CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the podcast of the California Institute of Integral Studies where we bring you conversations and lectures from our public programs series featuring world-renowned scholars,  leaders, authors, artists, and thinkers. To make sure you never miss an episode of the CIIS public programs podcast find us and subscribe on iTunes or on our website at ciis.edu/podcast.

[Audience applauses]

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Kayleigh: Welcome everyone, welcome everyone in the future, on the podcast, and a big special welcome. Thank you so much Hannah for being here tonight. I’m really delighted to be here on the stage with you and you’ve lit my like inner Jersey girl [Hannah Laughs] with your wit, your sarcasm, your provocative and inspirational encapsulation of the enneagram in your book milleneagram. I'm so excited to dive into your background and your work tonight. So thank you [Hannah: Thank you!] for being here.

Hannah:  Thank you. I’m really excited!

Kayleigh: Yeah, so throughout your, in your introduction to your book and throughout the book, You kind of leave little bread crumbs of trails of your [chuckles] your background of being a missionary growing up in this religious background and then also kind of touching upon different points of your work. So could you just give us a little brief introduction to kind of who you are and your background of what you, what led you here to writing this book?

Hannah:Totally, It’s been a meandering path. Yeah, I definitely,  I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household. My parents read a book about being martyrs when I was five and we're like “we should do that” [Kayleigh laughs] So they sold all of our possessions and like legit did the whole like missionary thing, but they didn't know how to do it. So we drove to South Texas and just kind of like popped over to Mexico whenever we felt like it and eventually they went to Missionary training school and did the whole thing. So we would like, I would say we probably spent 50% of the time doing the actual Mission work and 50% of the time driving around the continental United States asking people to give dollars to go continue doing the thing. So that was my experience growing up. It was a very: I was a home-schooled, super nerdy kid. I practiced my signature [Kayleigh laughs] for 28 years so It's gonna come in handy now.

Kayleigh: [laughs] Like calligraphy is really [Hannah: Oh] in handy now.

Hannah: Literally, I was in the calligraphy Co-op. So, I'm not kidding you

Kayleigh: So your book signing is going to be great [laughs]

Hannah: Yeah. Oh, yeah hands will not be shaking at all [Kaleigh laughs]. But yeah, so that was kind of my experience and I was a very hypervigilant kid. I was always like. Because I was constantly like terrified about hell and like my eternal situation. I [Kayleigh laughs] I  really got really into like trying to understand where other people were coming from. Especially like my parental figures because I saw them as sort of my connection to God like they were kind of the Arbiters of my religious destiny. And so I got really hypervigilant about facial expressions and like why they did what they did. So when I discovered the Enneagram, when I was 17, it was like, oh my god! I finally have the tools. I'm not crazy. Like I can finally get why it is that people do what they do.  Um and that was kind of how my nerding out into that sphere continued. Yeah.

Kayleigh:Yeah, it seems like that was like your own. Like Enneagram became your own Holy Grail.

Hannah:  It did, it did! And I felt like it definitely became originally it was a tool for ‘Oh now I can type everybody and understand them’ and then I was like, “no not supposed to type other people, oksy” But like I know [Kayleigh laughs]. So yeah, so but obviously, it's an evolution for all of us. Everybody who discovers Enneagram  starts typing people at first. So it, you know, forgiveness, repentance continues. I still type people on TV shows and then I tweet about it. So really I'm unrepentant sinful.

Kayleigh:  I know I may have asked you to type me without telling you what type I am. So by the end of this maybe she'll have a clue what [laughs]

Hannah: Well if  you're going to tell me all of your deepest fears and motivations [Kaliegh: Okay] maybe we'll get there.

Kayleigh: You know I don't think that's the point here. [Hannah: ooo,] So Move on to my next point [Hannah: hmm, okay] so you speak  about the meeting of the mind and the spiritual realm being the way to explore the self through Enneagram. So I'm curious to know a little bit more about the background of what your spiritual realm has been now and when writing the book and perhaps how that was influenced by your spiritual or religious upbringing.

Hannah:  Yeah, I feel like my my spiritual discovery over the past like five to six years has been a lot of “well, this is what it isn't” so a lot of dismantling erasing, you know old old theology old archetypes about God about myself about yeah how that how that played into my life, but I feel like the Enneagram is a tool for connecting with the self. Which ultimately is it is it is a tool in our toolbox towards that definitely go to therapy [Kayleigh laughs] everyone, but I think that I think that the Enneagram has helped me to connect with what self is and a lot of my my fundamentalist understanding of like the Holy Spirit which is like this internal voice that guides you.  It started to adapt, it started to adapt and to evolve my understanding of that. So now I began to realize. “Oh, that's Instinct. That's my intuition that is like an internal thing based in my body because that's where I feel it.” And so I think another interesting. I think the Triads have been really helpful to me in understanding so there's the thinking triad, the feeling triad, and the instinct or the gut triad. I feel like every, all three of those have different access to spiritual and physical knowledge and they can they have like super powers that they teach the rest of us like as we kind of have this centralized area of knowledge and we can kind of if we if we lean into connecting with them with the other numbers than we can gather some of that goodness too.

Kayleigh:  Yeah. I love how you're bringing in this body-based approach.  When I first received your book, I kind of flipped to the back and I think one of the first things that hooked me was that,  in your additional reading,  you listed at the top The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der kolk and [laughs] I was like, ‘oh we're meant to be best friends’.  [Hannah: Here we are are!] and here we are [chuckles]

Hannah: Connecting on stage as most best me yeah obviously

Kayleigh: Either that or via Twitter, right?

Hannah: That's honestly, that is where I make all my friends so

Kayleigh: And that's really how you kind of got started with the hashtag Millennialgram.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah, Millennia Gram was a joke. It started as a joke. It was something where I was driving ungodly hours to be a social worker every morning and I realized that I woke up real salty like real sassy first thing in the morning and I was like, what am I going to do with all of this? So as you know when you have an office job, you certainly cannot work for like the first hour of that job. You just like you said at your desk and drink your coffee and pretend to be a person [Audience laughs] And so what would do

Kayleigh: none of us can relate to that

Hannah: No. No, I like patently refused to. I don't work an office job anymore but when I did I would not work the first hour, my output is better if I don't so anyway, that was my rationale. [Kayleigh laughs] My boss was uninformed. But anyway, I would sit at my desk and like write out these threads about Millennial gram in the airport Millennial gram, and those actually got included in the book, which is fun. But yeah just became a way for me to,  I was like, I have 11 years of research and knowledge that nobody is using and I have found that any -gram is really helpful, but I kind of just want to be mean to people on the internet [Kayleigh laughs] So that's where it started and then people were like, oh my god, this is so me. I feel so seen and then you know.  So then I was like, “oh, maybe I can use this for good I guess” so…

Kayleigh: [laughs] help people discover their true whole selves.

Hannah: Yes! Alright,  okay, but I think that was actually kind of helpful for me because as a as a four with a really strong like martyr / savior complex, I've always come to like new new hobbies. New positions, new workplaces with this sense of like “I have to save the world” and so I kind of love that. I approached Millennial gram with kind of this like whatever attitude because I think it can get it ended up coming from a more self based place for me rather than what I wanted to project to people like this, this perfect image of myself that I wanted people to see.

Kayleigh: yeah,  so I love that you kind of have this meandering way that brought you to writing this book and reminds me of,  I'm curious if this was part of your process, Elizabeth Gilbert actually describes. [Hannah: I know] Eat Pray Love your life. I know you reference that. Elizabeth Gilbert describes this idea of creativity and Ideas are kind of out here in this world and they're just looking for a human to birth them. [Hannah: Right and that is that big magic?] That is big magic and what I like also it's kind of informed by this kind of mystical haunting or something that just knocks on your door and keeps knocking. So do you feel that that was your experience with Millennialgram? It was like, yeah, “This needs to be a book.”

Hannah: Yeah I think that's such a cool way of thinking about it. Well, I will say this-so I'm a four. I've been a tortured artist my whole life. I have been a very creative person with very little creative output because there was always it was so much more fun to fantasize about the output rather than putting something out into the world that was imperfect and maybe not didn't live up to my [igh: It's your five Wings] right [Kayleigh laughs] but  I think what has been cool and and this really speaks to my own integration. Is that the four moving to one for me has been okay.” I'm just gonna,  I'm just going to make things” I'm just going to put them out into the world and I'm not going to worry about whether they are the perfect embodiment of the fantasy that I you know! Like just just make something and put it out there. So I do think that I think that millennialgram, while it’s not  you know, fiction like Elizabeth Gilbert's amazing work, but I think that it was something that just kind of hooked me and has kind of carried me on its own journey. I just feel like I'm along for the ride. So I'm okay with that.

Kayleigh:  Well, thanks for birthing it for us and for giving us this translation that is so real and applicable and as a millennial and being surrounded by so many Millennials especially in this kind of booming tech sphere that we have in the Bay Area. A lot of people aren't necessarily familiar with the Enneagram. They're more familiar with other personality typology such as Myers-Briggs or a lot of people still use the strength find strengths finder. So where do you feel that the lens of Enneagram is so very different from these other typologies

Hannah:  I think because it's fluid. I think because and this is one of the primary complaints that I get from people who are just hearing about the Enneagram as well. I don't want you to slap a number on me, you know, you can't pin me down and I'm like literally I am not trying to there is so there's so much movement to the Enneagram that I love because life is fluid life is movement like there's no The Myers-Briggs can be very helpful. But I you know, I'm an infp that doesn't that doesn't change. There's no there's no movement to that and to me the idea of being able to integrate or even just to be aware of when I am disintegrating so that I can be like, okay things are stressful or maybe chaotic or maybe their this is information. Like there's there's something that I need to pay attention to in my life that that needs adjustment. So it's not necessarily I don't like the equating of integration with always. Alfie and disintegration with always unhealthy because so much of our life is circumstances outside of our control, but it's just stuff to pay attention to and so I mean if you get into any Graham, you can Rizzo and Hudson have the levels of health and there's the wings and the instinctual variants and there's just there's so you can go so deep with it. And I just I don't feel that like room to move around in a lot of the other type ologies. Yeah,

Kayleigh:    so it sounds like there's A richness to the Enneagram that maybe other typology is don't offer. Yeah.

Hannah:  And what I think is interesting is when you get into the conversation of is it scientific? It's not really but it's also not not and I think that's one of the things that makes any grams. So uniquely human is because it's kind of a patchwork of a patchwork of handed down knowledge. It's like it any Has been like a game of telephone where people have passed down the information and some things get lost in translation, which I think was one of my fears with Millennia Graham is putting putting this ancient wisdom into modern day language. Are we going to lose some of the depth and Nuance in that translation? And that was what I was trying to not do but yeah, so I think the hodgepodge nests of Enneagram is really fun. For me I can imagine more scientific Minds might might be a little Persnickety about it they are but I think I had Mara Wilson on my on the podcast episode hasn't come out yet. So look for that. It was an amazing interview, but she talked about essentially if it works use it like that, you know, maybe there isn't proof that any gram. Is this like all know? A system that we can relate to but but it's helpful to a lot of people and so I know a lot of therapists who use it in their practices and just because it's language to self-understanding and yeah, it's

Kayleigh:    a new framework to view ourselves to bring in more compassion and to see the depth of what wholeness actually means and what it can look like right and for me it reminds me of this this nature. The ebb of flow of life like I'm a nervous system nerd. That's what I like to call myself just about you know, going back to you know, our body our body keeps the score. It's trauma. There is so much inside of ourselves. But everyday every moment of our life is this ebb and flow and so one of the aspects about Enneagram is about integration and disintegration and as you mentioned There you know sometimes is this pole to okay and don't want to go towards disintegration. I just want to go towards integration yet. There's there's value in in the movement between both. Yes.

Hannah:  Yeah, and I think I think it's really easy to kind of punish ourselves or chastise ourselves when we realize we are in disintegration and I think there are a lot of instances in which going to that place. Ace can actually be quite helpful. Like I talked to a lot of two's who disintegrate to 8 and all of a sudden they are reclaiming their power. They are standing in their own strength and they are not capitulating to people or they're losing kind of that the passive aggressiveness that that twos can have to you know, if I give you this you give back, you know, so I think the disintegration spaced can be really helpful for me. It's been information. So I Great to to so whenever I find myself with this kind of like desperate grasping approach to my relationships. Like I just need more why am I not getting what I need that to me has been like a red flag of oh, okay. There's there's some reason that I feel desperate or that I feel grasping right now. There's some need that needs to be met that I'm not going to get Matt out here. It has to be met with self and so So yeah, I think and they're honestly there can be weeks where I will feel disintegrated and then the very next week. I'll be up here in this like organized one space. So it is a very fluid thing. I don't think and it's growing up in such a shame based environment for myself. It's really easy to sell flagellate when I feel like oh no, I've been doing all of this work around self growth and going to therapy and doing you know, I'm just making money moves. And then all of a sudden I'm you know, in a depression in a depressive episode and like how did we get here? You know, but but it is such an ebb and flow and that's a whole other conversation, but we should aim to mental health. Yeah. I I like the fact that we can kind of like sort of map that fluidity who yeah

Kayleigh:  and your your tagline of kind of how you introduce can each of your podcasts and I love it. So your tagline is is about digging ourselves out of our goddamn ditches. Yeah, then she adds some it's about and he's like, it's like getting fucking real with ourselves Mmm Yeah, I cursed I went there and we've had this suppressed voice that were meeting stories about ourselves that for years that we've told ourselves for. Is with compassion with vulnerability with courage and that's not really the easiest task to ask someone to do especially with Millennials and they're like, oh I'm so busy I can't do this and I maybe I can just read it on Twitter and maybe I'll like heal and be an integrated person.

Hannah:  We love our like shared Instagram posts with like, you know, the little the little therapy tidbits. I do it all day every day. So you

Kayleigh:  just put it on your stories and then it's true.

Hannah:  Yeah, so then I've definitely internalized it made this corresponding change. It's done.

Kayleigh:  Yeah, and I and I feel like we have this little Flair for Dramatics wait so ridiculous and it can sometimes feel like we have to go into this dark night of our soul like get in there get all sort around in my trauma and it can either be a place when we meet ourselves. They're like nah, actually I don't I think I want to go there. So

Hannah:  I'm just a sucker for punishment. I love to go there, you know,

Kayleigh:  so there's this there's this push poll of the group of people that go there and stay there and marinate and then the people who are like not imma get out and just make it look like I might have gone and done the work right, but I really haven't so this sometimes makes me feel that in a way where We're really actually scared of embracing joy and that you talked about this being the full spectrum of humanity that to embrace. Joy, we have to go to those depths but sometimes we get stuck in those depths, right? So, can you talk a little bit about the role of embracing Joy through Enneagram? Yeah,

Hannah:  you know, it's interesting. I have I've always been the classically tortured for I and I've had a lot of pushback from other fours, like hey, it doesn't always suck. Like we're not always marinating in sadness, which I was deeply offended by your

Kayleigh:  like the is best

Hannah:  made me feel unique. So

Kayleigh:  but

Hannah:  I think ultimately when There's there's so much it is so scary to confront those survival stories that we have written with our lives, especially for me as a for like our fixation is on seeing a particular image of ourselves. So I have lived an entirely different reality than most of my friends and peers and exes. And so coming to terms with that is extremely painful, but I think when You can see yourself truthfully that is that is a relief in and of itself. And so and that for me being able to access true self, which I have always known as in there, but it's almost been like, you know kind of this like I couldn't quite couldn't quite reach her but for me, there's so much joy and being able to converse with the self in a way that I've never had access to before and I know that that is uniquely. Difficult for the different types for me once I get past this Mirage that I this kind of storefront that I have created for myself when I look at my own life once I get past that then I'm like, yes. I am with the self. We are best friends. We are in Perfect Harmony and and that's not always the experience for some of the other numbers. There's other difficulties that they faced with that but I think the more that we can access true self the more that we will be able to Tap into those moments of Joy because it will it will allow us to be present and ultimately presence is where we find those that daily Joy. So

Kayleigh:  you mentioned one of the aspects that really has intrigued me in your book of survival stories. So do you mind diving into a little bit about maybe going into the different numbers and their survival stories? Yeah. So

Hannah:  the survival stories to me are is this concept that I came up with because I see I see the ways that the childhood wounds of the individual numbers have created this recurring narrative in our minds that informs the way that we handle conflict in relationships. It informs the way that we make decisions for our lives, you know. So for me as a for there was always this internal message of I don't belong I am an outsider. I am not I will never be seen. And known the way that I want to be and that was definitely that was shown to me as a small child. That was I was I didn't come up with this out of nowhere. I definitely that was what I experienced, but then that has been a recurring theme for me in in the workplace. So just assuming co-workers don't want to be my friend or like there's so many different ways that that shows up and so when I look back through my 28 years of life See I can see that car those common threads that have woven so far. What is my Survival Story and the coping mechanisms that we build to kind of perpetuate that story because that's what becomes comfortable to us is to live that narrative even though it might not actually be true or maybe it was back there, but it's not now, you know, I I see it all the time in my intimate relationships because you know, I'm in close relationship. With an 8 who internalized the message at a young age that she was too much and so any time that we get into conflict and I am somehow cowed by her big a tennis. She internalizes the message that I'm telling her that she's too much and I'm like no no. No, I got it what you're seeing here. Is it conflict avoidance that I need to work on it, isn't it? I'm not trying to portray that to you, but she's feeling that from me and so That has been a Common Thread in all of in her narrative up until now. Should we try and go through all of them? Sure.

Kayleigh:  Let's keep going. So we are so we have the the feeling Triad is where the force it's yes and the got tried as where the eights it. So we've gone through two of those so I can stick through the the feeling Triad which is 2/3 and force.

Hannah:  Yeah, so I see the twos and the threes survival stories is very similar. They are both trying to earn love and affection, but they have different they have different ways of doing it. So the the too often wants to be seen as helpful to be seen as needed. They want to be needed need to be needed. And so what happens is they kind of internalize this message that If I give and give and give of myself then everyone will give back to me what I need and my needs will get met by all of you because I gave you things and then inevitably when that doesn't happen then resentment builds up because all of these people are never there for me. I have to do everything. You know, I'm just I'm always on my own. Why isn't anybody helping me and it's because you're not helping you boo. That's what's going on there. Yeah. And then the threes are more like they are trying to they're trying to earn their value their often read as very arrogant and I don't think that that's necessarily a healthy way to look at them. I think that they are working way fucking harder than the rest of us to earn their value usually because there was a parental figure or some kind of cultural understanding that they had to get those good grades. Or whatever it was that they had to project this this success fake it till you make it kind of thing. So I'm I'm going to I'm in close relationship with a three who is kind of like, I don't know if I've ever had autonomy over my own life. I have always chameleon and to whatever I felt like, you know, whatever this church or whatever this workplace or whatever whatever was needed of me in that moment. I was because I am I am astute I'm emotionally aware of What the other person wants for me or what this organization wants for me and I can make that happen. But then he's like was it ever was any of it ever really me existential crisis and Sue's you know go to therapy. So there's a twos and the threes the thinking Triad. I love them. I will never understand them, but I will try so hard. I will never stop trying I've had an endless crush on fives forever because Was fives are always trying to intake knowledge. And so they always have come across to me as like they read like they're cold and detached and like they think they're Geniuses and I'm like, but you definitely have more facts than me. Okay, you've Chronicle this you yeah collect. You've collected them. Just because I can't rattle off whatever date that whatever War happened. This is smarter than me. But but behind that is this sense that like they were somehow born with this inability to competently be humans in the world. And so they have to amass knowledge and so they get stuck in this preparation mode of like I'm going to keep collecting. I'm going to keep preparing but then, you know, maybe doing something with the knowledge that they create or going to that. 8th Place of becoming more embodied there's a really there's a detached nests from from the physical body as well with fives that that makes it hard for them to act on their attractions or act on their the connections that they feel with other people the sixes I see is very similar to that but sixes are less concerned with such as are more concerned with security so they often in Analyze the message at a young age that someone in a position of leadership or authority was not to be trusted. And so they're just kind of in this constant state of what is safe. What is secure? How do I find my home base? How do I find how do I find safety for me and my loved ones? So they're great friends to have because they're always trying to make you feel safe, but never really feeling it themselves. And so they kind of have like what I call a bunker. Brain, where they they're always prepared for the worst possible situation to happen. So they're literally like doctor strange and the movie where he like goes to the 50 million different possible outcomes of any possible situation. I have a very dear six friend who will go to a restaurant and she'll be wiping down the table with hand sanitizer because we might die of an infectious disease at the pay way, you know, yeah. I've

Kayleigh:  given my six friends and partners when I go to the restaurant. I'm like, yes, you may sit in the chair that looks at the door because I know you secretly really want that chair. So I'll just give it to you. Love you try I tried to stack. Well, they're a little anxious fear inside of them. Right? So

Hannah:  so we're fives are grasping for knowledge success or grasping for security seven. Is our sevens or an interesting one because they don't always come across like they would be part of the thinking Triad they often get written off as less smart or like, you know, the the class clown or whatever but sevens are really really interesting because they're always trying to take in more experiences. They want they want to stay one step ahead of the anxiety or one step ahead of the fear because fear is that kind of recurring theme in the thinking Triad numbers. And so I had a dear seven friend who she had aspirations of being this amazing singer and she was one but what would happen was she would just spend months going to you know, the next party the next social engagement having the next like deep conversation where she connected with somebody on a deep level for a night and then you know, she'd wake up three months later and be like, oh my God. I haven't I haven't written a song. In months like I'm not following. I'm not following what I want to be doing, but it's just it that's kind of That was kind of like a pattern that she would get into pretty regularly. So I think four sevens I think the sweet spot is when they integrate to 5 and they find instead of going wide and being a jack-of-all-trades. They find like this one area that they're so excited about and they bring all that enthusiasm and passion to this particular field or particular area of Interest or maybe it's even just like they're fucking family. I don't know like whatever it is that makes them just light up. They don't cease to have that like infectious seven energy, but it but it kind of helps. I have a close 7 friend. Who is she works at a she works at an HIV testing center and I was like wait that's that sounds that sounds hard and she was like, you know, honestly, I just I make it fun, you know, like I connect with these people who are in this like Crisis. Moment and kind of like deescalate the stress bring it down give them like pragmatic things that they can do and so I can't imagine but I love that for them. It's more

Kayleigh:  directive of their energy Yahweh.

Hannah:  Yeah, and this is something that they're super passionate about. And so yeah we talked about ait's a bit. I think there's kind of this and especially what I've noticed when I interview a lot of Eight two are people of color and especially women of color is that they really get coded as being angry and being Fierce and just you know, they they kind of get they get pegged because they are willing to speak up because they are willing to leave the abusive work situation before the rest of everyone. Will they have such a deep connection to their into it? into their intuition almost to the point where sometimes I'll be with my eight partner and she'll be like that guy's dangerous and I'll be like, okay, you don't know that. She's like no. No, I know it and I'm like, all right. I don't know if I buy it. I want to buy it that seems a bit much but but she's never wrong and so it's just they they're so deeply connected to that gut instinct that most of us are afraid to act on or we Gaslight ourselves about so so I have really learned a lot from 8 and the past few years of just living in to embodiment and living into protecting myself from abuse and like speaking up for myself. But there is that fear of being too much that is so often something that they actually experience that they're actually told. They're actually let go from jobs where they are where they speak out or take leadership when it wasn't given to them. Yeah, so I think that's that's kind of a survival story for AIDS. There's a yeah, there's kind of a threat of Burning Bridges as well as a moment because they're just like fuck that it look bad at all. So fuck you. That's

Kayleigh:  why I think you're very appropriate in naming them the dragon they are breathing passionate fiery, but also 100% you know not wanting to burn everyone around them that they have this Instinct, you know a little bit of instinct to protect and defend with in.

Hannah:  Yes, and I yes 100% I think with eight going to the to there's nobody who's more generous. There's nobody who's more protective. There's nobody that you want on your team more than 8 but I think the even the name the dragon kind of speaks to how other people perceive them because I know that I have I know that I have Allowed myself to be cowed by that power and the past can be intimidating. Yes. Yes. So the nine nines are precious. A lot of them have internalized the message that for whatever reason they don't matter or their opinions don't matter their their feelings don't matter and so they just learn to kind of not speak them or maybe not to even really be aware of them. Like there's I had a nine boyfriend who I would ask him how he felt about things and he would genuinely kind of pissed that I asked him because that wasn't that wasn't in his plan for the evening, you know, and so I think there's kind of this sense of like moving through like letting life happen to you instead of happening to life yourself. I have a nine Friend who on the pot on my podcast Millennia Graham described herself as she said. My my true self is like a child Meandering down a man. I'm going to mess it up. What are those called the water park like the those lazy Going Through Rivers lazy water park Rivers? where she kind of Woke up 10 years into like an abusive marriage and you know a position that she didn't want to have but she had just been kind of maintaining for a while and didn't realize that she was being carried by the current and none of the decisions that had happened were her own choosing kind of similar to the 3 which is why the 369 Dynamic that triangle is fun because they all integrate and disintegrate to each other. It's a whole thing. And then the ones I loved ones they're so pure but I think a lot of ones internalized this message that that they were not good and that and that they needed to be and that that they could arrive at goodness. And so I see it a lot in the producer for my for my podcast is a one and if he makes the slightest mistake. He will sell flagellate to me in our text thread for hours. I wrote about it in the book because it's so it's so over-the-top, but I can tell that it's coming from a genuine place of him feeling horrible about making a slight error and I'm just like bro. I'm making errors coming and going so I'm not keeping track of yours man. No scorecard here guard here, dude. I know you're keeping mine, but I don't know about

Kayleigh:  it. Never show me. Yeah, please

Hannah:  please burn it. But yeah, I think once he was able to get out of this once he was able to get out of this Survival Story of needing to be good of needing to be right which especially coming from a fundamentalist background is just you know, you can you can dig deep on the self-flagellating there wonder how many times in one episode I can say self-flagellating. That's

Kayleigh:  good. Oh

Hannah:  good lord. But yeah, so once he was able to realize that oh things like my attraction or things like, you know what I actually enjoy them interested in it's not black and white and he didn't like things that weren't black and white, but but there's a whole experience of humanity outside of what is good and correct and that can be difficult to kind of Redirect and

Kayleigh:  so out of all of these survival stories that each unique number has although you know through all of them. There is a little bit of a Common Thread of just knowing oneself and being in a place to kind of reckon and Rumble with that story that we've written or that may have, you know, previously been written for us by Generations coming before Do you feel that there is a unique story that Millennials have earned unique challenge that we have that really drove you to translate this old Patchwork wisdom for the specific generation. So

Hannah:  I do I think I think it's interesting that you mentioned. They all kind of have this common theme of they have a common theme of scarcity. They have a common theme the survival the survival stories have a common theme of scarcity a common theme of lack of presence and a Common Thread of disconnection from the self. So we all have different ways back to self but Yeah, so with Millennials I feel. I know that I know that there is no one true average Millennial but I but I noticed that in my circles which are largely queer largely activist largely just it seemed like I didn't know anybody without a mental illness. It seemed like all of us were so freaking exhausted and were you know in suppose. In the prime of our life and we've inherited fucked up economy and a fucked-up planet and it can feel like I know for me especially after the election in 2016. I felt like I have to be at every action. I have to be at every protest like there's everything is priority like it felt like there was nothing, you know, every all of the pets heads are falling off, you know, like we have to fix everything now. And so I think we are in a unique time and a unique situation that requires an immense amount of self ability an immense amount of presents that a lot of us just don't have because we are exhausted were traumatized or mentally ill were poor or broke were all of these things. Yes. I know. They're rich Millennials, and I know that it happens. I don't know where but I'm sure that does. But anyway, it just seems like we have we have unique challenges and we do have kind of this common cultural thread among Millennials of like we love talking about self growth in a hundred and forty characters, and I think not to knock that. I genuinely I've gained a master's degree worth of information from Twitter just by listening to people of color on the internet for 10 years. You're going to learn a lot, but it just seems like it seems like there can be we want those shortcuts and I think in order to bring our whole presence to this kind of terrifying time that we live in it requires a groundedness that we don't all have I certainly didn't and I didn't know a lot of people who did and so for me I was like the Enneagram is a tool that I have that you can now. Add to your toolbox of whatever you need to access centeredness. Also, you know go practice. It's good for everybody Namaste I

Kayleigh:  do teach yoga which is which is why I made that joke are allowed over loud. Thank you you well, thank you for that description of kind of how in on the whole this idea of presence is kind of at the Crux of of the Enneagram is is being able to just sit down with yourself and say hi and how yeah how fucking hard that is for for us to do as human beings and the the In the fortitude that we are expending out into our world that our nervous systems in our society just for all of those reasons that you just listed are kind of always on and that's that's what really intrigued me about your your kind of body based approach to the Enneagram and being becoming more embodied through this pathway.

Hannah:  Yeah. Yeah, well, I think if you think about it the three Triads all and I try to to kind of say this earlier but your gut instinct your brain and your heart space are all they're all localized in the body. And so I'll be the first to say I grew up in a in an environment where the body was punished. The body was what best ignored. At worst punished just for existing or having urges or you know, so I am I'm trying to learn how to integrate embodiment into any Graham. I definitely have not arrived yet as a that's why I was like when you were interviewing me, I'm like, oh my God, please teach me everything but I think that once we once we harness the the power that our individual number has and we find it in our body then that kind of that kind of brings us back to that presence as well.

Kayleigh:  So you kind of are alluding to like what are the next steps for the development of exploring Enneagram? Yeah, and I had the pleasure of talking with you before and we kind of talked about touched upon the idea of attachment Theory and the role of parenting and re parenting are And that's something that you yeah, you know, that's the juicy meat of it is that you kind of say that the key to integration is the ability to repair and ourselves and to rewrite that story of meeting ourselves how we would have want to be met when we were little and did get that opportunity.

Hannah:  Yeah. So in my own therapeutic work, I've been doing a lot with internal family systems, which is NG but I'm not going to talk to everyone about it. Yeah, I can't teach it and you know however many minutes but there is this sense of there's this sense of going back and interacting with young parts that are stuck in developmental stages, but that still come out in the way that we interact with the world. So, you know, you might have a five-year-old part that that was told her feelings were too. Watch and to just shut up and just repress it. And so that part will still act out in adult relationships now. So for me, I think it's fascinating to think about meeting those childhood wounds and kind of meeting that that kid back there who was told that her feeling is didn't matter. And what what do I wish had been said to her and what do I have the chance to say to her now? It's a whole emotional wreck of a situation if you if you really go there, but but I think I think the any Graham illuminates those childhood wounds and I think those I know for me the biggest loudest saddest most traumatized part that I have that stuck in time is the one that corresponds with the fours childhood wounds. So I'm like, oh interesting connection. So yeah, it's all about re parenting for sure. And I think which is hard because for me the idea of parenting has been I've been scared about for a long time because I had the one experience and I know my parents tried their hardest and yet here I am 28 years later just a ball of a mess, but I think watching my friends now parent and and seeing the the ways that they meet their children with presents and share energy with them as kind of it's created an example for me to follow what in interacting with my own young Parts. It

Kayleigh:  gives you an opportunity to say, oh this can actually happen and then the transformation can happen for yourself. Yeah, you can get to that place where if you wanted to bring children into this world that you could step into Role as well

Hannah:  and I have a lot of parent friends who say that like parenting their own kids is and their re parenting themselves at the same time. It's like a tandem process. That is very overwhelming but very valuable. Yeah. So

Kayleigh:  what do you think is the for moving forward the best thing that could happen with the Enneagram? Wow,

Hannah:  well, well a few things I personally am trying really hard with with my podcast and with my work to Center queer voices with the any Graham. I think I think that is a piece that's been missing. I think the more that we start to hear about trauma-informed practitioners is really helpful. I would really like to see like I mentioned You kind of bringing the Enneagram into kind of some of those therapeutic approaches and some of those like I would love to connect Enneagram and somatic work more I think. I think that as much as it can be used as a tool of of understanding ourselves, but also then understanding one another is key. I I'm not at all saying that you know, we should all just get along more but I am saying that we do that offering one another the big heartedness that understanding brings to us. Can help us meet people where they're at and approach them with compassion rather than anger and withdrawal. So yeah, I'm really excited to hear all of the different ways that that can go and the the I think there's a breadth of experience around the Enneagram that maybe hasn't been written about or voiced yet, but I'm starting to I'm trying to create a platform for that and I'm learning a lot from others in the process. So and

Kayleigh:  does that mean another book for you to Delight our ears audio that audio learner or visual? I

Hannah:  yes, I don't know why I haven't put all of I feel like I'm right on the cusp of like the thesis statement for for book too, but I'm not Right there yet. But I'm doing a lot of research. I you know, I'm trying to figure out how to get a PhD in Psychology without actually taking out a new school loans. So if I can just get it all later syllabi Twitter is like you said

Kayleigh:  before is like you got your Masters on Twitter. Yeah, maybe your PhD on Instagram the other one settled no more school loans for me. But yeah,

Hannah:  I'm doing research for it currently amazing.

Kayleigh:  Ting well, thank you so much for sharing your background your history. And this was Dumb and maybe you know what number I am. Maybe not we haven't sure

Hannah:  we did but we didn't get into that will

Kayleigh:  Next podcast we will go there. But thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and this book. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. And again, let's thank you Hannah. This is amazing.

[Audience applauses]

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