E9 Social – Participation / Belonging

The social nine is a good-natured person. And what moves a good-natured person? What is behind these cheerful and light-hearted people? According to this map, the passion of E9 social is participation. What you need is to feel part of it. But anyone who has an intense need to do, to become part of something, is a person who does not feel part of anything.

For the social E9, the experience of not fitting in, of feeling different, of believing that they do not have what it takes to be part of a group or a community, leads them to overcompensate, to express a kind of generosity, being very attentive to the others and the group. It is a character very gifted in satisfying the needs of others. And he becomes a good leader. The best type of leader, in the sense of being a good person, generous and sacrificed in the face of any type of responsibility that others want to give him.

His passion is to do what is necessary to pay the toll that allows him to be admitted to the group. But, for this, a lot of effort is needed: the social E9 are the workaholics of the enneagram. They feel that they have to give a lot, but at the same time they have to be nice and pleasant. His internal motto is: "do not show the pain, do not put weight on the mind of another". His expression is more happy than sad, but that does not mean participation, but a kind of partial participation: a substitute.

The transformation in the social E9 by Miriam Ortiz de Zárte

How did the search start?

What was the moment of greatest suffering?

I don't think there have been periods of great suffering in my life, just as there have never been periods of great joy. A striking feature of my life is that it passed for years without great ups and downs or alterations. Zero degrees: neither hot nor cold. Flat encephalogram. Sometimes I looked at the others enjoying and celebrating moments of happiness, but I didn't feel like them, they seemed excessive. So I didn't think I had a problem. Everything in my life was fine, under control. I was blind and insensitive, the best formula for not seeing, not feeling, not noticing.

My search started quite accidentally (I'm putting it in italics because I don't believe in accidents). At the end of 2003, at the age of 44, I left my job as a manager in a multinational company. It was not a thoughtful change but rather a decision I made on impulse, as I have made some of the most important decisions of my life. It was stopping work that allowed me to slow down, to think more carefully about how I wanted to approach my life, to decide that I wanted more balance between professional and personal. In the following months I decided to take a year off to train as a coach, so I approached the year 2004 with this idea.

For a semester, I took the coaching course, and thus began a process of self-knowledge and transformational learning. During Easter of that same year I took a course on Introduction to the Psychology of Enneatypes (again, following an impulsive decision and the advice of my sister, who had been talking to me about the SAT for years). That same spring I participated in some family constellation seminars, I started doing yoga and meditation and, after the summer, just turned 45, I started therapy. All at once!

When I think about that stage and what got me started, I think it was a mixture of luck and intuition, as if a part of myself, of which I was very little aware, had made the decision to that the time had come to make changes. When I started my therapy, I declared that I wanted to live with more awareness, not so much for myself (I was fine), but for my daughters. I also remember the fear of losing what I had (my partner, my daughters) and how blind I had been for years, too focused on the world of work, with positions of great responsibility, believing that I had everything under control when, in reality, it was quite the opposite: my daughters had problems, my relationship with my partner was completely deteriorated... This is the situation I found around me when I opened my eyes and began to look.

In other social E9 partners, the active beginning of the search is marked by a painful event. And this pain, in many cases, is caused by a separation: estrangement from parents and children, estrangement from partners... The separation may be due to death or the breakdown of a relationship. But, in all cases, the most significant person for a social nine ceases to be present in her life, and this triggers a conscious cataclysm, like the one described by a young woman of the social nine enneatype referring to her partner:

"When he died, I fell into a deep emptiness; I realized that I had lived his life and that I had died with him".

Or it manifests itself with an appearance of symptoms, such as that of a woman who describes how, following the death of her father, she begins to suffer from panic attacks that lead to a paralyzing agoraphobia.

In most cases, the person causing the pain complied with giving a sense of identity and reality to the social nine, who frequently doubt their own existence. In the descriptions of the before and after starting the process that the nines make of themselves, phrases often appear (I quote verbatim) such as: "I did not feel that I existed", "I did not exist", "I had a life full of things... but without me".

How do I see myself now?

What are the biggest differences that I perceive?

One of the main differences has to do with my ability to see, to feel, to realize things. Before, I lived much more automatically, less consciously, more disconnected from emotions and

sensations. For example, she was very clueless. For me, being distracted was a defense mechanism. It's not that now I've stopped being so, but I see myself as much more aware and I'm less distracted.

As for my ability to feel, I have clearly experienced what Claudio calls "elephant skin," so typical of nines. I have learned to tune it and, with this work, my sensitive capacity has been developing. I remember a time in my process when I used touch to enter. I touched things, textures, I touched myself, and this helped me to connect, to focus attention, to locate myself. I remember dreams at that time related to the idea of inhabiting the house.

Working with sensitivity, the ability to perceive sensations, was the entry point to address emotions. At first, every time I stopped to look and wonder about my emotion, sadness invariably appeared. When I did, it seemed to me that I was meeting an old acquaintance who had been with me all my life. However, behind the pain and sadness was rage. And fear, which appeared much later. Before, I barely had the experience of intense emotion. Being able to feel and evoke emotions of love, gratitude, joy, fullness... and also feel sadness, fear or anger, are very new things for me.

I had a hard time dealing with conflict situations. In fact, I had a hard time seeing them. I could have people around me who hurt me, who attacked me, and I had an enormous capacity for endurance, I didn't realize it, I acted like a punching ball, and I let myself receive the blows without acknowledging receipt. Now I clearly perceive the attacks; I know when something hurts or hurts me. This has especially happened to me with my partner: it has been hard to accept his revenge mechanisms (and mine). Setting my limits, defending myself, approaching difficult conversations, are things that I did not know how to do before and that I now do much better.

Before I controlled much more than now. Things had to be a certain way. At work, with collaborators. At home, with my daughters and with my husband... I organized, I ordered... Everything had to be done as I said. He did not trust, he had to intervene, supervise everything. I still have a lot to learn here, but I am slowly letting go, controlling less and trusting more. Accepting that there are other ways of doing things, that my way is not the way. That my oldest daughter's lifestyle, for example, is neither better nor worse than mine. Before, she intervened all the time in her life, in her things, in the way she acted. Then I stopped intervening, thinking, however, that she was wrong, that she was not doing things correctly. Now I accept that she has her own judgment and I respect her decisions... almost always.

A characteristic in my life was always that of not feeling belonging. I was a sandwich girl (the median of five), I didn't belong to the older group nor to the little ones. I have always had to do something extra to feel entitled to be in groups and I have never seen myself totally integrated: it was a longing that was not satisfied, a fantasy that had no correlation with reality. For example, I have been a founding member of a choir for ten years and one of the oldest singers, I am the president and I have a special relationship with the director, with whom we

have been good friends for twenty years. However, I am constantly attacked by the idea that I don't belong, that I haven't sufficiently earned the right to be there, that I don't sing as well as... It's totally unreal, a fantasy. I can see it and I can laugh, but it's kind of a reoccurring thought, especially if I'm touchy or any difficulty comes up.

I had my entire instinctive world denied: desire, sexuality, my inner child. This work has been the most difficult part for me, because it meant breaking a family mandate, dealing with something that I experienced as very threatening and dangerous. I am in it right now, realizing it, making small changes, allowing myself to feel and desire, playing a little more, trivializing, taking myself less seriously. Little by little the fear and the threat dissolve and I am learning to feel better about myself, freer.

What has helped me grow?

From the very tension of these impossible lives, dominated by self-forgetfulness, arises the necessary energy for the social E9 to undertake the search. Sometimes almost magically, by chance, as an emergency measure, or as a matter of survival.

All the jobs I've tackled have given me something. Of course, the SAT process, therapy, the Fisher-Hofifmann Process, my own work as a coach and trainer, family constellations...

I think that group work does me a lot of good, it helps me to connect, to refocus, to not forget myself. They are like a battery recharge for me, like a catalyst that has accelerated processes of learning and change.

Meditation and yoga have helped me to focus my attention, to be present. And also to connect with my breath and with my body.

Bodywork and authentic movement work have been especially important.

The search for teachers and fellow travelers, knowing that they were there to help me, allowing me to move forward and letting me take care of myself, often without knowing what lay ahead, forcing me to trust.

Some readings that helped me understand and intellectually process what was happening to me.

Write an emotional journal and review it frequently, so as not to forget, to bring back to the present what I had a tendency to let go.

And, of course, writing and working with dreams.

Through pain, doubts arise, questions... A social E9 asks himself: "What if all my acceptance was the result of my indolence?" Taboo or simply ignored topics also appear. "What if it was all a mask, what if my love wasn't so unconditional? What if the true origin of

unconditionality was the fear of abandonment, the fear of conflict, the fear of separation, of losing the apparent and feigned peace and harmony?"

Claudio has said that the essence of the spiritual path is the transformation of our attitude towards suffering. And this can be observed in all cases. They feel and accept unwanted emotions such as fear, anger, sadness... Below, we can read some testimonies about it:

"Before, I barely had the experience of intense emotion. Being able to feel and evoke emotions of love, gratitude, joy, fullness... and also feel sadness, fear or anger, are very new things for me".

"I learned to feel and sustain the pain".

"I feel much more the pain and also the pleasure. Both physically and mentally. I live more".

"The awareness of what I do occupies an important part of my thoughts".

"I let the things that hurt me hurt, I get angry less and enjoy it more".

What did you leave behind and what is sharpening now?

I'm not sure I've left anything behind, definitely. For me the image of the onion and the layers is very clear. I find that I can tackle a lot of difficult conversations now, but there are others that keep throwing me off. I see myself as more focused and less forgetful, but I still have forgetfulness and forgetfulness. I feel more connected, with more capacity to feel, but I still disconnect at times. I control less, but I still control. I feel more belonging, but I still long for I don't know what kind of impossible. And so on.

In any case, by removing layers from the onion, new things do appear. Something new for me, for example, is experiencing fear. Before, when I was afraid, I disguised it, I got angry, controlled, blamed others... Now I realize that it is fear and I feel it in the pit of my stomach and it is a totally new emotion for me.

Another new thing that is appearing is a need to transcend, a spiritual dimension, which I still don't know how to handle or where to channel.

How to work on the specifics of the new social character?

For me there are two phases: the first is realizing. The second, action, change. And for both things I have to pay attention, awareness, because the automatism is to forget and disconnect. I have my tricks to not forget, to stay connected. For example, I wear a medal with the enneagram symbol, which I use as an anchor. I touch it and it reminds me, it helps me wake up. Meditation, or simply breathing, also help me.

I try to go further, to do something with what I realize, to take action. Most of the time, the action translates into a conversation, a request, a claim, a statement...

It also helps me to ask myself what I need, what I want, how I feel... Dedicate time to myself, to take care of myself, to be alone.

What do I propose for the future?

Continue with this work, which is a job for life. I look back and I can see a lot of growth, but I look forward and it still seems like I have a long way to go. This year I finish therapy, but I have decided to start gestalt training. I want to continue having group support, but I also plan to do something with all this that I am learning. I want to continue to be linked to the SAT in some way, I would like to be an observer or monitor in the future. I can't think of anything better to continue with my personal process than being linked to other people's process. That is why I am passionate about my work as a coach and as a trainer and supervisor of coaches, and that is why I want to work at the SAT and, in the future, perhaps, also as a therapist.

What do I imagine my own path to perfection would look like?

I believe that my path of perfection is oriented towards this spiritual dimension that I was talking about before. A path barely glimpsed, but a path that I know I am going to travel.

One answer to the question of a social E9 deserves to be highlighted:

"Curiously, towards unconditional and compassionate love, what I thought I had at the beginning, but with the authenticity that comes from the awareness that there are no shortcuts, that it is not possible to love others without loving oneself".

What would you recommend to social E9s for their own inner work?

In the work of becoming aware, we nines have to pay a lot of attention and a lot of awareness, not to get confused, not to forget. Establish mechanisms to not be dumb and stay awake and aware. It has helped me to approach my work in a massive way and from many fronts: meditation, yoga, therapy, body work, group work, reading, writing, keeping in touch with other people who are doing the same work, etc. There was no escape! And, despite having all these supports and reminders, one forgets again and again...

I also find it important to refine the elephant skin by working with the sensory. Connect with the body, with sensations, inhabit the house.

This is a journey that lasts. The social E9 that have undertaken the search carry out various practices that allow them to continue growing and avoid others that have been harmful in the past. They are now more selective about their circumstances, seeking quality rather than quantity in their relationships, burdening themselves with fewer things, and managing time to

their advantage. Of all the things discovered in the testimonies, the need to have time for themselves stands out. Most of them are engaged in practices such as meditation or yoga. Body work is very important and frequent for social E9s because it allows them to reaffirm their sense of being. It is also important to participate in groups to work on that feeling of inadequacy and to be able to feel accepted without having to make special merits to earn the right to be there. Writing an emotional autobiography has been a great tool, according to a social E9, who has been able to connect with his life in this way.

The person who emerges from this process of change defines himself as happier, happier, more truthful, more attentive to himself, more centered, with a greater capacity to feel, responsible for his own life, less accelerated. In short, as one of them says, she feels her own inner power.

Advice to future therapists to accompany a social nine in their process

My therapist has helped me a lot by asking me over and over again the most difficult question for me: "how are you?" My tendency was to answer with my head. "How am I supposed to be? Things are going well for me, so I'm supposed to be fine". Being able to lower the attention to the body, listen to what comes from the gut, dare to open Pandora's box where the instinctive and the emotional are locked up and look inside: that is the answer.

The work with the dreams has been very revealing: the metaphors appeared very clearly and gave us many clues. I dreamed very little, but whenever I needed to, I had the dream I needed to therapeutically work on an issue at that time.

A social nine is greatly helped by confrontation, by lovingly but firmly shaking us, because we run away a lot. One of the ways I did it in therapy was with a lot of chatter, which was like a smokescreen that I distracted my therapist with.

And finally, how important it is to know how to give good feedback, or anything else that helps to realize...