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To bring closure to anything forces limitations on the freedom they seek to establish in their own lives and create for others. Always positive, always hopeful, voraciously curious, Sevens remind us all that we are alive.
The gluttony of the Seven is their determination to overdo everything that brings them gratification—feasting on options and opportunities until they are overwhelmed by their indulgences
The traditional Fixation of the Seven is planning, constantly anticipating what they will do next, fearful that when the current pleasure they’ve given themselves to has come to an end, they
Holy Idea Holy Truth Virtue Innocence Basic Desire To protect themselves Basic Fear Being harmed, controlled, and violated Fixation Vengeance Passion Lust Direction of Integration Type Two Direction of Disintegration Type Five
Holy Idea Holy Love Virtue Action Basic Desire Peace of mind and wholeness Basic Fear Loss, separation, and fragmentation Fixation Indolence Passion Sloth Direction of Integration Type Three Direction of Disintegration Type Six
in it. Nines withdraw in order to protect their need for autonomy. Their withdrawal may be disguised by their capacity to negotiate and mediate the lives of everyone else around them. On one hand, this keeps them from engaging their own inner life; on the other hand, they are able to lower the energy of their environment by calming everyone down and chilling everything out.
Nines detached from their needs and ensured their surroundings and loved ones were taken care of.
Nines learned instinctively how to self-nurture and self-protect, which leads to their detached social posture.
Nines are calm, cool, and collected. Nines are by nature understanding and make excellent arbitrators, mediators, and referees because they have an innate ability to understand almost every perspective.
The Basic Fear of Nines is falling into the fuzzy ambiguity of their ability to empathize with multiple perspectives, ultimately losing themselves in the process and not having a place to land.
The traditional Passion of the Nine is sloth, or more accurately the lethargic, self-forgetting apathy they practice with their own drives, needs, and desires. If their external world is okay, they think they’ll be okay too, thus failing to give themselves the proper self-care
handle, Nines slip into the disintegration path of the Six—deescalating even more than imaginable to secure peace at any cost,
the Virtue of Nines is action, manifested in proper engagement with others and a discerning restraint based in unwavering love.
We use our Intelligence Center to observe our connections (how we perceive the world), while we operate out of our Harmony Triad to connect with our observations (how we relate to the world through our connections).
toward others to meet needs and care take (type Two),
And Nines seek a comfortable position or place in the world.”
Sevens seek the ideal positive world free of suffering and pain by going to something new and positive when frustration occurs.”4
So if the Harmony Triads tell us about how we relate to the world, the Dominant Affect Groups go a step further by telling us how we relate to the world specifically as a result of our defining family relationships—what drives the Harmony Triads or the why behind the Harmony Triads.
Type Nine Attaches to the energy of both the nurturing and protective caregivers and subsequently becomes capable of self-nurturing and self-protection.
Twos simply want to be loved for who they are, but they are fearful their needs will be too demanding and lead to rejection, so they repress their own needs by focusing on meeting the needs of others.
And if I’m honest, I’m still sometimes afraid of silence. In silence, I’m unable to control my environment. In silence, I’m forced to face myself, allowing all my fears, shame, guilt, regrets, disappointments, doubts, and resentments to come to the surface. In silence, my ambition and drive slow down just enough for my mind to come up with new thoughts, unwanted (though sometimes important) to-do lists, and more ideas than I know what to do with. Sometimes silence is downright exhausting. It’s an assault on my mind and emotions, not the imagined blissful experience I wish it would be. In other
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Servant to Servants,” Robert Frost
Life best lived is lived as a series of losses, a series of deaths. Death is not meant to be a one-time event at the end of life but, rather, a daily experience by which we learn to continually embrace the unknown, step into mystery, and release the need to control. . . . The contemplative way is a practice in “death.” If you have ever witnessed the moment of death, you know that death is ultimately silent, still, and alone. The practices of contemplative spirituality prepare us for this. The contemplative way thrusts us into the beautiful struggle of embracing the unknown and losing the need
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The true contemplative is any normal person who allows deep soul work to lead to a broad, outward-facing transformation.
Solitude, intentional withdrawal, teaches us to be present—present to ourselves, present to God, and present with others.
Silence actually teaches us to listen. It helps us learn how to listen to the voice of God, a voice we maybe have not been able to recognize. It helps us listen to the people in our lives who speak loving, truthful words of correction or affirmation to us. In silence we hear the truth that God is not as hard on us as we are on ourselves.
Stillness teaches us restraint, and in restraint we are able to discern what appropriate engagement looks like.
Confronting the mirror of True Self-awareness was painful. But this honesty was the only thing, I’m convinced, that was able to usher me into healing.
God is love, and therefore God can be trusted. In silence, God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
For those in the Body Center, the gut people (types Eight, Nine, and One), stillness is crucial.
But what happens when gut people simply stop? Who are they without the good they do? When an instinctive type is forced to stop, they realize how overidentified they are with their drive to do. They are not free.
Stillness as a counterpoint to control brings forward freedom, and inner freedom loosens the grasp of gut people to impose their impassioned drive for good. Stillness interrupts the addictions of gut people and prompts a reevaluation of their drive.
In solitude, a heart person’s essence emerges in painfully liberating ways. Solitude teaches us how to be present—present
Ultimately, faith is learning to rest in mystery.
Contemplative spirituality holds us accountable by awakening us to the subconscious and unconscious motivations for what we are attempting to do in the context of our beliefs. It allows us to stay in the pain of our human condition yet not be overcome by it, keeping that pain from pushing us over the edge and instead allowing it to transform us.
When we face the lie that we are what we have and in silence learn to listen, God says, “My pleasure over you is all you need.” When we stop our frenetic activity and face the lie that we are what we do, God says, “You are my beloved.” When we withdraw into our own interior solitude to face the lie that we are what others think, God says, “My child, rest in the grace of the truth that you belong to me.”
Enneagram Intelligence Centers Nouwen’s Lies Keating’s Programs Jesus’ Temptations Contemplative Prayer Posture Gut/Body Type Eight Type Nine Type One “I am what I do.” Power + Control “Tell these stones to become bread.” Stillness (Engagement) Heart/Emotions Type Two Type Three Type Four “I am what others say or think about me.” Affection + Esteem “Throw yourself down.” Solitude (Presence) Head/Mind Type Five Type Six Type Seven “I am what I have.” Security + Survival “All this I will give you.” Silence (Listening)
The pilgrimage home to God involves three phases: a construction phase of identity, followed by an earth-shattering deconstruction of who we thought we were, which finally brings us to the necessary reconstruction of something truer.
most accessible emotion of each of the centers (anxiety or distress for the head types, guilt or shame for the heart types, and anger or frustration for the body types). This is the beginning of unlocking the door to your path of spiritual growth, so don’t be dissuaded by the resistance you initially experience.
usually the way you judge yourself or “feel bad” about your practice is the very thing that begins to open your type to the graces of the practice.
Fundamentally what we are doing here is excavating our essence, our True Self, from the lies, programs, and temptations we’ve wrapped around our identity. We do this by practicing presence, by showing up with our whole self to the God who lovingly seeks to shape and restore us.
The posture is a practice in itself, but our intention reverberates with our “heart”—the organ of spiritual perception. Our intention points to what our heart needs most in order to connect with God.
Harmony Triad Dominant Affect Group Prayer Posture Prayer Intention Type One Idealist Frustration Type Stillness Rest Type Two Relationist Rejection Type Solitude Consent Type Three Pragmatist Attachment Type Solitude Engage Type Four Idealist Frustration Type Solitude Rest Type Five Relationist Rejection Type Silence Consent Type Six Pragmatist Attachment Type Silence Engage Type Seven Idealist Frustration Type Silence Rest Type Eight Relationist Rejection Type Stillness Consent Type Nine Pragmatist Attachment Type Stillness Engage
Consent is saying yes to more of everything that helps facilitate your coming home, your liberation.
alone in order to stop trying to please everyone—even God. Twos who constantly attempt to delight God fill all the surrounding space with their insecure energy and so are unable to receive Divine Love, which is already reaching toward them, even within them. Twos who withdraw to solitude consent to be present to God rather than to please God, which allows them to be filled by God with the love they long for.
Engagement means showing up, intentionally being aware of our needs by resisting the tendency toward resignation. Engagement is especially important for the Pragmatists, because as Anchor Points, they are the most disconnected from their Intelligence Center.
When Nines engage stillness, they discover their profound attention to their intention. Nines need to step into stillness as a conscious intention to show up and be present to God.
Rest meets the deepest needs of the Idealists, who are continually agitated, never satisfied, and often upset with themselves for failing to live into their impossible standards of excellence (One), originality (Four), or flexibility (Seven). Rest gives Ones, Fours, and Sevens a break from their constant frustration.
When Sevens rest in silence, they find the greatest adventures already lie within their own souls. Sevens don’t need to run off to what’s next when they learn to listen to what’s within. Caricatured as the type that is always up, always on the move, and always dreaming, Sevens are prone to the eventuality of burnout, so turning off all the noise of options and opportunity is critical. Silence minimizes the distractions of all the great ideas Sevens find themselves drowning in.
Solitude allows heart types to savor the present by quieting the flurry of their emotions, thereby bringing balance.
