Nine Story
Joan Ryan
If you are anything like me, learning about the Enneagram encourages a little voice inside which repeats “if only I could change that then everything would be fine/better/okay/easier.” Sometimes this voice tries hard to convince me that being a Nine really makes it harder than any other point to do (choose one) inner work, outer work, everything, because of the inertia. At this point my over-developed, very educated (law school is a terrible thing) logical brain is positively screaming, “that is ridiculous, you can’t admit that out loud,” but it is a feeling that will not go away. Did I say feeling? What’s that? Who does that belong to; is it mine, or did I absorb it from somebody else? Obviously, from the standpoint of logic, it is ridiculous. All points have their very real, very different challenges and that doesn’t mean that the feeling isn’t real. But the example is, for me, a good demonstration of how everything gets trapped inside and why it is so easy to give up. The underlying assumption is: I must be wrong; any feeling that I have must be wrong; or if I’m not wrong then “they” won’t agree with me. Worse, “they” will get angry and leave and that is a risk I am usually unwilling to take.
Last October, I met Jack and Andrea at a Helen Palmer workshop near Boston. I was happily handling the registration, setting up chairs, feeling familiarly useful and invisible. Later in the weekend, when it was time for the Nine panel, up I went. I no longer hesitate to volunteer for panels (a growth point for me). I have learned that when I put aside my fear and participate on a panel, my inner confusion will usually lift and I almost always gain significant new insights into myself. I noticed that I felt relaxed, I did not feel the familiar panic that I would say something stupid or go blank and say nothing. I also noticed that I seated myself towards the end of the row. My inner critic squawked a bit (“you should be able to/want to go first, haven’t you gotten over that by now”) but I know that I don’t want to and I will participate more fully if I do not go first. When my turn came, I found myself speaking about anger.
I shared a new insight with which I have been working, that when I catch myself blaming others, I can almost always find that I am really blaming myself. I talked about how my anger builds up a little at a time, over a very long period of time, until all of a sudden there is this enormous explosion which often does not make a lot of sense (to me or to anyone else). The little voice was saying (as usual) “did that make sense, was that helpful, it was probably garbled, nobody is interested anyway.”
When the session broke I found, to my surprise, that it was not garbled, that people were listening and interested. I was getting what I constantly complain about not getting—I was being listened to and heard. Jack asked if I would write about the anger. Uh, oh, now what do I do. I watched myself play a familiar game. I stalled, I got a little vague. Inside, I was flattered and pleased, but could I write about it? If I agreed, I would really have to do it—I am no longer willing to make commitments and then let them conveniently slide away. They asked what would help. I said “come back and remind me a few more times today and tomorrow, and let me write down exactly what you want.”
So here I am a few months later with a little piece of white paper that I have carried around with me all this time. It says “about going along a long time and then blowing up—how can you be mad at me, I did nothing.” Focus. I really do want to do this. No more jumping up to get the mail or let the dog out or whatever. Anger—what do I know about how anger works for me?
Actually, quite a lot. The first hurdle was realizing that I do get angry and that it is okay. Then the doorways were a few radical ideas: everyone gets angry; no one can suppress all their anger all the time; anger will not simply go away, it has to go somewhere; stored anger eventually reaches a critical mass where it turns into rage; and anger can be a conduit for positive constructive change. When I first heard these ideas, I remember a tremendous battle raging in my head. That cannot be true, what has any of that got to do with me? Yes, I have always been aware that once in a great while a huge explosion will burst out of me and that I can’t stop it even if I try. I am almost always surprised when it happens; I don’t feel it rising; there is no logic to when, where and what will touch it off. It took me a long time and many people telling me before I believed that I was screaming or that my voice was sharp or that others felt my anger. I could not hear it, and I could not feel it, so how could they?
The other thing I know is that these explosions are almost invariably triggered by small and relatively unimportant causes. I have often been aware in the midst of an explosion (when I cannot hear myself screaming) that I do not know if I am making any sense and/or that my anger is out of whack with the precipitating event. I have sometimes heard myself say things that I do not believe, things that I do not mean and I have watched myself stubbornly hold on to untenable positions for no conceivable reason.
I finally realized (after wading through tremendous resistance) that I actually store it all up and the match of a slight aggravation or insult will light a huge hidden bonfire instead of a single flame. I now believe that over-reaction bonfire is both a safety valve and a trap for me. If my expression of anger is way out of whack with the apparent cause, then I take blame on myself, make myself wrong for expression and then shift the focus away from myself and to soothing any hurt or anger felt by the other person. Sometimes my apologies are subject to extremes, either I over apologize or I refuse to apologize at all; there is no in between. I now feel that this pattern allows me to cover-up or withhold even when there is an explosion, both from myself and others, the real sources of my anger (the parts that feel really risky to expose).
I am slowly learning to remember that if I really look, I can find many layers underneath each piece. The anger is never just about the surface cause or even the obvious second layer. For example, I recently found myself screaming at my husband for a small error he made in the office checkbook. First I noticed that it did not really hurt anything, then I noticed that I often make the same type of mistake, but neither of these stopped me. I was boiling mad and I really let him have it. You should also know that my husband is a One so my making a big deal out of a little error is really a cheap shot. When I looked underneath this example, the obvious first layer is several years of my built up anger that he has not learned some of our office systems. I know that I am upset and I am blaming him for putting more pressure and responsibility on me by not sharing these responsibilities. I am also very angry at myself because I keep jumping in and doing his share as well as my own, but I know that I criticize his efforts when he does try to help (who said Nine’s don’t want control). I know that the anger is covering a lot of hurt I feel because he promised to learn the system and did not follow through. If I keep looking I will find examples of where I do the same thing myself—promise to share responsibility and be supportive and then drop the ball. This anger is also connected to other instances where he (or someone else) promised me something and did not follow through. Under that is several levels of feelings of being unappreciated and so on and so on—all from a little checkbook error.
In this or any other example, if I track the various seemingly unconnected themes that emerge in the explosion, I often find several different unexpressed paths which have all been rolled together. I don’t know what else was rolled into the screaming in the example, but it’s likely I threw in a whole lot of other stuff (“you/I didn’t do/never do x, y, z either, how can you stand there and take this and not respond, why didn’t you/I call your father, why did I have to write all the Christmas cards myself…etc, etc”). I hope you can see how these are all tied to the various paths of too much pressure, being unappreciated, feeling unsupported, etc.
What has helped most is the discovery that the expression of my anger, no matter how uncomfortable, can actually work as a major catalyst for change and for creativity. I have found that I can access a doorway to solutions and constructive insights through the expression of anger; they seem to be on the other side of the anger. What is required is for me to stay with it; if I stop the expression or give in to the voice that is yelling “you’re nuts, this is destructive” then invariably I will just feel frustrated, stubborn and uncomfortable. If I keep going, it often gets me to center and then the insights will flow. It seems as if I have to let the anger out to free up what is blocked underneath it. The more often this happens, the greater the motivation there is for me to risk expressing anger.
I have also noticed that my reasons and fears for not expressing anger seem largely unfounded. So little by little, I am beginning to risk expressing some anger in the moment. This way it stays a little flame and does not grow into an enormous destructive bonfire. My challenge is to find ways to access the creativity and solutions through channels besides explosions.
__________ Enneagram Monthly Issue 13, March 1996
Joan Ryan, an attorney , was a student and instructor in Helen Palmer’s Enneagram Professional Training Program.
Last October, I met Jack and Andrea at a Helen Palmer workshop near Boston. I was happily handling the registration, setting up chairs, feeling familiarly useful and invisible. Later in the weekend, when it was time for the Nine panel, up I went. I no longer hesitate to volunteer for panels (a growth point for me). I have learned that when I put aside my fear and participate on a panel, my inner confusion will usually lift and I almost always gain significant new insights into myself. I noticed that I felt relaxed, I did not feel the familiar panic that I would say something stupid or go blank and say nothing. I also noticed that I seated myself towards the end of the row. My inner critic squawked a bit (“you should be able to/want to go first, haven’t you gotten over that by now”) but I know that I don’t want to and I will participate more fully if I do not go first. When my turn came, I found myself speaking about anger.
I shared a new insight with which I have been working, that when I catch myself blaming others, I can almost always find that I am really blaming myself. I talked about how my anger builds up a little at a time, over a very long period of time, until all of a sudden there is this enormous explosion which often does not make a lot of sense (to me or to anyone else). The little voice was saying (as usual) “did that make sense, was that helpful, it was probably garbled, nobody is interested anyway.”
When the session broke I found, to my surprise, that it was not garbled, that people were listening and interested. I was getting what I constantly complain about not getting—I was being listened to and heard. Jack asked if I would write about the anger. Uh, oh, now what do I do. I watched myself play a familiar game. I stalled, I got a little vague. Inside, I was flattered and pleased, but could I write about it? If I agreed, I would really have to do it—I am no longer willing to make commitments and then let them conveniently slide away. They asked what would help. I said “come back and remind me a few more times today and tomorrow, and let me write down exactly what you want.”
So here I am a few months later with a little piece of white paper that I have carried around with me all this time. It says “about going along a long time and then blowing up—how can you be mad at me, I did nothing.” Focus. I really do want to do this. No more jumping up to get the mail or let the dog out or whatever. Anger—what do I know about how anger works for me?
Actually, quite a lot. The first hurdle was realizing that I do get angry and that it is okay. Then the doorways were a few radical ideas: everyone gets angry; no one can suppress all their anger all the time; anger will not simply go away, it has to go somewhere; stored anger eventually reaches a critical mass where it turns into rage; and anger can be a conduit for positive constructive change. When I first heard these ideas, I remember a tremendous battle raging in my head. That cannot be true, what has any of that got to do with me? Yes, I have always been aware that once in a great while a huge explosion will burst out of me and that I can’t stop it even if I try. I am almost always surprised when it happens; I don’t feel it rising; there is no logic to when, where and what will touch it off. It took me a long time and many people telling me before I believed that I was screaming or that my voice was sharp or that others felt my anger. I could not hear it, and I could not feel it, so how could they?
The other thing I know is that these explosions are almost invariably triggered by small and relatively unimportant causes. I have often been aware in the midst of an explosion (when I cannot hear myself screaming) that I do not know if I am making any sense and/or that my anger is out of whack with the precipitating event. I have sometimes heard myself say things that I do not believe, things that I do not mean and I have watched myself stubbornly hold on to untenable positions for no conceivable reason.
I finally realized (after wading through tremendous resistance) that I actually store it all up and the match of a slight aggravation or insult will light a huge hidden bonfire instead of a single flame. I now believe that over-reaction bonfire is both a safety valve and a trap for me. If my expression of anger is way out of whack with the apparent cause, then I take blame on myself, make myself wrong for expression and then shift the focus away from myself and to soothing any hurt or anger felt by the other person. Sometimes my apologies are subject to extremes, either I over apologize or I refuse to apologize at all; there is no in between. I now feel that this pattern allows me to cover-up or withhold even when there is an explosion, both from myself and others, the real sources of my anger (the parts that feel really risky to expose).
I am slowly learning to remember that if I really look, I can find many layers underneath each piece. The anger is never just about the surface cause or even the obvious second layer. For example, I recently found myself screaming at my husband for a small error he made in the office checkbook. First I noticed that it did not really hurt anything, then I noticed that I often make the same type of mistake, but neither of these stopped me. I was boiling mad and I really let him have it. You should also know that my husband is a One so my making a big deal out of a little error is really a cheap shot. When I looked underneath this example, the obvious first layer is several years of my built up anger that he has not learned some of our office systems. I know that I am upset and I am blaming him for putting more pressure and responsibility on me by not sharing these responsibilities. I am also very angry at myself because I keep jumping in and doing his share as well as my own, but I know that I criticize his efforts when he does try to help (who said Nine’s don’t want control). I know that the anger is covering a lot of hurt I feel because he promised to learn the system and did not follow through. If I keep looking I will find examples of where I do the same thing myself—promise to share responsibility and be supportive and then drop the ball. This anger is also connected to other instances where he (or someone else) promised me something and did not follow through. Under that is several levels of feelings of being unappreciated and so on and so on—all from a little checkbook error.
In this or any other example, if I track the various seemingly unconnected themes that emerge in the explosion, I often find several different unexpressed paths which have all been rolled together. I don’t know what else was rolled into the screaming in the example, but it’s likely I threw in a whole lot of other stuff (“you/I didn’t do/never do x, y, z either, how can you stand there and take this and not respond, why didn’t you/I call your father, why did I have to write all the Christmas cards myself…etc, etc”). I hope you can see how these are all tied to the various paths of too much pressure, being unappreciated, feeling unsupported, etc.
What has helped most is the discovery that the expression of my anger, no matter how uncomfortable, can actually work as a major catalyst for change and for creativity. I have found that I can access a doorway to solutions and constructive insights through the expression of anger; they seem to be on the other side of the anger. What is required is for me to stay with it; if I stop the expression or give in to the voice that is yelling “you’re nuts, this is destructive” then invariably I will just feel frustrated, stubborn and uncomfortable. If I keep going, it often gets me to center and then the insights will flow. It seems as if I have to let the anger out to free up what is blocked underneath it. The more often this happens, the greater the motivation there is for me to risk expressing anger.
I have also noticed that my reasons and fears for not expressing anger seem largely unfounded. So little by little, I am beginning to risk expressing some anger in the moment. This way it stays a little flame and does not grow into an enormous destructive bonfire. My challenge is to find ways to access the creativity and solutions through channels besides explosions.
__________ Enneagram Monthly Issue 13, March 1996
Joan Ryan, an attorney , was a student and instructor in Helen Palmer’s Enneagram Professional Training Program.
