Exploring Type Nine, the Mediator
Connie Duckett
Every one of us, if we wish to transform ourselves, must face our dark side. By this, I mean that we must face our useless automatic patterns. When we uncritically observe these patterns, acknowledge them, and hold them in our awareness, we have begun to transform ourselves.
I would like to share with you some of my experiences using the Enneagram of personality types as a tool in my efforts towards personal transformation. The Enneagram type that describes my personality is number Nine, the Mediator. When I first read Helen Palmer’s description of this type in her book, The Enneagram, I experienced the same sadness of feeling overlooked as I had as a child. Soon thereafter, my teacher suggested I observe anger in myself. These two simple words, “observe anger,” unleashed a torrent of rage. Nines characteristically have their anger so tamped down inside that it is described as “anger that went to sleep.” The anger is so buried that to a large extent Nines do not admit it to themselves, and instead tend to believe the image they project of being easy-going, nice, calm, etc. Even when I secretly admitted to anger, it was sort of with a smirk, thinking I had the rest of the world fooled. So, this unleashed torrent was quite a shock to me.
Of course, within a few hours, and certainly within a few days, my personality had managed to cram most of the rage back down into the vault. But the secret was out and it kept escaping until I had to acknowledge over the course of the next year that I was indeed angry.
As children, Nines learn that the agendas of others are more important than their own. When their wants conflict with the wants of others, Nine children feel that their wants are unimportant or even wrong. They therefore avoid this conflict by merging with the agendas of others. This habit of not having a personal agenda perpetuates itself into adulthood, where it reinforces the experience of being overlooked. For me, this means I must acknowledge that now my anger is the result of my own pattern of being unwilling to take a position or face a conflict.
As I observe myself in situations that involve conflict, often some placating response or a refusal to respond at all leaps out in front of me and I am left to see once again that I am victimized by my own conflict avoidance. When I am more awake or more centered, or when I take the opportunity to become quiet inside, I see that “it” is about to do it again. Then I can reach my own position and speak it.
Now another very interesting piece is beginning to unfold: I am becoming increasingly aware that I would not win awards for “Ms. Congeniality,” even though I have carried around the image of being nice, agreeable, adaptable, easy to work with, etc. Although the type tends to be overly adaptable, Nines adapt out of fear, and therefore begrudgingly. Anyone who is close to a Nine has experienced his or her stubbornness, passive aggression and quiet ways of letting you know that they wish you did not exist. In my relationships with others, my automatic patterns are responsible for my share of the difficulties. Others are not any more unduly difficult than I am. This has been a revelation to me, because, while I had the intellectual knowledge of the Nine type, I had not experienced myself behaving in a stubborn, resistant, withdrawing manner, while simultaneously realizing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this treatment. Though this is not pleasant to observe, it is a hopeful sign because uncritical observation is the first step in intervening in and changing these automatic patterns.
Each of us develops patterns to protect ourselves as children. As adults, we can understand that we are not these patterns. Now they have outlived their usefulness and are actually harmful to our well-being. By observing them and experiencing their results, we can come to a point of choice: do we wish to continue in this way or do we wish to transcend these patterns and open ourselves to another way of being?
__________ Enneagram Monthly Issue 45, December 1998
I would like to share with you some of my experiences using the Enneagram of personality types as a tool in my efforts towards personal transformation. The Enneagram type that describes my personality is number Nine, the Mediator. When I first read Helen Palmer’s description of this type in her book, The Enneagram, I experienced the same sadness of feeling overlooked as I had as a child. Soon thereafter, my teacher suggested I observe anger in myself. These two simple words, “observe anger,” unleashed a torrent of rage. Nines characteristically have their anger so tamped down inside that it is described as “anger that went to sleep.” The anger is so buried that to a large extent Nines do not admit it to themselves, and instead tend to believe the image they project of being easy-going, nice, calm, etc. Even when I secretly admitted to anger, it was sort of with a smirk, thinking I had the rest of the world fooled. So, this unleashed torrent was quite a shock to me.
Of course, within a few hours, and certainly within a few days, my personality had managed to cram most of the rage back down into the vault. But the secret was out and it kept escaping until I had to acknowledge over the course of the next year that I was indeed angry.
As children, Nines learn that the agendas of others are more important than their own. When their wants conflict with the wants of others, Nine children feel that their wants are unimportant or even wrong. They therefore avoid this conflict by merging with the agendas of others. This habit of not having a personal agenda perpetuates itself into adulthood, where it reinforces the experience of being overlooked. For me, this means I must acknowledge that now my anger is the result of my own pattern of being unwilling to take a position or face a conflict.
As I observe myself in situations that involve conflict, often some placating response or a refusal to respond at all leaps out in front of me and I am left to see once again that I am victimized by my own conflict avoidance. When I am more awake or more centered, or when I take the opportunity to become quiet inside, I see that “it” is about to do it again. Then I can reach my own position and speak it.
Now another very interesting piece is beginning to unfold: I am becoming increasingly aware that I would not win awards for “Ms. Congeniality,” even though I have carried around the image of being nice, agreeable, adaptable, easy to work with, etc. Although the type tends to be overly adaptable, Nines adapt out of fear, and therefore begrudgingly. Anyone who is close to a Nine has experienced his or her stubbornness, passive aggression and quiet ways of letting you know that they wish you did not exist. In my relationships with others, my automatic patterns are responsible for my share of the difficulties. Others are not any more unduly difficult than I am. This has been a revelation to me, because, while I had the intellectual knowledge of the Nine type, I had not experienced myself behaving in a stubborn, resistant, withdrawing manner, while simultaneously realizing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this treatment. Though this is not pleasant to observe, it is a hopeful sign because uncritical observation is the first step in intervening in and changing these automatic patterns.
Each of us develops patterns to protect ourselves as children. As adults, we can understand that we are not these patterns. Now they have outlived their usefulness and are actually harmful to our well-being. By observing them and experiencing their results, we can come to a point of choice: do we wish to continue in this way or do we wish to transcend these patterns and open ourselves to another way of being?
__________ Enneagram Monthly Issue 45, December 1998
