Difficulties & Challenges of Nine
Neglect, Avoidance, Denial
Living in the world with conflict and difficulty all around, the more constricted Nine
personality becomes overwhelmed and retreats. Now the strategy becomes to avoid being disturbed.
Nines have an “Inner Sanctum” which means they withdraw into an inner sense of calm where they feel ok and nothing disturbs them. Within the Inner Sanctum they idealize their relationships- they feel connected to those they care about in an idealized way while real problems can be ignored. Everything feels ok in the Inner Sanctum where difficulties are denied. This is a false sense of peace.
This desire to be undisturbed is the source of the less healthy Nine’s comfort seeking behaviours. Easy going becomes checked-out, zoned-out. Calm becomes neglect, “Ignorance is Bliss”. There is an alertness to the state of true inner peace which has disappeared.
Nines soothe themselves by ruminating, a wool-gathering kind of mental activity, as well as distraction with habitual pastimes such as phone games or TV. They may “narcotize”, numb out with food or drink. Unhealthy Nines shut down because reality, with all its challenges, is just too much to take. Neglect and avoidance of problems is what occurs in their lives while outwardly the Nine may seem just fine in their state of placid calm.
At its worst this strategy of avoidance can result in denial, the defence mechanism of refusing to admit the truth about something.
Denial can be a useful temporary strategy when life is overwhelming- such as when a death or serious medical diagnosis occurs and we may be in a fog of not really knowing for a while. Denial can also be a needed defence mechanism for children in the face of abuse or events they have no means of coping with. But when we rely on denial to avoid unpleasant truths we need to face, we are not functioning in a healthy way. A common example is the alcoholic who denies he has a drinking problem, and the spouse who doesn’t recognize the problem exists. In this case, knowledge of the truth is the beginning of recovery.
Surfacing awareness and recognizing reality is part of our awakening journey. Over time we uncover traumas and heal, we look at what’s really going on with ourselves and in our relationships. This can be hard work but there is freedom in seeing the truth. Avoidance and denial are deadening.
Being in the fog of denial is also a collective phenomenon. Lifting the rock and looking at what’s underneath is fundamentally important- awareness precedes change. This collective waking up to what’s going on seems to be happening today, for example climate change, racism and the “me too” movement. But on these same issues it’s also possible to see how we resist knowing the obvious and go back to sleep. It’s as if we are drugged. This is a Nineish feeling of avoiding what seems impossibly difficult. As Scarlett said “I’ll think about it tomorrow”.
Resignation, Apathy, Sloth
When unhealthy, Nines descend into feeling resigned and apathetic. They may seem flat or lethargic. Others may be frustrated by them because they don’t say what they want. This feeling of resignation follows from the self-effacing personality strategy and feeling unimportant. Why bother if your presence doesn’t matter?
Nines have trouble bringing their own wishes into awareness. Ask a Nine what they are passionate about, and it may not compute. Remember the Nine is “going along to get along” and trying not to rock the boat. They strongly dislike conflict, they want everyone to be “ok” and they easily connect, even merge, with others. All of this creates an inner blankness about what they want themselves.
This is not to say that Nines can’t be hard working, busy and accomplished- it’s just that they are often working on someone else’s agenda. Or they may be busy and working hard on unimportant tasks. Nines neglect themselves in a deep sense because they find it hard to know their own priorities and to focus on what really matters.
The Vice of Nine on the Enneagram is Sloth. This is not laziness. It is sloth in the deep sense of failing to arise to one’s own life. This is the “going to sleep” we all experience when we forget who we really are and what is truly important.
Poet David Whyte tells a story about a life changing conversation he once had with a friend about feeling exhausted at work. His friend said “you’re so exhausted because you can’t be wholehearted at what you’re doing…because your real conversation with life is through poetry.” Whyte says that this was the beginning of a long road “to take my real work into the world”.
This story gives us the existential sense of the Nine’s sloth- finding it hard to know and honour their “real conversation with life” is what the Nine is up against.
Stubborn, Passive-Aggressive, Angry
The unhealthy Nine suffers from a distorted relationship to their own energy and will. Looking at what happens to their anger can help us understand this. Remember, the Nine is in the Instinctual or Gut Center of Intelligence and Anger underlies this Triad. Nines are angry but they are suppressing their anger for the sake of keeping the peace. Eventually the anger leaks out in distorted ways.
Nines can be stubborn and passive aggressive. Not knowing what they want, Nines may nevertheless get in touch with what they don’t want. Beginning with the easy-going strategy, “going-along to get along”, Nines eventually encounter the problem that they are going along with something they don’t really want. Then they may dig in their heels and resist. Once they are being stubborn, Nines are hard to move.
We have all probably been dragged along as a toddler, or maybe we have dragged our own kids by the arm. We know that stubborn resistance of the 2-year-old who just discovered the word “no”. Nines can be like that stubborn toddler.
In life we obviously need to take care of business, be a “good householder”, and do things we don’t want to do. But the feeling of resistance or stubbornness can be a signal that we are going along with other’s agendas and maybe we have more choice than we realize. But the problem for Nines is how to get clear and find their power to choose.
Passive-aggressive behavior shows up in the Nine personality because they are cut-off from direct methods of getting what they want. Assertiveness is taboo for the Nine. They withdraw for the autonomy they need- a sort of a “leave me alone”, slam the door approach where they may finally get in touch with themselves. This feels like a subterranean, passively aggressive tactic that others can find mystifying. At their worst, Nines can be sullen and shut down.
A Nine without self-awareness may say they don’t get angry. This is often true in that the average Nine does not feel angry, express or display anger. But the blocking of anger takes a lot of energy, and also blocks our sense of vitality and life-force. Anger is very closely related to the true feeling of vibrant aliveness. Imagine you are sitting on a volcano of suppressed anger in order to feel and appear calm. Exhausting. Then imagine how this also cuts you off from your life-force.
Consider how this blocking of anger ties together your understanding of type Nine and the Nine in all of us. The whole gestalt of Nine- the sleepiness, the easy-going agreeable surface, the avoidance of conflict, the not knowing what they want or their own priorities- can you sense how this relates to blocking anger and being out of touch with the life force in the belly?
Contacting their anger may take a Nine a while. When they say they don’t get angry they have not yet become aware that they really are! Then, when they know they are angry they will still have difficulty expressing it in a healthy way. Contacting their bellies and allowing their rage to exist will eventually open the door to their own life force and vitality. This is the life force we need to hack through the layers that keep us asleep, to find our wholeheartedness.
