EP302: How The Enneagram Can Strengthen Your Faith, Not Sway You from It

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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.

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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.

Hey there, fam. Can you believe we are less than two weeks away from 2023 beginning and just a couple days away from Christmas and the holiday? And I wanted to talk to you guys a lot today about your faith and. And what that means to you and where the Enneagram comes into play with that. You know, there's a lot of controversy sometimes around people that are of faith, Christian, religious, and using something like the Enneagram. You know, I remember when, you know, I grew up Catholic, not very strong practicing, at least in my immediate home, but my extended family absolutely did. And I remember hearing things about religion and rules, and I was like, I had lots of questions. And at nine years old, I started to seek out what this God of my understanding meant. And for those of you that maybe don't have a religious background or you're not sure where you're at in that journey, totally fine. Obviously, I believe everybody is on a walk that they need to be on. But, you know, one of the things I call God and when I'm talking to people, because I am one of those that kind of used to be judgy, especially after I got sober and found God of my understanding, I wanted everybody to understand the same God that I did. And there's nothing wrong with that, because the God of my understanding is pretty freaking awesome. But I understand sometimes if you've experienced religious trauma or contradictory stuff or stuff that was out of integrity in the name of religion, I understand how much of a turnoff that that could. And I was. I had experienced that earlier in my life, but then had this new experience of what my faith looked like. And I remember early on in that, you know, I used to kind of not judge, but, like, want to correct people when they would say the universe or things like that. And that didn't last me very long because that's, like, super judgy. And everybody's on their own journey. And just because I have found certain light in my journey doesn't mean everybody's, you know, wanting to receive that. And especially with the way that maybe it has been expressed to you. And this is another reason why the enneagram has been so powerful, because even though the God of my understanding is what it is for me, if I try to translate to you in a way that doesn't feel right for you or it's triggering, then it misses the whole point. Right? And I remember it, like I said, it didn't last very long where I was insistent that, like, if you are somebody of faith, then you must honor God. That I understand. Same thing with being sober. Like, I used to, like, sober, sober, period. End of story. Like, you know. But sober for you might be different than sober for me. Right. And as a parent, you know, we have to be able to communicate in ways that other people can receive the message that's on our heart. And the fact of the matter is, is if I want to spread love and kindness and honor to those, then I have to be mindful of how to maybe articulate what's on my heart. And it was early in recovery when I was leading a large team and my son, who was very active in young life, which is a youth group Christian organization, which was really great for him at the time and still has left a mark on his heart in beautiful ways, he had asked me, he's like, well, I know you're a woman of faith, mom, but why don't you, like, talk about God and use the word God? He's like, I can hear your messaging is very Godlike, but you're not using the word God. And. And I understood that maybe he was saying, like, are you afraid to declare that you are a woman of faith and. Absolutely no. Like, I will tell anyone that I believe in a God of my understanding and what that looks like for me. But I know that whether it was, you know, somebody telling me that I needed to get help or this goes applies to you when. When somebody preaches at you, and especially if you've had a hard, triggering, painful experience tied to that, the chances of the message being heard are almost zero. Right. And what I said to him is like, I can carry the message of somebody who believes in a. A God of my understanding, and it can be received by other people when I don't use maybe certain language and I'm not minute. I know. And you can disagree with me. I know I have a lot of listeners that are Very, very strong in their beliefs around this. And I totally get it. I totally get it. But if you want to make the impact, then understanding how others might receive that information, not just based on Enneagram type, but also just in general, will go a lot further. And I didn't need to always be right, and my beliefs are my beliefs, but I am open minded to hear how other people operate in their faith. And because of that, I have not only helped people find a God of their understanding. Right. But also I have learned a lot about other people's faith. And that has made me more compassionate, more empathetic, and really just more open minded to all the things I'm here to learn on earth. Now, for those, those of you that have a strong faith and maybe have been resistant to a tool like the Enneagram or even astrology or human design, because you might believe that's the devil's work, I'm not here to convince you that it's not. And you can choose not to listen. But if things aren't going well for you in your life right now, or if there's something that maybe is being swept under the rug, I'm going to just ask you to open your mind up a little bit. Okay? I know that I am not bigger than a God of my understanding. And you know, when I say God of my understanding, I want you to be okay with whatever that looks like for you. I don't have to prove to anyone who my God is, and neither do you. Right. And if you're somebody that maybe wants people to understand your God your way, you're kind of missing the boat. You really are. Just my opinion. Now, how does the Enneagram come into play to your faith? Right. Because for me, the Enneagram has allowed me to stay rooted and strengthen my faith. And I'm going to tell you how. So. You know, there's. There's a lot of Christian leaders and even pastors now that are teaching the Enneagram. And I love that. I do believe that the divine God, the universe, whatever you choose to call it, there is a power greater than us. That is just my belief. Whatever we call it, it doesn't really matter to me today. And if that applies to you, then this is a conversation that you might want to listen to. Okay? So I believe that we have a divine power greater than us, guiding us, leading us, speaking through us, using us as a vessel to make an impact, to build connections in this world, to spread goodness and whatever else we're here to do on this Journey. I do believe we're being led by a divine source. Source, universe, God, Jesus, all of it applies right now, unfortunately for most of us. And I don't know anybody that is completely immune to this. We've experienced things in our life that maybe has us not leaning into that messaging that is being divinely guided to us, right? I believe that is what our intuition is. It is led. It is a conversation. It is an inner knowing that is given to us by that divine source. I believe this. Again, you can believe what you want, but I'm going to share with you how the Enneagram comes into play with this for me and the thousands of other people that I've kind of helped with this. So I believe our intuition and our body, both given to us by the divine, is the compass, the main compass. It really, really is. Our body never lies, our body never forgets, and our intuition is that messaging from a source. And so often we bypass what our body is telling us and what our intuition is telling us. And now our intuition is not instinct, because an instinct is a reaction to whatever's happening outside of us and around us, right? Where intuition is an inner knowing even when shit's going sideways around us, right? That intuition usually doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. And because we are humans and we've had experiences and been taught, told and modeled things that maybe have us not trusting or. Or not making sense of our intuition, this is where the Enneagram can really help you make sense of what's happening for you. Now, when I'm teaching this in groups, I put this little circle in the middle, which is our intuition and our body. And if we operate in this, we can more elegantly flow through the areas of our life that challenge us. I really do believe that. Even when it doesn't make sense, even when it does disrupt, you know, what people outside of us might think and even ourselves in our own kind of stinking thinking, right? But more often than not, we default into one of the centers of intelligence, right? Those are centers that after the intuition in the body, we default to. And this is why understanding your core Enneagram type is really, really important. Because where you default to is that center of intelligence. Whether it's in the body center of intelligence, which are the 8, 9, and 1, the the heart or feeling center of intelligence, which are the twos, threes and fours, or the thinking or head center of intelligence, which are the five sixes and sevens. Now, wherever your core Enneagram type falls is where you default to first, right? And again, you guys have heard me say this before with the Enneagram online assessments, they're inaccurate 65 to 70% of the time. You can go take my assessment and get your customized 75 page down like handbook blueprint for you with 95 plus percent accuracy today at Tracy O' Malley.com work with me section. It's there, it's beautiful. It's. You'll have the right information. And if you continue to listen to this podcast or go back and listen, you'll learn really how to integrate it. Or you can spend some time with me and do that. But anyway, these centers of intelligence are kind of how we problem solve through life. And our default is our default based on our core enneagram type. And then where we go in the other centers of intelligence, we can dominate in another type, but we always default to our core type. And so how did this help strengthen my faith and keep me more rooted into the God of my understanding and my intuition and honor the body. And when we honor our body and what it's trying to tell you, we can regulate our nervous system, which is like the holy grail of healing, when we can be in triggering situations. But our nervous system doesn't get its ass kicked, right? This is a muscle that you have to build. Most of us have a dysregulated nervous system. Even with all personal development and affirmations and knowing and being people of faith, when our nervous system gets rocked, all of it kind of gets thrown out the window. And so where the framework of the Enneagram has really, really helped me stay rooted in my faith, stay in honoring my body in the vessel and really learning how to so beautifully regulate my nervous system, even in the most triggering, hardest situations that I've experienced, and especially this last year, when you understand your core enneagram type and what that means, what's happening, what the big fear is, what motivates you, you can start to clear a lot of the wreckage and a lot of the experiences that have you operating in a coping mechanism rather than that intuition and rather than honoring what your body is telling you, understanding where the wings come into play, which they are like the unsung superheroes of the Enneagram, how they can support you and your core Enneagram type. Because if your core Enneagram type is just going rogue, that's when we see the stereotypes and the things about your Enneagram type that you're like, ugh, I don't want to see that the wings can support and help Guide you back to your intuition. They really, really can. As well as the lines for integration and disintegration. You can use both of those in beautiful, elegant ways to, again, guide you back to your intuition and the messaging from God, the divine. Now, when it comes to the archetypes, right, the nine basic Enneagram types, I know that there are a lot of people that are like, God would never put a label on anyone. And I. I agree with you. Like, the Enneagram is not a labeling system, and it is not something to make you unstuck. It really, really isn't. Again, I believe that we have this divine blueprint, and it can be put into these nine categories, and it is framework to guide you back to your inner knowing. But so often we've experienced things that keep us from honoring that. And what the Enneagram really has allowed me to do and those that have walked this journey with me professionally, personally, as couples, as families, as groups, it really allows you, when you use it in integrity and for the reason that I like to teach it, to guide you back to what you were always designed to be long before the world got a hold of you and long before these experiences that you have learned how to cope with. Right? The Enneagram is not a labeling system and is not, in my opinion, a devil's tool. It really, really isn't. In fact, I have more compassion and empathy, which is very godlike and beautiful than anything I'd ever used before, to help me find more compassion and empathy. And I'm telling you as a mom, understanding that, you know, my kids might fall into a certain archetype, and then they have their own divine gifts and all the intricacies of the Enneagram, we have subtypes in our instinctual response. We have tri types. There are so many beautiful components to help us deeper understand what we're here to do. Now, the thing is, is most of us understand, like, if you are listening right now and you haven't shut this off, like, you might know God, a God of your understanding, what that. Whatever that looks like to you or the universe, your angels or your spirit guides. Again, I. I am not hooked on the label, right? I want you to understand that God of your understanding wants you to just understand the messaging. It doesn't have to be a messenger of a certain title. Again, just my opinion. I'm sure this. This episode's gonna really rattle some people, and I'm probably. I'm gonna get some hate for this one, and I'm totally okay because I know that the way that I deliver the message is in a way that people that might have been turned off or hurt by people that are quote unquote, Christlike or people of religion might hear this messaging better, this good, orderly direction. Sometimes we can't. We can see that, but we don't know ourselves because of the experiences we have. And I believe that using the tool of the Enneagram allows you to know yourself with a lens that has kindness and compassion instead of the whipping stick that you pull out on yourself or the, the shame baton that you beat yourself with. I know that the divine absolutely would not want that for you. And so when you understand yourself better with loving, compassionate, empathetic eyes and ears, you will find connection to that intuition, to your body, which is divine. It really, really has allowed me to stay rooted in my faith. And I will tell you, you know, this last year, if you haven't listened to some of the episodes of the last month or two, you know, I have experienced extreme stuff this year. Extreme beauty, extreme joy, extreme wealth and extreme pain, extreme betrayal, extreme hurt. And because of my understanding and consistency using this tool, it has allowed me to stay rooted into knowing that, you know, even though everything may not happen for a reason, because we have free will and people have control over some things sometimes, right? But it has allowed me to maintain my belief that anything that should happen, even the most heinous and hard things that can happen, can serve something beautiful. And it is an opportunity for us to do beautiful work for ourselves and in our homes and with every person we touch. I don't know if I didn't understand this framework in mine the way that I do. If this looks really, really different, I might have lashed out. I might have gone to old coping mechanisms that absolutely would destroy my life and my family. I might have self sabotaged my own business. Who knows what this. Look, I might not even be here on earth. Now, I'm not saying the Enneagram is a surefire way to ensure that, you know, bad things don't happen or that, you know, old coping mechanisms don't come back. You know, the tools are only as strong and as powerful as we are consist and committed to using them. And because I have not only used it and integrated it myself for over 10 years now, you know, the work that I get to do every day, helping people just like you understand this tool and use it in their life so that when things do come up personally, professionally, things that you never saw coming, that you have this tool in your toolbox to keep you Rooted in that divine knowing. The divine knowing that whatever has happened or what can happen can serve something magical for you and every person you touch, for every person you love, for every person you lead. And that, to me, is the beauty and the power of the Enneagram in strengthening that faith and staying rooted in your body and healing that nervous system that maybe is gone crazy. All this understanding and cognitive learning is great, but if your nervous system is out of whack, you're going to feel like nothing. Like, you're going to feel like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And when we don't know what we're doing and become paralyzed, that's when all hell breaks loose and you go back to the tools that you know, which are coping mechanisms, most typically, that pull you away from your faith. And then shame comes. And so I really wanted to share this episode with you. For those of you that aren't quite sure about the Enneagram, or maybe you have people in your life. If you are somebody who loves the Enneagram, I'm not saying, you know, defend it or tell them they're stupid. You know, people are on their own journey and in their own timing, they really, really are. You know, had somebody tried to, you know, tell me a certain way and black and white, no gray area, I wouldn't have been open, and I would have been completely shut down. One of the things that I share in the blueprints that you get when you do my online assessment and get your own blueprint is how to not use the Enneagram. And, you know, we don't want to ruin the gift of this gift. Just like God, right? Like, the reason I talk about my God the way that I do is because I don't want to turn anyone off from the beautiful message that comes when we know a power greater than ourselves, whatever we choose to call it. I hope that this opens your heart, because I know it's been a really, really hard year for so many of us. And I know that this time of year, you know, a few days before Christmas, and, you know, we're seeing the highlight reels of everybody's life, and you might be living, like, the worst reel of your Life. I know 15 years ago, when I was at a really hard spot, fresh in a divorce, you know, a recession, losing everything, pretty much, it was hard for me to trust a God of my understanding. At the time, I felt everything was unfair. And when I found the Enneagram, or when the enneagram found me 10 years ago, it was really hard to understand that God had my back. A God of my understanding, good, orderly direction, the divine Spirit, the universe, my angel guides. Any of it had my back. And it wasn't until I really used the Enneagram to unpack who I was and clear some of the wreckage so that I can lean into the intuition in this vessel that I have been strengthened in my faith. Whatever we want to call it is okay with me. And know that you are welcome here. I am wishing you so much love and transformation in your life for 2023 and especially the next few weeks. If this is a hard time for you, transformation can only happen when we integrate information in our life. Just understanding and. And taking in information won't do it. You have to tell God, the universe, this, the divine Source, that you are ready and you're here for it, and you're ready to take action. One of the greatest ways you can take action is understanding yourself through the lens of compassion and kindness. And if you need a guide, I am your girl. But if you want to dabble in understanding who you are and take it slow, I totally understand that too. It's why I worked so hard on developing the blueprints and making sure that the Enneagram typing process was one I could put my name on with over 95% accuracy. You will have the right information so that you can kind of clear. Clear some of this wreckage so that you can be more in line with your intuition and make decisions and be led by that intuition rather than just reacting to whatever's happening around you. You know, we can't control what does happen. All we have control over is how we choose to respond to it. And the Enneagram has allowed me to stay in that. In a place of kindness and love, even when some heinous shit has gone down. I am wishing you so much love and kindness and honor and. And gentleness and tenderness and transformation from here on out. If you want to dive deeper, go to Tracey O' Malley.com the work with me section you can get. Your blueprint today is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is really understanding who you are so that you can be led in that faith and knowing that everything will work out as it was divinely supposed to. If you love this episode, please share it with somebody who maybe is struggling right now. If you hate this episode, I want to hear from you too. If you strongly disagree with everything I'm saying, I do want to know. I do want to know. Because I'm always open to learning and I hope that you are too. Wishing you so much love and transformation. Until next time.

I'm so happy you enjoyed the Leadership Formula Podcast. Please help us spread the word about this show by sharing it with a friend and leaving a written Apple podcast review. If you have any follow up questions to this episode, you can DM me directly on Instagram at tracyomalley. You can also find additional resources on my website@tracyomalley.com I'm excited to lead you into the next level of your life.