What is Your Major Malfunction?

I receive a daily reflection from the Enneagram Institute. 

Briefly, the enneagram is a personality test. It helps describe the pattern of how we interpret the world and manage our emotions. There are nine distinct personality types. Of course, as with all personality systems, we have a little bit of each in us, but one tends to dominate. 

I am a 7 on the Enneagram, The Joyful or Enthusiast Personality. 

From the Enneagram Institute website:

Sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness (self-seeking and self-centered, for sure). At their Best: they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.

Our basic fear: of being deprived and in pain

This is me, 1000000% me. I am that person who wants to be at every function, wants to go to every coffee date, wants to go on every float trip, every Fourth of July celebration, I have broken up with people because I might miss out on the next person who was interested in me (not now, but definitely in my twenties), I pack my days into task after task...

It makes sense that I would convince myself that I can work two jobs, be a mom, do karaoke every other week, and be in a play! 

What is your major malfunction? What did all that do? It sent me straight to the hospital.

Today's teaching from the Enneagram Institute slapped me across the face:

Teaching:

It is an extremely common tendency to flee from what we are actually facing into our imagination, romanticizing or dramatizing our situation, justifying ourselves, or even escaping into “spirituality”. Staying with our real experience of ourselves and our situation will teach us exactly what we need to know for growth. (The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 346)

I am a master of all those things, especially when I feel like I'm missing out on something. I devolve into this fantasy world where I am capable of all things, but I am not God. I am not limitless; I have a limit, and I have reached it! I had a headache for seven days, and yesterday I went to the ER. I thought perhaps there was more because I started shaking and my left eye was fluttering. They did all the tests, even a CT scan. Diagnosis: headache. I can't wait for the bill. Yay!

But here's the problem... as I sat in the dark room in the ER, my inner critic went to work, "you are so lazy, why do you feel you need this attention?" 

Seriously? I overworked and overwhelmed myself to the point of exhaustion, and my alcoholic brain still wants to convince me I am worthless, and if I want to be worthy, I need to do more??? It's like I'm addicted to my toxic inner critic. 

The second part of the line from the quote above is helpful today:

Staying with our real experience of ourselves and our situation will teach us exactly what we need to know for growth.

So here’s what's up: I can't pretend I can handle it all anymore. No more spinning stories to make the pain look like something noble or exciting. I’ve run myself into the ground trying to outrun the discomfort of rest (crazy, I know). The truth caught up to me in the form of a hospital bed and a pounding headache that wouldn’t quit. I had to see the situation for what it was.

Growth doesn’t come from doing more, loving someone new, or pushing through as if nothing’s wrong. It comes from staying put, right in the mess, in the pain, in the truth. I must stop avoiding the fact that I have limitations. That’s where the healing begins.

Want to know what your enneagram number is? Take the test here. It does cost money, but it's a good one.