EP220: Unlocking Your Full Potential: Understanding the Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes

Welcome to the Leadership Formula podcast, where you will learn the secret sauce behind achieving massive success. I'm your host, Tracy o', Malley, multimillion dollar entrepreneur, your Enneagram expert, master performance coach, and mom to millennials. Do you want deep, meaningful relationships, to wake up every day with purpose and make money doing something you love? Well, you've landed in the right place. Every week, I will teach you how to get exactly what you want in life by strengthening your emotional intelligence. Using a combination of the Enneagram framework, live life coaching sessions, and real talk from yours truly. It's time to transform yourself into the ultimate leader of your life.

Let's do this thing.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Leadership Formula.

I wanted to talk to you guys today about probably the most important part of the Enneagram that nobody knows about. Really, it's not focused on because it can change the whole game in Enneagram land. And other than trauma, and it's directly kind of related to things that happened early on in her life. It is the number one reason why 65 to 70% of you are mistyped. And all those online assessments don't take this part into consideration. Artificial intelligence is magical for so many reasons, but there are some twists and turns in the human psyche that really, really can't be tapped into without a little bit of help. And the subtypes are something that even in my early beginnings in the Enneagram a decade ago, I didn't know much about it. I didn't realize that we were more than just our type. And this is kind of where nature and nurture really collide with the Enneagram. And the subtypes are the things I want to talk about today. They are the instinctual part of who we are. Right? We've got the three centers of intelligence. The mental thinking center, the emotional heart center, and the body action center. And in the body center, which is where the eights, nines, and ones live, there are three major instinctual drives. We use all of our centers of intelligence, but usually one dominates based on the Enneagram type that you are. The thing that happens with us is, you know, we have these natural wirings that we are given by the divine. We have a temperament, disposition that is unique to us. And then we're dropped into families, organizations, school systems, experiences, and whatever happens or is modeled for us, we have this. This moment where we're in our body and our instincts take over. And this is kind of where the nature and nurture collide. And depending on what you've experienced one of these three major instincts within your Enneagram type will reside. And so within the nine different Enneagram types, there are three instinctual subtypes. So you can kind of do the math. 9 times 3 is 27. So there are actually 27 technically different Enneagram types. And within the three subtypes, it can really alter how your main Enneagram type is expressed. Hence why a lot of you are mistyped. And this is, this has been the most fascinating, beautiful part of my journey with the Enneagram with other people is really helping them understand that yes, you might be a 6, but if you're a self preservation 6, this is why this looks different than, you know, Susie, who's a six sitting next to you. And I'm coming off of a corporate executive team workshop training that I did. And I didn't just break them down by Enneagram types, I also broke them down by the subtypes, the instincts, so that they could really understand when things happen, life happens. Yes, they have their core type behaviors that you'll see. But why it gets expressed a certain way has everything to do with these instincts. And these three basic instinctual drives are essential for human experience. And like I said, all three reside in us as necessary body based primal forces. And they're separate from our personality. And these are what's behind our life strategies, usually, you know, in our subconscious mind. Yet they powerfully direct your fundamental way of being. And while they're always there, one of these three become dominant and is more easily accessed and therefore more easily used than the others. And when the dominant instinct merges with your core Enneagram type, a whole kind of new character expression and structure is formed. And this is why I am so passionate about when I do Enneagram typing sessions, we dive deep into this. The goal is, is to be able to move pretty effortlessly through the three instincts. You know, self preservation is one of them, the one on one subtype is one of them, and the social subtype. And I gotta say, like looking back on my life, I probably lived very much of it in self preservation. And I'll get into what that means. But as I've grown and evolved and really done a lot of work on myself, I'm pretty even across the three. One is probably my least on it. And as you grow, you will probably have two that really are neck and neck with each other. And then there's one that's this blind spot. And that is true for me too. I can get there. I can get there. Because I've done a lot of the work. But one will usually dominate and you'll have a secondary. And then one is one that feels very unnatural to you. So a big part of the work with these instincts is simply to be in our bodies. And this is something I've learned especially the last five years. You know, yesterday when I'm recording this was Breast Implant Illness Awareness Day. And that's a whole other podcast episode that I've done. I've done a couple on that. And although that was horrendous and painful and humbling, that experience really allowed me to be in my body. And these instinctual centers really help us to understand. Like when crisis happens, that fight or flight or freeze or fawn, that instinct in our bodies really comes to life. And when we can have awareness around that, we can allow ourselves to be in our present mind, in our present soul, instead of just reacting all the time. There are other potentials here as well. The ability to enjoy pleasure, maintain our health and vitality, to experience ourselves as part of the natural world and this beautiful web of life. But there's really more to it. So I want to dive into these a little bit. The self preservation instinct kind of governs our needs for material supply, security, food, shelter, warmth, family relations. The one on one instinct is sometimes called the sexual instinct. Governs our sexuality, our intimate relationships and close friendships, and the vitality of the force within our bodies. The social instinct governs our needs for belonging and membership within a larger group and community. Sometimes, like how I like to explain it, is this the self preservation instinct when things happen, if you are more of a self preservation type, when things happen, you're under stress or even in excitement, what's going to happen to me? And it doesn't mean that you're selfish or anything like that. That's just your first natural instinct. A lot of times if you grew up with a lot of stress and chaos and uncertainty growing up, you can tend to go there. Especially if there was, you know, abuse or anything in the home. You know, what's going to happen to me, right? The one on one subtype is kind of like, okay, what's going to happen to us? Like our inner circle, our close people, our experiences, Our close experiences. So the self preservation, what's going to happen to me? The one on one, what's going to happen to us? And the social what's going to happen to we? The collective, right, the group. So the self preservation instinct, like I said, we all have this. It's to preserve our body Its life and its effective function. This instinct therefore focuses on physical safety, well being, material security and comfort. And anxiety or stress may combine with this instinct to drive you to conserve or hoard energy and resources in response to demands from the environment or other people. So if you think about like the Enneagram 5, which, you know, they hoard energy resources naturally, you can imagine if you're self preservation five, how much more magnified that can look. Or if you look at like a Self Preservation 7, which is typically extroverted, and all sorts of things, there's like this inner conflict. Sometimes they have this need for safety, certainty, security. But with the drive and motivation of a 7, it can make it look very, very different from a 7. And it's very often why a 7 can be mistyped as something else happens all the time. A lot of times a self preservation can mistype as a 4 or a 4 can mistype as a self preservation 7 happens all the time. The one on one instinct has a drive to protect yourself in the environment, to form alliances and extend yourself through generations, either literally by passing on your DNA or more symbolically, by passing on ideas and leaving a legacy. This instinct focuses on the intensity of experience, experiences and one on one relationships, driving you to actively seek out opportunities that promise strong, energetic connections with others. This is my main one. And then I toggle to self preservation, especially when it comes to my financial life. The social instinct. This is what's going to happen to we, the collective, the group, right? We have this social instinct to get along with others and form secure social bonds. So if life happens and you're a social subtype, you're like, how is this going to affect how people perceive me in the group? The collective, right? This brings a focus on interactions and relationships with communities and groups and a high social awareness of norms and status levels in groups. This instinct focuses energy on working towards shared purpose for the greater good, right? These instincts relate to fundamental instinctual intelligence that have developed to ensure your survival as individuals, as a human species. Advances in neuroscience research have confirmed the strong and often invisible way these instincts show up in your life. For example, how a perceived threat to social status can trigger a primal fight or flight reaction. Now, you might be asking me right now, how do I figure this out? How do I figure out my subtype? For some of you it might be very, very clear, while for others of you, it might be a matter of study and exploration over time. The surefire way to really dive into this is with somebody like me. Honestly, you know, when I do Typing sessions. We dive heavily into this because it is, it is the determining factor of how our core enneagram type gets expressed and how we effectively use the rest of the anatomy of your type, including the wings, your stress and growth numbers. So like, obviously, like having a guide that can help you with that is really, really powerful. So you can do that. If you want to do a live typing session with me, I'm still doing those. You can go to Tracey O' Malley.com the work with me section for a kickstart session. It is the most powerful 90 minutes you will ever have and you will walk away absolutely knowing your main enneagram type, your subtype, your wings, your growth number, your stress number and how to use them. It's really, really powerful. And coming soon, I will be doing enneagram typing in a way that if you don't have the time or the resources to sit down with me for 90 minutes, I'm going to be putting booklets together with videos for you so that you can do this on your own too. It's going to be powerful. And that's coming soon, right? So what you can do is really dive into when life happens. Where do you go? Where do you go? And same thing with figuring out your enneagram type. If you take an online assessment, don't just assume that the top score is it. Even if there's a big discrepancy in like the top score and the next one down. I've seen a lot of times where it's the third or fourth type in the assessment that's actually your core type. So if you're going to go this solo, absolutely, go for it. But take your time with it because having the right information is key. To use the Enneagram as the beautiful tool that it is so really, really important. So some of the questions you can ask yourself around the instincts, right? So if you're going to kind of take this on your own or dive a little deeper if you think you might be a self preservation type, you know, asking how important is your home? How much time and money do you spend on your home? Can you easily move to a new living space? How important is your family? Do you experience warm relationships with family members? What is your current relationship to food buying, preparing, eating? Do you like to share your meals with other people? How much time and energy do you spend on your physical health? Are you up to date in your healthcare appointments with doctors, dentists? Do you feel financially secure? How much effort do you make towards earning money and managing money? Do you worry about this. What is enough, Right? So even if these are a little off your norm, or let's say I know people in my life, two close people in my life, very close people are more of the self preservation types. And these are things that really keep them up at night sometimes, whether they're in a healthy range or not of these things. But this is where their heads go for sure. Now the one to one questions you might want to ask yourself. How important is it to have an intimate relationship if you're married? How much attention do you bring to your partner? Do you prefer to spend time with your partner and close friends one on one, or would you rather spend time with people in a group? What roles does sexuality play in your life? Do you have a spiritual practice or place in your life where you transcend your normal state of personality? Now, for me, as a one to one, like reading these questions, it's kind of funny because I could very easily be alone the rest of my life. I could literally stay in my house with the dogs and never see another human being. Is that necessarily what I want? No. But I do like when I look at the questions in these three instincts, this is the one that is the most important to me, but it's also the one that scares me the most. But it's also the one that gives me like, that fills me up. And when I think about my history, this stuff was what was most important to me. The self preservation is a close second. All right, for the social subtype questions to maybe ask yourself. Are you a member of any organized groups? What role or position do you usually play in groups? Do you experience a sense of belonging to a community? Do you have a sense of social duty or sacrifice for the greatest good? Do you gravitate towards being of influence in social relationships and structured community? Are you engaged with social issues? Do you follow the news? Do you participate in groups as a whole? Right, and I can do a whole nother episode on breaking down all 27 types. I might at one point. But I'm thinking it probably will be better to do individual podcast episodes on the three within each type. Like do the three ones and the three twos and the three threes. But this is a really, really important part. It's next level enneagram stuff. So for my enneagram obsessives out there, this is definitely an area you want to dive into further. This is a really important part of Team Dyn Dynamics as well. Like I said, I worked with nine of the executives within a company last week. And it was interesting because there was four men and five women within the group. All four men fell into the self preservation instinctual subtype. Four of the women fell into the social subtype and only one fell into the one on one subtype. It was really, really fascinating. And although like they were represented very thoroughly within the Enneagram, it was a very diverse team as far as Enneagram types for them to see how you can have two threes in the group, but one is a self preservation and one is a social. And how drastically different it was and how to navigate when crisis hits. When you've got self preservation people within the group, this is how they're going to act. When you have social people, this is how they're going to kind of express. And same with the 1, 2, 1. This is the really cool, juicy parts of the Enneagram. This is when like you want to go down the rabbit hole learning about this and understanding that we are more than just our Enneagram type. It's why I say all the time, like the Enneagram doesn't put you in a box or slap a label on you. It just gives you framework and a roadmap to your soul. And this ext. Secret door that is the subtype or your instinctual response to life really helps you have greater insight for yourself, more compassion for yourself. And when you can do that for yourself, you can freely, freely give that to other people, especially those that you love and those that you lead. This is incredible information. I love, love, love diving into this with people just like you. Whether you lead in your home or lead in a business or organization, knowing this and knowing how to integrate this into your life is a game freaking changer. Like I said, I do Enneagram typing sessions where for 90 minutes we can break all this down for you and then you can take that information and run. Or if you want, like the VIP tour guide, then work one on one with me for three months where you have 24, 7 access to me via the Marco Polo app, where you can experience some life, tap into that and say, hey Trace, what does this mean? What does this what is going on with me when this is happening? And it's really getting the VIP tour guide of your soul Roadmap within the Enneagram and how to use this in your life, in your health, in your families, in your relationships, in your friendships and in your business and relationship to money. I worked with a woman in 2020. She was already high level professional, she was a corporate executive and walked away from that like, quarter of a million dollar job she walked away from and was starting a business and she was struggling with it. Like, she's one of the smartest freaking people I've ever met. And she was mistyped. She was originally typed as a seven. And when I met her, I was like, it's not making sense, but okay. I didn't know her well enough to dive into that, but I was like, I'm not feeling that. End of 2020, she hired me for the deep dive. One on one. We'd known each other for about two years at that point. And her business was okay, but not replacing the income she walked away from. And so we really started diving into this. First of all, she was mistyped. She was actually a self preservation four, not an Enneagram seven. And so for the next three, four months, we really dove into, okay, when this is happening, why do I resist this? Why do I resist this? And giving herself language to communicate compassionately with herself so that she can move forward and do the things that she was here to do in her business and also in her family life. She's got three kids and a husband as well. She shared with me at the end of 2021 the results of how this has impacted her income. Her income went from $200,000 to over a million dollars in 2021. With understanding and doing the deeper inner work and using the framework of the Enneagram and specifically her understanding that A self preservation 4 navigates like this in life and how to use that for her greatest good and not use it as an excuse to stay st frustrated of why I'm not moving the needle forward when I know better. Why am I not doing better? Understanding this and integrating this into all areas of your life can bring in abundance in ways you cannot imagine. I would be honored and feel super beautiful to walk you through this journey. I only take a few private one on one clients. I have room for one more. Currently I'm almost full. So if that is something that is speaking to you today for whatever reason like this has landed on you, take it as a sign. You can go to tracyomally.com the work with me section. Fill out the application. One on one private with me is by application only. It's not a right fit for everyone. It is like the master's program of your soul. And I love, love, love taking people through the journey and watching the compound effect of this work in all areas of your life. If you guys have any questions, you can always reach out to me on Instagram. Tracyrat o' Malley and I would love to know like if if this is something you had no idea was even part of the Enneagram, or if you have questions about that, you know, fire away. I would love to bring more information around this to you. But I think, you know, definitely in the near future I will break down the three types of one, the three types of twos in a separate episode because I think it's that important to understand you guys. I am always here to help you become the ultimate leader in your life. And until next time, I'll see you soon.

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