Dear Sysiphus,

The enneagram, the lie we believe, and the journey to self-love

Some people object to the term self-love. Arguing with that feels like a pointless exercise in hurting people, so here are some alternatives: advocating for yourself even when no one is watching, and accepting your flaws with tolerance and respect.

That requires that you see your flaws, and additionally, that you recognize what is making you feel like you are always questing, never stable.

To use a ceramics example, if your clay is off center AND you always force it too hard with one hand, and you don’t use enough water, what happens? You will end up with an unhappy, striving, off-centered mess.

So, notice the quality of your clay. Was it allowed to dry out (not enough nurturing) or too soft (wrong kind of nurturing)? Is it grainy, full of different minerals or clay sources (the person you were born as, inside and out)? Where is the clay on the wheel (the situation you found yourself in)?

The ceramics analogy has plenty of miles left, but you get the point.

Notice how you push yourself. This says everything about what your enneagram type tells you is the only way to be okay in this world. It shouldn’t be a big revelation to learn that your type lies--that it isn’t the only way to be okay. Your growth type, as well as all the other types, can help you see the lie.

To be personal and specific, my Type, Nine, tells me that having desires, goals, and opinions distances me from the only thing that makes me okay: connection. The lie here is heartbreaking because suppressing any of those things isolates me even more. When depression comes (or the wombats come to visit, as I like to say), then I believe I can’t have either connection or the other things I want. It’s a pretty grim feeling, and each enneagram type has its version.

Trying to integrate towards Type Three helps me because it is prescriptive about all those things I’m cutting off. The Nine who has integrated towards Three feels connected to themselves, without losing connection to others.

A Two, for example, desires to feel loved. The kicker is in the how. They can believe they need to support and love others to be okay, to the point where their voice and needs are unspoken. Depression might tell the Two that they will never have that love, while integration towards Four allows them to see themselves and their needs as something beautiful, enabling them to give themselves the love they need in this way. This doesn’t keep them away from serving and loving, but strengthens that capacity.

KM Weiland, when talking about story structure, asks you to find your character’s “lie they believe” as you build your plot. From an enneagram perspective, it’s enough to make the reader cry, because the lie our character believes is so close to them that they can’t even conceive of its being a lie. It’s either the thing they thought would make them okay, or the twisted cousin of that thing.

Trauma impacts this lie, this impediment to self-love. It tells us we aren’t worth that thing that our integrated Type urges us to do. For me, it tells me no one needs my writing, that I will not have friends or love, that I can’t handle connection, and on and on.

Trying to love ourselves anyway means we become Sisyphus, our closest ancestor. Thank you for your example, pushing that boulder up the hill in Tartarus each day only to see it roll down at the end. And what do you do? You try again.

If love is an action, not a feeling, as some would say (this resonates with my gut triad bias, I’ll admit), then self-love is also an action.

Sisyphus, animation by Julia Gandrud 2004

Do you expect to have a result without giving yourself what you need? What is the result, what do you say to yourself, and what is the thing you won’t give yourself?