Nines, Work and Anger...

"The core issue of enneagram Nines is their repressed anger..." and blah, blah, blah....

The thing about self-development psychobabble is that it always tends to be long on accusations and identifications, and very short on solutions and healing.

No... really....

Think about it.

"Oh, you must sit in the silence and when the leaf blows on the northern wind during a full moon, the truth will become evident to you.... and you already have this knowing, it is just hidden by your own self-deceptions."

What???

What the fuck does that mean?

Whereas I can appreciate-- and truly do-- the value of self-discovery, I have always found myself frustrated by the so-called "Healing Professions," because they seem all geared towards people being "eternally IN healing" but rarely towards being healED.

Again, think about it:

If you go to the emergency room with a broken arm, you don't sit around and study broken bones for five years, and then wear 43 different types of casts while you "learn the best way to heal your broken arm."

We live in a world that's all about "Being IN the problem," not "SOLVING the problem."

Color me cynical, but if you went to a therapist and left happy and whole after three sessions... the therapist would have done a brilliant job, but also worked themselves out of charging you $95 a week for three years of torturous introspection...

But I am off on a bit of a sidetrack.

I was thinking about how the enneagram is very good at pointing out that Nines have hidden and repressed anger issues... but there is very little information about where that anger comes from, and how one might "find" it and balance it. It took me years and years and years to understand anything at all practical about my own understanding and healing.

There's no information about what anger "feels like."

My father was an Eight, and he had "rage issues." I learned what anger "looks like" (at least one version) by being around him... and watching him throw tools in his workshop, and scream obscenities at the top of his lungs at the slightest provocation.

In observing myself-- and I consider myself quite skilled at self-inquiry-- there is no part of me that feels inclined to throw a hammer across the room because I dropped a piece of sandpaper.

That's just a metaphor, really...

My point being that we all "feel" things individually. It's folly to think that there's some "absolute" way we're supposed to respond to-- and feel about-- the stuff of life. We're individuals. We-- not other people-- get to set the standard for what something "feels" like.

The only common thread in true Healing is that we be truthful. I must be truthful in my evaluation that "dropping the piece of sandpaper" does, indeed, not make me want to throw a hammer. If I actually want to throw a hammer, but pretend that I don't... we'll then I am being "repressed."

Thus, a large part of the healing process is about separating Truth from conjecture. And the global tendency to create an "average." Which reminds me of something a college psychology professor once told me: "Always remember that an average or a norm is a statistical concept, not a real person."

I spent many years "looking for my lost anger," where I would have been much better off studying and understanding underlying variations in human temperament.

But again, I have gone off on a sidetrack.

A type Nine trusim: "Nines talk in sagas."
Yup.

Nines do feel anger.
Personally, I feel angry when I have to work.

I don't feel angry about the work, itself... or about actually working... I feel angry about "having to work." Having to work means I can't sit still and do nothing. Having to work often means I feel forced to engage in meaningless (at least to me) activities. Work prods me into "activity" and that prodding makes me feel anger. In many ways, it is the extension of the same anger I remember feeling as a child when my mother would tell me to clean my room. There was no resentment about "being told what to do," there was resentment at having my "quiet" disrupted.

I have a genuine and deep desire for quiet, and for emptiness. "No-thing" is, to me, a beautiful concept. The choice to "not fill" space, time, and mind with "some-thing" is beautiful. My most-desired state is that in which I sit still-- like one of those Tibetan monks-- in silence, for 40 years.

My life in this "real" 3D world has been about how to structure my surroundings and activities and work in such a way that I can approximate that, while still being sufficiently "in the world."

I have learned and embraced that this is My Way of Living. When I am questioned-- or even attacked-- my response (NOT "repressed") has become a request to others to consider their questioning in the context of the way they might feel deeply uncomfortable when they feel "bored" or "there is nothing to do." I feel deeply uncomfortable when there is too much "to be done" in my life.

Of course, many make the argument that "doing" is a positive, and "not-doing" is laziness.

I'm sorry. THIS Nine does have an opinion. This whole "industriousness" thing and the "always in motion" thing is a westernized learned behavior, and not the Truth of who we Are. Just go learn about peaceful indigenous peoples... most of the time, they spend about 20% of their waking hours "working," as in fending for themselves and contributing to their village's well-being. The rest of the time they are just "at rest" and engaged in non "productive" things that mostly involve building community and connection.

"Yeah, but I couldn't afford my car, my travel, my boat and my XYZ and my ABC if I only worked three hours a day!"

To which I say "Instead of pointing fingers at me and what you perceive as laziness, who don't you point that finger at yourself and ask why you fear not filling every available space and moment with some-thing."

I have spent many years in the process of simply identifying what makes me angry. And the point I wanted to make is that this issue of "Nines and their anger" isn't so much about whether or not I get angry... but about what makes me feel anger. And for YOU (this is the "global" you), accepting that what pisses you off may not be what pisses ME off.

Having to work so much makes me feel angry.
Injustices make me feel angry.
Bullying makes me feel angry.
Those who "push hierarchies" in order to put themselves "at the top" make me feel angry.
War makes me feel angry.
People demanding things of me because it's "easier" for them to coerce someone else than do it themselves make me feel angry.
Narcissism makes me feel angry.

Conversely, I don't give a shit that the waiter dropped a plate, and our dinner will be delayed 15 minutes.
I don't give a shit that someone made a mistake. Mistakes happen. That's life. Deal with it.
I don't give a shit that your political views are polar opposite from mine.
I don't give a shit that some people are unconscious with their words. Some people are unconscious. Deal with it.
I don't give a shit that some service person won't "break the rules" for me. My lack of planning is not someone else's crisis. Be accountable.
I don't give a shit that the mechanic didn't get my car fixed today. So, it was more complicated than we expected... deal with it.
I don't give a shit that someone "dropped the ball." They dropped the ball. People are fallible. That's life.

And in the end?

I feel angry when people tell me what I am "supposed to feel angry about." Especially when they have expectations that I feel angry "on their behalf" for things (slights? transgressions?) I wouldn't even have noticed, in the first place. No. Bugger off. YOU don't get to "be me." I get to be me.

To Resolve... or NOT to Resolve

I'm a fairly staunch opponent of New Year's resolutions.

I don't know that this has anything in particular to do with being a Nine... I just have come to realize that I don't feel compelled to create a number of unrealistic goals I will then fail to accomplish, with the result that I feel bad about myself, or somehow "less than."

When I look at the whole issue of New Year's resolutions, it strikes me as problematic. Many people resolve to take on these BIG projects (which may require all year) in a thought process of moments. People plan more thoroughly for a weekly shopping trip. Which they generally succeed at. The idea (for example) of "losing 40 lbs" amounts to little more than empty words, absent a deeper process of working out HOW that is going to happen. And most people don't. They just say "I'm gonna lose 40lbs!" and by mid-February they are depressed and have given up because the first six weeks of the year has resulted in a loss of ONE pound and a lack of energy and well-being.

I prefer to set continuous small goals.

"This year I will organize and update all my client files."

No!

"This WEEK, I will organize all my client files for people who's name begin with the letter A."
"NEXT week, I will contact all A clients to make sure their information is current."

Yes!

Odds are I will create two "successes" through the above approach.

So does this relate to the enneagram Nine personality? Maybe marginally, in the sense that Nines tend to zone out and procrastinate when faced with things/tasks that look like they will require a lot of energy and effort.

Odds are that I will not put something off, if I can look at it and think "yeah, I can get that done real quick and then go back to a rest state."

Efficiency, and not zoning out and going to "sleep" for me involves a process of "deceiving myself" into believing that the tasks ahead of me-- the basic process of living-- involves doing lots of "small easy tasks" that can be quickly done and over with. Ultimately, it's just an issue of creating semantics that work for me. The actual tasks are no different from anyone else's.

The idea of "painting the house" makes me want to avoid the task at all costs.

The idea of "painting the bedroom" + "painting the bathroom" + "painting the kitchen" + "painting the hallway" + "painting the guest room" does not.

When I sit with how I feel about "tasks," I recognize that part of what we're looking at here is my Myers-Briggs "J" preference: I don't like to have "in process" things in my life, I like to have "done" things. Very large tasks require that they remain "open" for a long time, and I find it stressful; disturbing. Small tasks allow me to "cross something off the list." It will be done. Gone. I will never have to return to it. That offers me a certain peace of mind.

And, as we know, Nines are ALL about peace!

May you have a peaceful 2012!