Do you know someone who is still traumatized from watching The Exorcist or any of the top 10 horror films? For Halloween we thought we'd look at the role of fear in the 9 Enneagram types. These fears can occur very early on in life and one could unconsciously spend a lifetime avoiding what caused the initial fear. Some lives based on fear avoidance could have positive outcomes, others not so much. Hosts describe nine personality traits and their underlying fears.
Do you know someone who is still traumatized from watching The Exorcist or any of the top 10 horror films? For Halloween we thought we'd look at the role of fear in the 9 Enneagram types. These fears can occur very early on in life and one could unconsciously spend a lifetime avoiding what caused the initial fear. Some lives based on fear avoidance could have positive outcomes, others not so much. Hosts describe nine personality traits and their underlying fears.
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Kevin and Niseema
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https://www.kevinlmhc.com
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27s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Hi everybody. This is Kevin O'Donoghue, licensed mental health counselor,
32s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And I'm Niseema Dyan Diemer, licensed massage therapist and trauma specialist. And this is The Positive Mind
39s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Where we bring you some ideas, concepts, and guests to help you lead a more positively minded life. And can you be positive and be frightened at the same time? Can you probably not. I mean, fear is one of those emotions that go right to the heart of you and I miss almost can really take you over. And of course, like all emotions, they have a spectrum. Fear can be like at a 10, or it can be at a three as like anger can be at a 10, or it can be a three or a two or five or seven. So fear, but fear is one of those emotions that take you over.
1m 20s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And here's a question. Can you remember being taken over by fear in a movie theater? I mean, you know, for me, I think probably the most terrifying experience I've ever had has been in a movie theater, you know, and I was thinking about it and it's funny, like you try to avoid the people you're with avoid showing them how frightened to are. What's the scariest movie you've ever seen. What's the scariest moment in a movie theater that you've experienced. Has it been the most frightening and scary experience of your life people pay?
2m 4s
Kevin O'Donoghue
I remember after I saw the movie, the Exorcist, I said, I paid for that. You know, I, I refused after that movie to ever pay to be frightened. Again,
2m 17s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
I think the Exorcist kind of broke ground in movie history with how it looked at one of the most terrifying being overtaken by a demon, like having no control. It really touched on something, you know, here in the seventies, you know, here comes this movie that scared people so much. I mean, I know people in clients who are really, we'll never go back to a horror movie because of that, it was so deeply terrorizing
2m 46s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And they shown footage of people actually watching the movie, you know, they had these infrared lights that could show people experiencing it. And you know, you can't say anything other than that, it was traumatic. Yeah. My older brother, four years older than me slept with the light on for three months, he would not I'm serious. He would not go to sleep.
3m 12s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
It's that kind of movie
3m 12s
Kevin O'Donoghue
The light off. I mean, should it have been outlawed? There's a question. This is entertainment. I mean, this is art, this is creativity. This is certainly you want to have an impact with your art. The Exorcist had an impact. And to this day, I know some people that cannot see that movie again, or, you know, we'll run away from the ads for that movie 40 years later, 40 some years later. Yeah. So we want to talk today about fear, you know, because it's that kind of time of year fear while every time a year is fear
3m 53s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And this has been a year that's been kind of full of fear.
3m 56s
Kevin O'Donoghue
That's right.
3m 57s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
It's just so much, you know, it's like one of the biggest fears is fear of the unseen and we can't see COVID-19 we can only feel its effects. Yeah.
4m 8s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And this little chemical, this little molecule, this little thing, And it's all fear that, you know, I know in some of these programs, like a programs, 12 step programs, they say fear is false evidence appearing real. So I want to talk a little in the early stages here in this email about the difference between having fear and being in fear and being overtaken with fear, and then thinking about fear and thinking yourself into fear, you know, because in the movie theater, you know, you're sitting in your chair, you're kind of captive.
4m 51s
Kevin O'Donoghue
There's no escape. And the re the fear is real. I mean, it appears real false evidence appearing real, but I'm terrified. My, my body is having a reaction.
5m 6s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
You've been heavily manipulated by the movie, by the makers of the movie. They know exactly how to slowly, slowly ratchet up tension in your body, through music, through different ways of pacing, the movie through what, what information they give you on, what they don't
5m 26s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Lighting,
5m 27s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Lighting, all kinds of things. And then, and then we kind of know going in that there's going to be that moment where you're going to be shocked by something like, something's going to jump out, something's going to happen. And there'll be a loud music or allowed sound that will go along with it. And it'll jolt your system. You'll just be jolted. And you know, that's coming and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
5m 51s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right. So let's look at this a little bit more. Let's say, you're going to have a car accident and you see the car coming to you. And you're like, okay, I know I'm going to have impact it's am I in fear or anxious or what's going on? Let's look at this. I'm thinking because nobody wants to feel fear. I mean, nobody wants to feel fear. I'm in anger. I don't mind sadness. I can handle guilt, anxiety, fear. I don't want to feel that one.
6m 23s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Well, getting back to the accident. I mean, I think a lot of people drive around with a, with an awareness in their mind that this activity could mean that I get injured. There's a chance that I could get injured doing this.
6m 38s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right.
6m 39s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
So when, you know, I think when an accident is potentially happening, your, your body has gone into a fear, but maybe even like a, a threat or a defensive orienting response, you'll brace your body, or your body will just like, totally go limp because it's, you know, high speed. It knows it's going to be bad. So just all muscle tone will go away and it'll just make you limp. And that, and you might even dissociate and lose the time because that's what the body does to protect you from witnessing the horror.
7m 14s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So fight flight and freeze, right. That's what animals do when they're actually in the clutches of a lion, let's say they'll freeze. And maybe the lion will let them go.
7m 25s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yeah. Or they'll faint. I mean, the freeze can also become a fate. Like it goes a little further when sort of considering like these kinds of really fast impacts or things that come out of nowhere, what it can do is that it can set up like a sense of impending fear in you. Like if you've had experiences of being like hit from an angle that you couldn't see what was coming, your body will then go into hypervigilance about when's it going to happen again?
7m 59s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right. So I wonder if knowing that, okay, I got my driver's license. Now, I'm one of those who can be potential victim and die in a car accident that now I know when I'm actually about to have a car accident, oh, I'm going to be one of these people that is facing that big fear, which is death. This could be a really big accident and I might not survive it. I mean, it happens so quickly. We're talking that this flash that happens puts you in touch with that fear, the primal fear. And so in that case, fear is real. So first I want to say fear is a real experience.
8m 41s
Kevin O'Donoghue
It's a bodily experience. We call it an E motion, energy in motion. There is a definite biochemical reaction and chain reaction going on in your body when you experience real fear.
8m 57s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yeah. And a threat to your life existence. And isn't it just amazing that we still climb into cars and airplanes and things that have the potential of killing us yet. We still do it. So it's really interesting how we live with a certain fear in our bodies, in our awareness that we just choose to not follow. In most cases, there are, you know, it's like, we just keep going. We walk out the door every morning and they say within, within what, like 50 yards of your house is the most dangerous place. Right. You know, so
9m 31s
Kevin O'Donoghue
We venture out and yet
9m 32s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
We still got
9m 33s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Every day. No, I'm wonder if success in life is rooted in the capacity to ignore this fear or forget this fear and that the people that can't forget, it might not be as successful, let's say, or as happy in life as those who just forgotten it. I mean, it's, it's a question. I know, you know, success happens for many, many reasons, but the truth is we're the only species that is aware of this thing called death and that we are going to die and that we could feel this every day, if we wanted to. And some people do every day feel that, and that the people who don't feel it every day or keep it at bay, or just never even think about it, go about their lives can be the, actually the happiest people.
10m 26s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Just a question. It's, you know, it's just a question. Yeah. So this thing about fear is it's something that we could, if we wanted to live with every day, every one of us could be living in fear every day. The question is, how do we put it in the back burner?
10m 46s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And maybe it's also, how do we sort of transform that energy into a movement forward? The fear could be something that would stop you or lets you sort of shift your energy into, you know, I'm going to live every day as if it's my last. Yeah. You know, and really make that conscious shift to say, you know, I'm just going to sort of look this fear in the face and be like, okay, you know, today or not today, I'm going to live as fully as I possibly can. And that would be a positive shift in fear, you know? And like, but still acknowledging that it's there. And very often what I'll do, like when working with traumas, like a, like a hit like this and, and accidents and stuff is to let the person now knowing what they know now, turn and see where the hit is coming from to really look at it.
11m 45s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Because very often they live in fear of it happening again. So it's like, don't look, don't look, don't look right. But actually what you need to do is look and see it, and then be able to stop it
11m 54s
Kevin O'Donoghue
A lot of your work is getting people ready to be able to tolerate seeing it. Is that fair to say,
12m 2s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yeah. To be able to turn and just look at it and be grounded instilled with themselves and to recognize that they survived, whatever happened. Right. And that shifts the fear into something that can be more motivating rather than inhibiting.
12m 17s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah. So how about you out there? We're asking, have you ever been frightened to your core in a movie theater or in your life? You know, I know that a lot of what we do for work now takes people back into the past and some fears let's say that they've never gotten over. You know, I know I have fears from childhood that I haven't even visited and I I'm sure. I just, I haven't gotten over. If I visited them, I would, you know, I'm sure it would compromise how I could function now or definitely take some energy away from my living now, which might be a good thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing because that's one of my questions to you as a trauma specialist, when you help people revisit these places of fear in the past, doesn't it have some consequence like in their energy, in the present, like I need a couple of days to get over what I just re relive.
13m 16s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Well, if it's done right at the right time in the right pace, it actually adds to your energy. People can feel a real weight lifted off of them. I worked with a client who was hit in the face by who was punched in the face. And in the, in the work I had them sort of freeze the punch and let his body do what it wants to do. And he just like moved to the side. Okay. And so the experience was, oh, that punch didn't land in went right by me. Right after that, he experienced what we call the trauma world pranking, which is like a real ecstatic sort of feeling I was successful.
13m 56s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
I dodged the punch and there's like an elation. And now all of the energy that was caught up in trying to avoid getting hit is now like I don't have to get hit anymore. I don't have to prepare for that. I don't have to put my energy into that. So I feel a little more elated and a little more capable. I have more energy available to me to be more aware in my surroundings. That's the real dilemma of traumas is that you can get so narrow and fear can make your vision and your life so narrow because you're trying to avoid it. You're afraid of it. You don't, you know, you're trying to preserve yourself.
14m 36s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yes. But you end up like making everything smaller, smaller, smaller, and that's no way to live. So as we start to open up the, the resilience, give you a little more capacity, you start to feel able to look around a little more experience. More of life, have a little more capacity to hold the good feelings, as opposed to only holding fear feelings. Like these are all things that, that come up and start to give you more energy. So you have to be really careful in trauma work. You don't want to go back and relive the experience exactly as it happened. You want to be able to go back and maybe change it. And that's where things really start to shift.
15m 18s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And that's where you get your
15m 19s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Energy and that's where you get your energy back.
15m 21s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So let's talk about fear because I know everybody in our audience has been in a movie theater or has been, and might have been terrified in a movie theater and know what it feels like to be really frightened. I want to talk about this thing called the unconscious, you know, because when we're talking about fear, we're talking about the unconscious. Everybody does everything to avoid fear. Imagine if your whole life is built around this idea of avoiding fear, right? So I focus on my career and focus on making a lot of money so that I know I have to face the fear of being homeless or face the fear of having to depend on other people.
16m 10s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So my huge success in life, no matter what it is, could be rooted in fear and that I might be totally unconscious of that. So I want to put that out to our audience that often fear is placed in the unconscious, you know, a long time ago, Freud would say that, you know, you can't that all of a mental illness and mental symptoms of mental illness came from fear, right? That the, you wanted to sleep with your mommy and you had this thought and you're not, you can't handle that thought. So you suppress that thought you repress that thought. And then it becomes, it goes into the unconscious.
16m 53s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And now every time I have that thought I'm seized with fear. So let me avoid those thoughts. That's what repression is. We're avoiding certain things. So I wanted to put that out there to audience like unconsciously fear is the thing that we're living from. We're avoiding. And maybe it's easiest to look at the people in my world and see how are they doing it? How are they avoiding fear? Cause we're all avoiding death, right? We're all avoiding an awareness of death. We said that much. And you know, if we did live with that idea every day, we wouldn't be able to pay our bills. We wouldn't be able to go to work.
17m 33s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So given that as the fundamental principle of everything, look at other people and see what's their fear. Imagine if we could just pinpoint nine different ways, people avoid their fear. Imagine, I mean, you go, oh, that's just him being afraid. Or that's just her being afraid. You know, I don't need to get upset or worried about it. Cause that's just them caught up in their unconscious fear.
18m 3s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
How about that person? Who's all the time at the party, the one who's helping out, cleaning up dishes, going around, making sure everybody's happy and talking and, and you know, making connections and just kind of flitting around the party. But never really landing is always doing is always doing, always taking
18m 22s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Care of people.
18m 23s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
We know people like this, the person who always says yes to everything and that gets overwhelmed. This is the helper.
18m 31s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yes. Okay. So here we go. Here it is. What is it? So the first thing to do is what the step back let's look at this person. Well, what, you know, it looks nice, right? It looks like, oh, there the helper in the great, we have a helper here. That's so great. And what happens if you're in your fifties and you're helping people all the time, you're serving people. You, you know, you're seeking to help people. Where are you? That's the question? That's the question? What are you, what fear about you? Are you, I mean, are you socially phobic? I, I don't know how to talk to people at parties. So what I do is I get them drinks and I clean up the table and I make the hors d'oeuvres and I do all of this stuff on my socially phobic.
19m 14s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Maybe that's what it is. Or maybe it turns out I do this. I do this with my friends as well. And I do this with my partner, my husband, or my wife, or I do this with my kids, or I do this in my community. I do this. I'm always looking for like, what needs to be fixed up? How can I rake leaves from my neighbor? You know, or be, be useful in my community center. I'm always giving where and you know, people like, wow, she's always giving, how does she do it? Isn't she a martyr? My gosh, what a wonderful person, you know? And people love this kind of person. They need a person like this at a party. Right. You're invited to my party. You know, I want you there after everybody goes.
19m 57s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So, but the question is, what is, what is this person avoiding? What is the fear that they are avoiding? If I'm socially phobic, we have thoughts that go with it. I'm not enough. I'm not interesting. Nobody would care for me. If I really opened my mouth, my life is boring. I'm boring. There's really nothing to me. I'm giving all the time. How can I, how can I be interesting?
20m 21s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And I think very often the thought from this person is like, after the party's over, when everybody's gone and everything is done, there's like this huge emptiness and maybe a sadness, the loneliness kind of comes crashing down. Yeah. You know, it's like, when all, you know, if, if at night when things are kind of done, who well, who am I?
20m 44s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah, but that's often. Yes. And I want to ask people out there can, do you have people in your world? Just a little like this? Or maybe they're always like this. There's totally like this. We all know some version like this. My mom was like this, you know, in many ways my mothers are often in this position of giving any way, but some others, you know, turn it off and say, Hey, how I have a life too. I I'm, I don't need to be giving all the time to my, my three-year-old or my ten-year-old or my fifteen-year-old I'm ah, there's room for me. Some mothers don't turn it off. Right? So we can say it's a natural fit for a mother to be in that role, but not to the point where they come into this empty.
21m 29s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And who am I without my children? Who am I at the end of the party? When this emptiness comes crashing in, there's a sense of not enough of me to satisfy me and to make me feel full. So I need to go out and give to people. I need to go out and help people so I can get that smile from people and a sense, oh, I am. Okay. So we want to say the fear here is what you're saying. This is maybe to avoid that awareness that I just am empty inside. I don't have anything. And that I might be unconscious of this.
22m 10s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right? I mean, people have been pleased with me and they love me. All my friends. I have the most friends in the world. Everybody loves this person because while she's always there, she can be counted on she's a giver. And so, because everybody else thinks positively of her, then she thinks, you know, I don't need to be conscious of my own emptiness of my own fear of being, not having a full self of not being lovable,
22m 39s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Not being lovable. I think that's like such a strong core fear of this type of person. I know I kind of lived this type of life and yeah, it's like, this is how I'm lovable. I'm lovable in my helping. But the minute the helping stops, there's no one, there's no one there. What do I do?
22m 59s
Kevin O'Donoghue
How about now in this time of a pandemic that this person would show up, wow, we need these types now. Right? I'm running out of masks. I need more mess. Can you, you know, who's going to go get me the more masks. Oh, I'm ready. You know, I'm sitting in my car waiting to go and get you more masks or you need some disinfectant. I can get you some of that as well. I need to, you know, the hand cleanser. Right? And do you need your floor polished? I mean, I can polish your floor for you if that's what you want. So this is a type of personality that we're talking about. And again, could be totally unconscious of this fear of being unlovable and unworthy. And we call them the helper, the giver in life.
23m 41s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
So the next one,
23m 44s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So there is, yeah, go ahead.
23m 45s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
The next one is another one that has a problem with self-image, but their fear is really that they have no value and they just keep striving and striving and striving to show their value.
24m 0s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And what is the major way in our culture? This culture of showing you are valuable
24m 8s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Money, money, money, money, right? Have the things that show that you've got money that you've done it. That you've arrived. That you've got the big house, the fancy cars, the fancy clothes, the fancy shoes, the fancy dogs.
24m 22s
Kevin O'Donoghue
No. So this, what if there is a fear running all of this, right? What if there's a fear? Like, I am not valued by myself on my own, but if I go get a nice car and if I make a lot of money and I, you know, become a CEO, then everybody's, nobody's going to see my secret. Everybody's going to say, oh, she's a, or he's a huge success. He'll never die. Right? He's even conquered death because he's a CEO and makes millions of millions of money. People like this don't die. Right? So we call this person, the, the achiever, the person, the success oriented person, the person who needs to cover over this fear of really having no value of their own.
25m 11s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So imagine being at a party, right? Like what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a CEO of, well, what do you do? I'm a gardener. You know, how do we, how do, who stacks up in the conversation who gets to feel really good? I'll sit with the gardener any day. But some people, many people, especially at parties want to know, how'd you do it? How did you become the CEO? Well, I was really running away from this fear of not being valuable.
25m 40s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
That would be so enlightened.
25m 41s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right? Imagine if they could admit that. But I think, you know, so many people are, are re getting past their fifties and sixties and even retirement and saying, what did I do at all for why was I doing it? And the real reason is when I was a kid, somebody made me feel not valuable. And that feeling that got in there never went away.
26m 6s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And it's like, not valuable as you are for who you are for who they saw you to be, that you were valuable just as you are.
26m 17s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So imagine if you come up with the, the vaccine, you're the person who discovered the vaccine for COVID. The whole world is going to get healed because you, you discovered the vaccine. How's how, how am I, how am I doing on being valuable? Now that's maybe they're the kind of people that will find the vaccine, you know, knows of course we would be grateful and, and they would be tremendously valuable, but what if they don't have any way to give themselves and feel valued for themselves? I even, you know, found the vaccine for COVID and I still don't feel valuable. So these, this is a type of person. Do you know anybody like this?
26m 57s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, you know, when they come home on their weekends, you know, they're working because you know, I'm still not valued, but five days a week that I do at the job, that's not good enough. I still have to work even more. So they're always like preoccupied. Are you ever with this person, is this person ever with you? You might want to ask them, where are you? Are you really here? Who are you? Right. They might not know the answer, but you know, they might want to say, you know, I'd like to find out. So in our culture, this kind of person, especially here in New York, we come across these people running from this fear of not being valuable.
27m 39s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
It's also easy. I think for people who have all the outward appearance, appearances of wealth to only take them at that level, you know, to not see how do they value themselves? How do they value their relationships? How do they value their life? And even to go one more step and to recognize how you value them as a friend. You know, if you have a friend who has a lot of wealth, what's, what is your friendship based on,
28m 7s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, I look at these, this TV show, the Housewives, the Housewives of, you know, New Jersey or the Housewives of Beverly Hills or whatever. Right. And you know, the, this is a type that I am valued because, well, I have a diamond ring, big, my, my diamond rings. I don't know what they talk about. These women, you know, what this show is about and how people, I don't know. Right. But there are more and more of them showing up right now. They're all in seven major cities valued because this Housewives, they have it all, they have the success, they have the successful doctor, husband, practice, whatever.
28m 48s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And they
28m 51s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Are very unhappy.
28m 52s
Kevin O'Donoghue
They feel valued, but are they,
28m 54s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
They seem very unhappy and angry most of the time.
28m 58s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah. Well, the, the, the, the show is built on this conflict and these fight fights between these women all the time. So, anyway, so this is another fear and we want to talk about this last one in this sense of not having enough resources in yourself, the person who's always see something that's not there, something's missing. And now their focus is always on the past or the future. It was great. When I was in high school, it was great. When I got first married, it was great. When I graduated college, it was great in the past. But today there's something missing.
29m 38s
Kevin O'Donoghue
There's nothing, you know, the present is not such a good thing. I can figure it out, but something's always missing. So I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to become special. I'm going to be like an artist. I'm going to do things that nobody else does.
29m 58s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
It's something extraordinary, something really out of the box. Yeah. Very different pushes the envelope.
30m 8s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And sometimes you can notice this in the way people dress. Like this type of person will dress in a very distinct way. They'll have like a scarf when everybody else has a handkerchief, you know, or they'll have nice shoes. And, you know, they'll have vintage vintage clothing there'll be wearing, you know, or very offbeat colors for their fingernails polish or something or their hair. And, you know, so it makes sense. This is a manifestation of this attempt to try and jazz up life because there's something missing. And I have to find, you know, make life look interesting in the meantime.
30m 43s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And again, there's something missing is something in me is missing.
30m 48s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So the feeling is, yes, I don't have enough self of me. There's no big self. And we're going to talk later when we come back from the musical break about this larger than life personality, that has so much self, but in this triad that we're talking about, the giver, the achiever, and now the artist, there's a, there's a sense of a poverty in myself that I don't have enough of me to fill me. So I have to go out towards people. I have to go out towards art. I have to go out towards success in order to give enough of me. And of course, we're talking here about what's called the Enneagram. And we'll talk more about that. When we come back from our musical break, you're listening to The Positive Mind.
31m 31s
Kevin O'Donoghue
I'm Kevin O'Donoghue
31m 33s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And I am Niseema Dyan Diemer
31m 33s
Kevin O'Donoghue
We'll be back after this musical break.
32m 13s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Okay. And we are back here at The Positive Mind, talking about this system of personality called the Enneagram. We've talked about the two, the giver, the achiever, and the artist, and what's the upside Niseema, how can we help people with fear? False evidence appearing real is one acronym for fear, but facing these things in ourselves, they don't have to be terrible, terrible things, bad things. The artists want artists. We need artists. The world needs artists for world needs. The high-functioning people who can be successful. The world obviously benefits from people who were giving. So these are really not bad things, but they're bad on the personal level. When we know that these are things I'm doing to avoid something, I'm avoiding a fear in myself,
32m 59s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Right? So if you heard a little bit of yourself in those three things that we said, the helper, the achiever, and the artist, you might just sort of sit back a little bit in yourself and, and feel like what is my motivation for being the achiever? What is my motivation for being the artist? Is there a touch of fear in there? And if so, can I get curious about it? Can I get curious about how true it is? Can I get curious about who I am? Like ask that question? Who am I and just do it in a curious way. This is what battles fear.
33m 40s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Curiosity is the antidote to fear.
33m 44s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yes. I'm one, take it even a step further. When did this enter my life? Who am I without this? When did this become so important to me? And do I want my future to be like this? And again, it's just a question. And, and this is a form of facing a fear. And of course, it's going to be a lot of pain and upset and tears when we face this. Cause we've lived many years doing these things. When did this enter my system?
34m 12s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And you might play with a sense of where is my center? Where's the center of me, of my body, of myself, where do I feel my center? Or maybe even the thing, that's the content that's been continuous through my life that I have always known as me. Like those, these are ways to sort of get into this sense of self. Like, like who's been there the whole time and being very consistent in my experience. The thing that's interesting about the Enneagram is that when you sort of describe the types you're, you're describing exaggerations, and as you become more and more aware through learning about the types, you can still have that expression of yourself, say you're an artist or an achiever, but you're coming from a very, from a much more grounded centered place.
35m 2s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And you feel more full in yourself.
35m 5s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah. And you have potential. Once you learn what type you are, how to get abundance by becoming like another type, like for each type, there's a way to become another type that might be more of who you could be. And there in, in enacting that other type is where abundance can lay and fulfillment can lie. So there's always a good side to this. I just wanted to put that out, but we are talking about fear today and how fear enters our life. And we want to say there are nine different ways that people organize themselves to handle this fear.
35m 46s
Kevin O'Donoghue
One time Niseema is I'm going to stand back from life. You know, I'm not going to let life get to me. You know, that life getting to me, that's for other people, I'm not going to let life get to me. So I will withdraw and I will watch life. I will observe life. I will be a parties and observed people, or I'll find a kind of profession where I don't have to be so visible. I can be in the background. And so we call this person the observer type of personality and they feel like I don't have enough. Well, let's see you have a question about the observer.
36m 29s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Go ahead. And then we'll talk about what what's the,
36m 31s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
The observer. I mean, I also see it as the another name for it is the investigator. And they're also the person who's like an expert on one thing, like an expert on trains or an expert on stars or an expert on personality types even. But the one who becomes like an expert at something, and that's like the thing, the geek, the person who's like totally into one thing. And they've withdrawn from society. And they're living in this world of this thing.
36m 58s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And why, what fear does that eradicate? The, the fear that I don't have the equipment enough to live life. So let me get really good at one thing. So at least I can survive. And that's basically often what this, this type of person, the investigator or the observer cares about just surviving. I don't care about other things. I just want to be free to continue to observe life, to watch life and feel competent in life. Because my real fear is that I am not competent. And if I'm not competent, nobody's going to value me. And if I don't feel valued, I mean, let's get down to it.
37m 43s
Kevin O'Donoghue
If you don't feel valued, let's say by your parents when you were young, because a lot of this starts when you're young, it's like a death. I'm not seeing you. You know, we talk about being seen as a person. If you're not feeling valued as a kid. Well, if I do one thing, right, then I'll be essential to this family system. If I like, know how to fix the circuit breaker in the house, or I know how to keep the house clean or whatever it is that can make, you know, my parents allow me to continue to exist, that I am valued in some way.
38m 23s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And then you get, oh, you make the connection. Oh, I'm competent at this. So that's how I will stay valued in life and valuable.
38m 32s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
That's how I'll find safety, because if they're really afraid, they want to find safety. And there might be a real safety in like playing records, you know, and becoming a, a real, like, you know, knowing everything about music or listening to music. Like that's one way
38m 52s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Are all DJs like observers? I don't know. I'm kidding.
38m 56s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
I kind of think so think of it. They don't have to interact at the party. They're sort of, they're the ones watching the crowd and interacting with a crowd in a way. And maybe they are because they tend to have extensive libraries of music
39m 10s
Kevin O'Donoghue
That's true too there. So there become another name for this person is a specialist. They become specialists in, in like you know music, let's say, or in, you know, carpentry or something. Yeah.
39m 23s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And again, nothing wrong in it. It's like you're trying to feel competent, but what would it be like if you sort of moved that specialty away from you a minute and you just sat in yourself and said I'm competent with, or without this specialty,
39m 40s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, there are certain times in your life when mantras help. Right. You know, there are times when, if I just say to myself, you know, I'll get through this. Or, you know, I have my health, or, you know, one of these for this person, this personality, the observer investor is I am competent. I am capable. This kind of mantra can get them through the day, get them through a week, get through them through fears in general. So this is a type of personality, the observer, the investigator, and, and they're rooted again in this fear that we talk about of not having the equipment to live life.
40m 21s
Kevin O'Donoghue
So I have to become a specialist. And now there's this next one that's called the doubter. You know, the person who just doesn't trust anybody or anything. And they're looking for certainty in life, you know, frequently they'll look for they're, they're philosophers, they're thinkers, they're invest, they investigate as well. And so they're part of this, this group of three that they're looking to feel safe. And so if they find the right religion or they find the right guru or find the right career, they're set, okay. At least I have that certainty. So where does this uncertainty come from?
41m 3s
Kevin O'Donoghue
This fear?
41m 4s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yeah, I think it comes from feeling like, you know, a child who didn't get any good guidance or they got conflicting guidance about how to be in the family, how to be in the world. Like it was one way, one day and another way another day, or parents were giving different takes on life. And like that quality of guidance or support, feeling supported in your life in a way that you could trust that was going to be there. Whether, you know, you were a good boy or bad boy, you know, you would still be supported. You would still feel that you had somewhere to land. And that, you know, again, like just not knowing, we kind of organized ourselves around this fear of, you know, I can't trust any guidance,
41m 51s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right? I'm not going to be fooled twice. You know, I'm going to stay vigilant and I'm not going to be grabbed and manipulated again and be told one thing one day and something and other days. So I'm not going to get confused. Let me doubt everything until like certainty shows up at my doorstep.
42m 14s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
I love that. I'm going to doubt everything. So I'm not confused. So I'll never be confused until certainty shows up at my doorstep.
42m 22s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And of course, certainty never shows up at your doorstep. That's the trap. And that's the problem. So you have to deal with these fears and anxiety. And this is like the crux of this, this personality type. They are always anxious. They're always anxious about tomorrow. They're always strategizing about tomorrow. They're always planning for tomorrow. They're always afraid of what's coming tomorrow. You know? So the past they can just let the past go. The present doesn't matter. I'm looking towards tomorrow and you could be a dangerous person to me. So I'm looking to make sure you're not dangerous as well.
42m 57s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
So for this type, I think I would really suggest that sitting with the I've said this before to feel supported by like the chair that you're sitting on, right? Because the chair, if it's doing its job, if it's a, not a rickety chair, if it's a good chair, it's going to support you no matter what, no matter how you're feeling. And that's just a good input for your nervous system. If you're someone who tends towards doubting, just let yourself feel supported by a chair.
43m 26s
Kevin O'Donoghue
I like that. You know, as an antidote certainty in the physical environment, this is very true of this type of person because these people, the investigator, and now we're talking about the doubt are, and we're going to talk in a minute about the pleasure seeker that they live in their mind and the mind, if you really want to be frightened, stay in your head. Right? Right. So these three types are really located in their mind. So w checking out the chair that I'm sitting in, putting my feet on the ground, that's why a meditative meditation practice is so important for this number six, that we call them the doubter that they have an orienting kind of practice every, every day that says, yes, I live in the physical world.
44m 15s
Kevin O'Donoghue
I am real. The chair is real. My feet on the ground are real. We had on case. And he was talking about something called scope. And the O part of it was orienting. Can you talk? Because for this number, I think coming out of their head and coming out of their anxiety and their thinking all the time to get reoriented to the life and the world is critical. Just remind our listeners what the scope was.
44m 42s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Well, the, the oh of scope I'll stick to, because it just really is how we can get curious about our surroundings, locate ourselves in a place of safety. It's how the body and the nervous system determine safety. When you hear a loud sound, the first thing you do is look at it. Hopefully you should. And then you look at how everybody else is responding. So you orient to, okay, what's happening. And you do that with your ears, your eyes, your nose, your, your primary senses. So we have to orient to our environment. And, and if you're having like a, a generalized fear for no reason, it really is false evidence appearing real.
45m 25s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Then just get your eyes moving and looking slowly around the room slowly, just noticing, looking at things, checking it out without hyper-vigilance. It's just like, oh, okay. There's the corner of the room. There's the floor. There's a chair. There's a picture. So often we don't take the time to do this. And you miss a lot. And sometimes it's what you miss. That's like the scariest part, you know, it's like, what you don't see could hurt you. You know, it's like, but again, I don't want to encourage vigilance, but just to let yourself see,
46m 3s
Kevin O'Donoghue
This is a relief from vigilance and say, your case was talking about emergency room doctors who have to orient themselves. Sometimes when they're grasped by fear of what to do next, I have to stop. I have to pick my head up. I have to look around the room, check out another environment in this space that I'm in right now in order to get reoriented. And so to summarize the fear here is not having any grounding in life, not having any orientation, like you're saying, orienting, imagine, living this way. Imagine not having an orientation and a grounding in life. Talk about fear, right? My gosh, that's a tough thing to face. But when did this enter my life?
46m 45s
Kevin O'Donoghue
When did this enter your life? And again, curiosity, I think you're right, is the key here, no judgment. And then now we'll, we'll move to this last one. That's a mind type. And again, I'll say, if you live in the mind, you live in fear in general, but this is a person who's always avoiding traps and avoiding pain. They just do not want to feel pain. So give me 10 things to do. I'll do anything I can to avoid pain. And the more pleasurable, more engaged, more rich and full the activity. The more appropriate for me. Cause I like stimulation. So this person is we call the hedonist, the pleasure seeker.
47m 26s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, the person who don't keep me trapped at a party. If it's lousy party, I'm going to the next party. I will not stick around. I'm afraid, you know, give me a job that is a mundane job that somebody else could do. That's for them, not for me. I want to be in things I need to keep moving. My eyes are always looking for the next thing. And so these are multi multitaskers and what's the fear here. The fear is I'm going to be trapped in pain. I'm going to be trapped in this inability to move. There's nothing worse than not being able to move. And so I'm always, always moving.
48m 6s
Kevin O'Donoghue
One of the things about this type is they could be in a relationship for 30 years and still not feel in the relationship. Right. This is one thing in the literature. When, when you read about this type, the Epicure there, they're married and whatever. And they feel like they're still thinking about ways to get out of it if they, if they need to. Right. So they're always looking for escape patches,
48m 27s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And it's a real, it's a real fear and avoidance of pain. Yes. It's
48m 32s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Really emotional. There's emotional pain
48m 34s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
A deep, deep pain.
48m 38s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah.
48m 38s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
So they just got to keep on the move, you know, and, and they may create some painful situations in their leaving and moving on, but it's like, it's, it's better than it's better than them feeling their own pain. Like they might inflict pain on others by leaving, but they just, if they get close, they don't want to feel that pain.
48m 59s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah. If it's a choice between you and me, it's, it's me. That's so on. We're not judging this. We're just saying, this is a character. This is a personality that, you know, is a frightened because they were trapped somewhere long ago. And the only way to get out of it was, you know, in childhood they had what was called a transitional object, like a, like a blanket or, you know, a favorite story or a favorite stuffed animal or something. This is transition to the next stage of life because without it, life was mundane and they were trapped and I don't have enough resources in myself to deal with it. So give me my blanket, give me my stuffed animal. And then as adults, you know, they're, they're always looking for the next new car, you know, you know, always the next nice thing,
49m 46s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
The best wine, the best party.
49m 48s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Right. So yes. So that's why the Epicurian right. Like kind of, sort of fine wine. So this type is running away or avoiding, avoiding the fear because it's like death. If you trap me and I don't have my preoccupations, I'm going to feel like I'm dying.
50m 9s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Yeah. So they're really looking for freedom. Like freedom seems to be the antidote. I want to be free to do whatever I want to do. If you try to trap me, don't fence me in, you know, that song don't fence me in that that is their challenge. Like, can you just be with and get curious about what are you really trapped when you're with you're
50m 34s
Kevin O'Donoghue
With yourself,
50m 34s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
When you're with your,
50m 35s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Or with somebody you don't really want to be with. So these are six types we've talked about in a similar, we have about five minutes left. I want to get to these last three people, these personality types, what we're talking about, fear, and we're talking about energy and motion, this energy in motion. When people have to face these things that they just want to avoid. We started at the top of the hour talking about this fear of death, because we're all as humans wanting to keep that one at bay. But then we organize our personalities around sensations that would have caused and felt like death. When we were young for this Epicure, it's like being deprived of, you know, sustenance being deprived of what's really going to nourish me.
51m 22s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And for the, for the doubter, it's being deprived of like solid ground. Like give me a principle to live with, give me a religion, give me something that I can believe in because it's chaotic here. And now we go to these other three types that are built around this idea, this emotion of anger, but anger, I want to say is easier than feeling fear. So, you know, every, I say, nobody really wants to feel fear. And if we take you back into that movie theater and think about that fear, do you really want to revisit that? Nobody wants to feel fear, but anger is, can be fuel. And so when this grouping of people, we have people like someone who's bit larger than life and is always challenging people.
52m 9s
Kevin O'Donoghue
No. Why are you challenging me? Why do you always have to feel like you need to control me or control your world or not let anybody into your world that you have to be the top dog? Why is that? You know, we're only, you know, it's a Sunday picnic, do you really have to be in charge here as well? This type of person now, you know, this type of personality is always afraid that somebody's gonna hurt them
52m 38s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Or betray them.
52m 40s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Yeah. Imagine that this, you can be, these guys are six foot ten, you know, and then you can be the biggest guys in the room and there's still within them. Is this fear somebody's going to hurt me.
52m 51s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
Well, and just feel like the, the anger, when you have been betrayed, it's an intense, hot anger. When you thought something was one way and it turned out to be another.
53m 3s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And when you're a kid
53m 4s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And when you're a kid or even one year,
53m 6s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Because again, I want to say these things start when your child, I mean, to, to grow up and be, you know, 30, 40, 50, and still have this vigilance, like I need to control things because I'm protecting it kind of hurt inside of me. Well, where did the, her come from? The hurt didn't come when I was 30, the hurt didn't come. When I was 40. It came when I was five and three and this constant betrayal of my best interest. So I better take control of what I can control so that I'm not hurt again. Then there's this type of personality called the peacemaker, right? Someone who's like, it's chaotic here, but I know how to get people to get along with each other.
53m 49s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And if they don't get along, then we go back to the chaos and I can't handle chaos. Chaos is too scary for me. So I, this is the type of person who's going around. Always trying to make people just chill out, calm down a little bit. You know, when you get this way, mom gets really like this. Or dad gets really like this. Can't you just calm down a little bit.
54m 12s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And they may also sort of hold the energy of the chaos in their own body and try to sequester it. There's a frustration in this because they want to try to control the people around them and have the people around them love each other so that they feel safe. You know? Cause it feels like the family may dissolve, but you want the family to stay together so that you feel safe.
54m 35s
Kevin O'Donoghue
I feel connected cause so the biggest fear of this type, if my family falls apart, I don't have anybody I'm not connected anywhere. And I don't know how to negotiate life without at least this kind of chaotic connection that we already have. If that goes then where am I? I have nothing to connect to. So I go around making peace everywhere and keeping people peaceful. And so it's strange that this would be an anger, a role because the person goes to sleep to their anger. They become kind of a sleepy guy, but always there to make sure that piece is going on, but they become asleep to themselves. And finally, for the last one of our show talking about fear is somebody who goes around, correcting everybody.
55m 19s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, somebody like this,
55m 22s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
The perfectionist,
55m 22s
Kevin O'Donoghue
You know, somebody like this, I know somebody like this, you know, somebody who's looking for the program, Nazi Germany was like the perfectionist. They were like, you know, this is the one way, these are the rules. This is the rule book. This is the book you have to follow. If you don't follow it, you're bad. And what did these people afraid of that? They're afraid that I'm bad. So let me have a book list of rules and con point everybody how to do this thing. Unfortunately, we don't have too much time to talk about this one. This is called the perfectionist in the Enneagram and we've been delighted to talk to you about fear today. Are you going to any frightening movies?
56m 4s
Kevin O'Donoghue
Do they make any frightening movies comparable to the Exorcist?
56m 8s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
If you want to get over your fear of frightening movies, if you want to enjoy a frightening movie, I suggest you try orienting during it. Like, especially when they start, when you start feeling the anxiety ratcheting up and you feel, you feel stuck in the chair, just let yourself look around
56m 25s
Kevin O'Donoghue
And remember it's just a movie. So how about orienting that. You've been listening to The Positive Mind. I'm Kevin O'Donoghue
56m 30s
Niseema Dyan Diemer
And I'm Niseema Dyan Diemer. And we'll be back with you next week.