How to Use the Enneagram in Relationships with Chrissie Wywrot

00:00:24 - Maelisa Hall
Welcome to season three of the My Biz Bestie podcast. I'm Melissa Hall.

00:00:28 - Amber Hawley
And I'm Amber Hawley.

00:00:30 - Maelisa Hall
And today we have an awesome episode. We are super excited because we know a lot of you have enjoyed the personality test episodes we've done. And we think they're an important part of knowing about yourself.
And once you understand a lot about yourself, then you're better able to understand how you can interact with others. So we think these are a great tool. And one thing we have not talked about because it is not a specialty of mine or of Amber's, although we're familiar with it, is the Enneagram.
Yay! Super excited to learn about the Enneagram with the wonderful Chrissy Weirott. Welcome, Chrissy.

00:01:07 - Chrissie Wywrot
Thank you.

00:01:09 - Amber Hawley
Yes, welcome.

00:01:10 - Chrissie Wywrot
I'm excited to talk about the Enneagram.

00:01:12 - Amber Hawley
The only thing she might not be excited about, folks, is the fact that we're going to try to make her contain this wealth of knowledge into like 40 minutes or less.

00:01:23 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, so... What I do for a living is I help people with their LinkedIn profiles and I help them optimize and generate leads. And I was actually at a... presentation at a staffing agency and we did the two hour presentation. And then afterward, the person who had hired me to do this said, now you got to tell them about that personality thing.
And I stayed for two more hours talking to them about Enneagram and what each type was and how they related with each other. And I came across like a wizard. Wow.

00:01:56 - Amber Hawley
I know. Isn't that amazing?

00:01:57 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, because you start to, when you figure out what someone's type is and then you ask them very pointed questions and they just, their eyes get big and they go, yes, I do that.

00:02:07 - Amber Hawley
How did you know?

00:02:08 - Chrissie Wywrot
It's an awesome party trick.

00:02:11 - Amber Hawley
Totally, totally.

00:02:12 - Chrissie Wywrot
Ah, yes. Oh, I love it. I love it.

00:02:15 - Amber Hawley
Yeah, it's kind of the Enneagram is kind of big in therapeutic circles. I know it was something that a professor introduced to me during one of like our practicum classes. And it was very helpful in how we approach things and working with clients. For all the people out there who've never heard of it, or just vaguely familiar, can you give us like a high level like basics what it is?

00:02:35 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, and it's super high level because it dates back thousands of years and it has been interpreted by many different people and people have different ways of looking at it. But what it is, is it is nine different types. And to say they're personality types is almost doing it a disservice because it's less about our personality and more about how we are wired.
You look at personality as what you show to the world and it's really more how we're wired and what we go to when we're stressed out and what our ego wants. So there are nine different types and they're divided into three tri-types. So three are focused on the headspace, three are gut types.
So they're really driven by instinct and then the other is heart type.

00:03:20 - Amber Hawley
So they're really driven by their emotions and their feelings.

00:03:23 - Chrissie Wywrot
And to look at the Enneagram is really to understand why you do what you do. A lot of it is why you have certain triggers, why specific things bother you. And I really believe that one of the biggest aha moments when you're looking at Enneagram is recognizing that not everybody else is the same as you.
I think we can tend to think that that one thing that really bothers me, that everybody must feel that way, but really it's your specific type. And it can be an aha moment of recognizing, oh, this is why I have such an issue when people do X, Y, or Z.
And so awareness can be so life-changing and powerful just to even know why you do what you do can be a game changer.

00:04:04 - Maelisa Hall
Oh, yeah. And I think it depersonalizes a lot, right?

00:04:07 - Chrissie Wywrot
I think that Myers-Briggs is somewhat like that.

00:04:10 - Maelisa Hall
You don't take things as personally when you realize, oh, this is why someone is doing this. And this is why this bothers me so much.

00:04:16 - Chrissie Wywrot
Absolutely. And the one thing is to know that it is a journey when you figure out your Enneagram number. That's really the starting point. And the purpose of Enneagram is not to say, oh, okay, so I'm an eight. So I'm really aggressive. And that's just me.
I'm just aggressive because I'm an eight. The idea is to say, okay, so I'm aggressive. This is why I'm aggressive. So this is how I can grow and not be so aggressive and instead use my powers for good and not evil.

00:04:45 - Amber Hawley
I love using our powers for good. I love that. So in the first, if you could just run through, and I get that there are subtypes and there's a lot of other things to it, but if you could just kind of list off what each of them are just to kind of give people an overview.

00:05:01 - Chrissie Wywrot
Oh dear, that's no pressure. Okay. So I believe we're actually supposed to start with type eight, but we will anyway, because that's my type. So type eight, so it's one through nine and Enneagram is a shape and the shape is important because you'll see lines that connect different numbers to other numbers.
And that is important when you're going through your number. But we'll start with eight. Eight is one of the gut types. And eight is externally focused. Of each tri-type, one is externally focused, one is internally focused, and one kind of hovers in between.
So the eight is externally focused on managing their external world. And so they are driven by anger. You'll see these people as... Sometimes they can be aggressive, but... 8s are just, they're big into strength. They're usually in leadership positions.
They are typically always the same. They're kind of your no BS type. When you go to type 7, you are both type 7s.

Yes. 7s, that gets you into the thinking triad. And 7s are externally focused as well. So they are typically an adventurous type. Their focus is gluttony. So it's always wanting more, more, more. And That's where the Enneagram is interesting because there's that gluttony, but depending on different aspects of seven, you can be a glutton toward food.
You can be a glutton toward adventure. You can be a glutton toward possessions, all kinds of different things. So it can show up in a different way, but gluttony will be there. And then when you get to six, six is that middle ground. So six is anxious.
Anxiety is big for your thinking triad. So sixes are anxious about external world and internal world. And sixes are your group helpers.

So sixes are typically wanting everybody to be okay and wanting everybody to have what they need. So I once heard it described that a type two, which is a helper type, but they are lifting up, they lift up leaders. So a two, if you're in like a seminar or a group, a two will look at the person presenting and make sure that they have everything they need.
A six will look at everybody at the presentation and ask if everybody's all set. Do you have your pencil?

00:07:10 - Amber Hawley
Do you guys all have your paper? Are you all listening?

00:07:12 - Chrissie Wywrot
So a six is focused on a group and a two is focused on a person or a leader.

00:07:18 - Amber Hawley
That's really cool.

00:07:19 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah. So then when you get to five, fives are anxious about their external world. Sevens, you guys are anxious about your internal world. So sevens are anxious about their external world. So you tend to have Fives can often have social phobia. They often like to stay at home, not really huge fans of engaging, but they are very intellectual.
And I'm being very broad here because there's always going to be somebody that isn't exactly how I'm describing this. But the key is that they're anxious about their external world and they're very big on being competent. So they want to be useful and they hate not having the answer.
So when we move into four, now you're getting into feelings. Fours are very internal focused. They feel everything a lot. So they are heavy feelers. They're heavy into kind of envisioning ideals.

So they envision their ideals and then they try to execute those ideals. You typically get a lot of people in the arts are fours, people who are, you know, but that's not always the case. People always want to come in and say, no, but it's not me. Fours love to be unique.
They love to not be like everybody else. So fours will often protest when you try to blanket them into one space. They're like, no, that's not true. And then being a four. So when you get into threes, threes are external and internal. And with threes, these people are extremely success driven.
And they struggle a lot with their identity because threes are looking to give people what they want and they're looking to create an ideal internally. So they kind of lose themselves sometimes. But threes are the go-getters, always going to try to win however they can.
They do tend to be, they can be workaholics, but they can also be extremely charismatic and people gravitate towards threes.

They're also leaders and can be the heads of companies and they can be very, again, charismatic and friendly and people want to be around them. And then your two, I'm married to a two. Twos are the helpers. They like to lift up leaders and they are externally focused on trying to give people what they want and need.
So they love getting that affirmation and that appreciation that they are helping with. My husband is a OCD cleaner of the kitchen. Twos are volunteers. They wanna, you see a lot of nurses, a lot of nurses can be twos and helps that kind of a thing. And then ones are that you're getting back into the gut triad.
So whereas eights are externally focused on kind of wanting to control that outside world, ones are internally focused.

And so they're perfectionists a lot of the time, and they are really hard on themselves a lot. So they are often looking to be perfect, whether it's within themselves or with their relationships or with their lives, and they can be organizers or not. Again, this is very broad.
And then nines are kind of nervous about the external and internal world in terms of not being controlled. So nines are often referred to as peacemakers, but they can also be referred to as sloths because they struggle sometimes to come to action and they hate conflict.
So nines don't like when people get in fights, they tend to avoid feelings a lot of the time because again, they're trying to manage external and internals. They get kind of caught in the middle there. So that was a lot of pressure.

And a lot of people, if you know Enneagram or know your type, are probably angry with me for misrepresenting you. But yeah.

00:10:47 - Amber Hawley
You know what we like to say, get over it. So there's only so much you can do when I'm asking for a brief overview.

00:10:55 - Maelisa Hall
I totally understand that. Yeah. And I was super impressed because, no, I mean, I really like that you gave, although it's a whole book, you gave a broad overview. That's a great place for us to start. Yes. So where do you want to go next?

00:11:08 - Amber Hawley
I don't know. Well, there's so many ways. So this was our quandary earlier, because I didn't want to stifle any genius going on. But you had suggested kind of breaking down a little bit. So hopefully this gets people intrigued, right? There's like the high level of understanding kind of what motivates you.
And I feel like you said a lot of things to me that was just like, oh, I love that. And thinking about the people in my life that probably fit into those categories. But You had talked about the fact that both Melissa and I are sevens, but we are very different.
I mean, we have some things that are similar, but you said you would maybe help us break that down further just to kind of give an example of how complex this really is.

00:11:48 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, for sure. So let me start with two important things to remember, and especially if someone knows their number and I did a horrible job describing them. Number one is that there are nine levels of health within each number. So... We can all look very different depending on how healthy we are.
And the way I heard it described once is that it is so easy. It doesn't take any effort to fall backwards in health. So to get worse, our natural inclination is to go to the negative side of our number and to just be like, for example, for me as an eight, I struggle with, I hate appearing weak.
So weakness is a big struggle of mine. And so if I feel weak, weak in a moment, or if I feel like I'm being disrespected, that's a big thing. I will lash out in anger, which is typical of an eight or can be typical of an eight.

So recognizing that that is the case and learning how to figure out why do I feel that way? And you know what? You're just thinking that you're being disrespected because that's how you're wired. So you're sensitive to it. So that can help move up the levels of health, which always takes effort.
So it takes no effort to move backwards. It takes a lot of effort to move up and to get healthier. And then the other thing is that there are a lot of components that go along with everybody's Enneagram number that can make the two of you, for example, you're the same number.
And There's aspects of these numbers that can make one person look one way and the other person look the other way, but they're the same number. So they have the same drivers and the same what is called the ego fixation, but it appears differently in personality.

So the things that make your type different are wings, which if you look at the shape of the Enneagram, every number has a number to either side of it. So for a seven, you're going to have six on one side and you're going to have eight on the other side.
And as a seven, you're going to have a dominant wing. So for a seven, if you are an eight wing, which my son is a seven wing eight, you're going to take on more of the characteristics of the type eight, which is intensity and aggression and that weakness respect.
But intensity is a big one. And then on the other side is a six, which has more anxiety. So if you lean towards six and that's my daughter, then you're going to have more on the anxiety side.

So just having a different wing can change how you appear to the outside world and how you interact with the outside world.

00:14:29 - Amber Hawley
So I have a question. Can that change over the course of one's lifetime?

00:14:33 - Chrissie Wywrot
You know, there's different theories on this. Like, honestly, you could ask one expert and they'll say, Definitely not. It's always the same. You can ask another expert and they will say, yes, your goal is to balance. I don't think it changes, but I'm no expert, I guess, comparatively speaking.
There's people who have studied this for decades and decades. And like I said, a lot of people have different philosophies. What I have heard and the teacher that I listened to, he believes that you stay one way or the other. And I don't see my kids changing.
My son's personality... is very intense. And then my daughter is extremely anxiety ridden. So it just seems to me they're wired that way personally.

00:15:14 - Amber Hawley
Interesting. When Melissa, what wing do you think you have?

00:15:18 - Maelisa Hall
I don't know. I mean, off the top of my head, neither of those sound very much like me. So I'm not sure. I know. I was like, I don't know. Maybe I'd put you in anxiety, though. It's just avoidant. That's all. You just don't deal with it. I'm definitely not an anxious person.

00:15:35 - Amber Hawley
No, you're not. Like, at all. But that's where I was like, hmm. I definitely was the eight wing for sure when I was younger. And I still have that. But I probably feel like more anxious lately. But I'm going to say I'm probably an eight wing. That's what I was thinking.
Yeah. Yeah.

00:15:52 - Chrissie Wywrot
So what's interesting is when you dig down into really how you're wired, you can find the same personality traits and you just apply them to different things. So for example, there's what we call subtypes as well. So subtypes are the three animal instincts that we all have as human beings, which are to be a part of a tribe.
So that is a social instinct to survive. So that's a self-preservation instinct. And then to reproduce, which is the sexual instinct. For the purpose of the Enneagram, the sexual instinct is really about intensity. So it's about kind of one-to-one. So people who have this tend to get into one-to-one intense relationships as opposed to a social instinct person would be more group oriented.
So each of us has one instinct that we lead with so that it's our dominant one.

We have one that is secondary and then we have one that is dormant. And which of these subtypes you lead with, your type will show up differently. So it's called Enneagram stackings, if you want to look that up. So for example, I lead with sexual instinct and then secondary, I'm self-preservation instinct.
So the way that looks for me is that I, eights are already intense. I am like the intensive intense. So basically a sexual eight is like, I apologize if you don't like eye contact and forceful conversation. I can be accused of being upset and I'm really not.
I'm just really having a great time. So I tend to lock in with people and have really awesome, intense conversations with them. So that's me. So that's how I present. So if I were a social eight, I would be more excited about being in groups of people and engaging with people as a group.

And if I was a self-preservation, I might be more reserved. So I might be less outgoing, less wanting to engage with people.

00:17:46 - Maelisa Hall
Oh, that's interesting because I think part of why we wanted to have you talk about the Enneagram is because we were all at a conference together. And the way you were talking about it was like, you're so excited about it. You seem to know so much about it.
It's so in-depth. And yeah, it's kind of like that intensity about it, right? Like really digging in.

00:18:02 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yes, yes. And also my seven wing. So I am a seven wing. And with the gluttony aspect of seven, you pretty much just dive into something and that's all you can see for as long as you are fixated on it. So that's how I roll.

00:18:16 - Amber Hawley
You don't know us at all, Chrissy.

00:18:18 - Chrissie Wywrot
You don't know us at all. I was like, don't even. Right? So I will tell you a little bit more too about my kids. So my son's a seven wing eight. And the interesting thing too is the integrations. So as I said, there's those lines that come from each number.
And so each number is connected to two other types. So for a seven, you are connected to one, which is the perfectionistic orderly type. And then you are connected to five, which is the intellectual and kind of withdrawn. You can be a little bit more withdrawn.

00:18:55 - Amber Hawley
So this is the five. I'm the one.

00:18:58 - Chrissie Wywrot
So you go more to one and she goes more to five. Okay.

00:19:01 - Maelisa Hall
Well, and what's funny is that I definitely used to be more like a one and I have lightened up quite a bit, I think in my twenties. But when I was a kid, I always had like, everything was super orderly and I was very, very structured about everything.
And even in college, my roommate, I remember she was a little freaked out when we moved in together and freshman year, you haven't met anybody, right? And she was like, oh my gosh, you're so organized. And I remember you had to select, are you super neat or semi-neat or semi-messy or messy?
And I put semi-neat because my perception was that I'm not super, super neat, but I was hardcore on one end of the spectrum. And I had thought like, oh no, there's people neater and cleaner than me. And my roommate was all freaked out like, oh my gosh, this chick's going to be crazy OCD.

00:19:53 - Chrissie Wywrot
So I think I used to be a lot more like that. That's so funny. Cause that's exactly what I was talking about earlier. And when you realize that not everybody's like you, you're like, Oh yeah, I'm just average, you know? And then you realize, Oh no, no, I'm not average.
Yeah.

00:20:09 - Amber Hawley
But she really has let that part go. I'm assuring you.

00:20:12 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah.

00:20:14 - Maelisa Hall
I love it. But I think it was like a coping mechanism too because in college and in grad school, I was insanely structured with my schedule and had like every 15 minutes written down because that was the only... I'm kind of extreme that way where it was like that was the way I could function and that was the way I was able to do like the millions of things I was doing.
I was super involved and doing all of that. But it's like I'm all or nothing in that way. It's like, I can't be semi-structured. It's difficult for me.

00:20:46 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yep. And that's what we do. We lean on that ego. And that's really what Enneagram shows us is what do you go to when you're stressed and you are up against a wall? What is your go-to? And so in that case, like my husband, who's the helper, he compulsively cleans when he gets stressed out.
And as a kid, he explained that when he would feel upset as a child, and when he would feel picked on, he's the youngest of three boys, he would go clean his basement. So, you know, the helper type. So that's what he did. He went down and cleaned his basement.
So it's, you know, what we rely on. So as an eight, we can yell, we can get aggressive, we try to fight the outside world. So it's interesting. And those... Instincts too, they play on it. So my son, who's the seven wing eight, the one, theoretically one is organization, like you said, but for a sexual oriented one, the perfection is actually focused on relationships, not things.

So type one who has a sexual instinct is actually going to be perfectionistic with his or her relationships. They need to be perfect. And I found how through talking to another person who knows Enneagram that my son was a seven. And the reason I was thinking through this is because he is so intense.
Like if he doesn't get his way or something doesn't go his way, he will on a dime fall to the floor and have this massive tantrum-y type thing. And I was wondering, what is up with this kid? So that's what we determined. And so I was thinking it through and I'm like, you know, when he goes to one, he isn't really an organized kid.
And I thought, you know, I'm going to look at what a sexual oriented one does. And then when I saw that and it was that they're focused on relationships being perfect, that is exactly him. So he's very intense with his friendships and he goes all in.

And I remember we took him to soccer practice for the very first time and he was in tears. After 10 minutes, he came over to me and said he hadn't made any friends yet. So to him, he needed to have this intense, perfect friendship within 10 minutes or it was all a loss.
So it was just really interesting.

00:22:53 - Amber Hawley
I love that. And I love the ramifications for our kids if you have them, but our relationships and especially for ourselves. So yeah, I don't know. The more you talk, I'm like, oh my gosh, I wish I had time just to read that book today.

00:23:06 - Chrissie Wywrot
Oh yeah. Enneagram is a game changer when it comes to relationships. If you know the types of the people you're with, I mean, it's even a game changer just for yourself interacting with other people. because just the awareness is helpful. But when you know the type of people in your family or people on your professional team or within your marriage, it's amazing what that can do.
You start to see where you missed the mark with different people and you go, oh, well, he's a two. So he gets upset when I don't appreciate him. And I get upset, but I don't feel like he's respecting me. You know, it's like you just start to realize, oh, this is completely makes so much sense.
And so you can start to recognize, okay, well, he's upset because I didn't tell him that the kitchen looks really nice.

And I didn't appreciate that he did all of that work for me. Whereas to me, that doesn't really matter, you know?

00:23:58 - Maelisa Hall
Right, right. Right. And I love how it's so like multifaceted, you know, that you dive into like, okay, well, you're a seven, but then, you know, you have these two wings and then you have, is it called the arrow where it's like a cross?

00:24:11 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yes. And some people teach to where there's an arrow to integration and then to disintegration. So the way some teachers look at it is that you have one number you go to in stress and one number that you go to in health. And then others teach it to where you just go between numbers in stress or health.
It doesn't make any difference. You just have different ways of coping. So again, that's just different interpretation. But because there's so many different aspects to it, that's why it's really a journey for yourself to really dig into it and figure out where do you fall and then just learning more about yourself.
And one controversial... thing is to type your kids. Some people say you should not type your kids. Typing my kids is actually the reason I started studying it because my oldest was just confusing me and I had no idea why her behavior was what it was.

And I felt like I could relate to her better if I understood her motivation. So I wanted to figure out what type she was. So I spoke with the person who is teaching me Enneagram and we went back and forth about it. And I finally figured out that she is a seven.
And the behavior that I didn't understand, first of all, she has that anxiety, but she would fixate on something. And then she had to have it. She could not stray from that thing. So she would literally come to me and say, you know, can I have this doll?
And I say, well, just wait a little bit and maybe we can go later. Can we go now? No, I just said, wait a few minutes. Well, can we go now? And I'm not exaggerating. She would ask over and over and over and it would drive me insane. And then I figured out she's got this gluttony.
And the way I was able to adjust was, okay, we can't dangle a carrot in front of her face.

We can't say, if you do this, I'll get you a book on Saturday. Can't do it. If we're going to give her an offer of a prize, we better have that prize now or be ready to leave the house as soon as she earns it. Or we're going to hear about it from now until Saturday.

00:26:05 - Amber Hawley
Yeah, I have one of those.

00:26:09 - Chrissie Wywrot
I'm like, I also thought that was just ADHD. So it's that- That's another... There's so many fascinating conversations because a lot of sevens are diagnosed with ADHD.

00:26:18 - Amber Hawley
Oh, I believe that. I absolutely believe that. It is that obsessive compulsion. There is that part of it that just... Where you do get very obsessive about things.

00:26:28 - Maelisa Hall
Well, and it's focusing on what interests you, right? Focusing on what you're interested in and then also not being able to pull away from that, even if maybe you need to or it's better.

00:26:37 - Chrissie Wywrot
Sevens have that squirrel mentality too. So... you know, where you'll be doing something and then something more fun goes by. You're like, oh, that looks like fun. And then gotta go.

00:26:48 - Amber Hawley
Once again, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's like you're speaking a foreign language. It's so bizarre to me. Sorry, that's sarcasm for people who aren't familiar.

00:27:00 - Chrissie Wywrot
What's really interesting is that my youngest, and it did not take me long to figure this out. I don't know if I would have had I not been an eight, but my daughter who's about to turn four is an eight. And that challenging things to deal with as a parent, it's awesome.
I love her. She's amazing and fiery and charismatic, but I can't, she won't back down. So eights are known for stubbornness and they're all about power and control. And if you didn't know this, you actually can't control another human being, even if you're bigger than them.
So we had to fight with her over potty training, over showering. And so we had to, I learned through Enneagram, like, okay, so she's all about power and control. So I have to make things her idea. I have to give her a choice and I have to help her maintain her dignity.

She is literally a child who, if you tell her, hey, go get a cheese stick out of the fridge, she'll say, no, you can't tell her to do anything. So you have to pose it as an opportunity for her to enjoy that. If I didn't understand she was wired this way, this would be even more challenging for me.
So it's good that I know this, but we are two eights in a power struggle.

00:28:07 - Maelisa Hall
Yes. Well, this is fascinating because currently we're recording this right after Thanksgiving and I'm still in Denver visiting my brother's family. And my nephew, after you're saying that, I'm like, oh, he's an ape, 100%. Because exactly what you described, that's what he's like.
And you can see how it could be, you can see a lot of potential there. And yet it's very difficult to teach a child who can't make decisions yet because they can't and they don't know what's good for them. I could see it being really difficult to try to manage that.
And so I see how learning more about this personality type could be so beneficial for figuring out. It's not like you're trying to manipulate your kids, but it's more like, okay, what is going to work for this kid? Because this is going to be really different than what works for this other kid to motivate them and...

To even, I guess, help them learn how to manage their own tendencies, right?

00:29:01 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yes. And a lot of what it does, like I said earlier at that one meeting, I was like a wizard. It's like you have the ability to speak to the feelings they don't even recognize they have because they're not old enough for that yet. And a lot of adults don't even recognize the feelings we have, right?
So for example, like we were talking about going to one The way this works in my daughter is that everything has to be fair. Everything has to be fair. This isn't fair. He didn't do this. Hey, I'm going to come report to you what he didn't do because it's not fair that he didn't do it and I did it.
So, hey, just so you know, that's not fair. That's all she does. She reports. And she has to make sure that everybody's in line with fairness. And so at one point, she gets really upset. And I'm able to recognize, first of all, that this is important to her.
It's wired this way, right? Because we have a tendency when we aren't that way... We think, this is stupid. Why are you so concerned about... But it allows you to acknowledge that somebody else is different than you and has other things that are really important to them.

And so I'm able to say to her, look, Abby, I know that fairness is really important to you, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And I can just speak to that. So it gives you a little bit more empathy to understand that other people come from different places.
We don't all think the same. We don't all have the same drivers.

00:30:12 - Amber Hawley
Yeah. And I think that's so important in being in any relationship, be it Like you said, your team, your partner, your kids, your family. It's really about understanding that, yeah, we all have different drivers and perspectives, but it goes so much better if you can just validate that feeling for people or validate their perspective and not see it just as wrong because that's really unuseful.

00:30:37 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, before I really tapped into this, I didn't recognize, number one, that because weakness, like I said, is a big issue for eights. And I didn't realize that only one ninth of the personalities think that way. I thought everybody thought that way. It was just, aren't you terrified of being weak?
And I'd be like, no. And when that was brought to my attention, I recognized how I was parenting through that lens. And I was in my marriage through that lens. So I was fighting tooth and nail to make sure my kids didn't appear weak. Get up off the floor.
You're fine. And I was talking to my husband that way. And the interesting thing with my marriage is that my husband is naturally a feelings-driven person who isn't a leader by nature. That's not his type. He is a helper of leaders.

And here I am looking at him as being a helper of leaders as a weakness because I'm seeing that through my lens. And once I was able to see, oh, he's gifted for being a helper. He's not gifted for being a leader. And duh, that's why eights and twos match up really well.
But... It just helped me recognize what I was doing and the way I was behaving that was really hurting the people around me. And it's like, oh, Chrissy, they're not like you. And plus, you're also getting upset from a place of your fear. You're not getting upset from a place of it's actually better for them to operate this way or be this way.

00:31:59 - Amber Hawley
That's so fantastic. I can't even imagine... how much transformation happens when you can have that kind of awareness. And, you know, like Melissa said earlier, it's like stepping outside yourself, depersonalizing it so that you can come from a place of, you know, more harmony and having a better relationship.

00:32:17 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah. And my husband's so funny too, because he'll, I'll say something and then he'll say, well, it's because you're an eight, 12 wing, seven, five, three.

00:32:28 - Amber Hawley
Two, one.

00:32:29 - Chrissie Wywrot
With a curl. I'm like, what? I love it.

00:32:33 - Amber Hawley
I love it. So if people were interested in learning more about this and how it applies to themselves, like what as like a way to delve into that.

00:32:44 - Chrissie Wywrot
So start with Enneagram institute.com. That is where the person I follow the teaching of Russ Hudson and Don Richard Riso. I have a book called personality types. It's not the book that's recommended by, For people who are starting, I'm intense and crazy.
So that's what I did. But typically, there's a lot more easier starts. I think one is called The Road Back to You. That is a good one. But get enneagraminstitute.com. And one of the awesome features there too, you can actually look up relationships. So let's say you find out what your partner is or your spouse is, you can actually go in and look up like type eight with type two.
And there's breakdowns of how you engage with each other, the potential awesome spots and then the potential trouble spots. So that website as a whole is a great resource.

00:33:34 - Amber Hawley
Oh, I love it. Well, of course, we're going to link to all of that in the show notes. And I like that you gave an easier lead in one because I remember in grad school, that was part of that. This is where my ADHD showed up is I figured out I was a seven, but it was like, there wasn't just this definitive test.
You had to think about things and then go further.

00:33:53 - Chrissie Wywrot
And I was like, oh my gosh, that's enough. Okay, this is great. I got to move on now.

00:33:58 - Amber Hawley
But there's so much to it. And every time I talk to somebody who's into it, I see the value. And so I like that for those of us who are maybe a little less intense, that would be the easy way to go in.

00:34:10 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah, I'm like the intense person's intense.

00:34:12 - Amber Hawley
You love it. So Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this because I really do think it's so valuable. And there's, like you said, a lot of facets to it. But if people wanted to find out more about you, where should they go?

00:34:25 - Chrissie Wywrot
You can go to chrissywyrott.com, which is C-H-R-I-S-S-I-E-W-Y-W-R-O-T.com or find me on LinkedIn, which is linkedin.com slash I-N slash chrissywyrott. And if you want to find me on LinkedIn and connect and talk Enneagram, I'm all in for that.

00:34:43 - Amber Hawley
Or you can find me for LinkedIn. Either one. Absolutely.

00:34:46 - Chrissie Wywrot
I know.

00:34:46 - Amber Hawley
Being the goddess of LinkedIn as well.

00:34:49 - Chrissie Wywrot
Yeah.

00:34:49 - Amber Hawley
Thanks so much, Chrissy. Thank you.