While I could easily write an entire post about my poor sleeping habits, this is an ode to my stubbornness and the musician who helped humble me. Music has continued to be vital for my personal growth and this artist’s intentionality has helped guide my processing as I learn more about myself. I’m going to be referencing the Enneagram a lot in this post, but I won’t explain it thoroughly. If you decide you want an expert overview click here.
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” …the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself… we are born with a dominant type.”
– The Enneagram Institute
A Stubborn Ali
I hate personality tests and the Enneagram seemed complicated. There are wings, triads, an unapproachable center, healthy/unhealthy/average rankings… it wasn’t worth my time to figure it out and I like(d) being misunderstood. While everybody around me was trying to learn about it, I refused. I’d remain a mystery.
The problem was, I couldn’t skip a mandatory training on the Enneagram at IJM’s orientation. Day one had a three hour session on the tool as a part of our “personal processing” for before we deploy. You have no idea how annoyed I was, but knew I couldn’t get out of it. I went into that session skeptical, I had tried so many times (admittedly half-heartedly) to figure out what number I was and continuously got different results. First I was a 6, then a 5, then a 2, 1, 7, 8… what could IJM tell me that I hadn’t already considered?
To my surprise, the IJM session began with ground rules that countered any frustration I had with the Enneagram up until that point.
- Only you can determine what your number is. No test or other person knows enough about how you think to determine it for you.
- You will see yourself in each of the numbers, but once you take the time to study them further you will find where your true inherent motivators are.
- It is just a tool, not an excuse or confining category (Noah, my brother, loves to use his number as a reason to never make decisions – not allowed).
Everything was outlined well and they even used Harry Potter characters to help us understand the different types (yes, I finally found my type and I am [potentially] the same as Ginny Weasley). It didn’t convince me the tool would be good for me, but I at least felt like I could understand why others liked it so much.
Adding Music
Fast forward to hanging out with a friend who asked if I had heard of Sleeping at Last and the new Enneagram releases. Nine different songs were written, one for each enneagram type, and podcasts were recorded explaining how they were created. I’ve talked about how important music is to me before, check it out again here, but my prideful personality had me ignore her suggestion. The next week, however, my roommate sat me down and had me listen to “my” song. I was pretty shaken at not only how accurate the lyrics were, but also how powerful and intentional the music was. After that she played “her” song and I was blown away by how different stylistically the two were. I ended up listening to the whole collection and have embarked on listening to the podcasts. The combination of my passion for music and understanding others (while not allowing y’all to understand me 😜) has thrown me down a rabbit hole I may never escape. The research that went into the songs has greatly guided my personal processing and how I relate with others and myself.
I’ve toyed with the idea of giving you all nine songs and having you guess which one I am, but I’ve settled for the three that resonate with me most. If you’re up for it, check out numbers 6, 7, and 8 (in that order). I’m going to put the “answer” to which song is my dominant type at the very very bottom of this post if you want to cheat rather than listen to all three (or check your answer afterwards).
Being called out through music is probably the only way that I would’ve started using the Enneagram to help me in my self reflection. Thank you, Sleeping At Last.
I’m not doing this alone! Join my processing journey and stay tuned for the real adventure.
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I am an 8w7 which means that my dominant type is an 8 and that I have a lot of overlap with the 7 (although the 6’s song rings nearly 100% true for me as well) – more on that in an upcoming post I’m sure 😉