She talked about playing the “Positivity” game. I was curious and asked her more about it, because, well, I always apply everything people say to myself to see if I think it’s useful or true. (Yeah, I know, I’m an Eight.)

My Four friend talked about how she tries to apply positivity to everything in her life, saying “yes” at least internally, if not externally, to everything that comes up in her day.

I was struggling with that a little, in terms of whether that seemed applicable to me. I mean, I have a consistent level of judgment. But is judgment the same thing as negativity? And doesn’t my judgment serve me? (Sure, I can have my negative days, but mostly, I feel pretty positive.)

This got me to thinking about what it is that I do to work with my way of being. And I realized that I play my own game, which I’ve dubbed “Alternate Stories.” It’s about surrendering my certainty about why people do the stuff they do, so that I get less triggered by it. (Read more about my Alternate Stories game here.)

So now I’m REALLY thinking…do we all have different games we play, or ways of coping with our personality types, our innate energies?

My Type Nine hubby pointed out that my Alternate Stories technique really would not be helpful to him. He’s plagued with enough possibility as it is, and figuring out what reality to believe in is already hard enough for him.

If you’re reading this, tell us: What’s your game and is it related to your enneagram type?

Dr. Cox cracks me up, as do all expressive Eights, in part because they say and do the stuff that I choose not to. As an Eight strongly connected to my inner Two, I limit and filter out much of what my Eight WANTS to say because, well, I like having friends.

Dr. Cox calls out stupidity, ignorance, uncertainty, and pretty much anything else that gets in his way. While my Eight part loves to watch that, I would have a hard time with the repercussions of behaving that way in my real life.

I allow a few moments, from time to time, of just blatantly stating the obvious, making a hard-edged joke, or being otherwise overtly reactive to people, and I believe that because these moments are more rare and (most of the time) filtered through my spirit-connection and Self, they’re much more effective in provoking change.

There is a time when cutting through the crap, calling out the BS, and even exaggerating extremes is called for. Unfortunately for Eight, that time is not ALL the time. So when we’re healthy, we learn to moderate inside ourselves a lot.

But that doesn’t stop me from finding it cathartically hysterical when I see those moments happen, repeatedly, on the screen.

Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding

Click here to view the embedded video.

And watching him perform it, I realized that this is the tactic we so often forget to take with ourselves.

Working with our enneagram types, we get frustrated or saddened by the challenges of just being us. But there is nothing in our egos, our personalities, that is there by accident or design flaw.

Everything within us exists for a reason. So says Systems Theory. All the components of what makes us up function together in some kind of a dance. More like the relationship of stars and planets than that of gears in a watch, but everything is all working together.

As an Eight, I do have the gift of direct speech, of quick judgement and action. And I also have the challenge of weighty words. My actions are loud and powerful, simply by the energy of who I am.

And there’s a way I can criminalize myself for any misstep. Any action I take, any word I say, if not examined and filtered, could have major repercussions.

Combine that with the fact that I’m a Sagittarius (aka the one who struggles with “foot in mouth” syndrome), and you see a recipe for a person who could make a lot of destructive mistakes.

That’s one way to look at it.

It took my great friend Dina many hours over an emotional dinner to show me that I didn’t need to further hobble my powerful words. She showed me, through the lens of the enneagram, that my Eight, with all its glories and struggles, is so necessary to the circle of life.

And as I started reframing who I am based on knowing my type, I realized how much my inner Eight needs my kindness, sympathy, and wisdom. I don’t need to shut her up; I need to listen to her and lead for her, not from her.

Seeing Otis Redding today reminds me of this.
What if, in our self-exploration and healing, we kept that viewpoint in mind. Said, “how does this serve me?” rather than “how do I get rid of this?”.

What if we tried some tenderness?

Have you brought kindness to your inner enneagram type? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

I’ll try to paint a word picture for you: Dina, the Seven, was in her bathing suit lolling around on a blanket in the sun, offering up ideas. I, the Eight, was sitting in a chair with her laptop, fully clothed with a sun hat and shades on, typing up her little bits of brainstorm material.

She periodically went into the house to get tarot card books and to show me inspirational images. I was typing and documenting. She’s bringing the airy ideas and I’m grounded them into tangible existence, making sure they don’t flutter away.

Can you see it?

How are you in your type bringing a specific gift into the world? We would love to hear about it!

(By the way, stay tuned to the Events page for a revised explanation of our workshop this September. It’s gonna rock!)

As you can see in this picture, she’s pretty dang jazzed. I’ll bet part of her believes she could launch the Space Shuttle with that thing.

There’s a way in which you might not expect me (an Eight) and Dina (a Seven) to be so into computers and websites, social media and all that. But I think as our generations become more intertwined with computers, our types evolve to take advantage of the new playground.

I suspect for Dina, it’s another kind of dance floor. And for me, it’s a whole world I can control. Heh.

As a Seven and an Eight both comfortable with our inner Fives, I gotta say…look out, world!

I didn’t think an eight would cry during a conflict.

Rachel would occasionally get teary in conflict with me when things got intense. So, I asked her about it.

She said,

I’ve come to realize that I cry when I get angry. I think there’s a way that it’s the path of least resistence inside me. My true anger feels like its so intense that it would destroy everything in its path, so I keep it from running rampant. But with that restriction comes frustration and grief, so the tears you see are a mix of me being frustrated, sad about the conflict, and (if I dig deep enough) scared. When I was younger, I would actually feel my throat close up when I’d get into conflict with people. I can easily get mad when I’m on my own, and feel safe expressing it because no one is going to get hurt. But when I’m trying to work it out with someone I’m angry at, it gets all balled and twisted up because I’ve come to believe that if my anger came out in full force, I would have no friends or family left. My anger would sever all my connections and I would be alone. Hence, tears. As an 8, some part of me feels emminently destructive.

I find this information interesting and so helpful. My initial stereotype about type eights was that they’d just be big and loud in conflict, and I’d get bowled over. I also believed that they wouldn’t show their vulnerabilty, for fear that they’d be revealing their weakness to me. Getting to know Rachel challenged my assumption.

Now I wonder about gender difference in type eight, if type eight men ever experience anything like this, or if tears show up more in female type eights simply because of cultural expectation and norms. And I’m curious about ways that Rachel and I can have healthy expressions of anger shared in our relationship. Now that we’re talking about it, it’s likely we’ll find them.

So here’s the tip: Don’t rule out type eight just because you see tears and easy vulnerability. Be curious and look deeper. You may be surprised by what you find.