sits perfectly with me. One way the Enneagram brings this into itself (that sounds weird, but I’m sticking with it) is by winging out to the numbers on either side.
A Type Seven wings out to Type Six and Type Eight (Challenger). Again, I don’t feel the Type Six is really for me. However, I do feel that I wing Eight (and I really like using wing as a verb!), which puts me in the anger triad. I can relate to some of the description of Type Eight. But I recognize it’s not my main. I’m not that dominating, though I would love to be more so. I want to bring out more of the better qualities of my Eightness, in fact.
Something about Type Eight that resonates with me is that they are always pushing themselves to be better. Erin can attest to the fact I’m always looking toward self-improvement (mentally, physically, changing bad habits, trying new things, etc.).
What About That Shame?
Another of my results was the Type 2 (Helper), which is in the shame triad. I think a lot of my friends would see me as a Helper. I’m dependable, loyal, and generous. I make a conscious effort toward selflessness; always quick to lend a hand. My friends and acquaintances know they can reach out to me if they need to.
But I don’t really feel like the Two describes me well because the Two’s motivation for those actions differ from my own. Interesting enough, I found a description of how and why Sevens and Twos are easily misidentified for just that reason. Damn if that bit didn’t apply!
Particularly in that I help people because it adds to the merriment of all. As a group, it’s better for the overall wellbeing to assist each other so that we can enjoy life all the more.
I don’t help people out of a desire to be needed, which is an aspect of the Two. In fact, I want the opposite: I don’t like to be needed. That’s why I don’t like group work because then people rely on me.
Was It Really Shame?
When I briefly described my adolescent guilt and shame about my kinky sex desires, all of that shame came from one source: the idea that my masterbation habits and the “perverted” things that I liked were wicked. Wrong. Naughty.
And that by liking them, I was disappointing my parents, who had raised me to be a good Catholic boy. And, by that extension, disappointing God, who—according to my Catholic upbringing—has an unhealthy obsession with what I do with my dick and where my sperm ends up.
I would be angry at myself for not being better. For not being able to stop, and damn did I try! I can’t even tell you how many times I swore off porn or jerking off or any number of things, but I just couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t make myself be better.
And so I hated myself.
OK, that might be a bit harsh.
But when I find myself failing, when I feel myself being a disappointment to others, I turn my anger on myself. Readily. My shortcomings are always my fault. And something I attack myself over.
Did I really battle against shame about my kinks? Or did I rage against a sense that I was being dominated by an impulse I couldn’t gain control over?
Semantics.
I know I feared rejection based upon those perceived failings. That fear was the driving force for me to hide my kinks from Erin for years and optimistically believing I could eventually will them away and be a “normal” person for her. A good husband. Someone she’d be proud of.
If only I could have“fixed” myself.
Conflicting Behaviors
When I was discussing this personal exploration with Erin, she noted that it seemed strange that I would fear disappointing others so much if I didn’t want to be needed. Those two behaviors seemed at odds.
And if you look at them in that direction, that makes sense. But flip it.
I fear being a disappointment to people. I dislike the feeling of reproach and judgement of doing a poor job and letting others down by not living up to their expectations. One way to avoid that feeling is to not be needed.
Having people rely on me or having hopes and dreams for me (as parents do for their children) sets up the potential for me letting them down.
Those Other Lines on the Enneagram
Another interesting thing about the Enneagram is that each number can pick up traits of other numbers when in stress or growth. These are called the Direction of Disintegration and the Direction of Integration respectively. These are represented by the crossing lines within the Enneagram.
To get specific, this means that when a Type Seven is in a place of negativity, they reflect the more negative qualities of a Type One (Reformer) and when they are in a place of positivity, they reflect the positive qualities of a Type Five (Investigator).
My Direction of Disintegration
And we’re back in the anger triad! Turns out I wasn’t so wrong with that observation.
I am highly logical and tend to make my decisions based on facts. That said, I can see how I might create an illusion of fact-based info to justify making an emotionally based decision. I plan on being mindful of that moving forward to see if I can find an emotional bias behind my supposedly logical arguments.
I don’t view all of my Type One-ish personality traits as negative. I’m a pedant, but that’s not a bad thing. Words have meanings, and we need to use them properly for meaning to be understood. Same with commas and semicolons. Hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes have different grammatical uses and are not interchangeable.
I’m not a perfectionist.
But goddamn it, if you are going to use the free weights in the gym, at least put them back in the right place! Especially if there are labels for the dumbbells and the plates. Even if there aren’t labels, come on, you know you shouldn’t be putting the 5s, 25s, and 45s on the same rung of the weight tree! You’re in the gym. Don’t get lazy now!
My Direction of Integration
When I’m being my Best Self, I pick up traits of the Type Five: the studious Investigator. This sits well with me, too. I don’t have the same fears and negative aspects described within the Type 5, but I do have many of the positives.
I love to learn just for the sake of learning. When I tackle a topic, I launch myself into it with an aim at some level of mastery. Mostly I seek this within my writing and my knowledge of physical fitness and nutrition. Friends and family often seek my counsel on such matters because they know my interest and investigation into these areas have made me somewhat expert.
I’m currently pursuing these endeavors even more, but that’s vanilla-life stuff.
I suppose this also shows in my quest for understanding around drug use. I do my research about the risks and virtues, and then I set up experiments to test substances on myself. My Type Five traits are represented in this blog—in fact, this very post!
So That’s the Enneagram
As you can see, I learned a lot from this thought experiment. Even before I knew what the Enneagram was, when Eve casually mentioned it early on in the podcast series, the concept got the wheels turning in my head.
Incorrect as that idea might have been, it led to self-examination.
When I then took the test, this led to further consideration.
As I wrote this piece, I needed to synthesize more information and try to understand how, or even if, the things I learned applied to me and my behavioral tendencies. Low and behold, we have some matches.
I have much more reading to do about the Enneagram, but it’s been a fun exercise so far. And I think a rewarding one. But how does it fit in with the topic of this blog?
Being mindful about myself helps me understand some of my behaviors around kinks, sexy, and the lifestyle in general. So there’s that.
And this little journey of self-exploration kicked off a much bigger, deep evaluation of my behavior. I created an Overarching Theory of Shane Behavior. It wasn’t pretty because it basically revealed why my general thought process is flawed.
I went a little dark during it, as I often do because whenever I evaluate myself I tend to find myself lacking. I hold myself up to unattainable ideals I’d never expect of anyone else. It’s an unhealthy cycle I’d really like to break.
My post next week will go into more about that and how Eve’s words of affirmation and a really awesome hippie flip (a combination of psilocybin and MDMA) knocked me out of my negative funk and got me feeling super positive about myself.