In stress, difficulty, conflict, each Enneagram type follows what I call intuitive moves. Some teachers call them lines and arrows or stress and growth. The moves of integration and disintegration are intuitive.  We naturally go these ways when we need something and can’t get it with our typical patterns. It’s you, but on a bad day.

We go to this other space intuitively when we feel pressure.

You bring back some unhealthy tools to try to get those needs met. Because that’s what seems easy.

Each number has two intuitive moves in stress. One is the move you make in public, the one you let others see, the other is a move you make only those closest to you sees. We’re sticking with the public one today. That’s another story.

These are the intuitive moves

Eight goes to unhealthy Five.

Nine goes to unhealthy Six.

One goes to unhealthy Four.

Two goes to unhealthy Eight.

Three goes to unhealthy Nine.

Four goes to unhealthy Two.

Five goes to unhealthy Seven.

Six goes to unhealthy Three.

Seven goes to unhealthy One.

This isn’t about behaviors exactly, but more unhealthy coping mindsets.

Here’s how this plays out for me:

I feel overwhelmed with my workload.

Ah! I can’t do this like I normally do. I am falling apart. I need to get control.

I need the exact right way to do this. The perfect way. Here’s my to-do list that is 86 tasks long for this one morning.

Why can’t everyone just do it right the first time? Why am I always the one who is doing it right?

Voices in my head tell me, who do you think you are. You will never be enough.

I’ll just keep doing and moving and making it perfect and that will help.

(Narrator: It does not help.)

This move requires the least amount of mental awareness to get there. It’s an instinct—I just do it. I feel like I’m falling apart, so I grasp for anything to make it feel better.

I go to this other space intuitively when I feel pressure. I don’t have to practice self-awareness or self-control. And disintegration continues.

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There is great news! Since you are intuitively moving these directions, you add a little mindset shift. A little metacognition, and you can bring back the healthy qualities of that number, instead of the unhelpful.I’d love to help you learn how to make the intuitive move to the healthy side. I’m doing a three-week group coaching. It’s super limited, so register soon. We’re starting July 12.