Based on the title, you might be confused. If you are not familiar with the Enneagram, it is a personality profile based on a scale with 9 types of people. However, it gives more than your simple personality traits. Through a series of questions it shows you why you may do the things you do, think the way you think, and struggle the way you struggle. With every profile or personality test, the ultimate judge is yourself, so try not to take everything as truth if you do not resonate with it. (for more information you can go to enneagraminstitute.com)
I am hands down a 2 wing 3. Twos are usually considered to be helpers. More specifically, they love without limits, have trouble saying no to people, anxiously fear the possibility of disappointing others, and find validation in the way they are needed by those around them. At least, these are the ways I heavily identify as a type two, others may say differently. As a 2 wing 3, not only do I find validation in being needed, I want to be your BEST option. I want to love you the BEST way I can. I want to do the task you asked me to do the very BEST way I can. I also find validation in succeeding in the ways others want me to succeed, rather than my own version of success.
Growing up this way has resulted in LOTS AND LOTS OF…… anxiety. I mean every form of anxiety you can think of: irrational fears leading to anxiety attacks of shaking, heavy breathing, partial loss of vision, loss of thoughts and memory as well as rational stress and normal fears leading to panic attacks in the middle of making every day decisions. For 24 years I have lived my life paralyzed to the making of the most simple decisions.
If you know me, you know I am controlled by the amount of stress I am currently under. What you may not know is that most of it is caused when I have to answer your most simple question. “Can you do (fill in the blank) for me?”
The moment you ask me for a favor, I immediately become trapped inside my mind. While you sit there waiting for a response, my mind is running a literal marathon, sprinting through every possibility that could happen based on which answer I give you: “yes” or “no.” Will I disappoint you? Will I do a good enough job? What will you do if I say no? What if no one else can do it? You asked me for a reason so I have to say yes, right? I IMMEDIATELY feel an obligation to agree. If I don’t agree, I find myself feeling the disappointment for you, before you can even say anything. I take myself out of the equation as if my desires don't even matter. Until recently, I’ve convinced myself that every decision I make is because I want to benefit someone else. I put others before myself and ultimately want to be the best I can be for them. In reality, more than half of the decisions I have made in life were only benefitting my own desire to be needed. It’s as if I’m building up credit with every body I help, in hopes that the more I do for them, the more they want to do for me. After all, I’ve convinced myself that I love others endlessly but consistently ask myself “will they love me endlessly if I don’t do this?” Knowing the obvious answer doesn’t keep myself from feeling as if the answer is no.
It wasn’t until I got married that I realized this is not love, it’s pride. Through many conversations with my husband, I learned that what I do for others has a HUGE impact on him and on our marriage. It has a huge impact on the way I treat him and see him through his own personal demons. I become so focused on my demons that I completely overlook his. I become so focused on the way others view me that I began to care less about how my own spouse views me and how he thinks I view him. I become so obsessed with making others happy that when I walk through the door of my home, I turn it off. I turn off the desire to love, to care, to ask, to think, etc. In doing so, I forget to be there for the one who matters most in my life, I forget to truly see him in all of his good and bad. Sometimes I become so vocal about what I have to do for others that he gets no chance to explain what he may be going through. The more others get from me, the less he gets and the less I can give.
Sometimes, helping others can be the most dangerous thing we can do.
Don’t get me wrong. What I mean by that is are we truly thinking about how our decisions can affect the ones we love most? Are we thinking about how they are affecting US? If we cannot take care of ourselves, we cannot take care of others in the way THEY need us to, not the way WE want to take care of them.
Going through the enneagram analysis and allowing the Lord to open my heart up to these hidden flaws, I’ve realized the very things I have relied on as my strengths have become my very own weaknesses.
Any strength can immediately become a weakness if we are not using it in the way God intended.
God has given me a spirit of so much love. I told someone the other day that God decided to give me 4 hearts and half a brain. NO, I am not belittling myself by any means. I am saying that I see the world through my feelings and throw all logic and intuition aside. I am learning that God has given me this amount of love so that I can show people a minuscule version of the amount of love He has for us. However, if I am not in tune with how God wants me to use all the feelings inside of me, I become wild, dangerous, and only turn others away from Him. I become overwhelmed with the amount of “yes’s” I have given and the amount of time I have given to others. I become hostile to those who love me most because they become my safe place, but not in the safest way. Rather they become the backboard where I deflect all of my bad emotions I’ve been saving throughout the day. They become the ones I forget to love.
My sweet husband and absolute best friend.
To those who know what it feels like to be on the other side of my so called “selfless love” I am sorry. I am learning what it truly means to love people. I am letting go of the 24 years of toxic love that i’ve given you. I am realizing that I may not be the person I think I am to you. And above all, I am learning that the way others view me is nothing compared to the way you see me.
We cannot live in this world alone and the only way we will make it is if we learn what it means to love ourselves. And I truly believe we cannot learn to love ourselves on our own. Allow those closest to you help you become the best you can be so you can love them in the purest and healthiest form.
Only we know what’s inside of our hearts and minds… but only the ones we love most know how our choices and actions affect others. Ask them. Listen to them. Validate their feelings when they tell you how you may be acting towards them. I’m thankful for the bold and honest man God has given me and I will never take advantage of that.
We must learn to love people WELL and TRUE, not with the hidden burdens of selfish deceit.
