Enneagram Type Nine

The Harmony Seeker

When 9s are healthy, they experience the gestalt of all things as a harmonious unity. They include themselves as part of this unity, and they rest in the peaceful awareness that they belong here, that their full participation in life is wanted and needed. In this grounded place, Healthy 9s are self-possessed, empathetic, kind, unifying, steady, and engaged.

Healthy 9s can be found everywhere, in all walks of life, bringing a sense of general “okayness” and vitality to their surroundings. Healthy 9s are incredibly easy to be around because they abide in a contagious tranquility and embody a simple human decency that dissolves all pretense. They are gifted at just hanging out and enjoying life without too much stress. Others “land” in the presence of Healthy 9s in a way that often surprises them, as if they are remembering themselves after waking up from a dream. This is a profound gift in a world that often pulls us into tornadoes of activity that make us forget who we are. 

Healthy 9s are stable, humble, salt-of-the earth kinds of people. They are self-confident without fanfare and empathetic in the true sense of the word —  they can “feel with” others while remaining healthily separate. They are sensitive and attuned to their environments at a body level, yet don’t get washed out by environmental energies.

Healthy 9s’ defining quality is their self-possession. What this means practically is that Healthy 9s actually live the lives they want to, even if it ruffles feathers, disrupts the vibe, or goes against the flow. If they want to hang out, they hang out. If they have a project in mind, they go for it. If they get angry, they express themselves. Healthy 9s do not ignore problems or sweep them under the rug, but instead face them at the appropriate time, with the appropriate energy. Their approach to life is simply to “take it all in,” speak their truth, and act in congruence with their felt sense. Because of this, Healthy 9s are both receptive to the world and active in it, and they achieve a healthy, dynamic balance between input and output, give and take, sense and response. 

In a word, Healthy 9s exemplify presence itself — the ability to “be with” anything arising in the moment and to respond from the wisdom of one’s fully integrated personhood. This may seem like a generic description of health and not type specific, but it is especially noteworthy for 9s because of all the Enneagram types, Type 9 most directly exemplifies the universal human tendency to disengage from life and from oneself.

When 9s lose touch with Essential Harmony, it can feel to them as if the world is discordant, uncomfortable, and overwhelming, and they simply do not have the energy to deal with it. The thought of facing such a world is unbearable and exhausting, so 9s create a false harmony for themselves by “checking out," overly accommodating others, and dissociating into busywork and reveries in their imagination. 9s want to maintain inner peace and stay connected to their “world” — the gestalt of patterns and relationships that define their reality. Fixated 9s make the mistake of thinking that in order to do this, they must accommodate themselves to their world instead of assert themselves in it. 

The (usually unconscious) thinking goes: if I truly assert myself, I will disturb the peace, put my relationships and comforting habits at risk, and… I’d just rather not. So, Fixated 9s dull their own life-force, adopt a go-with-the-flow attitude, and resist getting too worked up. “No worries, it’s all good.” Rather than fully "showing up" as themselves, 9s merge with others’ agendas (or at least not fully clarify and assert their own) and are swept along by the tides of life. Unfortunately, in so doing, Fixated 9s lose track of what they really want, yield the right of way to others, and fade into a fog of passivity and vague busyness. 

There are many ways to dissociate from one’s authentic life energy. Some 9s dissociate into inactivity and end up being lethargic. Others dissociate into busyness and fill their calendars with activity. Such 9s may run meetings, show up to events, and answer calls, but they are not fully "with" their experiences in an engaged way. Instead, they are operating on autopilot and delaying discovering and acting on what is most important to them.

What prevents fixated 9s from fully inhabiting themselves is their resistance to anger. Many 9s don’t relate to this at first. However, 9s are perhaps the most sensitive of all Enneagram types to the general boisterousness of the world. It’s as if their psychological boundary against the environment is too porous and permeable for their own good. It’s all so much to deal with already, and they feel that getting worked up would threaten their peace and make matters worse. It is as if their inner world is a placid lake whose waves resist growing beyond small amplitudes despite rumblings from below and winds from above. Fixated 9s often report that if someone has crossed a boundary with them, they may not realize that they are angry until hours, weeks, or even years later, at which point they may either dismiss it or stew on it without taking strong action. Instead of expressing their anger outright, Fixated 9s become passive aggressive, indirect, and grumpy. A low hum of melancholy sets in, and their state becomes equivalent to a resigned existential sigh. 

Ironically, Fixated 9s use so much psychological energy to remain at peace that they exhaust themselves. Fixated 9s often report being tired, and they experience a preemptive exhaustion at the thought of taking important actions on their own behalf. They may have no problem galvanizing themselves in service of others, but that business they want to start, that habit they want to quit, or that conflict they need to resolve… they never seem to get around to it. Instead, they comfort themselves with familiar routines, piddle about, and daydream about realities that they do not act to manifest. Over time, 9s may sense that they have letting time pass without taking meaningful action, and they may get frustrated with themselves. “When am I going to start living the life I really want?" Unfortunately, Fixated 9s may ignore this inner call, remain dissociated, and avoid problems that fester from neglect.

What 9s really want is to live in harmony with their world and to feel held by life. The trouble for 9s is that by subduing their life-force to stay at peace, they disappear altogether. But just as choral harmony requires the participation of all voices, so it is in life. Fixated 9s must learn that their full participation is welcome and wanted, and that it is not necessary to erase themselves in order to participate in the world. 

As 9s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Harmony. They get that nothing could ever be separate from the benevolent unity of all things, not even themselves. From this place, 9s drop the need to recreate harmony through lack of self-possession, and they recover their virtue of Engagement and summon themselves into life. Healthy 9s fully inhabit themselves, bring forth the substance of their own personhood, and participate in the world with dynamism, solidity, and a simple kindness that gives hope to others who see the world as mad and uncivil. Healthy 9s can now truly connect to their worlds because they have enough of a personhood to be connected to. It is a joy for Healthy 9s to live from this grounded, embodied place.