Beatrice Chestnut: And so I think there are more people who are ready to wake up, and the Enneagram really is about awakening. It comes from the ancient tradition that talks about how humankind is asleep, and what we really need is to wake up. The Enneagram is really about, more than anything else, helping people wake up to who they really are and manifest all of their potential.
Tami Simon: In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Beatrice Chestnut, a global expert, researcher, and educator on the Enneagram. Beatrice has a PhD in communication studies and a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and is a licensed psychotherapist, coach, and business consultant based in San Francisco. And in the spirit of transparency, she did some very interesting Enneagram work with our leadership team at Sounds True several years ago. This woman knows her stuff. She’s the author of several acclaimed books on the Enneagram, including the newly released edition of The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. She’s written a new introduction to this book, and it’s more than 500 pages, and I would say it’s considered a classic in Enneagram literature. All right, Beatrice, welcome.
Beatrice Chestnut: Thank you, Tami. It’s great to be with you.
Tami Simon: One of the interesting things about the Enneagram is I know people who are in the deep end. This is the first thing they say when I say, “Oh, I made a new friend”—”What Enneagram type are they?” And they’re dissecting the person.
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah.
Tami Simon: And then there are people who know just a little about the Enneagram. Maybe they kind of know what type they are, and that’s it. So here at the beginning, I would love for our conversation—you ready?—to include everyone, regardless of what level of interest they’re at, with this working hypothesis that really talented teachers—and I think you are a really talented teacher—are somehow able to be broad and deep at the same time. So how do you feel about that?
Beatrice Chestnut: It sounds a little challenging, but I think I’m up for the challenge. I do always think about the Enneagram as something that can help a wide swath of people, so I’m often conscious of trying to bring people in and make it comprehensible. I like that approach.
Tami Simon: All right, challenge accepted. For someone at the very beginning who says, “The Enneagram—that’s some kind of typology system, right?” How would you offer a working, one- or two-sentence, really brief definition?
Beatrice Chestnut: The Enneagram is a diagram, or a symbol, that is the framework for a typology—a personality typology of nine types. It’s also a map of transformation that shows how to use the insights about these nine types to go from a lower level of consciousness to a higher level of consciousness.
Tami Simon: Lower level to higher level. Tell me what you put in the category of, quote-unquote, “a lower level of consciousness,” and—this is really the core of the question—how you see the transformation process that the Enneagram points to that takes us to, quote-unquote, “a higher level of consciousness.”
Beatrice Chestnut: Well, according to the teaching behind the Enneagram, the idea is that as part of just being a human being—the human condition is such that when we’re born into this life, we’re at a relatively low level of consciousness just by virtue of being human. And in part, the human journey—it’s characterized by unconsciousness. Like Freud said, eighty percent, or some portion, of our psyche is unconscious. So we come into this world at a relatively lower realm from a spiritual perspective. But the Enneagram is both psychological and spiritual together. The idea is that we’re born into this world at a lower level of consciousness, and part of the human purpose—the human journey—is to learn through studying ourselves.
It’s the old aphorism that was on the Temple of Delphi in ancient Greece: the idea that the purpose of life is to know thyself. The Enneagram is a big help in knowing yourself. It highlights patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving across these nine distinct personalities that serve as a guide for self-observation, self-understanding, and ultimately, hopefully, self-acceptance.
It’s almost like, in studying ourselves, we learn about life, and we understand how to actually move beyond the personality. The idea is that the personality is something we develop starting in childhood, as a protective mechanism, to protect our psyche from being too hurt in the world as we grow. But once we become adults, the personality limits us in ways we don’t see, because we’re so familiar with it—it’s been with us for so long. The idea is that when you learn about the patterns of your personality, you can use that learning process as a way of rising above the inherently limited patterns of defense that we take on starting in childhood.
Tami Simon: When you use the word “personality,” what do you mean by that?
Beatrice Chestnut: Personality is a little bit related to the idea of a persona. It’s a false self that develops early on—but one that we need. Starting in childhood, in order to navigate our way in the world, in order to survive and even thrive, we need a part of ourselves to develop to interface with the outside world.
Sometimes we identify with our personality, and that means we think that’s all of who we are. But the personality is really like a kind of false self, or mask, that develops in order to help us make our way in the world and defend ourselves from being too hurt, especially psychologically.
It’s a kind of persona made up of patterns and adaptations that we take on in childhood. But it’s not all of who we are. It’s sort of the false self that we need to learn about and then outgrow, as a way of revealing our essential self, or true self, that is waiting inside us—the seed of it is inside of us.
And as we use our learning about our personality as the vehicle for change, we can eventually let go of the false self—the personality, made up of these patterns of defense—and move beyond identification with that as who we are.
Tami Simon: Okay, let me ask a kind of beginner’s-mind question here. When I think of the false self, and I think of patterns of defense and ways, based in childhood, that I was like, “I’ve got to find my way through this difficult set of relationships with people. I need to protect my…”—okay, I get that. But aren’t there aspects you could say of our—I’ll use the word “personality,” or our unique expression, or our quirkiness—that are not necessarily part of that false self? Or how do you see that—things that are like our cool eccentricities?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah, I think that our personality is a reflection of the true self. It’s not like the false self is completely divorced from the true self—it’s more like a compensation. So yes, I think there are aspects of our personality that point to, or reflect, certain functional strengths that we have, but also just aspects of who we are that shine through, if you will.
But I also think it’s tricky, because—and here I use the words “personality” and “ego” interchangeably—it’s a little bit like, what happens when we identify with the strengths of our personality is that we tend to overuse a relatively narrow set of strengths. And if we idealize those strengths too much, then we stay too attached to them, and we don’t develop a wider repertoire of strengths and talents and gifts that are, in some ways, more inherent inside us, waiting to be manifested once we do inner work or self-development work.
Tami Simon: So my understanding, Beatrice, about your life journey is that you became interested, enamored, impassioned about the Enneagram, and that’s actually what led you to become a psychotherapist. Tell me, how did you get introduced to the Enneagram at such a young age?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah, so I studied English literature as an undergrad, and I wasn’t really sure what to do with my life in my early twenties, but I happened upon the Enneagram because a very close childhood friend I’d grown up with—his father was a psychiatrist based at Stanford, Dr. David Daniels—and he was one of the first mainstream psychiatrists to get really into the Enneagram in the late ’80s, and actually started one of the first schools dedicated to Enneagram study, along with Helen Palmer, who was one of the first authors of one of the first books to come out in the late ’80s.
So when I read about my type, it really changed my life, because I hadn’t really been interested in psychology—to me, I was always really interested in people, but the study of psychology seemed a little bit like… I don’t know, there was something about it that seemed obvious, like it was just assigning jargon to things that seemed sort of commonsensical.
But once I found the Enneagram, it was almost a spiritual revelation, because I never imagined that anything could describe me to myself—both in terms of what I knew to be true, but also aspects that I barely wanted to admit, that it also shined a light on and helped me understand at a deeper level.
And once I had that experience, I became really, really focused on it, because it was so enlightening, so insightful, and it also helped me learn about other people. So based on my deep interest in the Enneagram, I ended up going back to school to become a psychotherapist, because I realized that this is what I wanted to do with my life—not only use it for my own personal growth path, but also bring it to other people.
Tami Simon: And by way of example—and also as a way for our listeners to get to know you better—what is it that you discovered about yourself through the Enneagram that was so important to you?
Beatrice Chestnut: Sure. I found my type pretty easily—sometimes people have a longer journey to discovering what their actual type is—but Dr. Daniels told me, “You’re not actually supposed to tell people what type they are,” but he said, “I think you might be a type Two.” So I went home and read the Type Two chapter in the book, and everything it said about me had this ring of truth.
It said, for instance, that I put my attention on other people more than myself. It said I’m very focused on whether other people like me, and on trying to get people to like me, as a reflection of a deeper sense of not getting the love I needed in childhood—almost a compensation for not feeling lovable deep inside—really wanting to do things and act in ways and say things to people that made them have positive feelings about me.
Now, that was sort of the top layer. And again, all of what I read really fit—it had this almost revelatory ring of truth, like, how can something fit so deeply? But as I read on, I started to read about things that didn’t sound so good.
I started reading that Twos—my type—could be manipulative, and that was surprising, because it didn’t seem to go along with the description of the Two, which is that Twos tend to be very nice, very friendly, because they want other people to like them, and can be very supportive and helpful, with the hope that people will reciprocate and provide what they need when they need it.
But when it said I was manipulative, I remember the thought process—”Well, that doesn’t sound good,” right? But when I really thought about it… and with the Enneagram, you need to remember that this language comes from ancient wisdom, so words that we might think of today sometimes have slightly different meanings.
In this case, it did mean manipulative. And when I really looked into that, I thought, “Okay, what is manipulation?” It’s moving things around behind the scenes so that you don’t have to ask directly. And when I defined it that way for myself, I realized I did that all the time. So that was an example of it giving me a window into something about myself that’s a little more the downside, or the dark side, that I hadn’t seen before—but that when I really reflected on it, I realized it was true. And it helped me realize, “I don’t want to be a manipulative person, but it’s good that I know that about myself, so I can work on really understanding why I’m doing that, having compassion for myself, but also seeing that as an entry point to a path of growth that can help me, in some ways, reverse some of these tendencies.”
Like, for Twos, we pay a lot of attention to other people and what they’re feeling and needing, and we really need to look at ourselves more, which was really true for me. So seeing both how it described me to myself in this deeply resonant way—a way I never dreamed any kind of typology would describe me—but then also pointed to things I wasn’t quite conscious of, but that, through getting more conscious of them, I could grow and develop. Seeing that whole thing come together was really powerful.
Tami Simon: You know, I know that a lot of people are interested in shadow work, and they’re like, “Yeah, I really want to know more about what my shadow is—it’s easy for me to see it in other people but harder to see it in myself.” And it seems to me that in the way you write and teach about the Enneagram, using it to know your own shadow is one of the ways you think it’s extraordinarily effective. I wonder if you could say more about that.
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah, I think that if we’re doing sincere self-development work, seeing, owning, and integrating our shadow is a really key part. I think this is why the idea of the hero’s journey is so powerful, because part of the hero’s journey—the path of self-development—is understanding those aspects of you that are more unconscious.
And I think that’s what’s really powerful about the Enneagram: it helps people find their type, because it talks about more conscious patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving in the world. But it also points to the blind spots and shadow aspects that we don’t tend to see in ourselves—that we need some tool or method or path to help us see, because it’s very hard to see on our own.
One of the things I think the Enneagram does really well is help people of different types see what they tend to be unconscious and unaware of, that they need to grow through becoming more aware of—those shadow aspects that people tend to disown, that they need to re-own as part of a path to being more whole.
Tami Simon: You mentioned that the shadow of the Two—one of the shadow aspects of a Two—is being manipulative. And as someone who knows a lot of Twos, I can say, bang on, as they say here in Canada. Could you very briefly give me a word or a sentence for each of the types, and one core shadow challenge that each faces?
Beatrice Chestnut: Sure, sure. I always like to start with the body types—Eights, Nines, and Ones. For Eight, the big shadow element tends to be vulnerability. Eights, in personality, at a basic level of awareness, tend to have a real blind spot when it comes to their vulnerability, and they overcompensate by being strong and powerful. So vulnerability would be something for Type Eight.
For Type Nine—what’s interesting is their own power tends to be in their shadow. Nines can’t really own how powerful they are. They also tend to focus more on other people, and a lot on creating harmony, so they go against being aware of their own power, anger, and strong opinions—because if they’re in touch with that, it might create conflict, and they avoid conflict. So their own power is really in their shadow.
For Ones, in some ways, Ones tend to look at the world in terms of black and white—good and bad, right and wrong. I think how angry they are tends to be in their shadow. Ones benefit, like Nines do, by owning their anger more consciously, and realizing it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be angry—it can be a positive. And also, sometimes, their own inherent goodness—that they don’t have to strive to be perfect, that they already are good as they are inside.
For Twos—my type—we already talked about manipulation, and also being controlling, and how help can actually be an attempt to control, in ways Twos don’t see.
For Threes—it’s interesting. Threes are the prototype, for all the types, of how we identify with a persona. Threes focus a lot on image, and they automatically kind of shift shape—they shape-shift depending on who they’re with or what the audience is. So in some ways, who they really are is in their shadow—their true self, how they really feel about things, what’s really important to them—because they get so used to shifting and changing depending on the circumstances.
For Type Four, I think it’s also their inherent goodness, because Fours can focus on how they’re not good enough, how they somehow have this belief in their own deficiency. So all of the things that are actually good about them, as they are, tend to be more in shadow—because they actually identify more consciously with the shadow.
For Fives, I’d say what’s often in the shadow is the ability to embrace abundance. They have a big scarcity mentality, especially around their own energy and energetic resources. So the idea that they have abundant energy can be in their shadow—that they have plenty of energy. They also tend to disconnect from feelings and people, so their capacity to connect can feel, to them, like “Oh, that’s too overwhelming, I can’t do it.” That tends to be in their shadow.
For a Six, it’s courage, faith in themselves. They tend to focus on what’s threatening, on fears, on predicting potential problems and preparing for them. And in focusing so much on that, they don’t really focus on their own courage, their own confidence—the sense of, “I can handle whatever comes, I don’t have to worry so much.”
And for Sevens, I’d say Sevens tend to focus a lot on positivity and pleasure, wanting to have a good experience, wanting to feel good and avoid bad feelings. So what’s in their shadow is resilience—the ability to endure difficult emotions, and to be present in the moment for whatever comes. That capacity tends to be in their shadow. They get very fearful that if they open up to whatever comes, it might be a negative experience or emotion, and there’s a big fear, or belief, that they won’t be able to survive that.
Tami Simon: So let’s say someone’s listening, and they go, “You know, I connected to all nine shadow components, in different ways, as you said them.”
Beatrice Chestnut: I would say that we tend to identify with certain traits, or behavior patterns, of more than one type, because the different types share different patterns and behaviors. So finding your actual type is more about getting to the core of what motivates you—the core motivation, the core of how you cope in the world, what adaptive strategies you took on early on, at the deepest level.
It can be tricky finding your type at first, exactly because of what you’re saying—”Well, I relate to four or five of those things really strongly, so how do I know which is really me?” Now, another reason it makes sense that each person will relate to more than one type is that each type on the Enneagram diagram is connected to four other types—has access to four other types: the types we sometimes call wing points on either side, and also the arrow-line connected points within the diagram.
Those are special access points. So it makes sense—for instance, I’m a Two, and my wing points are Three and One, and through the arrow-line points I’m connected to Four and Eight. So it would make sense if I connect a lot to something about all four of those types, or maybe one or two of them more strongly—and that’s by design.
These types are interconnected, and there are growth pathways signified by these connections and lines. So there’s a lot of reasons it makes sense, and when you learn your main type, or your core type, hopefully everything kind of gels together, and you can see, “Oh, well, it makes sense that I relate to these other types, because either they’re lookalikes, or I have access to them through the system.”
Tami Simon: There’s a whole lot to talk about here, which is why The Complete Enneagram is a five-hundred-page book that goes into depth on a lot of these different aspects of the Enneagram model. I think one of the most interesting things about your approach is the subtitle—27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. Before I met you, Beatrice, I’d always heard about the Enneagram as the nine types, the nine paths, the nine this, the nine that—and you’re the one who really opened my eyes to this notion that we have to really understand the three subtypes within each type, and appreciate how distinct they are from each other.
So help me understand, first of all, how you came to this discovery, and why you emphasize it so much, right down to the subtitle of your book.
Beatrice Chestnut: Right, right. So when I learned the Enneagram in 1990, I learned the nine types, and I started studying it, and I even went to a training program. And they did teach—so the twenty-seven, what that refers to, is what we call subtypes. For each of the nine types, there are three versions of that type.
Really, in the Enneagram, everything comes in threes—it’s based on ancient wisdom, and one piece of that ancient wisdom is the idea of the law of three. So there are three centers of intelligence in the Enneagram teaching—that’s head, heart, and body. And within those three centers, there are three types that each overuse that center—three head types, three heart types, three body-based types. Now, because everything comes in threes, it would only make sense that there’s another division into three. So each of these nine types also comes in three versions, and those three versions, or subtypes, of the main type are based on which of three instincts—animal instincts—is dominant in a person.
The idea is that we are human animals, and one level of personality is our instinct, our animal instinct or animal wisdom, our survival drives. In the Enneagram system, these instincts are grouped into three main drives. One is self-preservation—focusing on myself, protecting my life, making sure I’m okay. The social instinct is a lot about connecting to the group or collective—like surviving through being a member of a tribe. And then what we sometimes call the sexual instinct, or the one-to-one instinct—that’s about bonding very strongly with another person to support survival.
So we each have all three of these instincts, but just like we have three centers of intelligence, and one tends to dominate our experience over the other two—because in this human condition we’re by definition out of balance in some way—the same is true of these instincts. We tend to have one that’s more dominant. For me, the self-preservation instinct dominates more of my experience than the other two.
In the early years of my Enneagram study, this subtype teaching was around, but it was in a form I found sort of vague and not very helpful—there wasn’t much substance to it, and different authors said different things, but they didn’t really say that much. But then in 2004, at an international conference, one of—I think—the key figures in really bringing the Enneagram forward in what we might call the modern era, Claudio Naranjo, came and presented. He’s someone who got the core of the teaching in the ’60s from Oscar Ichazo, but really brought forward and refined the descriptions of the nine types and the twenty-seven subtypes.
So in 2004, I had the opportunity to hear him and several of his associates present what turned out to be his more updated version of this twenty-seven-subtype teaching—much more specific, more thorough, more complete descriptions of the three subtypes of each of the nine types.
And when I learned my subtype for the first time, at that conference in 2004—because this teaching had never been clear enough before for me to find my subtype—it was huge for me. It changed a lot in my personal growth path. It was another big turning point in my life. I sometimes say it’s like I was living in a house and suddenly found out there was a basement there. It was almost a whole new level of self-understanding, learning that I was not just a Two, but a self-preservation Two, as opposed to a social Two or a sexual Two.
Tami Simon: And what did you learn that was so important by discovering your self-preservation Two?
Beatrice Chestnut: It actually pointed more to some of the shadow things we talked about, but more particularly to the shadow of my particular kind of Two, which was self-preservation Two. It pointed to some aspects of the self-preservation Two that were different from the other Twos—for one thing, that I’m a more fearful version of Two than the other versions.
And it was so interesting, because Twos tend to repress emotions, partly as a way of… I repress any emotion that might get in the way of me connecting with someone, because connecting is a big priority for a Two. So I realized I was much more fearful in everyday life than I’d realized, and more anxious, as self-preservation types can sometimes be.
It also made sense of a lot of things I found to be slightly different in myself than in other Twos. For instance—although most Twos are very oriented toward connecting with others and creating rapport—I was more ambivalent about connecting with people. Part of me really wanted to connect, but part of me was afraid of connecting—afraid of being rejected, but also afraid of actually having the person be available to me, because there was something threatening about actual connection that I hadn’t really seen.
And a lot of other things—like, the self-preservation Two is a more childlike version of Type Two, and can even stay young and maintain a kind of childlike attitude, to evoke people to come help me. So I was more dependent on people than I’d really realized. There was a lot that came out of that, and when I learned those new things about myself—and I saw that the Enneagram teaching generally hadn’t changed after that—I went on a kind of mission to bring this subtype level out to more people interested in the Enneagram, because I wanted other people to have that same opportunity for that level of change and growth that I’d experienced in finding out that I wasn’t just a Two, but a self-preservation Two.
Tami Simon: And in the new preface to The Complete Enneagram, you say sometimes people refer to it as, “Oh, that’s the subtypes book,” because you’ve highlighted that so strongly in your work. To share a personal story for a moment that showed me the importance of this subtypes focus: when you came to Sounds True, as I mentioned, and did some work with our leadership team, we had two different individuals who had previously identified as Nines, but they manifested as very different kinds of Nines, and they couldn’t understand how they were both Nines. One ended up being a social Nine, and one a self-preservation Nine—very different types.
Beatrice Chestnut: Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s one of the ways understanding the subtypes helps when people are learning the Enneagram. If you know someone who’s your same type, but they’re really different, and it’s hard to make sense of that—the subtypes really highlight that.
They also highlight that each subtype has a distinct growth path. You can have two people of the same type, but not only do they differ in significant ways—they also need to do different things to grow in light of those differences. Even while they’re the same type, they can have different focuses and different things they need to learn about themselves.
Tami Simon: Right before our conversation, I looked up what’s the most common Enneagram type, and at least what was reflected back to me was that the Nine is considered one of the most common Enneagram types. So for the sake of example, let’s continue with the self-preservation Nine and the social Nine—when you say they have distinct growth paths, what’s the growth path for these two types?
Beatrice Chestnut: So the self-preservation Nine—and again, when we talk about subtype, we’re not really talking about an addition. I think that was the mistake earlier authors made: “Okay, well, I have a strong self-preservation instinct—that means these generic things, I focus on survival, having enough resources, whether I’m safe—and I’m a Nine, so I can just add these things together.”
Well, it’s interesting. What Naranjo pointed out is it’s actually more of an alchemy—an alchemical mixture of the dominant instinct and the type. So for a self-preservation Nine, that turns out to be someone who, even though Nines are very focused on other people and creating harmony in their environment, actually likes to be alone a little bit more.
The social Nine is probably almost never alone. Social Nines can look a little bit like heart types—Twos or Threes—because they’re actually big workaholics. Now, all Nines kind of forget themselves when they’re focusing outward. They go to sleep to their own feelings, especially their own anger, their own agenda, their own desires.
Sometimes if you ask a Nine, “What do you want for dinner?” they’ll say, “I don’t know, what do you want?”—because in a knee-jerk way, they prefer to focus on helping other people get what they want, and often don’t know what they themselves want. Self-preservation Nines are a little more focused on themselves—just a little—although they still may not know what they want, and still want to focus on other people. They like being alone more. They’re a little more grounded, a little more stubborn, a little harder to move—more like, “I’m going to do it my way,” although they may not say that outwardly.
The social Nine is very active—all Nines can be active, but almost workaholics. Of the nine types, the Three tends to be seen as the biggest workaholic, with the hardest time slowing down and not working, and the social Nine is right behind, a close second, because their way of harmonizing in the world is by contributing to groups, and they have a big sadness underneath around belonging.
So all Nines need to get more in touch with their anger, but in addition, social Nines have a growth path of needing to get in touch with the sadness of feeling like they don’t belong, and then compensating by working way too hard to support groups and other people they’re connected to—whether work or family—and really exhausting themselves, never including themselves in that. So they work really hard to earn belonging, but never feel like they belong.
Whereas self-preservation Nines need to get more involved—the social Nine might need to be more of a disruptor in a group, and focus more on themselves and getting credit for the things they do. Self-preservation Nines need to own their anger and their power, be more direct about it, less stubborn and passive-aggressive, but also get more involved with people in groups—come out of their shell a little more. Instead of wanting to go read a book, come and get more involved, and show themselves to be more in their power in groups of people.
Tami Simon: For the person listening, Beatrice, who’s like, “Okay, I’m interested—I want to know for sure what type, and subtype, which of these twenty-seven I am, and I’d like to be confident in it. I’ve taken a few different free online self-assessments, and they’ve given me different answers, or it’s not clear.” What would you say to them? They really want to know for sure.
Beatrice Chestnut: Right, right. Well, it’s important to say that it’s good to look at this typing process as something active, that people are engaged with. I think a lot of times people want to take a test and have the test give them the answer of who they are, which makes sense—tests can be helpful. But the problem with Enneagram tests is that it’s a complex system, and a lot of the free, or low-cost, tests may not be extremely accurate. So first, take a test—but always view it with skepticism until you confirm it through your own experience.
I developed a test with a couple of colleagues that’s more sophisticated. It’s a little more expensive—there are few like that, that you have to pay more for. I think it’s worth it if you really want to know your Enneagram type, although we have a lower-cost version now. It’s called the Enneagram Compass Test—it’s about half an hour of answering questions online, and then you get a report that explains your type to you.
And part of the report says—for the one version—”You need to run this through your filters. You need to see, does this type the test says I am resonate with me?” So one way is to take a good, more sophisticated test and see what the outcome is. And remember, when you take a test, you have to try very hard to be honest, and think about your life as a whole, because sometimes people answer the test questions based on who they are now, after they may have already changed and developed—or on who they want to be, or want to be seen as. That’s another reason Enneagram tests can be a little faulty.
But another thing you can do is get a good book and read the descriptions of the types—that’s probably a good thing to do in concert with taking a test. Take a test, but then get a good book, and read the description, and study it a little more deeply, to really see which one fits with who you really are at your core.
Tami Simon: All right, I think this is the time I’m going to talk about me. It was at least thirty-five years ago that Sounds True recorded an audio series with Helen Palmer. Helen came to the studio, and she was like, “Okay, what type are you?” And I said, “Oh, I think I’m a Three”—from reading a book and thinking, I’m an achiever, I always want to go, go, go and accomplish things. And she looked at me and said, “Tami, you are not a Three.” And I said, “How do you know?” And she said, “Look what you’re wearing.” I think I was wearing ripped pants and a baggy shirt or something, and she said, “You’re clearly not image-oriented.”
I thought it was really funny—especially because I did look at what I was wearing, and I thought, “Oh, maybe I should have put on a nicer pair of pants.” But anyway, she said, “You’re an Eight. You’re an Eight.” So I just sat with that for a long time. Then I took your test, which confirmed—well, of course, I did all the inputs, so you never really know—that I was a one-to-one, sexual-instinct Eight, and I thought, “Okay, great.” But now, here I am, reading The Complete Enneagram, and I’m actually resonating more with a lot of the fears and concerns that… this is actually what feels, to me, in my own introspection, like more of what’s running a lot of my concerns—looking around: “What’s wrong? What do I have to protect myself from? What’s going to happen? Am I safe?” Things like that. It makes me confused about the Enneagram, and then I think, “Okay, I’m out, I’m out—I’m not sure I understand, or have the right knowing and fluency in, this system.” And I wonder—I imagine there are other people who might have a similar experience: “I was this type, but then I read the book, and this part didn’t make sense, and I just kind of threw up my hands.”
Beatrice Chestnut: Right, right, right—yeah, it makes sense. And I think—it is a complex system, but one other aspect of this is that we’re talking about levels of awareness, and as people grow, they shift and change. This is why, when we have people take our test, we say, “Really try hard to take into account your life as a whole, not just what you’re like right now.”
So, for instance, for you, as a one-to-one Eight—one thing would be to think about whether these traits of Eight describe you if you look more at your life as a whole, versus how you are right now. Because, knowing who you are, and especially the business you’re in, and being on a growth path yourself, it kind of makes sense, in the growth trajectory of an Eight, that as they move forward, they get more in touch with fears, more in touch with vulnerability. So one question would be whether one reason the Type Six, which is more fear-based, might look a little more like you right now, is actually that you’ve done some good inner work, and you’re more in touch with fear and vulnerability. That might be one thing.
Another thing—it’s always good for Eights to check out, because sexual, or one-to-one, Six is a lookalike of Eight. It’s a Six that actually looks a little bit like an Eight. So it’s always good to check out these different possibilities—”Okay, maybe I am a sexual Six, I’m going to look more deeply at that and see if it fits better than Eight.” If not, maybe look at the self-preservation Eight—the self-preservation Eight is also a little more in touch with fear than the other Eights, because the self-preservation instinct injects an element of fear into most types, although how that looks depends on the type.
So it would be good to ask, “Well, am I an Eight, or am I a sexual Six?”—because they look alike—and let that be another source of investigation: to what degree am I motivated by fear, and what are the differences between Eights and Sixes, so I can see which I am. Has fear always been running me, or is it something I’m just more aware of now, as a result of doing more self-inquiry and self-reflection?
Tami Simon: I asked you previously, Beatrice, to go through all nine types and share with me their shadow issue—the one they have to confront. But now what I’d love to know is the evolved expression, in brief, of each of the nine types. This is where we get to, when we do this inner work and become aware of these defenses—we don’t invest in them in the same way. What does that look like for each of the types?
Beatrice Chestnut: Well, one way to think of this is that we actually turn into the opposite of who we are in personality. That’s baked into the system—especially the psychospiritual aspect—that each type has what we call a passion, a lower passion, and a virtue connected to it. So one way—and Helen Palmer used to talk about this—one way of thinking about the growth is that it’s a vice-to-virtue conversion, and some of this is echoed in spiritual tradition.
The idea is that we identify with a passion, or way of being, and the growth goes to the higher level of that. So I’d say for each type, it’s going from a more basic form of that personality to really what’s opposite. For instance, the Eight, in personality, is strong and bold, and likes to meet big challenges, works really hard, and can be very imposing. But in essence—when they really do inner work—Eights become very soft and sensitive, in touch with vulnerability, able to empathize with people and their softer emotions, and just really gentle.
For a Nine—Nines tend to forget themselves. They’re looking out at everyone else, and don’t know what they want. It’s hard for them to express anger. But in essence, they become the opposite—very powerful. It’s almost as if they disperse all their energy, and then bring it all back when they’re in their essence, and they can be very powerful people—using that angry energy they pushed away in personality to infuse them with energy and power.
For Ones—they’re the perfectionists, the reformers. They’re looking at how things could be better, and so they can repress a lot of anger, because they’re always looking at the difference between the way something is and the way it should be, according to their personality. But in essence, they’re more flexible, more relaxed—they take life as it comes. They’re more accepting and serene—”Everything’s perfectly imperfect, it doesn’t have to be my way, I flow with it, I relax with the rhythms of life.”
For Twos—they’re the ones who get stuck in pride, because controlling others, or being helpful, is a way of asserting themselves and making themselves important in the lives of others. When Twos do inner work, they actually become more connected to themselves—resting in silence, not having to do so many things for so many people. They focus more on, “What do I need, and how can I receive, and not just be someone who’s giving? And how can I be more firm, and create boundaries, and say no, and not always have to be friendly all the time?”
For Threes—they shape-shift a lot in personality. They become whatever image is correct for the situation, and they push away their feelings, their emotions, as a way of doing more—feeling gets in the way of doing. So when Threes are in essence, they become who they really are, and it turns out, often, they’re very emotional—they have a beautiful emotional energy around them, like a big heart. Their true self can come out, and all their real emotions, and they become more open to the flow of emotion as it comes, and how emotion takes us to our heart, and tells us who we are.
And for Fours—Fours tend to focus on what’s missing, what’s lacking, what’s not good in the current situation. There’s always some element of discontent. Whereas when they go to their high side, they can rest in equanimity and contentment, and they don’t need the up and down of emotions to make life special, or interesting, or to help them feel unique. It’s more that they get comfortable with simplicity, not needing to amp up the emotion, just being—seeing everyone as equal, and things are best when they’re calm and simple, and we focus on what’s practically needed in the moment.
For Fives—in personality, they tend to be very focused on the mental level of things, the intellectual level, on knowing things and learning for learning’s sake. So they tend to be too mental, and not open enough to connecting with people, with life, with their emotions. The virtue for Fives is non-attachment—they open up to allowing life to flow, not needing to withdraw into the head, being more connected and open to abundant energy all around.
For Six—fear is sort of… they’re the core fear type, so it’s going from a state of being driven by fear, watching out for what’s going to happen, being vigilant, to being more in faith and strength. We sometimes say Sixes are the strongest of all the types. They can feel insecure when they’re in personality, but as they grow, they get more confident, more courageous, more faith, more trusting in themselves, instead of projecting that need to trust onto an outside authority.
And for Sevens—sometimes called the epicure—they tend to look at the positive side of everything, not very aware of their fear, but the fear of getting stuck in a negative emotion really drives them. They may have a hard time paying attention—they get interested in a lot of different things, almost as a way of distracting themselves from whatever’s happening in the present moment. So Sevens, in essence, become more sober—more still, more able to just be with whatever life brings them, instead of needing what’s happened to fit their sense of it needing to be fun, needing to be pleasurable, needing to feel good and avoid the bad feelings. And Sevens go from being planners—around having an escape route if they need one—to being open to whatever comes.
Tami Simon: Now, one thing I want to check out with you, Beatrice, because you said something that really got my attention about the twenty-seven different paths—that there’s a special alchemy with the instinctual drives and the type. I think, often, the way other teachers approach the Enneagram, you first figure out what type you are, okay, just relax now, great—and now you can explore which possible subtype you are, and that’s kind of a little interesting, but not that important. But the way you’re presenting it is that the alchemy of the instinctual drive with the type offers these different ways of working with and through early conditioning. Is that fair to say—that this emphasis is actually really important?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah—and I think the subtype teaching was kind of out there before I learned the approach I use, in 2004, but I really found… I think that’s why some people work with subtypes, but not these subtypes. This special alchemy was something Claudio Naranjo discerned over many years of working with people.
I bring it into the book to try to—I mostly draw from his work, but sometimes try to make it a little more comprehensible, approachable. I do think it gives a kind of completeness, or thoroughness, or depth to the subtypes. And when I first started teaching this particular approach—just to put it out there and see if people found it as valuable as I did—typically, after a two-day workshop, people would say, “You really can’t study the Enneagram without this particular subtype approach.”
I think it’s because—I think of Naranjo as really the seminal author of the modern types and subtypes most of us use or know today—there was a way he discerned this kind of alchemical mixture. He’d say that the self-preservation instinct, mixed with Type Six, gives you a person with separation anxiety. So, interestingly, the self-preservation Six is one who copes with fear through being warm and friendly, and attracting protectors and allies. It’s a very particular way of coping with fear, and the social Six, and the one-to-one Six, have different ways of coping with fear.
And once that was so clear to me—these different ways of approaching it, and the depth that was possible in these subtypes—it really helped me see why this approach gets you farther. The whole thing about the Enneagram that makes it so valuable is that it provides these very accurate, precise definitions of different patterned ways of being in the world, and the subtypes add a kind of extra nuance, extra precision. It’s almost like the nine types are a blunt instrument, once you’ve gotten to know these particular subtypes, because you see how clarifying they are at this deeper level.
Tami Simon: One of the things you write about in The Complete Enneagram is that within each type, one of the subtypes is a counter type. I was like, “Say what? I’ve never read that before.” Can you say more about that?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah, yeah. This is really a new contribution of this particular approach—what I sometimes call the later Naranjo approach to the subtypes. That is, all nine types have what we might call a counter type. Before this—when I was growing up in the Enneagram, in the ’90s, and hadn’t seen this approach yet—we all knew there was something called a counter-phobic Six.
That’s because, with fear more than anything else, a lot of people are generally familiar with the idea that there’s fight or flight—different reactions to fear: fight, flight, freeze, that kind of thing. So for Sixes, there’s one kind that’s more phobic, more fear-based, more actively fearful, and another kind that was recognized for many years as counter-phobic, or more of a “fight” Six—one that copes with fear by becoming strong and sort of intimidating.
So there are these three very different ways of coping with fear. We knew about this counter-phobic Six, but what I didn’t realize until Naranjo brought forth this approach was that each type can be seen to have a counter type—meaning one subtype that goes against the flow of the passion of the type. And the passion is a very central, core motivating factor—each of the nine types has its own, and it’s very important to understand that type through understanding the passion. Passions are also the seven deadly sins, in the Christian tradition, plus fear and deceit.
The idea is that for each of the nine types, there are three subtypes, and one is kind of upside down—not what you’d expect—which is understood especially by seeing how it goes against the passion of the type. For instance, the Four’s passion is envy—Fours are people with a comparing mind, always comparing themselves to other people, and winding up either on the upside or the downside of that comparison. And the self-preservation Four is the counter type of the Four—a Four that sometimes doesn’t always relate to envy. The other two Four subtypes can often very quickly say, “Oh yeah, I do that,” whereas the self-preservation Four often says, “Well, I don’t know… I don’t really relate to that so much.” But what we find is that it’s in there—it’s just expressed in a kind of opposing way.
So the self-preservation Four doesn’t really as consciously measure themselves. It’s more like they want to see themselves as different. So instead of being better or worse, “I’m different”—or I envy someone, and then I so quickly go into action to get what that person has that I’m envying, that I almost don’t leave room for the experience of envy. So there’s always one, in each triad of subtypes, that sort of goes the other direction—which Naranjo called the counter type. I find that very useful, because it makes a lot of sense around how one subtype of each type might not seem to fit—like, you can’t find your type, because if you’re a social Eight, that’s an Eight that sometimes doesn’t look like an Eight, because the social instinct and the Eight are kind of going in two different directions. That’s really the core meaning of counter type—that the heart center is going in one direction, and the gut, or instinct, is going in a countervailing, opposite direction.
Tami Simon: There are two other questions I have from engaging with The Complete Enneagram. But before I get there, I want to address that person who says, “Wow, Tami, this is getting really complicated. This system has a lot of moving parts, I’ve got to learn a lot of different things. I don’t know, I’m out.” What would you say to that person?
Beatrice Chestnut: I would say, hang in there. I think, especially if you’re open enough to keep learning—there is a learning curve in the beginning, but if you can get interested and curious enough to keep it going, it reaches a point where it becomes pretty easy. For me, nine types has always been a little easier than the sixteen of the Myers-Briggs—that’s always been even more complex.
Another way I like to present it to people is in groups of three. That’s how I start in The Complete Enneagram. I start with learning that there are three centers of intelligence—head, heart, and body—and the nice thing about the Enneagram is it really brings forth these three centers and functions as co-equal. In the West, we tend to think of the head as more important, we privilege it, make it more of a priority—thinking, being rational.
But the Enneagram says that’s actually just one of three ways we have intelligence in the world. The other is emotional intelligence—also very important, getting in touch with what you feel emotionally. And then body intelligence, which is the least understood. So I like to say, start with three, understand those, then break it down into another three, and then another three—because if you go straight to the twenty-seven subtypes, it might be too complicated.
So try to take it in steps, and try to hang in there, and get interested in finding your type particularly—because once you find your type, and start there, and see the power of what it brings you, that often brings more motivation to stick with some of the complexity, to the point where you learn enough that it stops being so intimidating, and starts opening up, becoming more clear and obvious.
And another fun thing—start noticing what types the people in your life are. A lot of times it really comes alive for people when they say, “Oh my gosh, this is my partner’s type,” or, “This is my mother’s type,” or, “This is my best friend’s type.” Then it’s like, “Oh my God, I’ve learned so much about this person, and I have a lot more empathy for them, because I’ve seen a little more about how they tick”—in a way they’d never have learned without something shining a light on it in this particular way.
Tami Simon: I’ve often seen that people get the most interested in the Enneagram when they’re either breaking up or dating—trying to understand this other person. Okay, Beatrice, I have two other things, if that’s okay.
Beatrice Chestnut: Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
Tami Simon: Really interesting in your approach is that you mentioned, once you get to know your type, there are the wings—one number on each side—and also these connecting lines. I want to talk about both of these briefly. With the wings, it seems like you de-emphasize that, compared to other Enneagram authors and teachers I’ve spoken to, and you have this interesting—I don’t know if I’d call it an objection, but a question—when somebody says, “I’m an Eight with a Nine wing.” It’s like, “Well, what happened to the other wing? Are you flying around with just one flapping arm?” But I often hear people describe themselves as a number with a singular wing. So what’s your view on that?
Beatrice Chestnut: Right, right. So I do think wings are flavorings, or shadings, because the circle that the Enneagram is based on is like a spectrum—not such distinct points. So, yes, I’m a Two, and I have some characteristics of One and some of Three that can also help me grow—these are sort of growth pathways.
But my issue with wings is that I think they’ve been overemphasized as subtypes, when they’re not subtypes—the instinctual subtypes are the subtypes. Before this later version of the subtype teaching that I’m talking about, which added so much clarity and nuance, people didn’t really understand what the subtypes could bring, and they looked for a reason why two people of the same type could look so different, and thought, “Well, it must be the wings.” In one of the earlier, very popular books, they talked about wings as subtypes—they even called them subtypes, and then called what I’m calling the subtypes something else.
So I think the wings aren’t subtypes. If you tell me you’re an Eight with a Seven wing, I don’t really know what that means. All I know is there are some aspects of Seven you might relate to—maybe you had a parent who was a Seven, or there’s something in your life that makes sense. I understand you may relate to Seven, but it’s not a subtype, in that all Eights with a Seven wing have this list of characteristics.
So I think the subtypes are much better at describing how exactly two people of one type differ, and what that means in a deeper sense. And the wings need to be de-emphasized, because they’re shadings, flavorings, growth pathways—but not subtypes.
Tami Simon: Okay, and then the other teaching within the Enneagram that you really clarified for me, in a way I’d never heard anybody else explain—the way you write about it in The Complete Enneagram—is the meaning of the point behind and the point ahead, our connecting lines. I’d heard it described in some other ways. Tell me your understanding of this.
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah, so each type is connected by two arrow-line points—one pointing toward it, I sometimes call the arrow against, and one pointing away. Take myself as an example—I’m a Two. Four is kind of behind me—the arrow points from Four to Two. And Eight is ahead of me—the arrow points from Two to Eight.
Now, it’s one of the amazing aspects of the Enneagram as a transformational tool, that these are growth pathways, and each type is connected to two other types by these arrow lines, which are kind of representative of what we might call the flow of life, or a universal flow—the idea that everything’s changing all the time.
But when we have an Enneagram type, it’s almost like we’re stubbornly stuck in one point of view, one worldview, one idea of how things work. These arrow-line points invite us to take a first step in integrating the healthy qualities of those two types, and those two types serve as antidotes, or balancing points, or growth opportunities that can help us create radical shifts—but exactly the right ones.
And it’s important, in the way I approach the Enneagram, to use these arrow lines in a particular order. First, you go back against the arrow. So for me, as a Two, I first spend some time, after I’ve gotten to know myself as a Two, integrating some of the healthy qualities of Point Four, which end up being perfect antidotes, or balancing aspects.
For instance, Twos focus too much on the outside—on what other people are feeling—and not enough on the inside, on what they themselves are feeling. Fours are the opposite—they focus too much on what they feel inside, and not enough on what’s going on outside. So going to Four helps me get in touch with that, helps me be more accepting of my feelings, and integrate a lot of other qualities that healthy Fours have, as a kind of perfect first-movement balancing.
So once I’ve done that—and it’s also like the Enneagram is a time machine, so when we go back against the arrow, we’re also often going back to childhood, to reclaim aspects of ourselves that were somehow de-emphasized, or given up, when we adapted and survived through taking on the type we did.
So Four gives me a window—I can actually remember, in childhood, being really sad inside, and feeling kind of alone, which is something Fours often feel. If I can revisit that, and re-own my sadness—sometimes Twos, in personality, don’t want to be seen as sad, they cry when no one’s looking—so it’s about accepting my melancholy part, my sad part, going inside, nurturing myself around my sense of loss, or sadness, or whatever that might be.
After I’ve done that work for a while, then, as a Two, I go with the arrow to Point Eight, and I can do a whole set of work integrating another set of characteristics that also balance me out and serve as antidote. Twos, in personality, tend to be more indirect than direct—they have a hard time saying no, a hard time with conflict. Eights are much better at being direct, assertive, saying no, and having healthy conflict. But I’m not going to be able to integrate the healthy qualities of Eight unless I’ve already integrated Four—because, almost, everything comes in threes in the Enneagram. This is another set of threes—my main type and my two arrow-connected points—but I need to integrate them in a particular order, which helps me sustain the change I create through working with these arrow movements. And in the book, I describe in detail how to integrate each of the points, and the order in which to do it.
Tami Simon: What if someone says, “You know, there’s this one type I just can’t stand—I just can’t stand that type of person.” I’m not saying anyone I know would ever have that kind of perspective. What would you say that might tell somebody about themselves—that there’s a type they don’t like?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah. I mean, often that points to shadow aspects in ourselves that we don’t like—things we’re denying in ourselves. Sometimes it’s because I’d really like to be like that and I can’t, or it’s somehow forbidden. As a Two, I know sometimes types that are more, let’s say, arrogant—that put themselves first, that aren’t afraid of inconveniencing others to get what they want—those are the kinds of people that push my buttons. But why? Because I have a hard time doing that myself, and it’s sort of antithetical to my Type Two perspective of putting other people first.
But the idea is that we can all overdo what we do too much of, so it’s often really important to look inside and ask, instead of pointing our finger at that other person and saying there’s something wrong with them, “Why does that bother me?” Sometimes that type is one of my parents, and I didn’t get along with that parent. Sometimes it’s a former partner, and I had a problem with that partner. So there are often reasons a particular type bothers us, and really, all the types are all the same at a basic level. So it’s important to really ask why that type pushes your buttons, and what it is about that type that you need to learn—that’s pointing to something important in your own process.
Tami Simon: We’re celebrating, Beatrice, the release of the new edition of The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. The book is being re-released really due to popular demand—there’s demand for this book, and for your approach, and it seems interest in the Enneagram as a whole seems to be growing. To conclude our conversation, I’m wondering what your perspective is on that. Why?
Beatrice Chestnut: Yeah. I mean, I think we’re coming into a time—especially if you look at the divisions in the world, what’s going on culturally—where people are more open than they used to be, maybe especially since the pandemic, to looking at, “What do I need to learn to grow and change? How can I be more connected to the people around me? How can I be more fulfilled and happy?” And I think the Enneagram is a powerful tool to help people understand themselves, so I think there’s more openness now. More people talk about trauma these days, for instance, and I think there’s more demand for answers, for growth paths that really help us understand ourselves and other people.
So I think there are more people who are ready to wake up, and the Enneagram really is about awakening. It comes from the ancient tradition that talks about how humankind is asleep, and what we really need is to wake up—and the Enneagram is really about, more than anything else, helping people wake up to who they really are, and manifest all of their potential. I think more and more people are hungry for that, whether it’s because they’re experiencing loneliness, or disconnection, or polarization in the world. I think people want answers, and I think the Enneagram provides a lot in this way.
Tami Simon: Beatrice Chestnut, author of the book The Complete Enneagram, newly released, a new edition, 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge. Thank you so much.
Beatrice Chestnut: Thank you.
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