Enneagram Types 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 - Richard Rohr

From the heart space to the headspace. Even though I hope you're seeing as I go on, I hope you have time to go into it. These are melding into one another. There is an overlapping. And in fact, if you look at the classic diagram of the Enneagram, the biggest space in the diagram is right now between the four and the five. If you have one in front of you there, you see it right there. It's the biggest space.

Now, that was intentional in the, in the geometric diagram. The reason being, if you can bridge that gap between head and heart, that person is especially creative, holistic. And again, I'd speak to Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton's books will speak to your heart and your head simultaneously. But it's one of the hardest bridges to gap to be fully in your heart and fully in your head and have them not cancel one another out. Good intellectual work and good emotional work, and have the emotions feed the head and the head feed the emotions.

But let's pretend we've jumped over that gap. We're now under the five space. The five is the pure obvious compulsion. Remember that the preceding number to the, the stress point. So, in a certain sense, the five looks the most heady of all of the three head types. Externally, they tend to be absent-minded professors, right? They live their whole life, uh, behind poker eyes with compulsive observation of the data. They're always taking in the data. They can't get enough data, and the data is never all in, right? There's always more that can be known. Another book that can be read.

Even in terms of our psychosomatic unity, I don't know hardly any fives beyond the age of 20 who don't have glasses because their energy is all in the eyes. They're watchers by definition. They watch, watch, watch, and their eyes are like vacuum cleaners, all right? They just take in, suck it in. Any kind of ideology, explanation, theory, description, they love the encyclopedia, you know. Now, I don't mean that they're all intellectuals. Some will just do it on a lifestyle level. They tend to love to sit in the back of the room. You fives are all back there, probably you're in the corners, you know. They never want to sit in the front. There's too much energy up here. They're always trying to control the energy and control themselves. They're very controlled people. And where, where there's the least energy is in the corner or the back of the room where they won't likely to be called upon. They won't be observed, but they can observe. That's what they like. They don't want you to know anything about their private life. They're very stingy. The Sufis call them the stingy ones. They're emotionally stingy. They're stingy with any stories about themselves, even though they always want to find out everything about you. They just, they, they just want to gather information. They want to know. It's the compulsion to know.

On the level of soul, it's as if there's too much heat in the kitchen. I'm leaving. And the way I'm leaving, I'm going into my head. And that's where they live from. In religious life, I remember where we live in big communities. I did my first 15, 16 years, and the fives would always try to get the room on the third floor in the corner, you know, farthest away from anybody else. Huh. They like to live alone. They're natural hermits, uh, they're natural celibates, probably for the wrong reason, uh, because, because frankly, sexual encounter is too emotional. Sexual engagement is too engaging. They, they don't have a strong need compared to the rest of us for sexual encounter. It's, I'd rather maintain myself and maintain my boundaries. And they're always maintaining their boundaries. And they overdo it.

Um, the animal is the owl. Therefore, the barn owl. At that picture, an owl. You've been in the barn already for an hour, then you hear a little tiny sound, and you look up, and there he is with those great big eyes, just watching you. They love to watch. And from that, then they love to come up with universal theories. They're, they're philosophers. Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Hegel, Heidegger, all of them. How else would you come up with a great big universal explanation, Aristotle, unless you're a five? You sit back and you observe for 20 years, and then you come up with your theory, you see. And this settles all the dust. So now I don't have to emotionally engage with people. I don't have to emotionally engage with life or with naked bodies or anything like that. I'll just think my way through life. I'll just plan my way through life. I'll just organize my way in a mental sense through life.

They sever the connections as much as they can with everything and everybody. And that's why they can become real loners and even dangerous people if they don't have some healthy community and some healthy relationship in their life. Because there's no, there's no reference point for them. There's no outer criteria that can critique them. They, uh, they can be quiet. But here's the, the flip side of them. Sometimes when they start telling you their theories, you can't shut them up. So they flip from total silence to, "Okay, we got it. You can be quiet now, you know." And they go on and on and on. Because they've been living inside of this head. They've constructed this huge universal field theory, you know. And now you've got to be subjected to the whole thing. And because they have cut themselves off from human relationship, most of you, especially you twos, threes, and fours, you know how to read people's eyes when they're bored with you and they're saying, "Okay, we got it. Stop." The five doesn't read your eyes. They just keep talking. "No, we got it. We've heard it. We don't need to hear any more." You finally got to get the hook and pull them off the stage.

These are classic college professors, of course, who are given this permission to stand in behind a pulpit like I'm doing and just talk to you ad nauseam, you know. And then our professors, they'd go back to their cloister. We wouldn't see them till the next Latin class, and they'd stand there and bore us for an hour and a half. Fives, forgive me, can be very boring because they're, they've had no reality check for the meaningfulness of their ideas or the helpfulness of their ideas, right? It's all inside of their own little control tower, bouncing back and forth. And that's why we call them the absent-minded professor or the old curmudgeon who's cut off. He doesn't know he's right. He's brilliant in some ways, but he's stupid in other ways. Unless he connects with this four wing and gets his heart and his sensitivity in shape, then you can have the brilliant professor who doesn't just have the information, but I can tell when it's getting through to you. I can tell when it's meaningful. I can tell if it's making connections for your life and, and so forth. But I would say the five is the typical boring professor, right, who has nothing to say, uh, but sometimes does have something to say. And you, you, but you have to wait around for the second semester before you'll hear it, you know, because the whole first semester is just building up to the second semester, right? And he keeps talking around and around it with theory and theology, and finally he himself understands his own point, uh, but that takes him a while.

Yes, I'm just going to say he's not talking for the audience's benefit. He's just talking like he's having a conversation. I'm afraid you're right. Yes, it's an internal monologue, and you're subjected to it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Uh, now, he does find great energy in his inner ideas, do you understand? Or she. And, uh, so he, he, I don't want to say the person is narcissistic or selfish, but they just haven't learned this world of vis-a-vis. They don't know how to act back and forth and to throw the ball back and forth. So it often feels like a monologue and not a dialogue. That's right. So they're stingy, not for money as such. They're stingy for information. They keep it. They love books. I had a woman who was a five tell me that to be in a library was like a sexual orgasm. Sounds disappointing to most of us, but she said, "To have books all around me, it's just a rush, just a rush of excitement, you know." And you've got to know that's partially true for five. They love their books, they love their ideas. They don't tend to spend a lot of money on themselves. They, they really don't, except on books, but not nothing else. They can live very simply. Their most common phrase back to you, after you've talked, if you were able to get a word in, is "Interesting." Well, that's interesting. Now, you know, interesting is a non-committal statement, all right? You know, it doesn't help you in the least, right? You will. And also, what was it? Good interesting or bad interesting? Well, I'll have to think about it a little more, he'll say, you know. And this is one of the great difficulties of the five is making commitments. That they're so withheld that a commitment is a certain degree of emotional engagement with the other. But they don't often even want to emotionally engage with your ideas or with your relationship.

But on the positive side, if you want a good objective counselor, get a five. If you want power behind the throne, who, it's a volatile emotional mix inside the job, right? You want someone who can calmly say, "Well, there's this way of looking at it, there's that way of looking at it, and I wouldn't take that too seriously, and don't worry about that too much." Dang it, they're usually right. See? So some have said detachment is their sin, and detachment is their gift. You can, it's the only number you can use the same word for both. Their sin and their gift: detachment. Detachment. And detachment is a virtue when you need objectivity, when you need calm evaluation. So that's probably why they make more objective philosophers or accountants or engineers. Thank God for our librarians. Thank God for fives who will be comfortable sitting in the back office. They love computers, of course. They're just addicted to computers now. They can live their whole life instead of a wife, I have a computer. Huh. So instead of a husband, I have a computer, and I can just relate to this non-stop.

But, um, I, I have to say, over the years, many of my, my best advisors have been fives, especially in difficult, demanding situations when everybody is taking sides and everybody is throwing around blame and making it totally good or totally bad. The five can very often see it objectively, precisely, I think, because of their withheldness. The five, I'm told, feels empty, and the, the information is an endless attempt to fill up that inner emptiness. They, they feel like there's a great big hole. I've had to even describe it for me, and it'll never be filled. That's their primordial soul experience: "I'm empty. I'm empty. There's nothing there." Now, they don't have a lot of need for personal feedback, although they do. We all need other people to love us and to like us. But, but they are the quintessential headspace, and so they've whittled that down to the minimum. They can do without people the most.

You know, speaking of marriages, I've probably met more two-five marriages than I would have ever expected. And it's a classic example of marrying your exact opposite because the two is the compulsive giver, giving for the wrong reasons, but still giving. And the five is the compulsive taker who's always. And, and so you can see when they're both 19, they don't have much self-knowledge yet. There's a natural attraction. Let's make him the five. He appears so masculine and grounded and calm and collected. And she's so bubbly and emotional and lovey-dovey and, and kissy-feely, you know. Well, she's just totally attracted to this male opposite that she is not. And that's the usual pattern. I find the woman being the two and the man being a five. And it works for about three years. And of course, all marriages then face the shadow at a certain point. And the five starts wondering, "When are you, you know, going to let me just stay at home? I don't want to go to all these parties, you know. All right, I want to be a volunteer at the church. I just want to watch television." And of course, she starts resenting him because he is staying home all the time, and she wants a lot of social relationships. I don't know why God let us make these kind of mistakes, but we, we are attracted to our opposite. We'll see that in other cases too.

Now, the country I gave, I don't know that it's the best, but I, I use Scotland. Maybe it's stereotypical, but our image of the stingy Scotsman and the, uh, aloof, really Anglo-Saxon gentleman. It's, it's really, uh, probably a bit of both of those. Uh, maybe I, I would just say, uh, you know, the UK, the English, and, and the Scots. That stiff upper lip stuff that we make fun of in the English, this withheldness, this intellectual snobbery, this superiority complex, that's all five stuff. And it pretty much is our stereotype of the English. It isn't always true, as we well found out last year. But it, but it is the public image of reserve, you know, always staying back from, uh, there's not the moving toward.

Now, we're going to see that in all three of these types, and I should have made that point earlier. The five, six, and seven, their first response to reality is back away from it. It's not to engage with it. It's not to hug it. It's not to embrace it. It's to pull back, find my own ground, find my own understanding, and perhaps re-enter. But far too often, I'm afraid they stay in the withdrawn position. That's particularly true of the five. They're classic avoiders.

Buddhism would very much come out of the five space. It makes an art form out of detachment. Makes an art form out of observation, you see. And beautiful. It's right on. Uh, whereas Christian religion, you, you take the image of the crucified Jesus. It comes much more out of two space. A naked, bleeding man on a cross. That's the compassionate lover, do you see? And the Sufis did call Jesus the two. We, of course, as Christians, would say, well, he's all numbers. But they, what they saw was the great perfect lover who loved sacrificially for the right reasons. So take some consolation if you're twos. Maybe Jesus was a two.

When they find the freedom to give it out before they've taken it in, instead of collecting energy to, well, take a risk and give energy before I take it from you, then you know they're growing up. When they can get involved in various forms of volunteerism. I knew a wonderful woman in, in Cincinnati who was a five. And when, you know, she became a massage therapist. Now, that you want to talk about acting against you, you know, to touch other bodies and to serve other bodies for an hour and a half, you know. She totally moved against her compulsion and is a very healthy spiritual director today because she learned how to balance herself out. But that was a heavy price for her to pay. That would not be her natural mode to be massaging other people's bodies. It took a major giving, a major risk-taking, a major moving against the, uh, the withholding and the collecting instinct.

There are unhealthy fives that you're around, and you actually feel like you're being sucked on. I don't mean sexually. I mean, uh, I mean like they're taking your energy, you know, like they're, I'm worn out, and I just been in the room for 15 minutes with this person because they're, they're, they're always wanting, whatever maybe I feel like because I'm supposed to be a knowledgeable person, supposed to be. And so they'll always want more of my knowledge, more of my facts, and they'll just come with one question, two questions, three questions, four questions. Both the five and the six are questioners. I've always got to get you by their questions. That's just one shape. But I think if you, if you try the, the English and the Scots, you've got a partial feel for it.

The, um, the burrowing fox is another animal that spans much, if not most, of his day inside of the burrow and just comes and looks out and sees if there's any risk demanded or any threat. If there's no emotional risk, no emotional threat, maybe I'll come out. Some say that the five lives their entire life behind a one-way mirror, in which they can look out, but they won't let you look back at them. They, if you say the word "share," they'll, they'll try to head for the quickest door, you know. They hate to share, especially if it has to do with feelings. When we started the kiss of peace in the Catholic Church, they say all the fives left. "Num, you mean I really got to touch somebody else?" You know, touching is not their thing. They're not real tactile people. But again, they're, they're the objective people that somehow ground the flights of fancy and the flights of emotion that a lot of the rest of us get lost in.

Without the six, I told you earlier, the six is by far the biggest type. Many would say it's actually 50% of the human race. Now, what creates that? Is it the insecure childhood? Is it the insecure world that makes people so fear-based that so many people are so filled with fear? And it's probably a piece. It's also, uh, the type that we divide into two major types, and I want to give you that right at the beginning because they will feel very different. There is the phobic six. Now, that animal is the mouse or the deer. It runs as soon as there's danger. And then there's the counter-phobic six, which would be Adolf Hitler. Who pretend they're not afraid. You can normally see it in their eyes. You can see it in Hitler's eyes. They're scared to death of reality. And so what they decide to do is move totally into it and take absolute control of it. But it's all out of fear. The counter-phobic six is often mistaken for an eight, but they're in fact very dangerous people because they, they try to disguise their fear with bravado and false self-assurance. "I know I can do it. I'm not gonna let anybody hurt me, right? I'm not to let anybody get at me." They're without healing. All of us are dangerous people, but that's very true of the counter-phobic six. I would say it's a smaller portion of the sixes, but they're the psychopathic, sociopathic personality in their worst form. That you know, these, the people who go in post offices and shoot everybody in sight. Very fear-based people who don't for a minute admit that they're afraid and deny their fear to themselves. Audire contra, we said in Latin, act against their fear to disguise their fear from themselves and do very, very destructive things. They're very attractive to the military, to guns, to militarism. These two boys at Columbine, I bet you anything they were sixes, counter-phobic sixes. They're just fascinated by any talk of, you know, Nazism or our skinhead worldviews where they focus the danger in one particular race, in one particular gender. I mean, a lot of these men who kill women, "Women are the source of all evil. I've just got to rape and kill as many women as I can, and this will get rid of the evil in the world." That's what the counter-phobic six does. He or she is a classic scapegoater. To control their constant anxiety, and know that the six does have constant anxiety, they will find something to hold that anxiety. They are the bad people, that race, that religion, they are evil. I am good. And now I am doing a good thing for the world by eliminating them or killing them. And inside of their mind, remember, they're all in their heads, the heart of the headspace, there's no corrective possible. No way you can get in. It's all a self-validating system inside of their own brain. Notice how many of these mass killers are loners who live in little cabins somewhere and just justify their entire worldview. So it's the five come to a very sick, paranoid level. If you want the description of the sick, psychologically, it is the paranoid type who sees danger everywhere.

Now, the much more common form, thank God, is simply the phobic six. And I'm sure there's a lot of you in this room. They're everywhere. They're lovely people, all right? They're naturally humble, they're naturally teachable, they're naturally loyal. God, if you're married to a six, my sister is, uh, she always says, "Oh, I'm so glad I'm married to a six." And he says, "You should be. I'll be faithful forever." I mean, sixes are faithful, loyal friends and partners. Once they decide to trust you, you got a friend for life. And that's what's so beautiful about them. I mean, everybody else can turn against you. If they've decided you're their friend, you'll be their friend. And they will stick with you. And even when other people might say bad things about you, because, because that loyalty comes from a deep, deep place. But to be honest, it also comes from a place of fear. And this is what's so hard for them to recognize. That the world is a scary place, and the only way I can overcome that fear is by aligning myself with another person, or a strong person, or a strong institution, or a strong country, or a strong military, especially religion and military. They are attracted to it. It's no surprise that we had all these churches written on the front of the church, "Pro Deo et Patria," for God and the Fatherland, because the two go together in the sixes' mind. That, those are the ultimate security systems. "My country will always protect me, and my God will always protect me." Not the other people, just my religion, you know. And that's the delusion that his fears or her fears lead her to. They often can avoid their own delinquency, their own darkness, by seeing it over there and attacking it over there and killing it over there. They, uh, love to think of themselves as orthodox and true and conservative in the best sense of the term. And it can be the best sense of the term, but it can also be the worst sense of the term, where my conservativism is nothing except self-security, protecting myself.

The country is Germany. And when I, my book first came out in German before it came out in English, not that I wrote it, Andreas did in its final form, but I remember the first trip I went over there after the book had come out. I said, "Oh my God, I don't think these Germans are going to like being called sixes." In all my subsequent trips, I've never had a single German disagree with me. They said, "That is our country. And you do not understand the German type unless you understand the predominant, all-pervasive nature of fear and and aligning yourself with salute systems." That's why you create the German philosophers with with final explanations for everything. The final explanation. The very phrase that Hitler used is the search in the security-seeking mind. It can't deal with ambiguity. Isn't it interesting that we even use the word "Angst," the German word for fear, to describe this inner, all-pervasive insecurity? And I must say, in the German, it has taken on the, the probably stereotype that many of us have had of the German people. I'm, I'm German by background, so I'm, I guess I'm free to say this. The "Oktun," you know, "this is the way it is. No more discussion." All right. You've got to know that's a front. That's a cover. Don't believe it. Don't believe it at all. And I think that's right. This book, my first one, ended up. It's now in every fourth house in all of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And they just couldn't understand why it sold so big. Well, I think that's the reason. The German people have been trying to find a way out of, "Why did they keep doing this? Why the First World War? Why the Second World War? Why the skinheads? You know, why this always dividing the world up into the good guys and the bad guys?" Well, the six gave them a way to understand that, and I would like to believe gave them a way out of it. That, that we are fear-based people, and, and that fear leads us to this idolization of militarism, and until very recently, the idolization of religion. But always looking for absolute religion. It's no surprise the Reformation began in Germany too. "We've got the answer." And Luther did, in part, but then it becomes another absolutism, and pretty soon we've got the same problem all over again. That's simply the nature of religious reform. So it creates dictators. It creates, uh, tyrants who expect absolute loyalty, who will demand, uh, absolute loyalty. Sixes don't like, in their unhealthy state, so look at you eyeball to eyeball because they know you'll see their fear. And you will. I can see it in George Bush's eyes very easily. I'm sure he's a six, as his father was. It's very interesting, both of them are sixes. But if you look at George, gosh, he's trying so hard. He wants to speak with authority, but the natural authority is not there. And I'm not trying to be political, I'm trying to be Enneagrammatical. The natural authority is not there. You can hardly believe it that he, that he really believes it. What you're picking up is the six energy, the tremendous self-doubt inside of him, and the overcoming of it by bravado. Although I basically think he's a phobic six, I don't think he's really counterphobic, although he shows some of that in his readiness to kill, and the capital punishment in Texas, and the wars that gives him the sense of being in control and being absolute. They say, maybe somewhat unkindly, sixes are either at your feet or they're at your throat. And I, I know, um, over the years, because the Catholic Church tends to gather an awful lot of sixes, whenever you have a big security system, you will gather a high degree of sixes. So because I don't always say things in the way that Catholics are used to, over the years I've had a lot of sixes attack me in the vestibule after mass or after a conference, or the hate letters. And you can feel that they're, they're at my throat. I mean, they just want to kill me because talking this way utterly undercuts their security system. And I don't mean to be attacking sixes, especially, although my spiritual director who taught me the Enneagram way back in the '70s, he said, "Richard, you wanted me to tell you why you became a priest." I said, "Why?" He says, "One's become priests to change the sixes who've controlled who've controlled the priesthood for too long." Because the, the six is all into conformity, the laws, legalism, ritualism. "You don't break the laws." We ones, we only believe the law in so far as it works, you know. When it doesn't work, quite, we're sort of like threes in that regard too. Then we, we don't have much use for it, which can make us rather righteous.

What else can I say about the six? Um, some people say to give a childhood explanation that they didn't have reliable authority as a child. Don't make too much of that. But I, I think we're probably producing more sixes than ever. When I see the rise in fundamentalism, when you grow up in an insecure world where everything is in flux and everything is changing, there is the psychic need for something solid, something authoritative, something certain, something clear. So is it any surprise that the religions that are growing are the religions with absolutes? The only religious communities growing are not the Dominicans and the Franciscans. The orders that are growing are these very conservative groups that have an absolute immediate answer for everything. And that appeals to the young man under 25. It also appeals to the, the six. They said to me in Germany last time, they said, "If the Catholic Church keeps going the way it's going, the only people left in it 50 years from now will be sixes." Right? And there's people with a high need for authority, certitude, structure, and answers for everything. Not people for a journey, especially a journey of faith, which demands not knowing, not being certain. You have to be able to maintain and hold a certain degree of anxiety and ambiguity to be a person of faith, as far as I'm concerned. And we're not teaching that anymore at all, at all. And the young men coming to be priests are all boys. I understand when they grow up and they need it. I had it in 1940 and 1950 Kansas. They didn't have it in the 1970s and 1980s. So I can't hate them for it, but they have this tremendous need for absolutes. And there's an extraordinary amount of young sixes who are becoming priests. What that means for the church and the rest of our lifetime, I don't know. But I don't think I'm going to fit in, you know, because I just don't have the need for all that. And I don't mean to be arrogant. The only reason I don't have the need for all of it is because I had it once. Do you follow me? I had certitude, authority, a very reliable authority structure from my mom and my dad. It gave me psychic groundedness. So when the sixties came, fine, no problem. I know who I am. Most people, when they don't know who they are, are attracted to the sixth kind of stuff. And I want to say it this way, even when they're not sixes, okay? And maybe that's why people are saying that it appears half the world is sixes, because we just have an enormous portion of the human race today, in the Muslim world, in the Jewish world, and in the Christian world, who are demanding absolute clarity, absolute black and whites. And this does not bode well for our future politics or our worldview. But I say it in this context because this is for me, maybe one of the strongest examples of the political, uh, implications of this teaching, that if we can expose some of these demons, if we can expose some of these lies, maybe we're actually gonna, you know, unfreeze a lot of frozen people.

So any questions on the five or six? Yes. Animal, the rabbit, remember? Or the deer, or the mouse. And the, the counter-phobic animal is the rhinoceros. I don't know. Rhinoceroses? Is that a word? Well, but apparently when they're afraid, they charge into you, right? So the rhinoceros for the counter-phobic. The deer and the mouse. The, the conversion experience for the six. Well, it actually, there's, there's a number of them that's probably why I didn't get into it. First of all, that they, they have to find an authority they can trust. You know, I would still say that for all nine types, the only way out is an authentic God experience for all nine types. But I'm going to say that very strongly for the six. If the six meets the God who is their rock, their fortress, their deliverer, and I mean that on the experiential level, not just a verse in the Psalms, but "I know there's someone holding me. There's someone believing in me. There's someone who's created me and who loves me and who is more me than I am myself." That's the way out of all nine types, but it's the quickest way out for the six. And these become the Oscar Romeros, who we present as the, the patron saint of the sixes. Those of you who know the life of the Bishop of El Salvador, you read his early letters and writings. He was a fragile, insecure, scared little priest who wanted to follow all the rules. And, and he did. And that got him promoted as, as the primary, uh, bishop in El Salvador. He wasn't bishop, was it? A couple weeks. You know, one of his major priests was shot, and that was a conversion experience for him that made him fall into the hands of the living God. He found his center in the last three years of his life. His, his sermons are some of the most courageous you could possibly imagine. It's almost like a man without any fear, any fear whatsoever. So, uh, a tragedy like that can do it too, that it makes you find your one absolute that you can rely upon. So you, you will, you will stop relying upon outer authorities and begin to trust inner authority. Now, that's the big movement. Has to move from outer authority to inner authority. And I know we Catholics, especially, have been warned against that. "That's dangerous. Don't you trust yourselves. You just trust the priests and the Pope." You know, that does not help anything. Does not help the coming of the gospel to tell you not to trust yourself. At a certain level in your life, brothers and sisters, that's all you're going to have. And if you haven't learned how to go to a solid place where you know it's not just you, but it's God in you, and you in God, and I've got to do it now and pay the price for it, that'll be when you finally discover the meaning of faith. And I don't think we've taught our people in that kind of faith. That, it will feel like, like I'm breaking the rules at that point, you understand? Like, "Oh my God, this is dangerous." Last week, I used the example of the Austrian, Franz Jägerstätter, who no bishop supported him in all of Austria in his opposition to Hitler. Not a single bishop, not his parish priest, not his wife, not his children, not his neighborhood, not his town. We got one of our rooms at TEPAC, our guest house, named after him. You know, this little Austrian layman said, "I cannot do it. It is wrong." Can you imagine the fear? And I was able to meet his wife there years ago, and, and she knows the Enneagram. She says, "He's a six. He was a six." You know, yeah. He's six. Franz Jägerstätter found his place of truth in God, and even the bishops couldn't convince him he was wrong. You know, marvelous stuff. And Romero would be the other example. Yes.

Well, I'm six, and I heard you use clarity as synonymous with certitude. And to me, there's a difference in a need for clarity versus a need for certitude. There is. You're right on that. How I'm seeing it also is that I see many of the types, such as the eight and the one. I know it's black and white. As a six, it's very much the nuances. It's very much the grace. And it may be some of the insecurity that drives them looking for choices. But to me, I'm not black and white. It's a six. I'm not looking for certainty, for clarity. I think you're just, thank you for saying, you're coming across as a very healthy six. Yeah, that is a healthy six. And I think that's an excellent distinction. And I also agree with you, the one and the eight are much more inclined to black and white thinking. It's just when the six aligns himself or herself with an authority, then he or she can get into black and white thinking because they will not allow any self-doubt to enter the picture. But the search for clarity, I would say also, is one of the greatest gifts of the six and the five, both of them. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

And do sixes choose four big sixes as their leaders, or somebody like Rush Limbaugh? If you have four big six, or a clever guy who's manipulating sixes? Now, my guess would be, I remember, these are all guesses. I think Rush Limbaugh is an eight. I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. I would. No, I don't remember. You see your own fault in other people. Sixes are not that trusting of other sixes. They see through it. They know that that person is basically afraid. So why did the picture rise then in Germany? It sounds a bit like scared German people. Yeah, counter-phobic six. Yeah. The answer for that, I don't know all the social reasons why he was able to hold the persona together, but somehow he did, you know. Yes.

What would be more of the positive loyalty and courage? Loyalty and courage. In other words, they, they are very loyal to what they believe in, to their friends, to the groups that they're a part of. I would also say sixes and nines are the most humble. There's a natural, you know, the rest of us are so damn sure of ourselves. And thank God, the sixes have this healthy self-doubt. "Well, maybe I could be wrong. Maybe you're not seeing the whole picture." You wish other people were that way. Now, I know they take it to a toxic degree and subvert themselves by doubting themselves at every turn. But that initial healthy self-doubt, I wish all of us had it. Do you see? So loyalty, courage, the courage of Oscar Romero, and the, the humility that comes from healthy self-doubt. Was there another hand over there? Yes.

You said something about lack of commitment, or did I misunderstand you? That was in the five. The five is afraid of commitment. Yeah. Not the six. The six will be very committed, sometimes too committed. Yes. Would be. That's right. Very good. Forgive me if I didn't say that. I, I'm trying to say too much too quick. Yes. There are several who are most inclined toward addiction. The nine, because they can't get their energy, so they think drugs will do it, or alcohol will do it. Many of the guys at the jail in my years here were nines. The two, because the two is trying to feed himself or herself from outside by other people's inputs, literally their food that they give us, or their drink that they give us, it feels like love. I mean, the twos joke about their love of chocolate very often, which they usually do love chocolate, but food in general becomes a medication for the two. And that transfers to all ingested materials. And this will fill up my need for love, this food, this drink, these drugs, this alcohol. And the seven is inclined toward addiction because they overdo everything, which we'll get to in a minute. The eight, I wouldn't say is especially inclined toward it more than the other types. Yes. Judy, you're saying you see a lot of two-five like marriages. Is there a number that sixes are good with? My requests were outer authority here. No, that's a good question. The most common thing I find is the original triangle of three, six, and nine. Those types move between one another and then beautifully balance one another. So very often sixes do find themselves attracted to threes or nines. And that's true of the other two also. Threes marry nines, nines marry threes. And, yeah, and please don't take that as absolute, you know, that's just, yeah. All right. Yes.

Bob, would you put, you was China as a country? You know, some people have said three for China too. I never been there, so I, I don't know the exact energy. What were you thinking? Oh, well, there's a 3-6-9 movement, but it might be, it might be six and moving toward the three, toward being very, yeah, might be true. All right. Any other questions on those two? Yes. You mentioned the four, the four being balanced by the five wing, and the five being balanced by the four wing. We'll get to the wings, uh, I hope still this afternoon. We're still in the head space. And now with the seven type, which is the conflicted head type, you could say the disguised head type, doesn't look like head at all. The need in the seven is the need to avoid pain. They do not like pain. The dark side, the painful side. They don't like physical pain. Who of us does? Uh, they don't like relational pain. They have an immediate set of of ways to run from it and to avoid it. And they've really created a rather clever way to do it, which is in terms of the defense mechanisms. Classic denial. They're the masters of denial. "I will not admit, own, or participate in the dark side of anything. I will pretend that everything is beautiful. I will keep smiling. I will make the best of it." And that's their gift. That's why we all love them, honestly. A smile comes so easily to a seven's mouth. It looks like it belongs there. We once have to work to smile, you know. A seven doesn't have to work to smile. Just sort of sits there, you know. And, and their eyes invariably sparkle, invariably. I've tried not to point out individuals today, but there's some in this room, you know. And once you're going to see it, you're going to see it. They just, because they're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about everything, you know. Their eyes are formed to see what's up, what's hopeful, what's possible, what's, what's optimistic. They're the natural optimists, and they can't help it. What gets them into trouble, and what will usually be their wound, is is something that was dark or painful in their life that they just refused to deal with. They just keep denying, procrastinating, avoiding. "No, no, no. My son isn't on drugs. My son isn't on drugs. It couldn't happen to our family. They've got this idyllic notion of what our, my family isn't, what my son is. There's no way he would be on drugs." By the time they finally own it, he's two years into total addiction. That's just a sort of crass example of how the seven will not see the dark side. They will insist that everything is beautiful.

In the 1970s, when I was first ordained, it took the form of the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church. That was so positive and welcome and upbeat. Everybody praising Jesus, smiles on everybody's faces, jumping for Jesus and dancing for Jesus and singing for Jesus and well, and you couldn't hate it, you know. Gosh, aren't these, aren't these happy people, you know? Uh, and it even invaded the Catholic Church. How could this happen, you know? And that we'd allowed this kind of freedom and this kind of joy. But what you started to see after a while is that there was never a talk about the dark side of things, huh? Or the, the, the justice issues, or, or the poor, or, or the minorities, or anybody outside of our pretty little circle of happy Christians. That becomes their downfall. When they want to make everything pretty, they want to make everything nice, they want to make everything attractive and beautiful, and they just aren't good, to be honest, at dealing with the downside of anything. But they, they do keep us up. They love adventures. They love to create adventures. They love to travel. They love to to collect maps and travel schedules. I know one who even reads Southwest airline schedules, you know. And I told him, I said, "So why would you want to do that?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "Just the idea, gone from here to there." And gosh, there's eight flights a day between Houston and Dallas. Wow. They're amazing. They just, anything to do with travel, you know, or going to a different place than here, because here is always painful, here is always boring, here is always inadequate and insufficient. And, and here's the, the double bind in a seven. When they get there, it's a disappointment too. So do you see why they're the classic glutton? Then they get there, and they have to up the ante. "Okay, now I'm on the beach in Waikiki, and I'm supposed to be happy, and I am happy, and this is really neat. But let's have a gourmet meal tonight, then I'll really be happy, you know? Or let's have wild sex tonight, then I'll be happier." Just, they keep more and more. And what they will admit to you in, in great moments of greater honesty is that none of it finally makes them happy. So they move toward addiction, they move toward gluttony. Their philosophy of life is that more is better, and more will do it, and it won't. Uh, but, but they really do believe that at almost, almost a gut level. They're, they're great friends to have in terms of taking you on their adventures, but sometimes you'll be disappointed that, that you will feel that same superficiality that you can sometimes feel in threes. After the adventure, there's no ability to talk about anything real or anything in depth, or go beyond the creating of another adventure and the planning of another, another adventure. They're actually called ego-planners because planning is an art form for them. Planning is a way of life. They're futurists. All of their life is out in front of them. And when it becomes the present, it's always boring and always insufficient. And, okay, so you can see what kind of trouble that would get you into. That finally, you're not happy. It's especially dangerous for people who are wealthy, frankly. Poor people in their sevens, it becomes a survival, you understand? They live in the barrio, but I'm going to be happy. I can't buy my way out of it. I can't run off to Rio de Janeiro. I've got to live here in the favela, you know. And so you see these smiling, happy little poor people. They're the Philippines is the seven countries. Just can't believe they call them the "Happy Asians." Just everybody's smiling all the.

Time, you know, they don't have much ability to deal with their tremendous injustice because they keep forgiving it and making the best of it. They can have Marcos, dictator, as their president. They even forgive him. They refuse to face his dark side. Do you understand? He's ripping you off. Don't you realize he's oppressing you? Oh, but he's our father figure. He's nice. He's okay.

Well, yeah. Uh, Brazil would be another seven country. I was there February a year ago. Just, it's like life exists for singing and dancing. It's the most sexualized country I've ever been to. I mean, everybody is advertising their beautiful body, which they tend to have too. But it's, you can tell they're living at that level, that level of excitement, fun, adventure, joy. If it's fun, it's good. Just like the three. If it works, it's good. The seven would say, if it's fun, it's good. And I want to repeat, in the poor of the world, it becomes a beautiful thing. They really make the best of it. When it becomes this, this seeking of endless, endless luxury and more money and more elaborate everything, is what's happened to the seven in our country. We used to say facetiously, they all want to be buried in Disneyland. They love Disneyland. They like primary colors. Huh? Don't see many primary colors here.

Sevens don't tend to come to Enneagram workshops. Uh, we, and all the teachers agree upon that. It's, this is too heavy. I mean, this is hard work. Today, you've got to be brain dead already. And the seven, oh God, to sit, listen to a speaker all day. It's the smallest percentage of people who come to any Enneagram workshop. Seven, you know, it's, they don't like to do inner work. You know, they like to do fun things. They really do. Like orange and yellow. Just love orange and yellow. Yellow cars, orange shirts. Anything, anything like that that's sort of exciting, just turns them on. If it's any kind of exciting energy, go to Brazil. You know, everybody dressed in flamboyant colors. The Mexicans have a little bit of it, but it's not as major in Mexico, that love of bright colors and fancy colors and that ability to smile through your tears.

When you learn some of your friends who are seven, you learn to watch their face. You're going to see that their mouth is smiling, but there's fear and anxiety in their eyes. You watch it. They'll, er, it's whistling in the dark thing. They're pretending it's okay. That at a deeper level, they know it isn't. But I just can't deal with that. I just can't face that. I just can't suffer that. It's, it is too much for the seven. So when they recognize that almost their whole life journey has been characterized by running from pain, uh, that's a major conversion. At that point, they begin to grow up. Usually, it means the facing of a pain they cannot avoid. Isn't that true for all of us? The death of a spouse, the death of a child, the loss of a job. It, there's no way to get around it.

I remember when my father, who was, you know, a working German farmer, worked ever since he was a seven-year-old boy when he could drive the tractor. But I went home for his retirement at 65. And, and he had never missed a day of work on the Ashland Peak in Santa Fe railroad in 35 years. Turned on the lights every day. But, um, honestly, he was a seven, always happy and positive. But that day, when he had to come home and knew he was not going to have any work to do the next day, he just sobbed. It was real hard for me as a son to hold my father. So he, he couldn't imagine that he was of any value. I think that was his great pain, not being able to work in his world during the depression and all that. Was your form of overcoming pain? You understand? And being able to survive. And then the thought of not being any good, even said, what good will I be anymore? Oh, it's so hard to see that because when sevens really do finally have to face their pain, it's not a pretty sight. They don't know how to do it. They just, they don't have a clue. I don't have a clue how to, how to let that wave over them, you know, and to hold it in, in some ways, because much of their life, they've kept it at a distance.

Now, for us as children, see, children love a parent who's a seven because daddy would get down on the floor and wrestle with us and play with us. They can immediately be a child. They have no trouble being children, even when they're 60. I don't know how to be a child. We ones are heavy, but sevens are light. And children just adore their seven parents because they know they'll play with them, frankly. And they'll know that they've got a children's heart and a children's eye. You're the puer eternas, the puella eterna in Latin, the eternal girl, the eternal boy. They actually, and this is not an exaggeration, you see it in the Philippines. They all look 15 years younger than they really are. Sevens don't look as old as they really are. You'll be surprised. You know, she's only 45. You know, I mean, she, she's 60, but she looks 45. And you're just amazed that that could be true. Shows again that union between our body self, but the sparkling eyes, the smile on the face, all of that, even helps them, I think, to look younger than they really are.

Their animals are the butterfly. If you ever have a seven working for you, they can't normally stay at their desk more than three minutes. All right? They can't stay with anything, any methodical work. They've got to jump up and they've just decided, we have to buy something at Kmart or something. Do you understand? [Laughter] And just jumping around from here to there, tasting the nectar of this and the nectar of that, and always a search for a new adventure, a new exciting something. They're also, uh, otters. Have you ever seen the little otters out at Monterey? You to watch an otter, you just give the impression that all they do is play all day, you know. And they're real good at just gliding around, you know, and very happy. They look up at you and they pat their tummies, and they're fun animals, huh? The other being the monkey. The monkey, uh, much the same. When I was in India last year, they were right at my window, just watching me. And then they'd make noises and, uh, play is a way of life for the monkey. It's, there's no other, uh, I guess goal beyond that.

Now, who of us would not like an otter, a monkey, or a butterfly? But you do get tired of it when you want them to finally do some methodical work, or you want them to deal with their son on drugs, or whatever it might be. And at that point, you can just pull out your hair and you want to say, get serious, settle down. It's, uh, it's not forced on us that dealing with pain. And so I think that's why we produce so many addicts who are sevens, so many obese people who are sevens. A high percentage are obese. They just have not learned how to say no to themselves. They really, no is unacceptable. Yes is always good. And of course, that, that just isn't true. And of course, gets them into a lot of trouble. That inability to say no to themself. And, uh, and if it has in any way fun written on it, it is almost impossible for them not to do it.

Now, after saying all that, I'm making them sound terrible, like I do all of them. But I am convinced my father, Saint Francis, was a seven, right? If you look, you go to Franciscan Italy, you know, he only goes to beautiful places to pray, you know. He's no dummy. He's all, you know, dancing through the forest, playing his violin and singing. And I think that's why he was so likable. Sevens are just likable people. You'd like them at your party. You'd like them at your house. So my very closest friends are sevens. They're just fun to vacation with, be with. They, they make the best of everything. They always up the energy.

Now, can you see there for why Francis emphasized pain? And why his body is finally even imprinted with the stigma to its absolute going against his natural instinct? And, and he admitted at the end of his life that he overdid it. He says, if I could do one thing differently, I'd treat my body better. But he knew, as every gourmand does, every Korean, left to myself, it'll just be drugs and sex and rock and roll, you know. And every seven knows that. I'd have sex all day. The seven says, if I could get away with it. So if he or she doesn't learn how to limit those pleasure expectations, he knows it will destroy him. And it will. And it will basically take away the true joy. So what Francis did was he pushed all the way through to spiritual joy, which is the final joy that, that no one can take from you. But he's known as the joyful saint, the joyful beggar, which I think is what makes him so attractive. But right before his conversion, in the oldest biography, he's called the king of the party-goers, the king of the party. He's a wild young man.

And another thing I should tell you about sevens, I wish I had more time for all of these, but they love infinite horizons. They love to stand on mountaintops and see for a hundred miles. They love to climb up a telephone pole and look down on the whole area. They love to be up in plains for any number of reasons, but just to look down on the earth. Whenever there's an infinite horizon, the seven just gets juiced. It's the desire of their soul, infinite horizons, infinite possibilities. And, and when you take that away from them, they can be rather hard and cruel. They'll jump into their, their eight wing because you're, you're taking away their joy, you're taking away their happiness as they have defined it. And, uh, Francis, he describes his conversion. He says he's, uh, at one point, there were stages to his conversion, but he's standing in the backyard looking at the stars. That's a very seven thing to love to look at the stars or the clouds. And, uh, he's looking at the stars and he says, if these are the creatures, what must the creator be like? If these are the creatures, what must the creator be like? And that becomes his breakthrough to, um, to the spiritual search, really.

So life is a banquet to be devoured for the seven. But in some ways, they can't really get into the banquet because they're always planning it, and they're always planning a better one. And the better one is always in the future. They love to throw parties. They love to tell stories. They can be con men, to historians, just, you know, wrap you up in their story. Their travel agents, their tour guides, uh, their map makers, anything that will visualize the moving for away from here and, and the dissatisfaction with being here now. Right after having this most positive Brazilian or Filipino, we're gonna flip immediately into what looks like the exact opposite, the eight. They balance one another. If the seven is the most positive of all types, the eight would be perceived, although I'll try to describe that as the most negative of all types. Those people who have seven with an eight wing or eight with a seven wing are really high energy people, fun and obscene at the same time. You know, these are the people who drive the party world where they just switch back and forth from wild, crazy obscenity to wonderful, fun-loving, juice-filled joy. You know, and those are great people to have around. They'll wear you out.

The eight is defined by oppositional energy. He or she gets his juice by opposing you, by fighting you. I remember one of the times I taught in Europe, and this young man kept coming up after each of my sessions wanting to connect with me. And every time he had some big complaint or criticism or something that I didn't say right. So that evening, I asked Andreas, I said, who's that young man? What's his problem? And he, and he said, uh, he says, oh, Michael. I said, yeah, I think that was his name. He says, oh, he has you on a pedestal. He says, he just thinks you're the greatest thing since toasted bread, you know. I said, really? I said, all he's done is fight me all day, you know. Oh, he's trying to get close to you. I said, he, yeah. He says, he was hoping you'd invite him out for a drink tonight. I said, well, why would I invite him out for a drink? He just, I thought he hated me. That's the strange thing of the eight. They're, they're afraid of direct intimacy, so they create indirect intimacy. That, to the rest of us, doesn't even feel like intimacy, huh? It's, it's, they think because they like a good fight, that you would too, huh? Do you see? They respect people who say bad words. I was about to say it, but I'm not going to say, you know, a four-letter word. They just love it when you say four-letter words. Ooh, now you're a man. Now I can take you seriously.

I had a provincial, it was an eight back in Cincinnati. And I was still a young priest, trying to still be a good little boy. And he called me in about a few things I needed to be challenged on. And, uh, I said, yes, Father. Thank you very much. Being the good boy. He said, oh, stop it, Richard. He says, I expect you to fight me. He says, fight me a little bit. I said, oh, I mean, I didn't even know how to do it. I didn't know how to fight. He didn't want me being a little goody-two-shoes, saying, yes, Father, yes, Father. He says, I expect you to disagree with half of what I said, at least. That's the way an eight operates. They oppose you, but they like it when you oppose them back. They really do. And if you don't know that, you'll never know how to relate to an eight. They're really interesting people.

Because the other flip in the eight, and I promise you this is true, I knew it was true in my mother. And I had access to that point inside of an eight. There is the exact opposite. All that huffing and puffing and complaining and criticizing and blaming and attacking, inside of my mother was this gentle little girl. And I'm sure she let my father see it. I might have been the only other one. I know my sisters never got to see it. Very few people do. They, they will only show it to several people that, that are safe. Now, once you learn, I promise you this is true, that that exists in every eight. If you can always somehow speak beyond the huffing and puffing and the obscenity and the cruelty, and they often appear downright cruel and rude and obscene and unkind, right? Just don't, don't be put off by that. Just stay with it, you know. And know that there's a little boy, a little girl inside there. And when you aren't put off by that power, they finally respect your power. Power is everything for an eight. They walk in the room and they immediately see who's got the power here. That's why a lot of them will take me on at a lot of my conferences and talks. They've got to show me up. They've got to say something that puts me down. And so I had to learn early that that's going to happen to me a lot. But it's almost always eights. But you can't take it personal. It's real hard to do. You can't take it. It's really, it's a way of engaging with you. It's a way of seeing, are you gonna spar with me? And, and that's almost, especially in the male, but I saw in my mother too, it's almost a form of intimacy. The rest of us don't get it.

I know if we ones operate out of the good boy energy, like I try to do. The eight, and this is the key, they operate out of the bad boy energy. I'm gonna say it. I got to. And they, they love to say you. They love to. All right. Oh God, they love it. Or something comparable, you know, uh, because they, they like that shocked look on your face, you know. And, and now they know that, uh, okay, are you gonna bring me in and let me talk honestly, or are we gonna talk on this superficial level? They hate superficiality. They go right for the jugular vein in every conversation.

At our Sunday dinners, mother, mother was a wonderful cook. She'd have this marvelous meal on the table. And their relatives, different relatives would come over on Sundays, of course. And once she'd preside at the table, she'd take off, you know, usually on the Republicans. And we, my brothers and sisters, we'd just be kicking her under the table. Shut up, mother, shut up. Don't you know you're alienating everybody at the table? You know, no one knows how to answer you. No one knows how to engage with you. And then she couldn't understand why the family would leave early. Well, I just wanted to talk to them. Don't they want to talk, mother? But you can't talk that way, you know. Well, I don't know. Why can't people hear the truth? You know, they, they love what they think is the truth, their truth. And the truth always is an exposing of the powers that be, whoever the powers that be might be.

Remember, she told me once after I was a priest, I think I'd gone home to Kansas. And the parish actually asked me to hear confessions. I said, Mom, you want to go along with me? She says, well, I don't go to confession. I said, you don't? She just, no. I haven't gone for a year. I said, well, Mother, you're not being a very good Catholic. And she's just, well, I haven't done anything wrong. [Laughter] I mean, it was that simple and clear at her. I was so lucky. I really was. I said, no, Mother, you've got to forgive Daddy for anything that he might have done wrong. You're going to die in a few days, you know. And I know it. I'm all ready. She wasn't afraid of it at all, you know. Says, you taught me not to be afraid of it, which made me feel good. But then, um, uh, oh, it was hard for her. Just, it was three days before she died that she could finally ask him for forgiveness for anything she might have done wrong in their whole marriage. And I don't know what it was, you know. But I said, well, is there anything you need to forgive him for? She says, yes, he, he cut down my flowers with the lawnmower. This is the biggie, you know. They were all fighting. He was trying to extend the lawn, and she was always trying to extend the flowers, you know. And he, each year would move a little more into her flowers because he wanted more. That was the big reconciliation. Had her death, she forgave him. But she had to wait till three days before she died.

They don't like being vulnerable. It's very hard for an eight to be vulnerable. Very hard for them to admit they're wrong. The power is important to look powerful and to present a powerful persona. "I can do it" is their motto. Don't trust anybody. They, if the four is an identification with feminine energy, and it is in many ways, even in a man, the eight is the identification with masculine energy, even in a woman, if you, if you don't mind me using those terms, I know they're culturally defined. But, uh, the, the eight, uh, likes to be hard. If that means masculine, I don't know. The eight, uh, feels his or her energy through their hardness. They often don't even feel or admit that they're feeling physical pain. Their ability to endure pain. My mother died of cancer, painful cancer. And I don't ever remember, I can take it. It's okay. I can do it. It's all right. And she did. Their ability to, to face pain is phenomenal. And when you know it, just the opposite, you know. And I know your chronic pain. And it's just, it's very common for eights to just, I can walk with it. I'm not going to complain about it. I'm even sometimes when they're in, you know, pain hour by hour, they glory, uh, in their ability to take it. They're attracted, therefore, to, you know, high intensity sports, to the warrior archetype, anything that's pushing the self to the edge, anything that's demanding more of the self.

Archie Bunker was probably our likable eight. Remember Archie Bunker? And he, he gave it a face and a form that we could somehow handle. As I said, they love to use vulgarity. Now, I never heard my mother use an off-color word her whole life. I don't think her background allowed her to do that. But I'm sure she was thinking it inside. But she would have never said it outside. So to avoid facing their own vulnerability, to avoid facing themselves, they will throw it back on you and attack you. Uh, it's very hard for an eight to go for an hour without being upset about something, without dismissing some foolish rule or some ridiculous custom or, or some arrogant person. Of course, they see arrogance everywhere. And they don't realize they are themselves. You always see your own faults in other people. But the key, I want to repeat it again, is to remember the little boy, the little girl that is as tender and sweet as can be, just the flip of what you're normally going to relate to. And you might never even see that little boy or that little girl. They might not have the courage to show it to you. But I want to promise you, it's there. It's always there.

Their gift is this living life to the full. Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek, huh? It's a, Nikos could write Zorba the Greek because he himself was an eight. And he sees eightness everywhere, right? He can only write about eights because that's his own energy. Tom Cruise can only play threes because he is a three, you know. And he keeps doing himself over and over and over again, which is probably what we're all doing in one sense or another. But the gift of the eight is passion, pure and simple. And, and when you learn to admire that passion and like that passion and give it back to him, don't be put off by it. When he says the bad word to you, say the bad word back to him, if you dare. All right? And he'll like you for it. He'll see that you're in there. You might not know that at first, but I promise you, in the long term, that's when you get in his circle or her circle of respect.

Okay, I'm going to have to squeeze the third one in here and then I'll let you ask questions before the or after the break. What country? Country? Oh, Spain, of course. La Conquistador. Loch and Kistador. That's our whole world is looking for things to conquer, empire. Uh, it's what the world loves in Spain, and it's what the world hates in Spain. It's, it's their best and it's their worst. The animal, the bull, toro. Can you catch a symbolic action there, huh? The country that tries to kill the bull, they're, they're, they're facing their own energy, they're facing their own arrogance and killing it. Amazing. And the cockfight, the same thing, which seems to have gone to many of the Spanish colonies. But, uh, you can't help but admire the Spanish. But it's, it's this love-hate relationship that most people have with Hispanic culture. They created the word "macho" for the rest of us. And the eight is the macho man. I would, he could even say the eight woman is the macho woman. It's the love of machismo and the, the relating through machismo, which I would say much of the world has come not to respect anymore. It's, we're just so aware of the downside of the eight energy. The bull, the rattlesnake, and the tiger would be your three animals. The bull, the rattlesnake, and the tiger.

What about Greece? Opposition is true friendship. I mean, is that right? No kidding. Opposition is true friendship. Wow. Thanks for telling me that. The intellectual opposition is distinct from the Spanish. Never heard that. Thank you. That's very helpful. Well, Kotzenzakis and Zorba the Greek, there's the Greeks. Yes. What about conversion for the eight? Is it, is it going to the ground? They have to be forced to vulnerability. That's why it's so important for eights to be married, if they're males, to some kind of feminine, sweet, loving woman. They often marry twos, often because a two is the only one sweet enough, I, I don't know what other word to use, to soften that aggressiveness and that opposition that is in the eighth. Uh, very often eight fathers and mothers. I mean, my mother was the most wonderful mother as long as we were children, you know. Any little ones, oh, she just never let us out of her sight. As I said, uh, anything little and vulnerable and sweet and tender and cute. I mean, I've seen eight men just weep over their children. They just, oh, my little boy, my little girl, you know, they just can't love them enough because a child is no threat to their power, right? And calls forth their little boy soul, you understand, their little, their little girl soul that they don't even know is there until, I think my mother discovered it when she had her first baby and fell in love with my older sister. And then she became much more vulnerable. But unless they meet vulnerability, I don't think the eight will be converted and learn to respect it and learn to protect it. Which, by the way, they're very good at. They're great peace and justice people. This is Mother Teresa, right? They will always be for the underclass. You know, most of your great reformers and revolutionaries, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, anybody who takes on Benito Juarez, these are all eights. Larger than life people who, who take on the whole system. Who else would do it? None of the rest of us would have the courage to take on a whole country except an eight. So thank God for eights. They will, Mother Jones, you know, pointing the finger at the whole American government and telling it it's corrupt. Those are those are great people.

Okay, the nine, quickly. We're back to Adam in the garden and Eve. Here we are at the top. The sin is called laziness, but it's a description of their lack of focused energy. Focus is the key word for the nine. They will spend all their life trying to find their focus moment by moment, and they can't do it at any one moment. Remember that, that shock wave coming at them? Their response, shock wave of perception, is, I'm not going to feel it. It's too much. Life is too much. Love is too much. Death is too much. Suffering is too much. You are too much. Now is too much. Everything's too much. I'm just checking out, right? And so they spend their life taking the path of least resistance. Their motto is, why stand if you can sit down? And why sit down if you can lay down, right? Why not enjoy yourself? And, and to the rest of us, sometimes they do appear lazy. They love to procrastinate. They seldom take initiative. If you have a nine in your relationship with, don't expect to call the next morning after the date, you know, maybe three days later. They will. They're, they're not real initiating in relationships, in projects. They constantly need a fire lit under them. As a result, they very often connect with an institution or a structure or a schedule that will light that fire under them.

There was, I don't know how to get myself up at six o'clock in the morning, but if I know I gotta be at work at seven, the nine can do it, right? They, they've got to have some kind of structured world, or they will just float. That's why I think so many alcoholics on the street and in the jail are nines. They, I could see it again and again. They are not evil, bad people, but they don't know, so many of them, how to structure, focus their life. Do you understand? They just, and so they get pulled this way, and they get pulled that way. If they're not in a good marriage, they get pulled everywhere. If they don't have a good wife or husband to hold them down, hold them together, or children, or something like that, they literally meander through life, right, in every sense, and any one day, and any one week, at any one moment, I don't know what my priorities really are. What's the first thing important today? I don't know. Is it to eat breakfast? Oh, I forgot to eat breakfast this morning. Is it? Well, when you have a child, you know, you got to take care of the child, so that gives them a focus. I've seen a lot of mothers and girls grow up literally when they have the first child. It's okay. There's no way around it. This little baby needs to be taken care of. That structure is my existence. Now I can get something done. But you leave them without structure, and they self-destruct. The nine does. They really get very little done. They don't know how to initiate anything. They put off everything. They, they make, uh, molehills out of mountains. To reverse it, even when there is a big issue, they don't see it. They just, sometimes my brother and sister just want to shake them. You know, the whole family can see. And, oh, oh, okay. And they're real humble about it, real good. But, but how could you not see that? That they really numb down. They're called narcotized people who, who don't feel any feeling if it isn't absolutely necessary to feel it, because, get back to the first thing I said this morning, life is too much. They, they take the full body blow of experience. And this is a real insight for those who are nines, that you are taking a full body blow just to walk out on the street. You'll, you'll take in the meaning of that and say, what should I be doing? I don't know. Is there something I'm missing? I, I bet I am. But I had, it just paralyzes me. I know I'm missing something, and I know I'm not seeing what's really happening. So I just won't do anything. That's sort of their philosophy of life, unless they have something that demands their total attention. Life is too much, so let's make ourselves comfortable while we're here. So they, they roll with the punches. That's why you'll like them as friends. Great to take out to dinner. Wherever the conversation goes, they'll participate in it, but they won't force themselves in. And they normally don't talk too much either, just give you a few words because they don't think you'd be interested in what they have to say. Very few nines talk too much, not that they're even reticent. They think they're not that important. Do you understand that? Why would you want to listen to me? You're all going to say things that are more important than what I have to say. And they really believe that, which is beautiful. That their ego is so in size, that it isn't so grandiose as the rest of us are. But it's sad because they really do allow themselves, as I said this morning, to be overlooked, not to be taken seriously, not to be included in the conversation. And, you know, we, we go along with it. They're easy not to include in the conversation. And you'll bring it up with a group, and everybody around the table, oh yeah, we didn't ask Sharon what she thought again. Showing how we respond to energies. And nines put out no energy. And I have to tell them this, this is partially your fault. You don't give us a handle. You don't tell us to take you seriously. So we ignore you. We, we, you know, don't, don't really include you in when we really should.

They're natural peacemakers. This is the heart of their gift. Along with a decisive action, they, they harmonize the very room. If you have a few nines in the room, the energy will stay placid. It's really lovely. They won't let it go too far. If you have one or two nines on your staff, you can just feel them at the meeting, and they start harmonizing all the conflicting energies and all the rest of us who are doing our thing and our little dance, you know. And it's almost the peace of their body refusing to be bothered by it all. "I will not let that destroy my day." That's what they're, they're almost saying. "I'm not going to let you destroy my day. I am who I am." And in that sense, they do hold their ground. They stay here in their space and let you do all your crazy dances and arguing. And very often, they'll wait till the end of the conversation when you finally notice Sharon, oh, Sharon, we didn't let you share. Sometimes Sharon will come out with just two sentences. I remember there was a marvelous young man who was a nine at New Jersey, the community. We had endless meetings back there, and we're going on for a three-hour meeting about what should New Jerusalem be? What's our role? What's our vision statement? And on and on. And everybody had strong opinions. And John waited, you know, just observing it all, watching it all, no, no real emotion on his face. And I said, I said, John, what do you think? You haven't talked all evening. He said, I think New Jerusalem should be a community that doesn't need to be important. Oh, and everybody looked at him. I mean, it was the way out. It was the freedom space for all of us. We were all trying to make the community significant in Cincinnati and changing the neighborhood and we should be this, that should be. We don't need to be important. I mean, that was the end of the meeting. There was nothing more anybody could say. They're so simple sometimes. Now, sometimes, I admit, it's embarrassingly simple. But sometimes it's right on, you know. But because it doesn't let itself get cluttered, do you see? And it keeps the ego out of the way. They're the, they're naturally humble. They really are. But, but I, I gotta repeat, uh, they can drive you crazy because sometimes they get so little done. And you just want to say, what did you do all day? They'll think they did a lot, you know. But particularly, let's say to the threes or to the ones, it appears they did nothing. You know, you, you can always help them by giving them a clear set of priorities and a clear task. And they can do it once it's clear in terms of expectation and a timeline. This needs to be done by seven o'clock. I bet it'll be done. And it'll probably be done well, according to their competence, of course.

Uh, what else can I say? Uh, oh, country. Oh, I said it real quickly. Maybe is Sweden. I don't know much about them. It's all countries before they get developed, remember I said that this morning? It's everybody before they get sophisticated and educated. It's the little villages in Mexico. It's the little islands in the Philippines. It's, it's everybody who's just, you know, sitting around the fireplace telling their stories. All I got to do is eat and sleep and take care of the children, which is most people who've ever lived on this earth. And, uh, they're so, you find it all over the third world. When I taught this in India, I should tell you a little about teaching in India. I was taught, asked twice to teach it in India. And I asked him both times, why? You're such a wisdom culture. You're so far ahead of us. And they said to me, the first time, we know everything about essence, but we don't understand personality. And what breaks down all of our projects in India is the way we hurt one another as by our personalities. They said, but we do that too. They said, yeah, but you don't understand essence either. And I said, yeah, we don't understand essence or personality, you know. So we have double chance to hurt one another. What you see in the people of India is this utter, thousand, six thousand-year-old culture where you just feel people who know at some deep level who they are. And a tremendous capacity to suffer. You will. And they insisted that they are a nine country. And the more I traveled in India, the more I think it's true. I think they're nine. Their ability to wait for hours for a bus, you know, I'm getting so impatient. They're just all sitting there, you know. You see it in Mexico a lot. Mexico, by the way, I know we have some Mexicans here, is eight and a half. Yeah, eight and a half mix. Macho with mañana. See, you put macho with mañana, and you have the Mexican. [Laughter] Which is part of what makes them such an interesting culture. They're so laid back and so easy going like the nines, and yet they have that, you know, that they want to attack things and change things and make things the way they want. A lustiness, I think, that we somewhat admire. So many countries are nines, especially in their undeveloped state.

The animals would be the meandering elephant. What else? What are the other animals? Tell me. Oh, the ostrich. Oh, I think we made that the seven. What did you say? The quail. Well, the quail. Why is that a knight? A redeemed comes up. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. It sort of floats through the ocean, but once in a while makes a little movement. I'm sorry. Oh, the manatee would be that, would feel like a nine, wouldn't it? Yeah. Just sort of looks like he's happy and just floating there in the water. Okay, you've got it. Now, now it means processing all of this for whatever time we've got left. Conversion is that I was saying it, but I didn't tell you it was the conversion. It was the being taken seriously and put inside of a structure where they can see that they can be taken seriously and can operate and can get things done. And then they stop losing that paralyzed, impotent feeling about themselves. So you've got to put them in some form of community, institution, structure, organization, movement, choose your word, where they can feel they are contributing member. And, and they will be. Which is why most primal peoples understand community so well. Imagine trying to build community with a whole bunch of nines. It works. They're all, their ego is all in place. I'll do my little part. You do your little part. They don't need to be, uh, the, the big kahuna. You know, they don't need to be number one. They're quite happy to be number two or number three or number four, number five, just knowing they're doing their part is the gift. But you gotta give them the chance to do that part and then take them seriously inside of it.

Okay, our structure now. It's ten to four. Uh, I know you still wanna ask a lot of questions. Uh, this break is supposed to be how long, Vanessa? 15 minutes. All right, 15 minutes. Take a good longer break. Come back, and the rest of the day will be filling in all the gaps. I still do have to teach you the, uh, the wings. The wings. All right, good. [Music] [Music] You.