Celia Murnock (SP/SO 6w5 613) is a Type 6 whose intellectual clarity and emotional precision root our conversation in complexity: her passion for biomedical anthropology becomes a metaphor for her life’s work — finding and teasing out gray areas in a world that demands black-and-white answers. We trace the architecture of Six through her eyes: the struggle to trust her own mind, the looping vigilance against being naïve, and the quiet grief of feeling like the adult in the room since childhood. The conversation moves fluidly between micro and macro, from early recognitions of injustice to the moral orientation that propels her forward — often at great personal cost. We explore the distinctions between 6w5 and 6w7: the cagey inner withdrawal, the instinct to "snip the threads" before attachment hurts too much, and the quiet resistance to being shaped by others’ expectations.

LINKS

Learn at The Enneagram School

https://theenneagramschool.com/

Intro Course

https://www.theenneagramschool.com/intro-enneagram-course

Get Typed

https://www.enneagrammer.com/

Sinsomnia Podcast (Dreams)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sinsomnia/id1684154994

House of Enneagram

https://www.youtube.com/@houseofenneagram

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

02:42 - Interests and pathways in education and career. Biomedical anthropology: finding and teasing out the gray areas, solving intricate/systemic problems

12:28 - Not trusting the human mind; the finite and subjective experience, 6s horrified awareness, understanding and orienting to reality and certainty

21:27 - 6w5 versus 6w7, 5 wanting to 'snip the threads', sensitivities to attachment 'mismatches'

26:05 - Childhood recognitions of morality, 6s realism and 'calling out the thing', an inherent obligation to not be short-sighted by clarity and subjectivity, self-justification to 'making a stink'

39:09 - Structural rigidity, macro vs micro and personal philosophies of life, stepping away from the microscope, injustices of the world

47:33 - "Too many arteries bleeding"; super-ego of 6, being a porcupine or a bottle of soda that's been shaken, inner pressure, wearing a seatbelt in life

56:51 - Struggling to find serenity, current life situation and tracking decisions through type structure, identity wrapped up into being the certainty

01:11:35 - Making things more good instead of less bad, 'soul purpose'; depth over breadth

01:22:20 - 6w5 cagey nature, "I'm not trying to not touch you, I'm trying to keep you from touching me", private internal withdrawal, not signing the contract, expectations vs responses

01:30:48 - Making a mess, cleaning up after ourselves, 6-1 stem reflections, resignation with attachments

01:37:10 - Outro

CREDITS

Interview by Josh Lavine

Edited by Kristen Oberly

Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay

Coma-Media: https://pixabay.com/users/coma-media-24399569/

Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/

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#enneagram #enneagramtypes #enneagram6

Celia 0:00

Yeah. I mean, basically, I think, like, the line to nine work for me is to put down the microscope, you know, and just live in not even the big picture, but the picture that's in front of me without getting out the microscope and getting too close.

Josh Lavine 0:18

Welcome to another episode of what it's like to view. I'm Josh Lavine, your host, and on this show, I interview accurately typed guests about their experience as their Enneagram type. Today, my guest is Celia murnock, who is a self pro social six, wing five with 613, tri fix. This was a really good conversation to understand six, wing five as a structure. I think that a lot of the kind of collective Zeitgeist about the Enneagram, or the way that we hold type six in general, is very deeply skewed towards six weeks seven. And so it's refreshing to get a six week five perspective and to see how attachment of the mental sensor from the six gets supported by rejection of the mental sensor from the five, as opposed to frustration from the seven. So we talk about how being a core six Celia is carrying

Josh Lavine 1:04

a an underlying awareness of how it's not possible for her to see around corners, and that any internal map of reality that she has is inherently incomplete, or just one lens, which is kind of like the humility of six, but also that within the narrow view that she's able to have, or that anyone is able to have these two certainty building structures of the five wing plus the one fix, support a way of sense making that is more internally anchored and sore and certain than we typically or stereotypically think of with the type six structure. So this was a really rich conversation, I think, one that will help kind of dissolve some stereotypes about six, or at least question them. And yeah, but still, certain core six themes are intact, like the superego structure around responsibility and dutifulness, as well as a really powerful exploration of attachment and how six functions in relationships with a kind of expectation of reciprocity, or a willingness to

Josh Lavine 2:08

act in alignment with your worldview and expecting a sense of or frustrated when it doesn't receive a kind of reciprocal you acting in alignment with mine. So yeah, just really good explorations of all of the different facets of Celia's type structure, both in theory and action, and how they all cohere into a single person. So if you're interested in the Enneagram of learning more about what we're talking about here, then I recommend you come check us out at the Enneagram school.com and I recommend in particular, you check out our intro course. And without further ado, here is Celia.

Josh Lavine 2:43

I'd love to start by asking you about your trajectory in education and your degree that you have, and kind of what you do for work. Okay, so can you take us through that?

Celia 2:53

Celia 2:59

I had like, a million ideas about where I wanted to go from there.

Celia 3:08

I originally thought I was going to major in double major in English and psychology so that I could write really rich and complex protagonists in the novels that I was going to write. And then I thought, maybe I'll get a PhD and I'll become a Jungian analyst, like I had so many ideas, but then other days I would wake up and be like, I'm gonna get a degree in forestry.

Celia 3:30

In forestry? Yes, yes. It's very like, peaceful.

Celia 3:37

But anyway, so I did, ended up doing an undergraduate degree in psychology, sort of by default.

Celia 3:47

At a boyfriend at the time, I was much more concerned with him than I was with anything regarding my studies, but I still managed to accidentally pick up a religion minor, just because I found a lot of the coursework so compelling.

Celia 4:01

Celia 4:24

Amazing. Yeah, it was really great. I picked up a lot of poop, and I gave some tours, and I mixed 50 pound meatloaf like,

Celia 4:34

Whoa. Okay. It was a lot of fun. It was we lived really off grid, in a way that most people, most east coasters, at least, like, probably just don't even have much of a concept of,

Celia 4:46

like, the distance between me and the nearest gas station was about the same as the distance between me and,

Celia 4:54

you know, Madison Square Garden right now,

Josh Lavine 4:57

which is just so people have a sense for.

Celia 5:00

I'm sorry, I'm in North Jersey, right outside of Newark. So okay, area on the Jersey side, and that would be about an hour trek if I wanted to take my car there.

Celia 5:12

But anyway, so I, you know, I just kept

Celia 5:17

getting jobs wherever, not really having any kind of specific trajectory. Then I ended up going to get my masters

Celia 5:26

Celia 5:31

Okay, that's, that was the phrase that I remembered from our conversation biomedical anthropology. How did you decide to do that? So it always kind of wanted to be at the intersection of like, physical and behavioral stuff, you know, study like the human animal, and the way that like psychological and cultural components interplay with genetics and physiology.

Celia 5:53

But I was never picky about like, what angle that would take.

Celia 5:58

It just kind of, it was just like,

Celia 6:01

so the best way that I could describe the way that I conceptualize this stuff is actually something that my best friend said years ago when somebody asked her why she doubled majored in anthropology and psychology, and her response to them was like, Well, what else is there? You know? Okay, it's kind of it speaks to the way that it's all this interconnected sort of swirling soup. And I have always, like, been drawn to, like I said, articulating the gray areas, you know,

Celia 6:30

like teasing out those, all those confounding variables that other people don't even recognize as confounding variables.

Celia 6:38

So what this degree does is, it allows me to look at a particular either a particular health phenomenon or condition or a particular population, and tease out the intricate variables that lead to, like, an increased incidence of such and such a disease in such and such population. Like, why? Why is this hitting these people in this way that is noticeable. Does that make sense?

Josh Lavine 7:06

Yes, it does. So

Josh Lavine 7:09

there's a lot to pull out what you're saying. First of all, there's a lot of

Josh Lavine 7:14

there's some self pressed stuff that we're talking about. But I would say, more importantly, there's a lot of mental sensor orientation, like teasing apart these variables that, in your words, kind of no one even realizes are variables that are like muddling up the data. What

Josh Lavine 7:31

is it about that that grabs you?

Celia 7:36

Just the idea that, if

Celia 7:40

that you know, it's there. And so by virtue of the fact that it's there, I'm curious about it, but also you can't. If you're looking to solve a problem, and you're not, and you you're not aware of all of the things that are leading to the problem, then you're not going to be able to solve it. So like, especially when something is having deleterious impacts on people, I think of it as like a, you know, a small snarl that then becomes a mat, like an unfixable, you know, matted mess. When, if you can, if you could start to follow those threads, to to take it apart, then you can actually start to

Celia 8:18

free up that situation and prevent the bad outcomes.

Josh Lavine 8:24

Yeah.

Josh Lavine 8:26

Can you give me an example of like, a thing, a project, or like a thing you've studied and how you went about it? Sure. So this is not something that well,

Celia 8:36

I could try to find something that I've studied, or I could just, I could give you a theoretical that I'm not particularly involved in. But, like, it's a, it's a pretty well known

Celia 8:46

phenomenon that might be accessible,

Celia 8:49

which, sure, yeah, let's go that way. So

Celia 8:54

you could look at something like sodium sensitive hypertension in black people. And like, so the increase in in heart attacks and strokes, and in general, cardiovascular disease from untreated hypertension. And so what you have now is a population that that evolved in a tropical climate. So there has a there's a tendency to have a high genetic prevalence of genes that will help you hold on to water and not so that you don't dehydrate in the tropics. You know now you take that population and you transplant them to a temperate environment,

Celia 9:33

and then you start feeding them highly processed, sodium filled foods, especially in food deserts, especially in areas you know that are socioeconomically disadvantaged, which we know

Celia 9:47

is also something that disproportionately strikes people of color.

Celia 9:52

And so now you have these people who are genetically, potentially genetically predisposed to

Celia 9:59

holding a.

On, you know, to holding on to water and to having blood pressure issues related to that, and you're feeding them the worst of the crap. But then also, there's a medical system that makes people rightfully mistrustful. They're not wanting to go to doctors. They do go to doctors, they're often not getting adequate care, they're not being listened to. And so what happens is a lot of people don't want to go to the doctor

for these conditions that they are predisposed to developing. And so a lot of times you'll have Talking Heads pushing whatever agenda. Who are going to focus on one piece of that puzzle to the exclusion or reduction of the other pieces of that puzzle. But the only way to actually try to figure out the best way to improve this

is to kind of honor all of those intricate things that are weaving together to create this problem.

Okay, that was an amazing example, yeah. And is that the kind of like when, when you learned about biomedical anthropology? Is that the kind of thing that you understood it to be, and that's what drew you to it? Yeah? Because I can see how, in that example there is, there's sort of a systemic issue, and sixes are kind of aware of these kinds of things in the first place. And

you have

people in the system who are making sense of, you know, like a doctor making sense of a patient coming in in a narrow way, and then wanting to kind of

both expand the purview, but also, like, take a microscope and go deeper into the whole systemic problem to see these variables that are not currently being taken into account in the way these people are being treated and taken care of, right? And so do I have it right? Yeah, and that's also coming from all angles, right? Because you have folks who are maybe coming from a very sort of sosp, like, more macro perspective, that if you dare to bring up genetics or biology in any way you know it, that's that's looked on with some skepticism or or downright right? Because it's as though, like, it's victim blaming or something like this. And that's not how it's intended at all, you know. But there's a like. It seems like most people have a particular angle of the truth that they are beholden to, yes and yeah. You know, I'm certainly not suggesting that I'm particularly good at not doing that, but I recognize the value in not doing that, and so I try not to or try to facilitate. You know that not happening.

One of the things you said in our initial conversation, that was has stuck with me, is that it's not that you don't trust sort of your own mind. I mean, we talk about like stereotype or archetype of six. What's written every textbook in the Enneagram about six is that they struggle with trusting their inner guidance. But what you said was that you don't trust the human mind, right? And so can you say more about that? I mean, this is a really good example into that, because it's, it's just there is this inherent subjectivity that, you know, yes, six could learn to lean more on and to be able to say this. This is where I personally stand on this. But you know, human beings are finite. Our experience is finite. The everything that we use to come to know anything is finite and subjective and beholden to the boundaries of us. You know, so to me, it feels inevitable that

something is going to be bigger than any one individual, you know, yes, yeah. I see Yeah. And we say bigger, meaning bigger in like, the map of reality is bigger than exactly the map of reality is always going to be bigger than the part that I could see from where I'm standing.

And that's true of any

there is something so important and profound about your saying, and I think this is kind of it goes to like the heart of what the six is holding. Sixes get this rap in the Enneagram world for being indecisive and,

yeah, being being internally split, having too many perspectives kind of competing in them at once. But there's also this other thing going on, which is just the humility to recognize that it's not possible to compile a complete enough perspective to have all the information that is available you could say. And one of the things that is disturbing is kind of

like the inherent fear of the mental sensor itself, which is that I can't actually know reality,

and I can't actually trust my perspectives. And

yeah, so what you're saying is, you know, it's actually deeply true that one person can't hold.

Hold a map of reality. It's there. You're just looking through one lens, through one perspective on one thing. And when you're looking at doesn't matter even how small of a thing you're looking at, there's just no way to know it completely. It's always going to remain behind some veil of unfamiliarity,

right where there's going to be an angle that you can't see it from,

yeah, yeah,

um,

how, how young were you when you first realized that?

I mean, I had to be quite young, because I don't recall a time where I had to realize that, you know, it just was sort of by default, of course, this is true.

Oh, that's amazing. You just were always carrying that background awareness, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I think, in part, and I mentioned this on our initial call, was that, you know, my mother, my mother was a six wing seven Kyle, and she could fastly. And then I believe she had a seven wing, also on the eight. So she had a lot, she had a lot of seven flavor for a very reactive person. So she would vacillate from like to what seems to me an absurd level of self confidence in her perceptions, to an absurd level of,

you know, needing validation, you know, neither of which I understood, it would go from like, of course, this is real to please seven year old child. Tell me, what is real, you know? Oh, wow, that's amazing. And just so people know, Kyle is the tri fix of 683,

right? So, six, wing seven, eight, wing seven, three,

something. So I think that it kind of,

you know, my perspective evolved in that context of, like, kind of always having to be ready to potentially take on the weight, so to speak, of whatever her seven wing was up to in that moment.

Yeah, this is something that I am sort of a I'm fascinated about, about you, is that you as a six aren't really relying that much on other people's points of view to construct your own map of reality. But you do, what do you rely on? Or how do you you said, you said in our call, I would never outsource to your brain, right? So it's usually, it's it's systems of understanding. This is why I'm so big on, like I said in my survey, operational definitions. What you know? What does this particular variable signify? What does it mean? What can I rely on this kind of mean or this bite of information to mean or not mean? And then how can I construct around that.

So I definitely utilize things that come from other people's minds, but not without kind of picking and choosing and sound testing each packet of information that I get.

I want to come back to this mom thing, because you've mentioned basically, basically you were an external anchor for your mom, who's a six wing seven. And can you describe what that was

like?

Uh, it was

rough, man. Um, no, it like, it definitely brought out a lot of my super ego, e stuff of like, okay, this is this is my job. I have to do this, and I have to get it right, you know. So it definitely gave me a very strong sense of needing to

understand things accurately, like, it really mattered. You know, there was never a point where I was like, I could screw this up, you know what? I mean.

It the the idea that I that I could outsource and just say I don't know, I need to let this fall on to you, was foreign to me, like it just didn't exist, and I didn't have, like, a chip on my shoulder about it, because I didn't, it didn't even occur to me that somebody might

just say, I don't know. And have that received, you know?

Yeah, it reminds me. I mean, it's very resonant with this other thing you wrote about when people ask you for self press advice.

So I

want to read a little bit about what you wrote there. You wrote, I

in general, when someone asks me for SP advice that has high stakes and requires decision making, it scares the crap out of me. Do you think I need to call a doctor about this? That question immediately makes me feel like I'm going to kill you with my incompetence if I say no, but simultaneously, will cause you to waste your time with my incompetence. If I say yes, the amount of responsibility I feel to get the answer right, coupled with the impossibility of predicting all the relevant variables, is instant stress for me. And

then unfortunately, people tend to trust my assessments of this sort of stuff, so I actually end up in this position fairly frequently.

Right? Yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, you do have this aura of someone who's very thoughtful and considered, and so

it would make sense to me that people go to you for advice, but then the panic that is induced by someone coming to you for advice and relying on you for their sense, making and navigating for things that are high stakes for them, that produces this, like an existential panic. You could say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think part of it was, you know, it's a little bit alleviated now that I understand that I can say, I don't know. I can't know the answer. Here's what I would do, you know? But there was a long time, even well into my adult life, where I didn't think that was an acceptable response, you know?

Yeah, so I I've started to learn how to, like,

maintain my own boundaries in a way, or just like, like, speak immediately to the limits that I'm experiencing and what I can predict, so that it can't fall back on me later. Like, it's definitely very sick. So there can be a lot of six on six crime when there's been, you know, a fellow six fixer is, is the the one trying to get that certainty out of me, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, not it.

But it's really, it's really pinging on this. It's like, the difference between six week five and six week seven is, is, I think, really visible in this thing. Because it's like, you feel so responsible for your for developing your own perspective on something, and yet you're faced with the immensity of or the impossibility of that problem, and and you're not, it's not that seven kind of, I don't know, more expansive, dispersive, exploratory, fizzy energy, yeah, and more like, It's not distractible. I can't just be like, Well, fuck it to any unknown. You know, I That, to me,

is reckless.

Okay, yeah, say more. What's How do you experience the difference between being a 6.5 or 6.7

basically, I am

utterly in distractible. You know, if I have a sense of threat, which, of course, in the sixth sense is any, any uncertainty, any potential for unsoundness,

I have to keep it sort of in my line of sight at all times. Make sure it's not doing anything shady while I've got my back turned, and I find that seven has that distractibility to

it, where they can just be like, I don't want to, I don't want to think, it hurts to think about this, so I'm going to just not like even six wing. Seven has the potential, especially if somebody gives them permission to to look away from the target, and I don't feel like I have that.

So there's a persistent kind of lack of ease, and like, the hyper vigilance, I think, is is more amped up with 615, at least for me, yeah. And it's more like

it's actually on a way. It's like, more distrusting of anything that potentially could distract you. It's more willing to put up a to block to block out, Oh, yeah. No, it is. It is. There's a reason that 6.5 has that stereotype right up, like the bunker dwelling survivalist, like

anything, and I don't think anybody should trust anything.

Yeah, yeah.

So

how does it work for you? Like,

when you're like, I guess I'm just, I'm really wrestling with this tension of being an attachment core with a rejection wing. And that's I have that too in the heart sensor, through with the two wing, but in the mental center, something that's always confused me about six wing five is how you can be so open and receptive and porous to external guidance, at least in a kind of object relational way, but then supported by this opaque, boundaried,

kind of radically isolated, mentally independence, it kind of thing. Mm, hmm. So how that tension lives? It almost to what I've described in the past is like aspirational fiveness, like there's a part of me that recognizes that everything that that hurts or is unpleasant or introduces unease into my life is has to do with the way that all of these threads of attachment are pulling on me. And if I could just it's it's like that, that the amputation aspect of rejection, and five as being like out there in space alone,

I imagine that it would feel so good, you know, but, and I can

snip those threads, but it's a conscious thing, like I recognize five as a tool that I use.

In sickness. But I do have this like kind of pervasive background, sense that if I finally snipped every last thread and went off into space, that nothing would hurt anymore.

Why not?

Because it's it's the

everything that comes with attachment. You know, basically all all discomfort comes from some sort of mismatch between

what my psyche needs and what the universe is offering to it, sort of and so if I decoupled myself from my need for the universe to buy in,

then those mismatches wouldn't occur, I guess.

Yeah, I guess it's like a five ish,

a five ish flavored,

or how to put it, that's, well, yeah, that's really good.

It's like a five flavored

fantasy of no longer having to be affected. Yep, you know,

yeah. I want to, I want to switch topics here. I don't want to ask you about this childhood story that you told me about. I'll just read it to you.

You said, when I was nine, my mother told me unexpectedly that I had a two year old half brother on my dad's side.

They had been separated, but for less than a year. At that point, I was excited about the prospect of a brother, and couldn't wait to meet him, but I did do some quick math in my head and said to her at one point in the conversation, I know exactly what went on here, and I don't like it.

So can you take us back to that moment? What was that like?

I mean, it was I really, I don't remember it as feeling anything but positive for me in the sense that, like, what I have a brother, this is like magic. This is like, like, you know, Christmas morning times 10 a whole as human being that I get to know now, you know, like, what could be cooler? But at the same time, I had this, like, kind of super ego recognition that, like,

you know, is typically frowned upon for for people to go out and have babies with other people without telling their wives, like, that's right, you know. And I, I knew that my mother, obviously had, she'd been pretty vocal about, you know, the separation being difficult for her and everything that came along with that.

And so I kind of it was just my way of being like, you know, I know that I'm excited about him, but I'm not forgetting that this sucks, you know. And that was, you know, not, not really a good look for my dad, yeah, you know, it's kind of like, I mean, it's the six realism and and calling out, or, I don't know, it's not exactly sounding the alarm, but it's kind of just calling out the thing that just calling out the thing that that is, I don't know, the elephant in the room, I guess when you're nine years old.

And

I actually it's, I mean, there's this a little one fix in there too, maybe, like, no trusting from your inner authority that this is not a right thing.

And I wonder if you can talk more about just your experience of having a one fix as a six. And I guess, let me tell you where that question comes from,

because you have in your type structure both five and one, which are types that source certainty from within themselves, but being a core six, you are sort of

accidentally, maybe even against your own will, receiving and potentially being influenced by what is coming at you from the universe. That is like such an important point, and I don't even think I would have thought to mention it, but it's like, I have, I have a lot of certainty, but I, yeah, unfortunately recognize the limits of my subjectivity, and I know that, like, my certainty doesn't mean shit to the universe, but that doesn't stop me from experiencing it. You know, I just have this sort of,

this inherent obligation to

not be so nearsighted about

it. Um,

but I definitely have, like my my sense of of right and wrong, so to speak,

and my sense of my boundaries, like they, they feel extremely certain, and a lot of the malleability that is often attributed to attachment in general, I find a lot of times leans heavily on nine themes. Because I'm like, no, no, that would never happen to me. Like, not in a million years would that happen to

me? I've often said that I'm like, I.

A rebar or like a rock in a river, like I don't,

I don't go with the flip, you know? Yeah, yeah. What's an example of a nine thing, that nine attachment thing that you would never relate to?

Um,

basically anytime

you're I so this is, like, a, it feels kind of cheap, but like, a lot of instances in, like service situations, somebody not sending their food back in a restaurant, somebody going home with a haircut they're unhappy with, you know, like anything, yeah, yeah. Like, this is the, this is the contract that we've opted into, I'm gonna give you money and you're gonna give me this thing.

Like, I have no qualms about being like this. This is not what I ordered. This is not what I paid you to give me. And I'm not leaving, like, the number of I've said some to somebody yesterday, a friend of mine, is it the number of times I've had someone on the ropes and been like, I'm so sorry. This is not personal. You know, this is not personal, okay? Yeah, I will be like, I can be a real Karen, and I not in the sense of, like, mistreating people, disrespecting people, but like, I'm going to get what I came for. And like, it might be an annoying morning for all of us, and I am sorry for that. But like, I am going to get like I, I basically, I, if I feel justified in doing so, I have no problem rocking the boat like none at all.

Yeah.

Um, okay, I see why. That's contrary to nine stereotypes, um, or even the nine structure. But,

um, okay, actually, I want to bring, I want to bring up this story that you talked about with the bouncer. Can you just tell that story that's a really good one. That was a good one. That was a good one. Yeah. So, uh, that's when I was in Maine with Amber. Yes. No, our resident

DJ. Um,

and so we're at this we're at this bar in Maine, having a great time. And I guess we kept going out to smoke. We kept taking our beers with us onto this, like back patio. And they, they did mention a couple of times that they were not a fan of that behavior, but we kept doing it.

And then toward the end of the night, we, you know, we promised that we would not do it again. We went inside and we got new drinks, and we deliberately left them inside this little like foyer area,

so as to not bring them outside. We did not bring them outside. Josh, I cannot stress to you enough that the beers, icy cold beers, still sweating. We're sitting inside. We went outside to smoke, and then the bouncer appears at that back door between us and the beers and says, Sorry, you can't, you can't come in. You know, you've been bringing your drinks out on the patio all night, but we didn't drink. Bring them out. They're in there looking at them. They're in there. And he's like, No, sorry. And I just paid for that. So, so now he's like, standing between me and my newly purchased beer that I've had one tiny sip out of,

and which, of course, is not accepted. Now, you've basically stolen my beer, right? You have it hostage. Yeah, you stole it. Uh huh. Okay. So, so I'm like, No, I want to get my beer. Going to finish my beer. We'll finish the beers. We'll be out of here. So I'm like, stepping to this guy who's like, you know, foot and a half taller than me.

And eventually he must have gotten tired of me, because he just picked me up

and deposited me, you know, however many yards away, but like, the whole time I hear Amber

going, still, it's okay, it's okay. We'll get new beers. It's fine. It's

fine.

So then later on, you know, we told the group chat. I was like, Yeah, we got kicked out of a bar. And everybody was like, What did Amber do? And I was like, oh, Amber

didn't do it, yeah. Well, that's okay. That's a I just want to pause there for a second, because, okay, Amber is a set for those who don't know Amber. Amber's a seven wing eight, and so you would think, just reading Enneagram type descriptions, that she would be the one Typologically to get get you into trouble at a bar. And so, yes, do you have a, do you have a way to explain that under the structure

of six? Well,

yeah, I'm just like, like, I said. I'm just, like, a Karen, like, I just, I have no chill. I have no chill.

Um, I don't know. It's not about the structure of six. I really do think it's you gotta be,

I think the six one is six one stem, yeah, definitely a part of it, because I think it's, it's not outside the realm of possibility for other genres of six. But I do think that that

lack of willingness to go with the flow, you know.

Is largely attributable to the one fixed.

Yeah, I have to keep burrowing into this topic, because it's something that has just brought me a lot of confusion around us, like six being a type that is aware of the limits of its perspective and and you could say that that's where the quote, unquote, uncertainty of six comes from. Is this

humble recognition that I can't actually know the map, the full map of reality, and that whatever map I piece together is always going to be incomplete, and I'm always compiling a perspective about something,

and then you have one which is just this kind of

referencing such a strong, certain resonant inner authority about something. And so it just seems to me that those two types are in such contrast. But then when you put them together, you get this, as you said, like your your word, Karen, you know, you get this, you get this kind of

hyper, super ego thing that happens, right, that you're willing to go up against a bouncer that's a foot and a half taller than you for probably, like an $8 beer, but, but seeing it as this, like, abuse of power, you know, and you and you know, honestly, it doesn't go that far Judge. It's almost like, because, you know, he was saying that I feel beholden to look beyond my subjectivity. So for me, it's such a visceral and immediate thing. If, if something is about my subjectivity, right? It is about my subjective experience. It is a me thing, any obligation I have to this six ish, you know, keeping an eye on everybody's perspective go straight out the window. I don't give a flying fuck what that bouncer was thinking about or what was going into his calculus, in his decision making to stand between me and my beer. It is, it was so it's so utterly irrelevant that it doesn't enter my mind. It's just this visceral, immediate, no, who the fuck are you get out of my way? Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what this what's coming up for me is, is that I have a lot of experiences with sixes who are, who are nine stem or, sorry, who are nine fix as well. And so what you get with six nine

is this, is this almost like stutter step,

even if I'm even if I'm witnessing something that I deeply believe is wrong, which I think often happens to six, because six is so aware of just I don't know, injustices people who aren't upholding their end of the collective bargain that we've all opted into. You

know that six thing of like, I am aware of the expectations and agreements that are held by the collective and this whole thing that we're doing as a society only, at least it's coming from my social self press perspective, like this whole thing that we're that we're opting into as a society only works if we all uphold our end of the deal. And,

you know, I like your use the word contract. You know, it's kind of like we're, we're opting into a contract. I pay you money, you give me a haircut. That's that kind of thing anyway. So six is aware of and holding this stuff. But then we have six supported by nine. There is this sometimes a kind of deflating, right, at least in their fixated states, a kind of like it there. It's required for them to summon themselves into, okay, I'm actually going to take action on this, because this is if it reaches some threshold of injustice or something, then they're like, Okay, actually, I'm gonna, I am gonna make a stink about this, right? But six one

has no problem just making a stink, right? And I, if anything, I have to try to not like, I have to be like, This is not work. Like, if I were sober and somebody, yeah, you have to try not to, yeah, and, you know,

you know, an $8 something, I would

probably try to scale it back. But yeah, the effort would be toward, like, leave it alone. Leave it alone. Leave it alone. You know, so

I just love the image of Amber, like holding you back

from this.

Yeah.

Can you tell me about your tattoos?

Sure. So the ones on my arms, I have

well, a lizard I got for and I won a gift card and a tricky tray, and I wanted to put a red stripe down its back, but they wanted to charge me 50 extra dollars for it, which I declined. I got this when I went to visit crystal in Tucson. And what is it? It's a crow or a raven. Okay,

this is my this was my 30th birthday present to myself. So it's a half sleeve of stars with swirls of black.

I just like the idea of like a

fantastical, shimmering.

Galaxy. Yeah, it's coming across even in your tie dye shirt. I guess I asked you about it, because I'm we're talking about all this, all this, like structural rigidity that shows up in you, in these moments where you can't let something go, and then it's something of a contrast to the energy that is just visually, sort of what you know in front of me, like this tie dye, universal, cosmic, kind of,

yeah, I guess, because it's almost like I have sometimes described myself as the world's most highly articulated nine. Because, you know how, like I was talking earlier about the pixels, the pixels of black and white that make up the gray, right? So, yeah, you always have to kind of take a microscope to it to see all the right angles. I feel like, I do tend to, like move at right angles. Like, have this binary sense of stop, go, yes, no. But it's happening at such a high resolution that if you when you zoom out, you don't see it,

you know. So it's like, you know, if you look at fractals, like there is pattern, there's a discernible medical pattern to fractals. But if you're looking at it, that's not what your eyes are immediately taking in. So to me, it doesn't feel like a contrast, because I feel like the the

ways in which I am am rigid and kind of defined in this black and white way are so

they're so tiny that that's not what you're actually going to be looking at when you look at the macro level. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, actually, that just distinguishing between macro and micro is a whole way, even to talk about your it's like, it's kind of like part of your whole operating philosophy of life. It's like, I mean, it's, it's present, even in the,

in the systemic way that we look at the how would you describe the or is it like a headline for that issue with the the health

issue that you talked about getting I don't know what the

headline would be, because it kind of reminds me of reminds me of what my friend said to me with, like, the what else is there? It's life, like the head, like, that's, you know, it's, it's the experience of embodied life, um,

I had a thought, No, I'm trying to remember,

yeah. I mean, basically I think, like, the line to nine work for me is to put down the microscope, you know, and just live in not even the big picture, but the picture that's in front of me without getting out the microscope and getting too close. Oh, man, I love that. You just said that that just that was a huge aha moment, just for me right now. Okay?

Because, and that's another distinction between 6.5 and six wing seven. Yeah, I say microscope versus telescope a lot of times with that, that's so good. Yeah, that's so good.

So it's an effort for you to zoom out from the microscope.

Yeah?

Because

there's always a compulsion to,

whenever you're seeing something, you're like, okay, in order to understand whatever, whatever's in my field of view right now, I have to, I have to understand all the pixels that are making up this, yeah, so that, actually, that actually, that would be the whole metaphor, right? Of maybe 6.5 it's like, I have to, I'm seeing some picture. I yeah, maybe it's like a picture of a of a deer, or maybe some shadowy shape, or something like that. And I'm going in zooming into each pixel of black and white or hue to understand how it right, which is then utterly overwhelming. Because you can, you know, if something is this big, but you're looking at it at a million times resolution. It's like your whole life to cover, you know, one foot of real, metaphorically,

yeah? And also, you know, things are infinitely zoom in able, right, right? There's this idea of like, okay, well, I covered this magnification. No, I can just go to the next one. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, fractal is a great metaphor for it too, because, like, if you're, if you're resumed into a Mandelbrot set,

I don't, I may have, but it's not, I can't call to mind immediately, okay, yeah, it's, I mean, when I was almost a physics major, we used to do that kind of thing at, like, sit at a computer, and just like a Mandelbrot set is a,

it's a visual display of a of a formula

of complex numbers. But it's cool, because when he's it's like, got this weird looking shape, and then when you zoom in, it's as if it repeats that same shape, but it's but slightly differently. And you can zoom in infinitely, Mm, hmm. And so it's kind of like how

in between the numbers one and two is an infinite amount of decimals. You can go out however far you want to go. So seven is that. Is that quality of like, well, one plus you can count 1234, and go all the way up to infinity, that way and that expanses.

Of my whole life. You could spend your whole life between one and two. That's the five. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's

why that was wow. That whole thing just clicked for me about like, Okay, I'm getting I'm getting 6.5 now I want to bring up a couple other things that you said so injustice

and corruption is viscerally intolerable. I guess we sort of covered that in the sense of, like talking about the one fix, but is there? Is there more there? I don't know that we covered it exactly. I just when I think about that statement, I think specifically about this one time when I was a kid seeing like an oil spill on TV and just watching all of this oil pouring into the ocean and like, so there's this number one, there's this very valuable substance that we need to run our our world being wasted and also destroying everything it touches while it's being wasted. And, yeah, I mean, that might as well have been, like, my own aorta pumping out. Like, I, like, I almost cried, like, just I couldn't watch it. It was literally like watching a living thing that I loved bleed to death.

So when I, when I say viscerally intolerable, like, that's what I mean, is I, I see things being broken by neglect or broken by corruption, and it's like, I'm watching something beautiful die.

Yeah, yeah. I know,

yeah. It never occurred to me that, like other people didn't, weren't, weren't affected in quite the same way around that stuff, you know? But it ties right in with another thing that I think I mentioned in the survey, that like my sense in fixation is that, like I'm on a battlefield and there's always n plus one severed arteries bleeding that I can keep pressure on.

And so my the super ego kind of compulsion to to do my part,

has to do with that of like this world, that like this world is dying faster than I can keep up.

Yeah? And also, it's worth mentioning also that you have some two in your type structure as well, so you have all three super ego types swirling around, yeah? And

this is where I do think that the one wing two kind of has legs, because if I think of my overlay, you know, 952, doesn't really register. Like resonate as much as like five two with that extra dose of two of two, yeah. Well, okay, on that topic of,

there are always too many arteries bleeding that I can have fingers on.

Is that like, your constant underlying sensibility, or is it like, as you look out the world at whatever? I mean, I think I should be, like, thanking my lucky stars that I'm not social dumb, because I have to, like, put myself in a certain mind to get out of the relatively, like, smaller, more constricted bubble of spso.

So it's not, I mean, it is easily accessible. I just have to, like, remember that the world is out there and it's on fire, you know.

But so I think I'm pretty good at triaging what I let into my consciousness at all. And it's in part because I know that if I did let myself

keep everything in my view, I would go insane,

you know? So I kind of triage a lot of it out,

yeah,

but it also it brings up kind of something that, like when we talked earlier, I asked you if you related to being a porcupine. And you said, first of all, that you already self described as a porcupine. Other people have described me as such as well. Yeah, yeah. But the

you also use the metaphor of being like a bottle of soda that's been shaken, Mm, hmm, and that there's just this constant sort of inner pressure that you're operating under. And I wonder if that pressure, like, what's the relationship between just having all the super ego stuff in your type structure and that pressure?

That's a good question. I

think a lot of it is,

you know, reactivity, attachment and pro social elements

all contrasting each other like the

so part of it is like me knowing that I would probably be more palatable with nine picks, and I would probably have more ease in my own life with a nine pick. So part of the pressure comes from

knowing that I have this internal rigidity.

And still trying so hard to not, you know, like,

go off.

But so you're sort of, you're, are you self censoring? Like to not? It's like another so another analogy is that I sometimes feel like I'm wearing a seat belt throughout my life, like there's this inherent stop that I notice in particular, eight fixers and people with eight wings and like people with eight present in their because I have complete I have no eight at all. No eight, yeah, and I think that's where that forward pressure release comes from, you know, yeah, that's true. That's good. Yeah, it is, like, expansion, permission, life force. I don't have permission to expand, but I have a lot in there against that rigidity. So there's the seat belt analogy, there's the the Contents Under Pressure analogy. And then there's also, I say that, like, you know, six one is almost like being in an Iron Maiden. So yes, I'm a porcupine, but like, I promise you, those spikes also point inwards toward me, I'm sure. Yeah, there's a lot of themes around inherent restriction,

and it's very

it's not the way that, like nine, you know, nine can be self censoring, but it's in a it's ease, it's actually making space for the thing that, for the irritant, you know what I mean, and it's making the best of it, whereas, I'm not sure, yeah, making space. There's not space for it. It's like, it's a rock in my shoe where, like, I said, you're like, there's,

I'm not,

you know, reflexively expulsive, but

it doesn't mean that I'm not constantly clocking the wrongness or the irritation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's i That's okay. That's really good. I I have someone in my life, very close to me, who is, I think, very close to, if not exactly your type structure. And when I

my experience of of her is that

she is trying so hard to be responsible, to cover all her bases to do the right thing,

to call out when things are going wrong. And she feels, in my view, like often alone in that project. And there is, there's a way that

you know

all that. So, okay, so first of all, that itself is a formula for a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to be building up.

And then if you,

let's see how to put this, like,

if she, if she recommends a place for us to go to dinner,

then

there is this aura where it's like, if you were to recommend something else, or say, I don't know about that place, that you're like a little nervous to step on the wrong landmine, because it's kind of like you feel like there might be an explosion around, like, I don't. Well, okay, you know. Okay, well, you decide, you know, because there's this, and as she's gotten older, there's like, there's been a lot more pressure release, like she's found the valves where she can kind of not be, I don't

know, so hyper pressurized in that inner, you know, hyperbaric chamber, yeah. And

there's a lot more, like serenity. And I don't know what it's, what it's blossomed into, yeah, ease. What it's blossomed into is more of like a, like a, like a refined regalness. I would say it's kind of cool. You know, it's like a, wow. This is like a delicate, refined regalness. But also, she lives very much in her spine. Like,

where am

I going with this?

I am.

I'm thinking about how six, if you

could, you can't actually do this, but if you could, just like, have a pure six without any other influence,

like from a wing or other fix, but just like pure six energy, it's like the reason that six is my and at least my theory that I like to run by you, that reason that sixes get defensive and can be kind of

quick to trigger is because they're

basically, like,

aware of the expectations that are on them, or that a responsible person around here should hold themselves to, Mm, hmm, and they're trying to do it's taking a lot of energy to do it, and they're

but they're not even, let's see. Maybe this isn't true for one fix, but my experience of a lot of six is that they're not even sure if they agree with.

Those

expectations, but they're trying to hold them anyway. And then if you and then that's producing all this inner pressure, and then you poke that, and if you poke it, it's like this unstable, reactive, like a nuclear substance.

Yeah, no. I mean, I definitely, yeah, there is, I definitely think there's truth to that, and I think there's also a way in which like and this, you know, probably is happening in some form with all of the attachment types. But like

I it's not like we are oblivious to the ways in which we are

responding to more than ourselves. So it's like, I'm over here busting my ass accommodating your subjectiveness in addition to my own. But you know, the feedback that you get is just often an indicator that the other person is not doing the same for you. You know? Okay, there it is, the reciprocity thing. So it's like, I am I'm contorting myself for this to be an us thing, and then you're like, I don't like your you thing, I don't like your you thing either. That's why I'm trying to make an us thing,

you know. Okay,

okay, good, yeah, another six with one fix that I interviewed her phrase was resentful accommodation.

I could I could see I try hard. I so I firmly believe that any resentment that we experience is a result of some kind of unresolved thing within ourselves, because resentment happens when you offer something that you didn't want to offer or couldn't afford to offer. So I try to be very intentional about never doing that. I'm not it's not it's not to say that it never happens, obviously it happens, but like when I feel myself feeling resentful,

usually, that's a conversation that I have to have with me about how I let that happen. You know, yeah, yeah.

Um, in the course of your life, what has helped you, first of all, zoom out from the pixels and also

cultivate serenity or equanimity or relax

benzos. No. I

mean, most people will tell you that I'm not particularly good at these things. I'm not a very serene person. Part of it is having a sense of humor about the absurdity. And, you know, just holding it's hard for me to let go of these things, so I just, I hold them loosely, you know, I think about that Oscar Wilde quote that's like, life is too important to be taken seriously. Think that was Oscar Wilde, yeah, it makes it sounds like him. So that's a big part of it is just like maintaining this meta awareness of how absurd all of this is,

and keeping, like, a strong sense of play

um. But I'll be honest with you like it's it's a struggle for me to, you know, be in my body, to find serenity, to just Calm the down, knowing what everybody's like, we don't think you have a nine line because you have absolutely zero chill. Like you have less chill than anybody I've ever met in my life. Like,

totally valid.

I i don't have

chill. Yeah, yeah.

Um, so yeah, I kind of want to ask, I'm curious about your current life situation and how how things unfolded for you to be here, and to kind of track the decisions that you made

through the lens of your type structure, to kind of get where you are right now. Okay, so now see, here's where we do get into resentful accommodation. Okay, yeah. So I, after I went to New Mexico, I was like, I'm never moving back to New Jersey again. But I received a lot of pressure from my mother and sister that I should come home to New Jersey

and help with the household my sister, who is a nine wing, eight Bermuda, probably very, very similar to you, except for the eight wing. I think she's,

yeah, nine, wing eight, three, wing two, six, wing seven, in that order, and she's SPS, but I call her the everyone whisperer. She runs a bar, and she's just, she sells real estate, and everybody loves her,

but she's extremely,

uh, super ego and attachment and, like, self erasing. And she just has never lived anywhere else, and she and my mom had a sort of codependent relationship, and it was always sort of the two of them against me, because I was willing to be a pain in the ass, um, so I was, you know, in New Mexico, and it was like you got to come back and help with the household, blah, blah, blah. So

I did that for a while, anticipating that I would leave again eventually. And I did leave, and I went to grad school,

and I really did not think that I was going to come back here after grad school, but shortly before I graduated.

It. I was home visiting, actually, for Mother's Day, and got a lecture

for how I was like neglecting my mother, neglecting the family,

not doing my part. Was ungrateful and selfish and self absorbed and all of these things for being in grad school and living three hours away at the, you know, at the age of 30, that I had left my childhood home to go to graduate school was selfish, and, you know, just that the other thing, um, and to the point where, like,

I was, I remember being on my knees sobbing and like begging my mother to forgive me.

And at that during that conversation, I promised that I would move home as soon as I graduated and, you know, start helping out and whatever, it actually gone back to that a lot over the years. And it makes me so angry, because I could never, like a big part of my the way my three, wing two, especially, I think operates, is that, like, you're never going to be on your knees in front of me. I'm always going to tell you to get up. You do not deserve to be on the ground. Like, I like, I don't care who you are. Like that, you know.

So that leaves, like, a really bad taste in my mouth that, like, okay with that. Do you know what type your your mom, 617, Kyle, so 6.780 that's right. You mentioned that's right, you mentioned. That's right, that's right, that's right. Okay, yeah, okay, yeah. And so anyway, so she was underemployed. She had a lot of mental health stuff going

on

and but I don't it's not necessarily relevant to get into all that stuff. But I, anyway, I promised that I would come back.

So I did, and I fell into quite a depression because I couldn't find work in the area, and I was not using my degree, and I ended up also underemployed. I had to take an AmeriCorps position, which, if you're familiar with, it's basically like, it's not paid work. It's really like volunteering with a stipend. So I was working full time plus, but making like, $350 a week, or something like this.

And

then about, like, a year after I was home, my sister was like, I went on, indeed, and look at all these jobs in Washington, DC. I don't know why you didn't just, like, go out and, you know, like, basically, like, giving me this, like, retroactive pep talk of, like, why didn't you just go out and chase your dreams?

And I was like, I Okay, you i What, you know, what I mean? Like, it's like, it's like, she had no idea that the time that she, like,

had me on the floor, you know, promising to do better and come home like there was no connection in her mind between her tormenting me that day and badgering me into like sacrificing, you know,

and coming home like in her mind that just didn't exist, you know, whereas for me that wasn't such a big deal. I I'm here because you told me

i i should be here, and it's never, it's not like I lose my sense of my own desires, or it's and I think this speaks to the resentful accommodation, like I was always aware of what I was sacrificing and why

I was just opting into that sacrifice.

Why did, why do you think that the pressure brought you to your knees?

I think because, like, I had a lot of my identity, you know, was wrapped up in, in being that certainty for my, you know what I mean, in, like, the way that I showed up for my mother and my family

and the, yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's really the main thing. And there's this whole idea of, like, you know, three girls on their own. Like, there's a lot of that sort of family loyalty. And also, like, a creeping sense that I had had that, like,

I had already, you know, basically this idea that I was being selfish while the two of them were suffering from my selfishness, you know. And even though I objectively

didn't believe that to be true, I had this sense that

if I went my way, I would potentially lose them, and I didn't want to lose them, so it's like

I wasn't acquiescing to their skewed perspective in terms of changing my perspective, but I was acquiescing to their skewed perspective in in doing what they wanted,

like all the While. That's That's fascinating. So you retained mental in the you didn't absorb their point of view, but you did. But I knew that I couldn't change their minds. And I knew that, yes, I didn't want they weren't it wasn't worth

risking losing that attack, those attachments and so,

yeah, so there it.

Is, I mean, that's, I mean, that's okay, that's attachment. First of all, we should just name that. But yeah, absolutely. And also, and also, there's a six duty, sensibility, duty to the thing that I feel responsible to, and and a sense of identity around being responsible to this. I don't know this to this core group that I care about,

but I'm fascinated by this dynamic of, or I guess this is, it's like, kind of an important hair to split around understanding six where it's like, I'm not,

I'm not actually getting washed out by your perspective. I'm not taking on your perspective as my own right. But in order to maintain relationship, I am demonstrating to you that I'm willing to act in alignment with your perspective

as a kind of

Yeah, relational overture, like, like, yeah, I don't know if I have my rules of engagement, and you have your rules, and if I get the sense that I can't engage with you, if I Don't play by your roles, then if it is a high value enough attachment, then I will at least try to play by your rules. And that is where the resentful accommodation, I think, can come in.

Because I know, again, I always am so aware of what I'm sacrificing to play by your roles. And then there's this sense of, like, I guess I'm just not important enough for you to try to play by my rules. Like, have you ever thought about playing by my rules? There you go. There you go. And that's there, and that's that whole and there. Yeah. So that's how six gets into

well, I don't know. I don't I don't know that. In your case, I would name it exactly like this. But it feels like the victim mentality of six, where it's like, I I'm do. I did this for I accommodated you, and now you didn't sort of reciprocate.

I do.

I mean, I think that again, anytime we're feeling victimized, it's a conversation to have about what within ourselves, about what we allowed to happen. And I'm not saying that again, like I this happens to me all the time, but I will never put the onus on someone if I fail to protect myself from you. That's on me. 1,000,000%

that's on

me, yeah, and I think that's like, part of the like rejection piece and the aspirational fiveness And like, there will never be like You wronged me

and as such, you suck.

It's more like you wronged me. I left myself open to be wrong by you, and that's that's a chink in my armor that I need to address and fix, not like, Yeah and again, yeah, yeah. So, so where are you at now with the whole emotional journey.

I mean, you know, my mom passed away a few years ago, definitely some lack of resolution there, but I don't know. I mean, she could have lived to be 100 I don't anticipate there would have been,

you know, resolution that's satisfying to me

to come out of that.

But,

you know, right now, I'm kind of trying to focus on the present and where I'm going next. You know, we're talking about getting the house ready to put up for sale, and then I'll move out into a space that's my own.

I've tried this year in particular to, like, get away from living, living for that future, because it doesn't seem like it's going to be happening expeditiously.

So I, you know, I've been investing in, like, I'm building a garden in my backyard, and like, being really thoughtful, and like making that yard a place that I want to be like a, like, a little oasis, nice, yeah,

yeah, I'm kind of just doing my spso thing, you know, I work, I come home, I chat with my friends and

about it, you know. But I

this is not going to be forever, you know. This is just sort of a, you know, I'm kind of

keeping time, but also with an eye on the clock, like, you know, I that I want momentum to start happening again soon, but I gotta be strategic about it, towards what,

um, towards getting out of this

house, really, but it's kind of rough because my my again, my sister is a nine one gate. My brother in law is a nine of some flavor, I'm unsure, on his wing, but we got two Bermuda nines that are down there, and, you know, very no sense of urgency whatsoever to change the situation.

And it can get a little bit sticky trying to have conversations with my sister, because ever since my mom got sick and passed away, like we

have this like fragile peace that we never had growing up, we were always at each other's throats. I mean, we we would throw down. I.

Like, never mind to Kyle, like, like, we got into physical altercations well into adulthood.

Okay, yeah, but,

you know, we're a lot quieter now, but that there's still a lot of mistrust, there's still a lot of unease. We're very different people, and we have a lot of baggage in our relationship toward each other, so like I try very hard not to press on her around the sale of the house, because it inevitably goes someplace. It leads to tension. It leads to conflict, even if it doesn't lead to a screaming match. You know, I always leave off feeling worse than I started,

and it's weird, because this is not like, while we are talking about how very impacted I am by this stuff with my family, like this is not stuff that I tolerate from anybody else. You know what I mean, like this is I would not constrict myself in this way for anyone but my mother and my one sister, right, right, you know? And it's a pretty it's a pretty significant restriction. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, a big part of the restriction right now is that, like, I can't afford a down payment on a house until we, okay, get do we sell this one? And so it says practical, yeah, right. Like, if I wanted to move into an apartment. I would just do that, but I that's for me, that's I don't want to waste my money in that way. You know, I'm not staying right now for any reason, other than I need the equity from this house out of it. But it's like a game of Jenga trying to coax it out. I see, I see. I see. Yeah,

okay.

And then the kind of would the kind of job that you would be after.

So ideally, I would love to do something more creative, more on my own schedule. I got both saying that, that I'm on the clock right now, but where I

really am only answering to myself. And a big thing is I want to experience work where I'm making, and this is so like six, I want to make things more good instead of less bad. You know, I've always had jobs. I wish to make things less bad.

And obviously, cancer hospital, like, you can't get more, you know,

mitigating of something crappy than that, you know,

yeah. But I also know that I don't, I'm never gonna earn anywhere near what I'm making doing any other kind of work. So it's, you know, that's going to be a a balancing act of like, do I want the the work week, my ideal work week, or do I want my ideal weekends and vacations, and, you know, to have the resources to do more in my off time?

So there's a chance that I'll stay for a while at this job, because I do have a lot of flexibility. I do appreciate my co workers. You know, it's a job that is like a good blend of challenging and doable, you know. So

as nine to fives go, this is not a bad one to have, but it's so I guess I would say that my what I'll be doing is not my number one priority. I don't have as much of a compulsion to change my work situation as I do to change my living situation. So it's like, I'll hammer that out and take it from there.

Okay, okay,

yeah,

I guess we're the question about the job came from is just it feels to me like in your i

i hate to be so presumptive in saying this, but it feels to me like your

I don't know soul purpose your soul like your soul's purpose is like

is This

systemic investigation and improvement and uncovering the hidden variables and this kind of a thing, I just wonder, are like, Are you engaged in that? Now, in that kind of, in some kind of a way, I think that I again, it's more depth over breadth. Like it feels more like my soul's purpose to

uncover it piece by piece, for like, one person you know, for whom I have a very important relationship, you know, sure, um, or just my little corner of the world, one plant that I'm trying to grow that is not thriving, whatever it is, you know, okay, I don't really have this, like, broader overarching societal

or, like, I guess it's my self, social self, Pres also, yeah, it's also, like, a lot of people are like, Oh, this job is so, like, you know, hand in glove fit for your type. You must have really looked long and hard for it. And the reality is, I didn't. I had, I couldn't find a job. I needed a job. I was applying. What is the specific thing you're doing in your job? So I'm a clinical trial coordinator in a pediatric oncology clinic. So basically.

Likely if a kid comes in

with a certain kind of cancer that there's a trial open for, I will manage all of the logistics around that.

Okay, yeah, and I work with the IRB

to make to get the studies open and like all that kind of stuff. I'm also on the IRB because I'm a joiner,

okay? And the IRB joiner anyway, yeah.

What's the IRB? It's a Institutional Review Board. So it's the ethics board that reviews any human subjects research to make sure that it is ethical and not, like, exploitative of patients, right? Okay, yeah. So I can see why people would say this is, like, hand and glove fit for your type structure, and I didn't even have to, like, I'm the first clinical research coordinator to ever join the IRB at St Joe's. Oh, that was something that that's not part of my job. This was, like, an extracurricular thing that I did. You just couldn't Is it a volunteer position? Yeah, I mean, but it happens during the work day, so it's not like I'm having extra time,

and it's like we meet monthly,

and what's the reason you joined? I just I'm nosy, and I want to have a if there's a meeting happening where stuff is being discussed, I want to know about it, and I want to have my say, you know, yes, yeah, yeah, because the IRB is relevance to your So, can you just explain, like, the structure? So basically, if any, whenever you open up a human subjects research study anywhere, whether it's an academic institutional hospital, it goes through institutional review board review to make sure that this all happened after World War Two and after the, you know, all of the horrendous crimes against humanity that the the Nazis committed, and the the human subjects research that was done during the Holocaust and stuff like that, to make sure that that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore. So it's like, okay, well, like, you're not torturing people. You know what I mean? Like, like, it's, it's basically to ensure that any research that's being done, any scientific research that's being done on human subjects, is being done

respectfully, is being it's not going to be harmful. It's going to be,

you know, not exploitative, not coercive. You know, people are able to consent willingly, and you know, all, all of that kind of

stuff. Okay, got it? Got it? Um, yeah,

okay. I mean, it's a very just, just to name it, it's like a very superego structure kind of a thing,

very superego structure kind of a thing, um,

but, you know, it's, but it's fat, I guess it's, what's fascinating to me is that you chose to join it. I know you're being kind of cheeky that it was self or cheeky that it was you're just being nosy. But did it also come from a sense of it was like I was saying earlier, how, in my experience, most stakeholders have a very myopic view of what's important. Yeah, and so I have always said that, you know, IRB should have more anthropologists.

And even though it's not the work that I'm doing right now, I am an anthropologist in terms of the way that I think and what my you suffering is.

So I am being nosy in but in this if with a particular eye toward what are they missing, you know?

What? I also there is a way that I, you know, I am somebody who, who used to be very prone to padding my resume,

you know? I yeah, I like, I like having things on my CV. I like saying I did this. I was part of this. I was, I had a leadership role in this. And

I do that much less compulsively. Now, like back in high school, you know, I think I was a memory love that came onto my radar. You know what I mean? Oh, you're talking my language. I know

this is three wing two. This is the sickness that is three wing two.

It's a disease. So that's what I mean. That's really what it is that's the that's the main reason that I joined. For the shorthand of it is like, okay,

playing with everything else.

But let me tell you, being on the IRB of a small Catholic institution is really,

anyway, surprisingly, it was. It's not actually a lot of fun. It's not my, not my favorite thing to do, surprisingly,

but the bigger point that I was, I was trying to make was that, like, I didn't, I didn't go out of my way to find this job. I, in fact, when I interviewed, because I they had, like, posted a generic job description that was like, Data Manager clinical research. I can do that. I'm qualified to do that I can enter data.

And then I went for the interview. And you know, my now manager was like, as you know, this isn't the pediatric oncology department, and I was almost, I was this close to being like, oh, nice meeting you. Bye. You know what I mean, I literally almost didn't even stay for the interview. So this is very far.

From like, Oh, I feel compelled because, well, because I don't know that I wanted to work in pediatric oncology. You know that Sure, not everybody was cut out for that. And I didn't know at the time whether or not I was I also don't particularly like kids. I'll be honest with you. Um, okay,

but I, you know, I stuck it out, and by the end of that, by the end of that interview, I was just like, I really, I actually said to my managers, like, I really want this job. Like, I just really, like, we all like me and my manager and my principal investigator, who I work closely with, in the day to day. Sense, we all like, just clearly, I hit it off with both of them so well, like, you know, it just felt right, yeah, and so now I've been there for seven years, which is by far the longest I've ever had any job. That's another thing that everybody's like, yeah. Six so steadfast. You know, you work the same study like I had when I was hired there at the age of 34 I had previously never held any job for longer than 21 months in my whole life. Wow, right? Okay, yeah, so it's just interesting because people you know meeting me now that I'm in this, like, admittedly very

spso super ego e role that I have been in for years, everybody's like, Yes, this is, of course, who you are. And I'm like, well, that's only been this for like 45 minutes, but like it does fit, you know

what? Earlier, when you said the IRB is surprisingly not fun to be on, were you referencing or were, let's see, were you coming from the place that you when you joined thought it actually might be, or were you referencing a more like collective assumption that it probably wouldn't be, and being tongue in cheek, more collective? I mean, I think, I do think I had, like, an element of, like nerdy hope that there would be something a little bit Okay, okay, a little bit less desolate than what I experienced. But as it turns out, it is, there's nothing. But, I mean, I think the IRB of, like, a really active research university

would like, I think that IRBs can actually get to think about compelling things. It's just that that this little Catholic hospital

without a major research focus is not a place where that's gonna happen, you know, yeah, okay, okay, I have one more question about 6.5 in general, and then, and then we'll see what else is

here. The word cagey comes up with 6.5

do you relate to that word? And do you have a sense of, like, why that gets pinned?

Yeah, yes, I think I do relate to it. It's in it's weird because I actually, when I was first realizing that I was a six, I just assumed I was a 6.7 this was like, I'm fun, I'm funny, you know, I'm easygoing. And then, of course, all of the looks for everybody who's ever known me, you know? Okay, yeah, I am funny, but I am far from easygoing.

I don't think I realize how, like cagey, squirrely, all of these sorts of things that I could come across as, because also, I think being image last maybe plays a role in this. I'm never thinking about how I'm being received, right? So I think there's a lot of me retreating

into that withdrawn, five ish Ness as my Yeah, you know, to come examine the threat in private where, you know, I can get it alone and put all my attention on it.

I think there's a way in which that abrupt with drawing can come across as kg, but I'm not, I'm not trying to.

I'm trying I'm not trying to not touch you. I'm trying to keep you from touching me. I don't know how to

articulate yes better, yeah. And are you,

I guess, my understanding or my felt sense of how the word kg fits with 6.5 and you tell me, if this feels right, it's like,

well, first of all, five can be secretive. You know, five is often keeping its own thoughts to itself and processing. It's kind of like looking through the world, through that Periscope and kind of but still hidden back here in its laboratory

with some some some psychological distance proceeded from whatever it's participating in. Okay? And so you have, you have that kind of private, internal withdrawal going on, but you also have a

six core that is consciously or unconsciously aware of its potential, influence, ability, or it's, I don't know just what, what happens when you open yourself up to contact with someone else's mind and the.

A, I see it. Maybe it's like a self protection mechanism, or like a withdraw into secrecy and privacy. Are you looking at me? What do you want? What do you? What do you? Yeah, that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are you here? What are your intentions?

So, because my experience of you, I mean, you're so open on this, even just in this conversation, it feels like it's almost like there's no topic off limits and stuff like, and so there's, I was just trying to square

your your easefulness with these kinds of topics that we're exploring. I mean, it's very it's easy because I just won't share what I don't want to share. Like, I don't feel like I have conscious hang ups about this. I remember, well, there's a

there's somebody in that the shared social group that we all know that, like tends to ask extremely provocative questions on purpose. And a lot of people get weird about it. And I never got weird about it. And one time we were talking about it, and I was like, I'm just not going to answer. Like, you can ask me 1000 times if I'm not gonna answer the question, I'm just not gonna answer the question. I don't have any shtick about it,

you know, oh, man, okay, see, that's another that feels like another important distinction between six week seven, six week five. Because it's like,

let me see how to articulate that in my words, it would be something like six is

or let me okay, let me say like

this, five is

just kind of going along,

not referencing or feeling responsible to other people's expectations or worldviews or ways of thinking. And so when someone says to a five, hey, you really should do this, five is sort of like opaque to that, but in a really, in a subtle

most of the time, people aren't giving explicit shoulds. They're just kind of implicit in the in the interaction. And so for example, when someone asks you a question, the implicit should is that you should respond to that question, right? And so five is sort of like just enough in, enough removed, sort of back here, from those expectations and or those shows that it's kind of like it can, it can opt in or not opt in, according to its own inner compass. Six, on the other hand, is sort of maybe a wash in those expectations. And so sort of, I would expect that for a six, when a six is asked a question, there's an immediate, like, like, a sense of responsibility that I have to answer, but paired with the five wing, it's kind of like a little bit more back here. Yes, I have no sense of responsibility to answer, but I do have the expectation coming from the difference. It. Like, I don't, but I don't, yeah, any, like, absolutely zero to give them what they're asking for, but I recognize what you're asking for. So maybe that's the, that's the split, like five, like core five would almost, like, not even be aware

they're not even, they're not the

contract that is coming from that question. That's it, signing this contract, you know, that's That's it. That's why five wing six often tends to be like, more, I don't know, in conversation, more like, weirdly, like, effusive, you could say than 6.5665

tends to be more private, because six week five is, I don't know,

aware of the expectations and existing in relationship to them, whereas five is sort of not. Mm, hmm, yeah. I think it's that's a big part of it. But then six week seven, in contrast, like seven is, I don't know,

excited by the the the

idea of the potentiality, yeah, okay,

you know, yeah, yes. And exactly yes. And you asked me questions, sure, let's, let's get into it. And that paired with the six, it's kind of like the six awareness of expectation. It's almost like maybe playing with it. Or there's also the frustration versus rejection. You know, if you enter something into the map that I don't like, I'm going to tell you that I don't like it while you asking that question, you know what I mean? Oh, sure, yeah, that's good.

You know, yes, the cut off,

right? Because I remember, this was not about a mental construction thing. This was about doing something like literally and ask. But we were at one of the zones, you and I, and you wanted to go up to the roof. Now, I don't like heights, but I don't like feeling unstable at heights, and so you wanted me to climb the fire escape ladder up to the roof. And you must ask me about three or four times, you were undeterred. You just finally, I was like, Okay, I'm not climbing that ladder. It isn't. You're like, Oh, okay.

I was just like, what is Yeah, but there wasn't, like, we weren't gonna I had no intention of arguing with you about it.

Just was not a right. It was just a certainty, yeah,

and I'm gonna keep not doing it.

It's fine. I went inside, going inside the house, and finding an alternate way up to the roof so we could all hang out on the roof. And it was delightful. But yeah, that, yeah, that would that always makes me laugh when I think about it. I was like, Oh, he doesn't. He thinks that this might actually change.

Yeah, oh,

that's funny.

That's good. Um, okay, let me look at my notes. Or actually, is there anything, anything that I haven't asked you about yourself that feels important, or about 6.5 in general? Uh, nothing that I can think of off the top of my head. Honestly, okay, I feel like we did a nice, organic like, tour, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I have one other thing I want to ask you about,

which is, and this maybe is in relation to the cageyness thing, but

you're you said in our previous call, quote, I just can't make a mess like

you don't. You won't let yourself make a mess. And again, I feel like that's, in some some way, a contrast to six wing seven. Not that every six week seven is just willing to make a mess all the time, but there's a little bit more of a buttoned up quality to six wing five.

Yeah, let's

I don't ever feel like

I can make a mess and leave it like I'm not saying I am incapable of making I'm very capable of making a mess. I It's not okay. I think let me, let me give this more context. So because we were talking at the time about

the bottle of soda that's been shaken and wearing a psychological seat belt. And then you also said that you can feel your emotions bumping up against the edge of you, where this is part of like, in relation to all that inner pressure that's building, but you don't, kind of, like, let it out in this big, explosive kind of way. And I think that's where this phrase, I just can't make him, I can't, I can't just make a mess. Kind of comes from

which I'm hearing some of the ones self control, and that also 6.5 kind of privacy, maybe. But I just wonder if there's anything else in there that feels useful to unpack.

Yeah. I mean, I think that it's also, it is the things that are present. But again, it's also the absence of eight,

you know, the absence of

or even the absence of nine. It's the absence of because

nine, also, nine is not expanding by force, but nine is expanding to a comedy, you know, yeah, like, one is the gut type that is the most obviously restricting. Like, we talk about that a lot, but, but, um,

I, yeah, I just, like, I feel compelled to keep everything as close as possible

to me, to not leave remnants of myself strewn about.

Yes, that makes sense because,

uh,

because, number one, I don't want them out there uncontrolled, for other people to

trip over and influence or be influenced by, you know, and number two, because of this, like, super ego we like. That's the way that this works, is that we clean up after ourselves, and that includes our psychological message, that includes our energy, yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, okay, I think I feel kind of complete here. How about you? Yeah, I think so too, yeah. What's this? What was this like for you? It was fun. I liked it. I was a little bit wary at the at the beginning, when we're having so many tech issues. I was like, are we gonna find our groove, or is this gonna you know, yeah, but I think we definitely did. Yeah, no. I appreciate you rolling with the punches too. I was a little worried there myself, yeah,

but yeah, no, thank you for your openness. And yeah, this was, this was a really good conversation for me, because I have, like I said, a six wing five, who's very close to me, so I feel like I learned a lot here.

And just as also that six one stem, just that pairing, and that whole conversation around having an inner certainty, but in the context of six, I think that's really, I think it's a really useful and important distinction to kind of triangulate into what six actually is, right, what right like, where, where that beholden is to externals, kind of ends, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and also just how, like, where the

where the openness and receptivity to external guidance also ends, you know? Or what, yeah, what the limits of it are, or how that gets flavored or shaped, or

something with with other influences in your types, right? And I think it also speaks to the inevitability

and.

Resignation that can come with attachment, you know, because there's a lot of times people who aren't thinking, who aren't who don't really understand attachment for whatever reason, can think that like it is a decision that we want to outsource, that we are, you know, consciously feeling like we need, unlike the hexades, we need this more input. It's really a it is this way in which I know, because I know what my one fix feels like, right, you know, and I can see how the six

attachment modality differs from it, and it feels inevitable like I just, I can't see around that corner. I just can't, like, that's not, I'm not like, Oh, my eyes are uniquely defective because they can't see around a corner. Like, that's not how it that's not how corners work. You know, they like,

yeah,

and you're saying, but this whole thing is, you're saying that's the primary, because you're a course six, that's the primary thing is this awareness of the map is is reality. And I know that, like you know, the the job of moving out of fixation is to not conflate the map with the terrain,

and also to use other senses, right,

to actually, if I'm traversing the actual terrain, to understand what it feels like under my feet, not to belabor the analogy,

yeah, and also, maybe not to believe in the analogy. But I like that seeing around corners thing as a as a visual to grab, because it's kind of like, well, in the knowing that I can't see around this corner, what am I certain about just with what I can see, and, yeah, with what is in my view, and that's where maybe that one fix comes in. It's like, All right, well, given what I know, get, what I can see, you know, this is West, this is what has to be the case, right, right? This is, this is what I Yeah, exactly. This is what I know. And this is what is or is not, okay, based on what you know, what? Yeah, yeah. I mean, right, right.

Cool. Okay, well, thank you very much for this.

Yeah, and yeah, we'll close. Okay, thanks. Have a good one. Thank you for tuning in to my conversation with Celia. If you liked this conversation, then please click the like button or hit subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, or if you're listening to this as a podcast, then you can leave up to a five star review, and you can leave a comment if you're on Apple or Spotify, if you'd like to learn more about the Enneagram, then I would love for you to come check us out at the Enneagram school.com

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