A Brief Description of the Enneagram

I have long been a fan of Myers-Briggs, and I talk frequently about being an INFJ on this blog,
but I am totally having an affair with the Enneagram personality type system.
The Enneagram “teaches that there are nine different personality styles, one of which we
naturally gravitate toward and adopt in childhood to cope and feel safe. Each type has a
distinct worldview and an underlying motivation that powerfully influences how that type
thinks, feels and behaves. Unlike other personality typing systems, the Enneagram shows us
who we are at both our best and worst and suggests ways we can relax our grip on the self-
defeating behaviors that prevent us from becoming our best, most authentic selves”
(found here).
I’ll describe the basic characteristics of the nine types based upon information
found here and here, and if this is at all interesting to you, I encourage you to take the test
onlineand find out your type!

Type Ones are The _______, part of the instinctive center, and they are principled,
purposeful, self-controlled, and perfectionistic. Their worldview is: “The world is an
imperfect place. I work toward improvement.” Their basic desire is to be right and their
basic fear is of being condemned.

Type Twos are The _______, part of the feeling center, and they are generous,
demonstrative, people-pleasing, and possessive. Their worldview is: “People depend on my
help. I am needed.” Their basic desire is to be loved, and their basic fear is of being unloved.

Type Threes are The _________ or _________, part of the feeling center, and they are
adaptable, excelling, driven, and image-conscious. Their worldview is: “The world values a
champion. Avoid failure at all costs.” Their basic desire is to be admired, and their basic fear
is of being rejected.

Type Fours are The _________ or The ______, part of the feeling center, and they are
expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental. Their worldview is: “Something’s
missing. Others have it. I’m different from them because I don’t.” Their basic desire is to
understand themselves, and their basic fear is of being defective.

Type Fives are The ________ or The ________, part of the thinking center, and they are
perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated. Their worldview is: “The world is invasive and
confusing. I need privacy to think.” Their basic desire is to understand the world, and their
basic fear is of being overwhelmed by the world.

Type Sixes are The _______or The __________, part of the thinking center, and they are
engaging, responsible, anxious, and suspicious. Their worldview is: “The world is a
threatening place. I need to look to authority, but I question it.” Their basic desire is to be
secure, and their basic fear is of being abandoned.

Type Sevens are The _________ , part of the thinking center, and they are spontaneous,
versatile, acquisitive, and scattered. Their worldview is: “The world is full of opportunity and
options. I look forward to the future.” Their basic desire is to be happy, and their basic fear
is of being deprived.

Type Eights are The ___________ or The ___________, part of the instinctive center, and they
are self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational. Their worldview is: “The world is an
unjust place. I am strong and I defend the innocent.” Their basic desire is to be self-reliant,
and their basic fear is of submitting to others.

Type Nines are The ____________, part of the instinctive center, and they are receptive,
reassuring, complacent, and resigned. Their worldview is: “My efforts won’t matter to the
world. It’s best to keep the peace.” Their basic desire is to find union and peace, and their
basic fear is of separation.

Achievers or Motivators,
Challengers or Leaders,
Reformers,
Loyalists or Skeptics,
Helpers,
Enthusiasts,
Peacemakers,
Investigators,
Individualists or Romantics
The UCLA gymnast who nailed a flawless floor routine that has been
viewed tens of millions of times opened up about the body shaming she has
faced as a gymnast and how she reclaimed her joy in the sport.
Katelyn Ohashi, a 21-year-old senior, said she faced body shaming since the
age of 14.

"In the gym, outside of the gym, on the internet, so it’s something that you can

never really escape," Ohashi, 21, said Thursday on "Good Morning America."

"As a 14-year-old, it’s kind of hard to cope with, because you’re still developing

as a person, and so everything really impacts you."

In addition to the support of her coach at UCLA, Valorie Kondos Field, Ohashi
has learned to use poetry to help her cope.

"But here today I stand with a love that

penetrates deeper than any wedding
band," Ohashi said on "GMA," reading
from a poem she titled "Self-Hatred
Goodbyes." "Because I am my own size
I am my own size
and no words or judgmental stares will and no words or
make me compromise."
judgmental stares
will make me
Ohashi performed to songs by Tina
Turner and Earth, Wind and Fire, as well compromise
as the Jackson 5 and Michael and Janet
Jackson. Her teammates could be seen in
the background, cheering her on and
even performing bits of her
choreography.

"Every time I get on the floor, that’s always been my favorite part of
gymnastics, and being there with my team and my coach and being able to see
them dancing with me, it just feels like home," Ohashi said on "GMA."

One of Ohashi's tumbling passes in the floor routine was such a high level of
difficulty that the team had to resubmit it in competition because "it wasn't in
the code of points," according to Ohashi.
Her flawless routine was her fourth career perfect 10 on the floor, according to

the UCLA Bruins.

Prior to her reign at UCLA, Ohashi spent four years on the USA Gymnastics
Junior National Team, even beating out future Olympic gold medalist Simone
Biles at the 2013 American Cup.

After suffering a fractured back and two torn shoulders, Ohashi stepped away
from the elite circuit. She recalled being told by doctors after the American Cup
that she may never be able to compete in gymnastics again.

"It was almost like this weight was lifted off of me, but then at the same time I
realized that was the only thing I knew how to do," Ohashi said. "It was taken
away from me at the same time."

(MORE: Already forgot your New Year's resolutions? Here are 4 tips to reset

2019)

When Ohashi defied doctors' expectations and returned to competing at the

collegiate level, she made sure that she was having fun, according to Field, her
coach.

"Her freshman year she comes to us and halfway through our competition
season she says, 'I just don’t want to be great again,'" Field recalled. "When we
delved into it, she just said, 'When I was great, there was nothing joyful about
it. I wasn’t happy so why would I want to go back there?'"

"At that point, I knew I had to earn her trust," Field said.

Ohashi's viral, flawless performances show she has found joy in her re-
emergence as a college-level powerhouse at UCLA. A floor routine performance
by Ohashi to the music of Michael Jackson also went viral last year.
Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to recognize that a relationship has
run its course — or more difficult still, that the match may not have been
healthy in the first place. In her fourth film as director, French actress-
turned-helmer Maiwenn is concerned first and foremost with her
characters, who rank among the most vividly realized of any to have
graced the screen in recent memory, but behind that is the pain and
heartache of fighting for a love that’s ultimately damaging to both parties.
Despite a well-deserved track record in Cannes (where her previous
feature, “Polisse,” won the Jury Prize), Maiwenn remains under-
appreciated by the critical community, but that will change after the world
experiences “Mon roi,” a movie that may sound anti-romantic, but is just
the opposite: boldly ultra-romantic, of the sort that has turned French pics
(like “Jules and Jim” or “A Man and a Woman”) into worldwide hits before.

Pain serves no purpose,” a physical therapist tells Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) during
recovery from the skiing accident that opens the film — only, it wasn’t an accident,
but some sort of suicide attempt, or at the very least, a cry for help. For more than
10 years, Tony has suffered in her love for Georgio (Vincent Cassel), trying to change
him, to tame a man who’s very wildness attracted her in the first place, or else, to
suppress her own emotional needs and deal with the reality of his personality. And
now, reflecting back on moments from that decade-long relationship while confined
to a physical therapy center that critically doubles at providing psychological
therapy as well, where she can connect and laugh with other damaged beings, she
learns to accept that pain needn’t be a part of true love.

No doubt, that description sounds rather reductive, maybe even nauseating to some,
as if the many emotional insights Maiwenn, co-writer Etienne Comar (“Of Gods and
Men”) and her entire cast of collaborators bring to this remarkable portrait of a self-
destructive couple could be so glibly contained in a mere aphorism. What makes
“Mon roi” so special is not its salutary lesson, but the way all involved bring it to life,
creating an exceptionally robust, detail-driven relationship through which we can
vicariously experience the ups and downs, the joys and suffering, the sexual ecstasy
and crushing emotional betrayals of the radiant woman whom it very nearly
destroys.
More impressive still is the way that Maiwenn has synthesized the advances of so
many other cutting-edge filmmakers into a style that feels truly her own. As in
“Polisse,” she works from a detailed outline, but relies upon her actors to improvise
their parts. Whereas that approach can result in either banality (the fumbling
ineloquence of mumblecore movies) or over-compensation (the competitive scene-
stealing found in Judd Apatow comedies), here, it brings a sense of unmannered
realism to the performances. The scenes between Bercot and Cassel feel intimate:
The characters are allowed to be spontaneous, unguarded and naked — often
literally so, as if no cameras were watching.
Bercot is heartbreaking, and Cassel has never been better, while the supporting cast
— especially Louis Garrel as Tony’s brother Solal — raises the game of the two lead
actors, for it is Solal who most clearly detects the negative effect Georgio has on her.
Reflected in the sincerity of his concern for her happiness, we understand that the
couple is not a good fit long before the evidence reveals itself to Tony. Given the
rehab-center framing device, we know where things are heading from the beginning,
and yet, so many of the early flashbacks mask the trouble that lies ahead.
How many thousand times have audiences witnessed a couple falling in love on
screen? It’s a wonder that directors manage to make the process feel fresh (granted,
many of them don’t, falling back on old tropes to indicate as much), and yet, Bercot
and Cassel convince. From the moment Tony sees Georgio on the dance floor, she’s
simultaneously drawn to and turned off by him: He’s charming, over-generous and
spontaneous, a recovered womanizer (or not) and a potentially addictive personality.
By contrast, she’s rational, guarded, insecure (no thanks to her ex-husband), a
lawyer who fights for lost causes. No match-making algorithm would pair them, and
Solal is right to be skeptical from the moment they meet, and yet, the connection is
clear, paradoxical and not necessarily doomed from the start. It’s an ineffable
paradox, one that audiences either recognize or reject, later described by the
principle, “You leave people for the same reason that attracted you in the first
place.”
Though her method encourages improvisation, Maiwenn has adopted a strategy very
much in vogue with mainstream French cinema, wherein conflicts and character are
revealed through seemingly ordinary circumstances, rather than head-on in capital-
D dramatic scenes. Consider the moment when Georgio reveals that he wants to be
a father, furiously ironing in the middle of the night, or the surprising new facets of
character that emerge when Tony’s water breaks a bit later in film. Maiwenn skips
the delivery scene entirely. No need for Bercot to overact there, skipping straight to
the joy they feel at seeing their child’s face — the child who will ultimately find
himself caught at the center of the maelstrom.
Naturally, it’s most thrilling to share the moments early in the couple’s relationship,
when their love for each other is so intense it may leave you desperate to find such
an intense passion for yourself. When things turn difficult, the film becomes harder
to watch and by extension, less enjoyable — but then, that’s obviously the point.
“Mon roi” runs well over two hours, and though it may seem to linger unnecessarily
on certain scenes, rest assured, it has all been carefully calibrated to achieve the
vicarious effect Maiwenn seeks. Likewise, although the film privileges Tony’s
perspective, that’s not to say Georgio’s behavior alone is responsible for the fraying
of their bond (though his decision to rent a second apartment would be a deal
breaker for most).
Here, in “Mon roi’s” style, we sense the casual apotheosis of what John Cassavetes
innovated half a century ago: a collaborative, generous approach that welcomes the
artistic contributions of all, including the crew. Shooting in virtually the widest aspect
ratio possible, d.p. Claire Mathon (“Stranger by the Lake”) conveys the color, energy
and dynamism of every frame, rendering the melodrama cinematic and the
emotions immersive.
Critics can be especially harsh toward directors who get their start as actors
(actresses have it still worse), dismissing them as dilettantes or dabblers, deriding
the way they often indulge their casts while bumbling cinematic technique, and
frequently turning personal when said stars dare to appear in their own films (a
knock Maiwenn avoids here by remaining exclusively behind the camera). What the
haters ignore is not only the naturally empathetic place from which actors hail —
after all, they identify with characters in a way no one else does — but the fact that
they are exposed to so many directorial styles en route to taking up the job
themselves. Whereas other helmers work in more of a creative vacuum, actors
synthesize and apply what they’ve seen work for others. The reaction to “Mon roi” at
Cannes has been mixed, and it will continue to divide down the road, but between
this and “Polisse,” it’s clear that Maiwenn has something to say — and a clear,
strong style with which to express it.