Susan Olesek: The Power of the Enneagram
Susan Olesek is the founder of the Enneagram Prison Project, a non-profit dedicated to sharing the power of self-awareness education using the Enneagram system with those who have been imprisoned around the globe. An unapologetic idealist, and an enneagram Type One for those who are familiar with the system, Susan joins us today to share her compassionate approach to the Enneagram, honed over 15 years of engaging with Fortune 500 executives, corporate teams, schools and those experiencing incarceration. She recently founded The Human Potentialists (THP) a Benefit Corporation with a vision to democratize the Enneagram, and whose mission is guiding people to their highest potential while connecting them to the core of our shared humanity. She views the Enneagram as an insightful tool meant to guide all of us to our highest potential, convinced that people are inherently good and encouraging us to see the possibilities that lie beyond our “personality.” Susan takes us through the potential and pitfalls of each Enneagram type, reminding us that it is vulnerable work to look deeply at ourselves in order to see and break free from the prison of our design. Their public program 9PrisonsONEKey is EPP’s compassionate introduction to the Enneagram will be accepting applications beginning July 29th, 2022.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Leaning in when we feel resistance…
The nine personality types…
Seeing the possibilities beyond our personality prison…
MORE FROM SUSAN OLESEK:
Both Sides of the Bars | Susan Olesek | TEDxWashingtonSquare
DIG DEEPER:
RHETI: The Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
Let's start at the beginning. I know more about you than listeners, but you're one of my favorite Enneagram people and thinkers and obviously the Enneagam Prison Project is pretty stunning. I think in what you guys do and the idea, the bigger metaphor of the ways in which we all live behind bars. Can you tell us how you came to the Enneagram and then will you also give us an overview? I know you love Riso and Hudson, and there are more academic sources for Enneagram, but will you run people through your view of the nine types?
SUSAN OLESEK:
Of course, of course. I learned the Enneagram when I was a new mom. I have always been a seeker, always on a path, always wanting to improve myself and the world and anyone in my field. And honestly, I started to get really angry when I got pregnant and I didn't even know it. It was like all of a sudden something just sort of wasn't just simmering anymore. It was like it was coming out and I'm not saying I was some raging lunatic, but sometimes, I mean, I remember when I was eight months pregnant, pulling some guy over on the side of the road. He'd cut me off. And then he had the sad misfortune of ending up at the same stoplight as me. And I told him to put his window down, and he did, and I read him a riot act because he was so dangerous and I was carrying something that was so precious.
And that's just the way that I can connect it in my mind. Anyway, I started to have my family. I cared more about being a good mom than I think I've ever cared about anything. And that's really in the personality of, of type one, which is the one that I work with. And sometimes that I lead from. I was raising my kids, a little bit and I really felt so much tension in me. And I felt like I really wanted to do well by them. I wanted to do right in their mothering and in my partnering. And I found my way into a parenting class. She was a brand new Enneagram teacher who had three kids of her own. And we started to use the tool as a way to understand our own lens.
And then also to understand different kids needed different things. And I always intuitively knew that the, any Enneagram really precisely named that for me in a way that honestly took me a while to understand. I wouldn't call myself an academic, and I'm really glad the Enneagram doesn't change, but I've always been a lover of people. And it started to make sense to me very gradually.
ELISE:
And then how did you start working in prisons?
SUSAN:
Well, I got invited. I went to that parenting class for 10 years and we jus, kept at it. And I did it in that sort of informal way, as a mom of three kids. I have three boys that are mostly all grown now. Eventually I decided to get certified because it really felt like something I wanted to eventually do something with, I had been in human resources and then I had been an at home parent.
So I certified and I think within two months I got invited to teach in a little prison just outside of Houston, Texas, an entrepreneurship program. And I said, yes, because I'm somebody that just really feels like when something feels aligned, and it felt like it felt like such a good idea. So it wasn't my idea to bring the Enneagram into prison. I went and when I stepped in that door, everything in my body said, not like this, this is not how we heal. And it wasn't a super max prison. It was a very cushy prison. I think a lot of people who've done a lot of time might say private prison, low security. People were on their way out. They were already worked very hard to get into the program that I was supporting. And, and yet it had all the feel of prison in it and the, the Sally port and the clanging of the doors, and the yellow lines and all that.
And I just feel that people, I now I have so much more perspective, but at the time, even I felt people who have already had so much adversity in their life. That's a big precursor to how people get behind bars. And then when they're there, I feel like that's the time to heal, but we have such a different mindset in our country and other countries do the same, and such a punitive one. And that didn't, that's not how I’m organized inside. That's not what feels right in me. And so I think right away, I saw how things could be different, but I also saw just the power of this tool in people's hands who were really starving to understand what was wrong in their lives, and thinking there was something wrong with them. And, I just think my approach to the Enneagram is that there's nothing wrong with any of us. Enneagram is a map to show us what's so right about us. And it felt like the, the most profound place to be figuring out how to teach it, which is what I was doing.
ELISE:
Yeah. I love that about the Enneagram. There's so much appeal to every type, and I know when people sort of maybe go to do their RHETI Enneagram test, and then they read about the other Enneagram types, there's like type envy, you know, where you're sort of like, oh, that sounds amazing. And that sounds amazing. Like it's such a beautiful system. I know we have our vices, or tendenciesm or those parts of ourselves that need to be balanced, but it's such a generous, loving, psychological tool. I think, because I don't know. I mean, I, ones I know are top, I'm sure that we all have our, oh, people who know the Enneagram have sort of like their own biases really about other Enneagram types and their tendencies. But I feel like most people have Enneagram pride, right. When they see themselves reflected back in their type.
SUSAN:
I think that the way you just framed that beautiful question says so much about your own type Elise, which I happen to, you know, know, are you gonna let your listeners know?
ELISE:
Uh, that's not gonna surprise anyone. I’m a Type One.
SUSAN:
Okay. And I feel like the Ones are here to teach the rest of us about goodness and I call Type One, the idealists, some people use other terms, but I think there really is so much that Ones see is what's possible. And that is, I think what the Enneagram is illustrating what's possible in all of us. And really what's been there from the beginning. The essential qualities is the thing that we always are and doesn't change. What changes is what we put around that, and that is the personality. And I think a really healthy developed person sees the best in everyone because they feel the best in themselves. And so it's nice to hear you frame it that way. I don't think everybody always does. And I think oftentimes, and I feel this for myself, for sure.
I come across parts of my personality structure that have names for them. And, you know, they plot nicely all around a diagram. I mean, they're so patterned or predictable and we can put it down like that. And I can still cringe at the fact that I, my type Type One is what we call an anger type along with eight and nine, we’re in the anger triad in the beginning, I was like, I didn't wanna be angry for anything. And I really believed I wasn't. I believed I was frustrated or maybe that there were some idiots out there or what have you, but I wasn't angry. And that's the beginning of the work is to see where are the places where we actually feel resistance because the resistance is, is where we need the map to say, well, what is it we're not opening to.
Because the truth is just what you say that, there are so many beautiful types, actually, nine of them, all of them, all nine are beautiful all the way around the circle, which is the beginning of the Enneagram. The fact that we are all on that circle and we're all aspects of each other and there's this unity, you know, consciousness that we're aspiring to be, long ourselves to be. But there's a moment where we say, but not that, but not that. And then, and then we're in the duality, and that's then, so then the work can begin.
ELISE:
It's beautiful though, because it also took me a long time to acknowledge my anger, which I carry sort of in my clenched jaw. And I have so much shame about my anger because as a type one—idealist, rigid, perfectionistic, controlling, you know—I believe everything can be in its highest form all the time. To acknowledge that I actually have very little control, and that the world does not conform to what I believe it can and should be. That's a hard lesson, and to state needs is difficult in a body, or in a personality, where I'm like, aren't they just evident? Shouldn't we know how to service each other's needs?
SUSAN:
Here's the thing about the anger. And I learned this from one of my teachers, Russ Hudson, who wrote The Wisdom of Enneagram book. And Russ said, one time, you can say a lot of things about Ones. You can say, Type Ones are judgemental, and perfectionistic, and all those lists that you just went through, Elise. But you can never say about a One that they don't care. And when he said that, everything that was ready to fight in me, just relaxed. And that's just such a sage teaching, because really the anger is an intelligence. And the anger is in service of something that we care about. That's why I was angry when I got pregnant, because I had this precious human being inside of me. And all of a sudden, my focus of attention was how dare we not take care of each other.
The way I was so,in my mothering, wanting to take care of this child. And so I think that that's really our tell in the beginning. When we look at the diagram, it, divides nicely into triads in lots of ways. And anger is one triad. The anger is the emotional alarm, if you will, for the body types who are the eight, nine, and one. And the belly types, we also call them the bellyis where the instinct comes from. And one of the most fundamental instincts is anger, because anger is the thing that's telling me, am I getting what I need? Am I getting what I want? Is it fair? Is it right? Is it aligned? Like you said, we have these ways that we're ordered. When we're out of order, it really, it jars us. And that's a good thing. And so anger is not the problem. It's what we do with the anger. And I think the young one gets this idea really early on that's just not okay to be angry.
ELISE:
Women get that idea. And women. I've heard you say David White and his saying that anger is the deepest form of care and compassion. And culturally, I mean, it's interesting to think about it. If Ones are idealists or trying to hold people to hold the world to a standard that's achievable in its wholeness, and anger might be actually the tool or the mechanism for, you know, righteous indignation around where we are failing each other and ourselves. Maybe it's essential that we actually use our anger instead of being shamed out of expressing it.
SUSAN:
Absolutely. And I think that's the invitation from the tool is to say, when am I, when am I using the anger? And when have I actually given up my own agency, and when am I disempowering myself by letting the anger run me, instead of inform me. And I think the, the Enneagram actually is a tool of self-empowerment. It's a way to let us to see the specific places where we've given up our own power and to take emotional responsibility for what's ours. And to actually reckon with what's not, and for us Type Ones and all the Type Ones out there, you know, the Serenity Prayer is really the whole thing. I think that is: God give me the serenity to accept the things that I can't change and the courage to change the things that I can and the, the real kicker.
I think that whole thing is the wisdom to know the difference. And the anger is the wisdom. So let me know, when is it not that? And when is something being actually taken care of perfectly well by something much bigger than me. And when is this my thing to pick up and do something with. So I think all the way back to your question, when I stepped into prison, I felt like that was a lot that wasn't being handled right. There was something that I could do about it. And my journey over the last 10 years of growing Enneagram PrisonProject is to figure out the difference and to know when, to cease and to trust and to know when I need to keep moving forward.
ELISE:
Will you take us through the Susan take on the other types?
SUSAN:
I'm so happy to. I always start with Type Eight on the Enneagram, because I feel like that's how I was taught, and I feel that Eights have enough energy to propel us around the whole diagram. And anyone who's out there who is an Eights. You know, I have a, a particular fondness for this type and Eights come to teach the rest of us about being alive. And I think Eights are here to impact the world and they also want to be impacted by it. And the Eights that I know they're really up for it all. They want the real deal and they want to feel it all. Eights that say like, you know, my, my Type Eight son, when he was small, he would say, mommy hug me hard, but I'll hug you soft.
Like there's a Teddy bear inside Type Eight, but they, they like it direct. They have that energy and they bring with them a formidable heart, just so much intensity of love, intensity for loss, intensity for creativity and joy. When Eights are present to that essential thing that is me. If I'm an Eight, then that's what we feel. We feel their magnaminity and we feel they're exuberance, and when they're not present, there's like a cutting off of my own heart. That's what that's what happens is when we're developing. If we don't get these essential qualities mirrored to us, then we contract and we don't wanna lead with them anymore because it isn't safe. And everybody gets this idea somewhere along the way that it's not okay to be me.
And you don't have to have a terrible childhood to have that experience like any normal dysfunction will do. But at an eight might get that experience. And when we contract like that, then we still have to function. So then the imitation of that beautiful aliveness that Eights bring, is the ego. That's the fake version. And so Eights then start, when they lose that contact, they start to sort of insist on things, and push for things, what I want, and deny what other people want. It’s my way or the highway. And that's not the same thing as this strength, this immediacy that Eights just naturally bring when they're truly safe enough to be who they are. That when Eights can come back to who they are, then they lead with some, a different kind of strength.
They lead with a fierce vulnerability. They say things that are so disarming because they're so real and honest, but without all the other, you know, push around it, that's very innocent actually. And quite powerful.
ELISE:
I love that. What's their anger equivalent?
SUSAN:
They are an anger type. They are an anger type and the passion for type eight, and maybe that's the word you you're looking for is, is lust. This lustful, I guess something's good, more must be better. Have all of it. And in fact let's annihilate the thing. It's very black and white for type Eights. It’s like all or nothing. And, and that can be the whole range of how healthy f a person am I, because one of the big contributions of Russ Hudson, and his writing partner Don Richard Riso, years ago was these different levels of health.
And my frame of the Enneagram is often around the, that textbook, The Wisdom of the Enneagram. So if I'm really healthy, then you're gonna see I'm lustful. Yes. And I do like the all or nothing, but I might be like, I want all of justice, and I want all of peace, too. And I want all of love, and all of those positive things. And Type Nines are right next door to Type Eight. We call Type Nine, The Peacemaker, sometimes The Mediator and Nines come to teach the rest of us about being. A healthy Nine is just has this very relaxed, grounded way of being. And I'm often sitting, looking out my window when I'm talking like this on a podcast, and I can see three Redwood trees. And I think the Nine really feels like a Redwood. Deeply rooted, grounded, especially in nature.
I think of Nines like that. There's a way that Nines know everything belongs. And there's like from the tiniest creature to all of us human beings, there's a sense of wholeness hen there's room for all of the diversity of us, and Nines really appreciate that. They value that. They notice that, and they inform that. They can balance things out with their own energy, and they know how to bring people back into the fold. They're incredibly diplomatic. And I think Nines just know that the whole is truly stronger than the sum of its parts. And so there's this really amazing capacity that they have. And yet, when I'm not present, if I am a Nine, I don't feel like there's room for me. If I somehow get that impression then I do that contraction, and the invitation of that is sort of this self forgetting this way of minimizing myself, and feeling like, I have to make it okay for me, for everybody else to be here.
And I might leave myself out of that circle. And so, with presence, Nines can just come back to that and sort of take up my right seat in all of it, because the ego of the nine is not including myself. That's the egotistical move. Nines actually have so much room for everybody else, more than any other type. That's their gift.
ELISE:
My husband's a nine and isn't the passion sloth?
SUSAN:
Yes. And sloth is a sleepiness to myself, right? It's a self-forgetting. And we’re all self-forgetting. So Nine is kind of like a prototype for all the other types and they have such a way of reflecting all the other types in them. That's how they are so easy to get along with. And I often tell this story.
I have a Type Nine in my life too, which is my oldest son and he's, he's 20 turning 25 now. So this is an old story that I hope he's okay with me sharing with you. But I remember so many times growing up, he would be holding his basketball shoes with his backpack, half open, his phone in his pocket, playing the music, headphones flying, and he was ready to walk out the door. And if I called his name and say, Hey, Brooks, he would, you know, let go of the door, close it, come all the way back around the other part of the kitchen and stand in front of me and say, yeah? Like he's got time. There's room for everyone. And, and yet of course, what has he forgotten? Everything. He's rushing out the door for. And so what's really beautiful for Type Nines is when they start to value themself as much, if not more then, but just as much as everybody else. So that I include me. And that's what that's the essence of the type is how we feel in their presence. And when Nines fill out for themselves, I mean, you're a sucker for a Nine. You married one.
ELISE:
I married one. So Two is the helper, right?
SUSAN:
Yeah. TypeTwo is also called The Giver. So they come to teach the rest of us about love. And I think Twos are, you know, they're the nurturers, the caretakers on the planet. They feel other people, they’re attuned to other people. And I think they're really a conduit for love. They're in a different triad now. We've moved out of 8, 9, 1 and 2, 3, and 4 are in the heart triads. This is the emotional operating system. They're feeling with their hearts and they're trying to figure out, what do other people need. And they have their way that they're organized helps them to pay attention to those things. And then that's really an asset to be able to know and appreciate how we're treating each other. And then they model that for each other. So Twos are altruistic, and they're generous, and they're loving, and can be very compassionate.
And if I don't feel connected, for whatever reason I contract against those, and the imitation of that is trying to be helpful. Efforting at figuring out what other people need so that I can fill it. And it's this more strategic way of being, and that's not the same thing as just showing up with my open heart. And it's like a little bit of a version of the Nine, right? Like wanting to know what my own needs are so that I can put my own oxygen mask on, and take care of other people. And when I do that, Twos are incredibly available to themselves. And to know that nurturing me is also a way of taking care of you. And I'm part of this whole, you know, I call it like a divine reciprocity, the essential flow of giving and receiving, and I'm participating in that.
ELISE:
What is their passion?
SUSAN:
Pride. Pride is like this inflated sense of my own…the idea that I could help everyone. It's not unlike the Type One where I feel like I could, you know, save the whole world and save everybody. That’s the ego, right. Thinking that I could do all of that, but need nothing. And so it's very deflating when I'm not needed sometimes because the work of the Two is to be with my own self, and to be with my own needs. So that I can sense that reciprocity. Because as soon as I'm out of whack with that, then I'm, it's an imbalance, right. Nobody wants to just be receiving or, or only to be in the giving.
ELISE:
Type Three. Are they the Achievers?
SUSAN:
Type Three is the, we call it Achiever or the Performer, sometimes the Doer and, and Threes come to teach the rest of us about love in their own way. They're in the heart center.
And I think what they're after, I think Threes are very hopeful and there's a real preciousness in this type. They come to teach about value, because in their heart of hearts, Type Threes know that they can be whatever they need to be, whatever they want to be, whatever's needed in the world. My father is a Type Three and I remember growing up, my dad would always say to us exactly that: you can be whatever you want to be. And I think he really believed that. And so that's one of the ways that Threes can infuse what's in them, into other people. Sometimes we call Three the motivator because they really do have a way of seeing the light in other people, and sort of organically seeing what other people need to do in order to be all that they can be.
And there's an inherent knowing, in the heart, that's where this is making sense, I think in the Three. The inherent value that I am, just because of who I am, just because of my own being. Not because of something that I've done, or that I can muster up, but because that's just who I am. And that's true about all of us. So when Threes really show up knowing their own value and their own worth, they put things in motion, they put their heart to work, and they kind of know, this is what I'm for. And, and I think when they're present to that, that's a beautiful, illuminating thing. We wanna follow Threes. They make great leaders, they are often CEOs. And when I'm not connected to that, there's like that invitation of it, it starts to be an efforting of trying to impress, perform outdo, compete. Because it's not coming from who I already am.
It's thinking that I need to become more of that. And I hope you're starting to hear the pattern that the Enneagram is consistently, the crazy thing about all of it is that we are all trying to be more of this thing that we inherently essentially already are. Beautifully, perfectly, amazingly and Threes are, are all that. So again, when we recognize that and we can come back, then there’s that contraction, we can relax. So the essence is just always the through line. We are the ones that get in the way, because we forget not just the Nines, but all of us are so self-forgetting. And the passion for type three is this vanity, this thinking that the world turns on my axis, and I can figure that out for everyone. It's not unlike some of these other passions that we're uncovering.
ELISE:
Fours are like our iconoclasts, right? Or I don't know what the official name is, but they're…
SUSAN:
There's so many names. Four, I call it the individualist, the romantic. I do really love people, and I have a connection to Four, and the way the lines work on the Enneagram. And so do you. Also my bestie growing up has been a four. And so Fours come to teach the rest of us about depth, and meaning, and beauty, really. I think Fours really know, they want to know who we are and what we're all about. And with Four there's always a deeper meaning. And there is, if you sit with things can always go deeper, but Fours are really drawn to that. They are attuned to that and the heart, they understand the raw truths. They actually only want the real stuff of life.
And you can hear that Four sounds a little bit like an Eight. They’re lookalikes, but Four is coming from the heart. And Eight is coming from the gut. And fours are really naturally sharing from this place of authenticity. It's hard not to share from that place. And I raised my children when they were young, next to my best friend Four. And I was shocked at the things that she would ask me, and the things that she would say out loud. And I know a Four who wrote a note to her parents, before she was 10 about why they ought to get divorced. I mean, Fours are really they're so about the truth and when it comes from a present, connected place, it's not like anything else. That's why these are such important qualities.
ELISE:
What's their passion?
SUSAN:
Envy. Envy is not like jealousy. Envy is a different word for it is longing. There's a sense of, I see what other people have. I see what you have, and what you have reminds me that I don't have that. And if I only had what you have, then I would be more connected. So the, the young Four gets this idea that I'm not enough, right. And in nine different ways we're all getting that idea. And Fours have a sense that other people have something that I don't have. And if I only had that thing, then I would know more of who I am. And so the whole thing is a set-up in pursuing this thing. But when it shows up, you know, when I find that I'm actually, I am something in my mind, it's kind of a reckoning, like now who am I, if I'm not one who's seeking something that's true about me right now. When that truth is here, I have to recognize this is the thing we're all trying to learn with the Enneagram. I'm something beyond my personality, which is what the Enneagram is teaching us.
ELISE:
I wanna get to that. I want to talk about that, but we have another triad.
SUSAN:
The head triad, five, six, and seven.. Fives are the investigator, the observer. Russ Hudson's a Five for those of you who know him. And I hope you'll listen to him. And I say that because they come to teach about clarity and knowledge. There's an illumination that Fives bring. And they're here to figure out what's what in the world. And they really wanna know what's under the surface. Only like only a Four and a Five could have, you know, divined that book that I keep referring to. They're really the investigators. And they're holding stuff up to the light. They wanna really know what's what. They examine and they probe. And with something like the Enneagram, it's so attractive to Fives because it does really satisfy. It's so specific. It's so precise. It's so incisive.
And it gives us so much different information. So when I have that, and I can relax as a Type Five. When I'm present, I have all these qualities of just being, being able to bring such a sage set of wisdom to the world. And when I'm not, I'm an imitation of those qualities. I'm a know it all. And I tell everybody, and I'm hoarding my information. And essence is never the same thing as what we do with it in personality, but it sort of takes, we take ourselves for that. And the passion for Type Five is avarice. So this like holding on to information.
ELISE:
Well, and as you know, I have tested as a Five. I tested as a One on the RHETI, the Riso Hudson test, but I had to come to you for clarification. You had to help me confirm my Oneness, which I had always thought I was a One. We'll put a pin on the way that we can get confused.
SUSAN:
Well they are lookalikes. And it's okay to say here too, because One and Five resemble each other, because there is that real competency with each of those types, actually One,Three and Five are the competency types. And so they seem like each other, but Ones, like you say, are really coming from the gut and Five is coming from a cognitive center of intelligence. The way my, my mind is filtering things. And when my mind is clear and in my mind I am present, and I'm open, I'm not clouded with all these facts. There's something else quite different coming through me. And that's not the same thing as what we're describing when we're in the fixated way of being. And so Six andSeven are just versions of Five. Also the Six we call The Loyalist, or sometimes the Skeptic and Six has come to teach the rest of us about waking up about our commitment and loyalty.
And one of my other teachers called Six, the Guardians of Humanity, because they show us really how to trust. I think that's the forte of the Six. There's a real alertness inside of the Six. And they pay attention to things that other people are missing. Their energy is not even going there. And so I'm not saying Six is our psychic, but that’s kind of right. We're all psychic and Sixes have this sixth sense of what is really going on. And they will ask, and they will say, and they will intuit. And when they do this is powerful and the kicker for the Six is can I trust what I know? Right. So if my mind is open and I'm really present, I can trust myself. And when I can't, that, that imitation of that is I'm doubtful.
I'm skeptical. I'm not so sure. I'm always double thinking and projecting out. And all of those are like the imitation version of the Six.
ELISE:
Is that passion fear?
SUSAN:
Yes, it is. And another word for that is angst. You know, just like the whole, world's going to pot. Everything, it's a bigger than… it's terror actually in this triad Five, Six, and Seven, and the Sevens. I'll just end with this is the Epicure, The Enthusiast. And I'm the sucker for a Seven, cuz I married one. Sevens come to teach the rest of us about joy and about freedom. I think I call Sevens a possibilitarian and they're another one of the idealists: Sevens and Fours and Ones are all idealistic, but Seven is, is from the, you know, the possibility in the head center, right?
Like seeing so far into the future and what's possible and they're, they're really spontaneous, and they're versatile, and they're creative, and Sevens just can really see the silver linings in things. And I always like to make sure that I punctuate this for Seven because when I'm sort of not present, when I contract, if I'm a Seven, then the things I start to feel instead are sort of like, it has to be okay. And I'm efforting at making everything okay. And maybe I'm laughing louder than everybody else, and telling too many jokes. And my husband and I have this joke of like, if you're here, I need you here. You know, it's a lot. And that is only a reflection of something that I don't know is driving me is an anxiety or an underlying fear of something.
And I've spent 25 years with, with one special Seven who's also the executive director for the Enneagram Prison Project. And he spent five days with me in a Belgian prison. And I had a translator the whole time and I had always had somebody in my ear. And you could feel the transformation that was going on in the room. It was powerful because people were really seeing things and unfolding. And at different times I would see him just in the room. And we were locked in a prison for morning, noon, and night, and they gave us croissants, but really, and he was tearful so many times. So the sSevens it's like, you know, we might come from the head or the gut or the heart, whatever. It doesn't mean that we don't have the other two centers available to us. So just wanted to end that.
ELISE:
And is the passion Gluttony?
SUSAN:
Yes. The passion is gluttony and, and the gluttony is kind of wanting to experience everything. And I think Helen Palmer calls it like the stuffing of the mind. I'm pushing things, putting things in my head all, all the time, because I feel that I'm always afraid of missing out. And the young Seven gets this idea that I could get stuck and trapped in something. And the way out of that is to just always be out here. But when the Seven actually comes back inside, like all of us, the way out is in. If I can come in and tolerate all the things that I'm not doing, I can recognize something else has actually been going on the whole time. And my whole interiority is this playground. And then I'm able to resource so much more inside of myself and that's really the true freedom that Sevens are seeking. That's the paradox.
ELISE:
Thank you for that. That was beautiful. And again, I mean, they're all, they're all so juicy and wonderful. And is the goal, I mean, you've mentioned the word essence, personality, is it not to become so affirmed for example, in my Oneness that I'm like operating from that as a… I can imagine how it can become a rut or in some ways like a fallback of like, well, I'm a One, so therefore, like that explains my actions period.
SUSAN:
I think it's such a trap to use our personality like that. It is true that the way that we're organized biologically, and then the conditioning that we have, all those things that go into creating a personality in the first place, those do create almost a predisposition. And yet we all start in that really pure, whole place. And we're all really more connected to each other than we think that we are. So I think as soon as we start operating from a justification, we've already lost track of the fact that we're really connected to something much, much bigger. And the idea is not to reaffirm my personality. It's about understanding the personality is a way of, the personality's the thing that shows up when I can't right.
Because more personality, the more of a buffer from that essence quality that we're really, we're really more assured by when we're coming from that place. So Ones are always good and we just forget that, and Twos always come from love, and Threes have this natural value, and fours really teach about authenticity, and on and on all the way around. And so I find, I mean, in Enneagram Prison Project, we run the organization and the whole through line is the Enneagram. So in any meeting that we're ever in, people have their type on their naming convention. And we're checking in with each other from to sort of say, how here are you. We have a model that we use with that. And it's so constant how we forget that it takes that much practice.
ELISE:
Working in groups, both in prison and out. Are people, and I'm sure there's data about this, are people sort of evenly distributed around the Enneagram, or are some types more rare. And then once you get that group awareness going like in a prison, are people negotiating with each other along those axes?
SUSAN:
Oh, that's good questions. These are great questions. Elise, you have to come to prison with us.
ELISE:
I would love to. Seriously, let's figure it out.
SUSAN:
Definitely. I teach in a lot of different spaces, not just prison and jail, but in Corporate America and schools and organizations. And I do find in certain groups, there are more clumps of people than others. A lot of educators are Ones. For example, a lot of people in mental health professions are in the heart. And a lot of people in prison are, people are surprised. People would expect to see the Type Eight, the Boss, the Protector would be the most likely type. And it's not my finding, especially people who are serving long sentences. I think crimes of passion. And from the heart, when the heart has been really, really wounded people respond with, you know, really big violence. And so a lot of people in, for murder, I have found in to be Type Fours, Type Twos.
And to me that makes sense because the pain is so, so deep. And of course there are all the types, no one escapes. And I've really like your question are people negotiating. Yes. All the time. And I think that's not just true in prison it’s true in all the corporate class clients I've ever had, and is even true about people who come into the work on our public programs with EPP. And I think when it comes right down to it, it is really vulnerable work to pick a type and to start to really look at what we're up to. And as soon as we, like, when you said in the very beginning, don't people have pride about their type. I thought that was so sweet, like in a way, we are in love with the things that we love about ourselves, but as soon as we see the things that are not so pretty, there's a choice point, right? How much presence, Russ will say, how much presence can we tolerate? And for me in the beginning, not very much, I didn't necessarily not wanna be a One, but I didn't want you to tell me that I was angry. I was just annoyed or frustrated or whatever. I pick those nicer words. And that was our words for anger. But we negotiate constantly.
ELISE:
So interesting. Like in prison populations where they really lean into the work or is it more how I'm sure it, it, I know Alex obviously who now like lives and embraced Enneagram and, and started in prison, but is it more that, and this can extend beyond prisoners, but is it more sort of like, oh, like I see myself, like, you're talking about me and you don't know me, but you're talking about me in a way that feels accurate and true. And that then they start to be like, oh, I get you a little bit better, because you're a Seven or you're an Eight. So do you find that it sort of comes in and then comes out in that way?
SUSAN:
Yeah. And I had people do all a number of things when, when I meet someone, especially if the whole context is set up for us and the container is the Enneagram. Then the whole time I'm really paying attention. I'm always paying attention to people from that lens because I find it so useful. It's second nature to me almost. And so if somebody knows that that's also what we're paying attention to, then they might ask me, so we had those conversations. But I had someone, really early on, just say to me in prison, who gave you my file? How do you know those things about me? And I said, I don't know anything about you. I didn't get your file, but you told me you're an Eight. And what do you know? Here's the behavior of the Eight, and just really confrontational.
And he wanted to know. And as soon as I met him there, like that, with the energy that he was looking for, he relaxed, and then we could talk a little bit more deeply. And then he did go much deeper with the tool and start. And then it's like, oh, you, you don't know me, but actually this system is so tried and true that we can get beyond the objective data that is showing me what, what personality is like so flagrant. I can have space to make contact with what is really neat under that. And that's the powerful moment, no matter where I'm using the tool with, with my kids in the kitchen or with the most difficult person around the boardroom table, or what have you. And it's so disarming to know, I'm not those things.
And so many people have told me, you know, I did that crime, but that's not really who I am. And I will tell you when I went to go learn the Enneagram and I was in a parenting class, I wanted to say, like, I yell at my kids, but I'm a good mom. Right. I'm really, I wanted the people to know, and we're all just in a prison of our own. And we don't know how, and we sometimes don't even know that we are until we start to see it on the map.
ELISE:
Mm. I love that. So the Enneagram of the symbol is ancient, right? And Gurdjieff sort of danced the Enneagram, but he didn't develop the psychological system.
SUSAN:
The symbol itself is ancient. Just like you say goes all the way back to it's the law of one, three and seven, that are represented on the symbol that we could talk for hours and hours on. And then the Enneagram, the topology, the modern psychology was overlaid on that. And that was by Ichazo, who was studying in a inner work school in South America under Gurdjieff. And he was the one that put the symbol together with modern psychology, like you said. And so I think those two things have to unite. And in order for this deeper work that we're talking about to actually take place, because, you know, the law of one is a circle, but actually it's a spiral and we're always changing, which is what the law of seven is about. We're either spiraling up, it's a virtuous, you know, circle or we're spiraling down in a vicious cycle. And so we bring those two together. We can start to see that we all have this divine essence, who we are, but we also come differentiated. We are also on this whole spectrum of how we're different. So it is so complex and, and actually also so simple all at once.
ELISE:
It’s a mystical idea. Myers Briggs is based on Jung, right?
SUSAN:
I can’t speak too much about Myers Briggs. I have taken it, I could probably come up with the letters for me. What I I know is really different is that Myers Briggs is sort of these behavioral things that we do. So in that way, a topology is, is helpful. What differentiates the Enneagram from all the other personality tools is that it helps to understand and really uncover and drill down into the motivation of why are we doing what we are doing. So it's that why before the what, and that part is, uh, not like anything else I've ever found.
ELISE:
So what do you think, like, what is your sort of psycho-spiritual, do you have any sort of faith around the Enneagram in terms of where it came from, like, and who was downloading it? If that makes sense. Like, it's not as I think of Myers Briggs as something that businesses use, right. To like code employees. I like Myers Briggs too. I don't know that much about it. But, but when you think about something like the Enneagram, and then even the passions and their relationship to the Cardinal sins, like these are all concepts that have been, as you said, they've been filtering through consciousness since antiquity. Like we've been playing with versions of this in these modern psychological systems all over the globe in lots of different ways. And now it's obviously been synthesized, but what do you, do you, do you attach it to anything larger? If that makes sense, like to some divine plan?
SUSAN:
I'm waiting to read your book about all of this. I can see where you're going. I, remember teaching, very, very early on when I had just certified to the teacher with Dr. David Daniels and at the East West bookshop in Mountain View, which I'm not even sure it's still there. And someone in the audience asked do we come back as the same type each time. And I was so like, I didn't know, David too well at that point, I didn't know what he was gonna answer. Um, and I think I ended up fielding that one and I, I feel like I've been working on these issues for a very, very long time. And I, I am a very spiritual person. I think the Enneagram is, is completely a spiritual tool. If you, when you get into it, right.
It starts, we start to have, um, be invited into answering these very esoteric questions about what is the what's the whole cosmic joke is that we think that we are, we take ourselves to be these things. So yes, to all that you're in, you know, using about and inviting and the how or what I can't pretend to know. I'm not even someone who's qualified, I think to even be, adventuring a guess. But I do know that every conversation that I'm in, that where people drop in and down below the personality is a sacred one. That's what we're being invited into, I think on the planet. That's what we're all here for.
ELISE:
No, it feels like we're being, as you said, dropped in. I like that, like on a circle, there's some divine plan or architecture for the ways that we need to each show up and bring our gifts to bear. And so I like the Enneagram as a roadmap for that. This is who you are at, or this is an essential guiding GPS system for you. And how do you, what I wanna say maximize, but like, how do you use that to navigate and do what you're here to do? I think it's a powerful tool.
SUSAN:
And I think for anyone who's just like stepping, stepping their big toe in the pool. We don't have to overcomplicate it. It is really a tool that's meant to be coupled with a mindful mindfulness practice, some way of just regularly getting back into contact with ourselves. And that's all that's required. We have everything we need inside of us. And there's nothing really we have to do, except for, to remember who we've always been.
ELISE:
I love the Enneagram, and I particularly love Susan’s warm, loving, empathic take on it, which mirrors, I think my own. I realky do think it’s fascinating, but so stunning to think about each other in that way. And to imagine, and this might be my Type One, idealistic personality or essence, but this belief or faith, I should say, that I have tht everyone could live up to their highest potentil. And I think the Enneagram, fully expressed for each of us, is a map to that. And I want to live in a world where we’re all balanced, and living in our highest selves. And I believe it’s essential and incumbent that we all live up to our potential in that way. I think the earth requires it. I think our hurt society requires it. And that’s the greatest strength we have for ourselves. And I think that’s what we aspire to everyday. And as for anger, my particular passion, I have a lot to say about that. Maybe w’ell save that for another conversation down the road.