The Journey Toward Wholeness

Enneagram Wisdom for Stress, Balance, and Transformation

Suzanne Stabile

• Publisher: IVP Formatio
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781514001165, 9781514001165
• eBook ISBN: 9781514001172
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology

Going Deeper with Suzanne Stabile and the Enneagram

In everything from health care and politics to technology and economics, we are experiencing feelings of loss, anger, and anxiety. In the Enneagram's wisdom, our number determines how we respond. We automatically move to another number when we're feeling stress and to yet another when we're feeling secure. Such moves may help us feel better temporarily but don't last.

For those who want to dive deeper into Enneagram wisdom, expert teacher Suzanne Stabile opens the concept of three Centers of Intelligence: thinking, feeling, and doing. When we learn to manage these centers, each for its intended purpose, we open a path to reducing fear, improving relationships, growing spiritually, and finding wholeness. In The Journey Toward Wholeness, Suzanne

• Draws on the dynamic stability of the Enneagram to explain each number's preferred and repressed Center of Intelligence,
• Illuminates each Center of Intelligence's role in helping us move toward internal balance, and
• Provides brief, focused chapters that contain what we need to deal with the constant change and complexity of our world in order to achieve lasting transformation in our lives.

OVERVIEW

HOW WE ARE BROKEN . . .
AND HOW WE CAN BE HEALED

As the spouse of a pastor, one of our realities is that my husband, Joe, has been in the pulpit of the congregation we serve on Sunday mornings, except for rare occasions when we had an opportunity to visit another church for worship. One Sunday, when the children were young, we decided to take one of those days during Black History Month to allow them to experience worship in a predominantly African American church. Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church here in Dallas is well known for hospitality, good music, and good preaching, so we decided to join their congregation for Sunday service.

The ushers at Saint Luke’s offered us the warmest of greetings, handed us bulletins, and escorted us down to the front row of the sanctuary, declaring that the pastor would be so happy to see Joe and meet the children. BJ, the youngest of our four, was just six years old and, at the time, adjusting to a medication that helped him with being quiet, following rules, and staying focused. We were given the option to medicate on the weekend or not, and we made the choice to medicate on school days only. We were well into the second hour of worship when I ran out of Tic Tacs, pieces of paper for drawing, and patience. BJ had the most wonderful time for the first hour, but then he reached his limit, and I lasted about twenty more minutes before I reached mine (with BJ, not worship). Joe was pastoring a congregation that had strong feelings about getting to Luby’s Cafeteria before the Baptists and, added to that, missing the kickoff for the Dallas Cowboys games was deemed unacceptable. So our children were accustomed to a one-hour worship service.

As it turns out, my usual options for managing my children are limited when an entire choir is watching and the preacher is either right in front of me, five feet to my right, or five feet to my left. I used up every stern, angry, “you’d better settle down right now or else” look in my repertoire. I was so stressed I could feel the heat in my cheeks and the tension in my neck and shoulders. Joe, who had very little experience worshiping from the pew while surrounded by our children, was no help. He was thoroughly engaged in every aspect of what he later referred to as “one of the best worship experiences he’d ever had.”

During the closing hymn I whispered to Joe, “I’m giving BJ his medicine as soon as we get to the car! I’m exhausted! We can skip the weekend next week!” As soon as we got to the car, I told my daughter Jenny to give BJ her water bottle, and I told BJ to lean up so he could take his medicine. The older children and Joe were going on and on about worship when I finally located the pill bottle in the bottom of my bag. Still flustered, I took out two tiny pills and without thinking, put them in my mouth instead of his and swallowed, something the other five family members found hilarious. I’m fairly certain that the dosage was so low that it had little, if any, physical effect for me. But recognizing my own lack of patience with BJ’s inability to be patient became a bridge that we crossed to meet one another for many years after that.

OUR RESPONSES TO STRESS

Stress is a reality for all of us for most of our lives. Sometimes stress is brought on by a situation of little consequence, and other times it’s the result of a life-changing event. Life may be stressful for minutes, hours, weeks, months, or years. And in every case, it feels terrible and it takes a toll.

It seems that stress is part of life for everyone I know, regardless of age. Living in communities that range from personal to global, we have access to the stories of other people’s lives. And whether their stories are my business or not, I find it all stressful.

First graders who need to be quiet and sit still for a long time experience stress. Children who have no one to sit with in the school cafeteria tell me it feels terrible. And middle school seems to be stressful most of the time for everyone involved.

When my children were in their early twenties, they all shared with us from time to time that “adulting” was very stressful. Finding employment, performing well, perhaps losing a position and looking for a new one—all stressful. Finding a home, affording rent or the mortgage, replacing the air conditioner, repairing appliances, maintenance—also stressful.

Other stressors we face at various ages and stages include

• ■ living with family members who are struggling with addiction or who are in recovery.
• ■ aging and everything that goes with it.
• ■ facing health challenges—our own or those of friends or family.
• ■ dealing with rapidly changing technology can be a challenge for some (that’s me) because it can make you feel so inadequate.
• ■ understanding our national and local political situations, no matter the political party or beliefs.

Change comes so quickly, and it’s inevitable. Many among us struggle to make the necessary adjustments. The list is endless and unique to each of us. There is an equally unending library of material available to tell us how we might mitigate the effects of stress on our bodies and souls. I find it discouraging that, for the most part, we are encouraged to “manage it.” That suggests that we can’t avoid stress, even though we all want to.

Given the reality that stress is sure to have its place in our lives, we need to take responsibility for naming it and then addressing it in ways that are both healthy and effective. Thankfully, the Enneagram has an ever-deepening wisdom about humanity. As a system, it shows us both how we are broken and how we can be healed. The beauty of the Enneagram is that it can give us tools for being more secure and more at peace in facing stress as we learn to do the inner work of managing our dominant Center of Intelligence—thinking, feeling, or doing—which is the primary way we encounter people or situations in our natural response to the world. Our goal is to develop a structured and organized way of using all three centers, each for its own purpose.

TRIADS AND THE CENTERS OF INTELLIGENCE

The nine numbers of the Enneagram are grouped in triads, each of which shares a dominant Center of Intelligence.

The Feeling Triad: Twos, Threes, and Fours

• ■ In the Feeling (or Heart) Triad, Twos, Threes, and Fours respond to information, events, and people with the question, “What am I feeling?”
• ■ They are fully aware of, and always paying attention to, the needs and agendas of others.
• ■ They have a significant need for approval and yet they struggle to believe that they are loveable as they are. Their response to life is due, in part, to the fact that they generally search for both love and affirmation outside of themselves.
• ■ Twos, Threes, and Fours are very familiar with anxiety. In fact, many of them can even tell you how it manifests itself in their bodies. And because they feel “somewhat anxious” most of the time, they often turn other emotions into anxiety.
• ■ Those who make up the Feeling Triad are pulled to the outer world by focusing on everything outside of themselves. This focus on the outer world results in a desire to control their environment by ordering other people and activities.
• ■ They like people. They also easily adapt to what they think other people want from them. In fact, sometimes they adapt so easily and so quickly to the feelings of others that they don’t have any idea what they feel.

The Thinking Triad: Fives, Sixes, and Sevens

• ■ In the Thinking (or Head) Triad, Fives, Sixes, and Sevens respond to what’s happening around them by asking, “What do I think?”
• ■ Those in this triad want to fully understand everything that interests them. They want to perceive things before acting. And they often work things out in their head—their focus is on their inner world—without ever engaging with others.
• ■ Intelligence and understanding and mental connection are important in this triad, so they find themselves at home in what has been called the information age.
• ■ They like to gather and sort information, perhaps because they are logical and usually very knowledgeable about things and ideas that interest them. Concerned with memory and strategy, they are really talented when it comes to finding where systems overlap.
• ■ These people live their lives by planning. It could even be said that making plans is what makes them happy.
• ■ Fives, Sixes, and Sevens find safety by trying to control or order their inner world. And safety can sometimes be a preoccupation. Hanging out in their heads, so to speak, feels great because they can arrange their perceptions in ways that suit them.
• ■ Someone in the Thinking Triad may be dismissive of a friend in the Feeling Triad whose response appears to be illogical or overly emotional. Managing the dominant center is the key to balancing all three, which is essential to health and wholeness.

The Doing Triad: Eights, Nines, and Ones

• ■ In the Doing (or Gut) Triad, Eights,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Toward a Balanced Life
• Part One: Triads - Naming and Managing Your Dominant Center of Intelligence
• Part Two: Stances - Naming and Managing Your Repressed Center of Intelligence
• Introduction: What Are You Willing to Give Up for Transformation?
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Praise for The Journey Toward Wholeness
• About the Author
• Also Available
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright