108: Why you are mistyped on the Enneagram and why that is so common

But if you're a human person.

And you're trying to figure out your type, I want you to know that mistyping is, is actually part of your whole process.

You know, and my hopes is through this podcast and how it's going to evolve in 2021. I'm going to be doing live typing sessions for you on the podcast, as well as live integration coaching of those that have already been properly typed with me, so that you can actually hear how this amazing tool in real time can really benefit you and take a lot of the guesswork out of some of this personal development you've been working so hard on.

You know, if you are like so many people, you know, you keep reading all the great books and blogs and all the amazing information Instagrammers out there on the Enneagram and self discovery, but even, even that, like information can lead to more confusion. It's only when we take integration and take some really effective action that it starts to click. You know, probably the most frustrating thing about being mistyped or not being sure if you're typed properly is that in the quest for your answers, it's easy to forget that everything needed is in yourself, right? And like the assessments and quizzes might point you in the right direction, or what I'm seeing more often than not is they actually might confuse you more. And they're tools, just like books and blogs and podcasts are tools to help kind of give you the information, the basic information teaching of the Enneagram to help you decide on your own what kind of horrendous or amazing path of self work, compassion, growth and revelation to take. But finding out your type on your own is not as simple as picking a number or just looking at the behaviors or, or anything like that. It's discovering what survival and coping mechanisms and skills that your brain, your nurturing personality and circumstances all created to help you get to the very place where you realize that they're not working anymore. And the framework and the structure of the Enneagram has allowed me to look back on the things that I used to. Let me tell you, I used to annihilate the shit out of myself, like so terribly. They're like, you couldn't beat me up more than I beat myself up, but the framework of the Enneagram helped me get to this aha moment.

You know, when you can look at it through that and you realize that you don't have to hate those things about yourself or beat yourself up. They actually kept you safe. And I keep a picture of myself as a 4 year old on my desk and close by at all times. Because a lot of those things that kept us safe, that were survival skills, are rooted in her. And I know for a fact I would never emotionally, physically, spiritually beat the shit out of that beautiful four year old that's staring at me. She was so sweet and innocent and grew up way long before she should have had to. But when we can use the framework of the Enneagram to tap back into that part of us, that's where the compassion lies.

Once you find your type, it's like, oh my gosh, you can look at it like, thank you so much for getting me this far. And now I need to understand and rediscover the amazing qualities about my true self that, you know, we forget, that we sabotage. That was the thing in understanding my Enneagram. When I realized where I actually go in a growth pattern that I had been sabotaging and shutting that down for 40 years.

And understanding why. Not just that I did it, but why I did it. I had so much self love for myself that no personal development, no therapist, no seminar, no podcast could ever give me. But the framework of the Enneagram allowed me to really lean into that. So it's completely normal and expected that you will mistype yourself or be mistyped in one of these assessments. And like I said, I think part of the discovery process is that being mistyped is part of the typing process. I work so closely with amazing organizations and individuals. One amazing, incredible powerhouse woman. She's been like the president of corporation and now she's an entrepreneur leading the way. And she was mistyped as a 7 and most would have looked at her assessment. And it's the one that I recommend. Like even that one has been wrong. She took it more than once and it still popped up the same answer. And it popped up a seven with a score of 30. And her next closest one was like at 21 points and it was a three. And most would assume with that big of discrepancy that it must be right. Well, nope. For over a year and a half, she. She saw the 7, she could see the behaviors, but it wasn't making sense. And when she would try to use this effectively, it wasn't landing. And so she reached out to me and through a deep dive discovery process, we found out that she was actually type 4. And.

You know, I'll do an episode on subtypes and how that can alter how we get typed, but when we locked in on the four, all of a sudden it Unlocked everything for her. And so much about who she is and why she's done what she's done made perfect sense. And the beating of herself up stopped immediately just like that. And she's in her late 40s. So I wanted to kind of go through why a lot of you are mistyped.

Like I said, I think it's part of the process. It really opens our eyes up. And it kind of. Especially if you're like me and had block so much of your life, going through the process really makes you take an honest look at yourself. Not just the things we do, but the why we do it. Because that's the whole core of the Enneagram is.

Not just changing behaviors and not just like we're in pain, we want to change it. You've heard me talk about, like, awareness. We have this awareness that something's not working, something painful, something's going sideways, all hell's breaking loose. And so many of us. And with the world we live in today, everybody just wants a quick fix, an easy button, the microwave mentality, and just give me the action to change it. But when we do that, we're skipping over the why things have gotten here. And that acknowledgement piece is so important. And the Enneagram can help you with that, but you gotta be tight, right? So here's a few reasons why you might be mistyped. Trauma. 100%. I see this all the time because in trauma, we build survival techniques and coping mechanisms that mask who we are a lot of the time. Abuse.

Society expectations and cultural conditioning. I see this a lot with first generation Americans that come from a culture. I see this all the time. Gender, gender identification, sexual identity, family history and expectations. Stress, illness, body image issues, religious upbringing. And you know what the most important thing is, and the most relevant thing to being mistyped is that we're freaking human. And it really is. Being human means that most likely everyone will mistype at some point. Yes, even eights. Eights actually are the most mistyped on the Enneagram.

Usually when I see people get typed as eights, they really like it because the name the challenger is like appealing. But it is probably the one that I see most mistyped. You might be you. Actually most of the time, an 8 is usually a stress the fuck out 2 or in a year and. And. Or like somebody that goes to an eight under stress, which is the two. Or it might be a wing. I see it all the time. But here are a few things I found helpful during the typing and mistyping process.

You know, I think that the more we dig in and we look at the motives of each one, you know, definitely a type resonates with you based on the behaviors. I think I've mentioned this before. My therapist actually thought I was a three, because behaviorally, I look very much like a three. Like, put a goal in front of me, I'll smash it. I'll win if I have to. Like, I like to win. I kind of push down the vulnerability, which threes can do. But I am not at all rooted in the motive of the four. Not even a little bit. Right. So here's some tips on if you're gonna approach this on your own. Some things to think about. And if you know that you want to use this powerful, beautiful, amazing tool and you want somebody to guide you and get it right, then just reach out to me. So one of the things you can do is look at the number you think you are and research its stress and health arrows. That's another thing that I see patterns in in a. These assessments.

Become familiar with what behaviors that type might show when healthy and when stressed out. Not to beat yourself up, but to have awareness. Do you show any of the same thought, feeling, or doing patterns? Consider that you might either be the stressed number or the healthy number of the type that you originally started with. I see this a lot. This man that I know very well, his top score was 7 to 4, and it turns out he's a 4. And that that 7 behavior can look very avoidant, which is the root of the four. When they're, you know, in pain, they're. They're very withdrawn when they are processing. And that 2 is where a 4 goes in stress. So when I can kind of see and. And see patterns in that, that really helps me kind of narrow things down. So looking at the stress and health arrows will be. Think about how you move around in the world.

Are you a person that lives and breathes your feelings? Is everything about emotion and relationships? If so, a good place to start is in the heart triad. So, two, three, four. Do you think, think, think. Is everything processing through your brain? Is everything carefully planned or researched? Then investigate like those in the head triad, the fives, the sixes, and the sevens. And I'm going to do a whole episode on the triads because I think this is really, really important to help you narrow it down. Are you a doer? Like acting from your gut? Just like second nature for you. You just know what to do, and you go out and make it happen. And start with the gut or body triad, which is the eight, the nine and the one. The other thing that can affect how you are typed or mistyped are the stances and this. And I'm going to do a whole episode on these, too. Like I've said before, the Enneagram is not complicated, but it is complex. Stances, in short terms are the energy planes in which you unconsciously live and emote and think. They also relate to how you or orient yourself to time. So three sevens and eights are the aggressive stance. And this is. This really is helpful too. So those in the aggressive stance go out and meet the world with lots of energy and force. Like, they don't want to sit back and process, they just want to go, right.

So you can see the 3, the 7 and 8. Each one falls in one of the triads, right? The fours, fives and nines are in the withdrawing stance, which means they remove themselves from the world to process or deal with anything that life throws at them. They're more past oriented where the three sevens and eights are more future oriented. So the fours are in the heart triad, the fives in the head triad, and the nines are in the body triad. Right? The twos, the six and the ones are in a compliant stance, which means they move along with people and events around them.

Not quite being so in touch with their own energy, they mold into what is either expected of them or what they feel is expected. And they're very in the present oriented.

Very much so. But little thought goes to the future unless they're going to be blindsided. You know, like in the present moment, they're thinking about what the future might look like. So, you know, this is just the tip of the iceberg with why so many are mistyped.

The Enneagram is so incredible. And when I talk to people about children, and I've talked about this before, there's lots of schools of thoughts on it. There's either team do not even think enneagram in children, and then there's people like me that I think the more that we can understand and really take the time to ask our children what makes them tick, like, obviously age appropriately. I think the earlier that our kids feel seen, heard and understood, the more elegantly they can navigate their adult life and adult relationships and what they're passionate about.

I would say most of you listening grew up in a way that you didn't always feel seen, heard and understood. And that's why we are confused or we are using coping mechanisms that aren't serving us the way that, you know, help Us lean into the gifts that we were here for. And you know the thing with the Enneagram, and I tell people all the time, like, there's nothing wrong with any of us and we're not broken. Nothing needs to be fixed. But I think that we're all born with a beautiful temperament and disposition and calling and nature and nurture come into play. And then we're dropped into lives that sometimes they're really great and sometimes they're really fun, and sometimes they're really traumatic, and sometimes all of it right. I've been a parent for.

Geez, almost 25 years. Holy crap, that's a long time. And even with our best of intentions, we don't always get it right. And neither did our parents and the parents before them. And you know, when we can start being curious with our own children and understanding what makes them tick based on their stuff and not what they think we want them to say, I think the sooner that the next generation can really step into the calling on their life. And I want you to know, no matter how old you are, it is never too late. I would love to hear what questions you have about mistyping. I have been brainstorming with myself about doing some kind of typing workshops because I think this because it's inaccurate 65 to 70% of the time kind of work workshopping style with people and groups to really help you narrow down your accurate type. I would love to know what you think about. If you have loved this episode or got something out of this episode. I would love to hear that too. Please, you know, shout me out on Instagram so I can engage with you and maybe help you kind of narrow things down. And you know, when you speak what's going on in your head out loud. You help other people too. So I would love to do that with you. If typing workshop might be something that excites you, please let me know that too. I don't want to create something that none of you freaking want, so. But I'm thinking that might be a really good first step for so many of you.

I love the Enneagram. I really, really do. It's amazing. It really just helps us make sense of lots of things that confuse the shit out of us. So until next time, here's to becoming Bulletproof.

Thank you for tuning in to the Becoming Bulletproof podcast. If you learned a thing or two from our show today, it would mean a lot to me if you shared it and tagged me so I can hear exactly what landed on your heart. This will help me to bring you even more episodes with the topics and guests you want. Please head over to itunes and leave an honest and loving five star review. If this made an impact on you, you can find me on Instagram at traceeomalley and I have tons of free resources for you@tracyomalley.com as always, if you are wanting to ignite your purpose, profits and build your legacy, it's time to stand on the front line of your life and do the work. Let's become bulletproof.