Alright friends,
We are throwing out some big ideas about a big topic. This is our deep dive into Instincts. We are setting a foundation, pitching a runway to take off from, and we hope you jump in!
Around the Circle: An Enneagram Podcast
Instincts | A Grad Class
I'm Jeff Cook, and I'm TJ Wilson, and this is Around The Circle. The Enneagram is a map of the human personality. It's a tool for navigating relationships, and creates language for what motivates us and helps us look at the way we look at everything else. Most importantly, the Enneagrams in America sometimes you need help seeing yourself. My name is Jeff Cook, I'm a philosopher in Greeley, Colorado, and with me is TJ Wilson, businessman, lover of theology, and Enneagram ninja. Hello, boss. Hey. Do you know where you were five years ago today? I have no idea. I don't even know what day it is. You were saying at your computer releasing the first episode of a new podcast. I believe you. That was five years ago? No. That can't be true. It's been like a hundred years since that happened. It's the 2019. It was that season. That's when I understood time. I don't understand it anymore. It doesn't make any sense. Back when going out to the movies and concerts was normal. We're on year five. We have said this a handful of times that we should not get into the instincts as Enneagram students until we've really spent some time learning about our type for five years. And you and I have decided that's a good rule of thumb for us as a podcast as well. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. It's been five years. We should probably do this work. You should spend five years teaching Enneagram before you start teaching instincts. Some might even argue against that. But you know, we'll see how badly this exploration goes here. There we go. Yeah. If this series suddenly disappears, you'll all know that we failed. Funny fact, we're going to release our 200th episode here in a couple of weeks. That's nuts. But in theory, we're past 200 because we actually did like post a bunch and then take them off and say, I don't think we should have this on our main feed. Yeah. We've definitely recorded way over 300. Right. At least 100 are gone. TJ, do you and I have anywhere close to the expertise on instincts and subtypes that somebody like Beatrice Chestnut or the gentleman from the art of growth have? Heck no. Friends, we are not data collectors. Truth. TJ and I are informed Enneagram theorists. You might call us Enneagram philosophers. We are coming to the topic. We are not the data collectors. We are the idea processors. We are interested in vocabulary. We're interested in categories. We're interested in how do we talk about what you and I see as one of the most important topics. Wing coming to being a whole human being. Well, a lot of the material out there is sort of focused on the self-help part and on the individual and potentially on, you know, relationships, Enneagram and love and work, etc. But one of the things that we felt like there was a space missing and we decided to try and fill it is conceptually looking at the Enneagram and particularly about the overlap of a lot of the different concepts and how they interplay with each other. There is some sort of systemic work being done in our area when we're doing this kind of work. That's it. That's what you and I bring to the table. One of the things that you and I really do bring is I'm really interested in categories. You're able to see all the perspectives. This is where we're at. You and I could easily put together here the open debates in Enneagram that people aren't really talking about and there's a lot of tension and it's actually much more in my experience. It's much more emotional in nature. It's like people are kind of pushing. Here's my take on this. Here's your take on this and I would love to just say, look, you say this and this person says this and those are two theories just right down the theories. This is something that, in fact, we're going to do today. It's not conflict. It's fine. You just, you're elevating dialogue. Tomato tomato, Jeff. With the hope of discussion. That is a peacemaking activity. Sure. Would that everyone in our country that being the United States at this point in time and I assume around the world would simply say, hey, here's my position with your position. I would love to understand it so that we could dialogue about these things. Yeah, that would be nice. That would be very nice. This is how conflict resolution ought to take place. Dear listener, if you've just gotten to Enneagram, our rule, which you heard in our last podcast, is that you should probably wait five years before jumping into instincts. You're welcome to listen to this, but it really is the case that in our opinion, the really worthy work to do with Enneagram is focusing on some of the stuff that we've already outlined specifically on our Start Here podcast. So before you jump into this, we have another podcast feed called Start Here. There are a handful of great episodes there specifically the basics series. If you already know your type and the steps series, if you already know your type and really look for conversation partners to have and get into your type. Talk about those topics. That's the place to go. The stuff we're going to talk about today, let me just reiterate it, is graduate level. If you were seeing with TJ and I, when we step aside and we talk about the hardest topics, the most complex topics in Enneagram, that's the conversation we're going to have today. This is not us saying that we don't think that you're capable of understanding this. This isn't us saying that it's too hard to understand. It's that this is trigonometry when some people who might be listening to this still don't really know long term, long form division. Right. You know, like this is you got to learn a lot of basics about math and then learn some more basics and then learn some more basics before you can even get to the place of understanding trigonometry, which I don't because, you know, I hate school, but if you're comfortable with variables and parabolas and the rest in terms of Enneagram speak, then that's where we're going today. But otherwise, yeah, on the on the flip side, there's a ton of people who listen to this podcast for exactly that reason is they would like a depth of your conversation. So this summer, that's where we're going. Yep. And that's why we're here. In order to get into this, again, I want to emphasize two things. One TJ and I are not data collectors. We are theorists. We of all things are going to interview data collectors in our episode that's coming out next week. We're going to talk to the fantastic guys at the Art of Growth who have done a number of panels with people given their type and dominant instincts and we're going to have a conversation with them. TJ and I are talking theory. How should you understand instincts and subtypes? So hopefully you've listened to the podcast. We just released the one that came out before this one so that you have an introduction to this material. Obviously, if you haven't yet, then you should go listen to that first because what TJ and I are going to do, we've sat on this material for a year and a half and we've allowed it to do its work inside of us. And now we want to pitch essentially a runway. Here's how we're taking off and talking about this. We've really invested our heart, mind and energies into the topic of instincts and subtypes. And so here are the questions that we have. Here are the things we think we need to discuss before we really jump into each of the types and how they connect with each of the instincts. And that's where we're going. So what did I miss there? Nothing, I think. Boom. I mean, who knows? We'll figure it out. It'll come out. I'm all set up. That's how podcasts work with me. And that's what this episode is even. There you go. So the primary text on this seems to be Beatrice Chestnut's book on what is it? It's called The Complete Enneagram. 27 paths to create yourself knowledge. Great subtitle. I think she does a real service to the rest of us in grounding her take on more of a biological scientific approach of saying from the outset, look, this is how primates work. I think this is lacking in a lot of Enneagram study. A lot of us came to the Enneagram because we needed to get our hearts and our souls in the right spot. And the spiritual dynamic was kind of all over how we were engaging this work. But one of the real downsides of that is, you know, it can look like it doesn't have scientific grounding and body. But Chestnut does a great job of saying, no, no, no. We're going to talk about what it means to be a human being with instincts. And instincts is a biological term. This is not a spiritual term. Right. And I think that's a good place to start when we're jumping into into this topic. Instincts being sort of the ground on which subtypes walk. Chestnut taking her cue from Claudia Naranjo pairs your sort of main instinct with your types. Sin to get subtypes, sin or passion to get subtypes. We'll get more into that later. But but there's this idea that that like the instinct is at play regardless of the type. So like these instincts come in and like this is part of us. We could have a whole conversation about instincts without ever talking about the Enneagram without ever having knowledge of the Enneagram because instincts is a little bit more foundational. And and thanks to the work done by lots of people including Chestnut to show, this is the place where this starts. Instinct then is a category. I don't have any instinct to migrate during the winter, but birds do. Right. I don't have any instinct to see my young birthed on the beach, but turtles do. Right. I don't have any instinct to look to the Kardashians for fashion cues, but Californians do. This is how instincts work. I don't want to say how proud I am of that joke. There is something that's in you ingrained in in our biology. It's probably it's information that's passed on in our genes that we're predisposed to do something. The claim here is that humans have foundational instincts and these can be paired with our Enneagram type or in our view that our type expresses itself through its relationship with these instincts. And for Enneagram purposes, instincts have to do with social styles and social energies. And that's the big idea here is how am I navigating myself and getting my motive given the fact that I'm a primate. These are things I find very helpful in Chestnuts approach because we're starting there. You're a primate. Can't escape that. Primates have social drives. They create complicated social groups across the board. Every sort of primate does this and we see this in obviously in terms of human beings. Well, this is all over evolutionary history, not just primates, but kind of everything. The world living organisms evolved in a way that took care of themselves or like paired with other organisms in order to propagate their species. This is about protection and preservation and propagation. These instincts keep us alive and move our species forward. And that's true all over nature. So pushing into this, you will see in primate groups, social hierarchies, cooperative behaviors. There are often intricate methods of how it is proper to interact with one another. Just turn on your favorite reality TV program. And it's probably based on some of this. Like the directors are intentionally pushing into the tensions that emerge in order to expose. This is actually how human beings function in terms of their instincts. There's a debate to be had there, but. Often there's a social dynamic to these shows. There's often an individual, what a pairing. Me and you were in an alliance kind of element. And then there's the, I want to win this sucker. I didn't come here to make friends. Right. It's fair, it's fair. With instincts, especially in terms of any gram talk, when it comes to instincts, we have natural preferences. And often we have tools given who we are for establishing these social connections, for getting the motives, and for getting our primary motive. And that's really the any gram side of this, is you have a primary motive. In my mind, you're likely born with a primary motive. And as you begin to engage with the family first, and then with the broader human culture of the tribe or your city or the rest, the instinctual energies are going to come out. And they're going to be tools for you getting your motive. Right. We might want to name these instincts then. That's probably a good idea. It seems to me on this front, then thank you for the long setup here. It seems to me on this front, if you think about it biologically, we're going to actually focus on the group. And apparently, I forgotten what the book was, but it in essence said that the human brain can only have about 150 relationships, like real relationships. You know this person, you know their family, you know what they do, you have interactions that are valuable, meaningful. You kind of have to purge some of the relationships in order to allow for others. But we're in essence, built for 150 people. Right. And of all things, like if you were to look at the military, oftentimes the military actually designs itself to create you know troops of just 150, but those reduced to you know 40 or 12. And like our levels of intimacy are very much fashioned by what our nervous system brain can handle relationally. So we have that here's the wider group we come into understanding. And that's one of our instincts. How do I relate to the wider group? Right. This would be called the social instinct. TJ and I are both going to pause here and say, let's not call this a type yet. You're not a social type. Right. Yet. Yes. Let's talk about just this instinct. You have a drive in you to say, I need to be part of the bigger group. Right. In the same way that birds have a drive to go you know South for the winner. Right. We're to fly in a V or it's not me versus the group. It's not how much do I like talking to other people? It's not all it's not a lot of the things we think about when we think the word social because it is specifically about what is my role in this group. Like the instinct is focusing on my role in the group and my place and what I need to bring to the group for the good of the group. And I need to be valued by the group. Right. Group might kick you out and that would be detrimental. I mean evolutionarily if you get exiled that's no bueno. Right. But if the social instinct is high enough that you're only real drive is for the good of the group it's possible that you may recognize that you shouldn't be in it. Sure. If the sick gazelle has a self sacrificial social instinct in mind then they will let themselves get caught by the lion because they're not going to live anyway and more gazelles in the group will live because of their accepting of their position. It's a great example of why is it that some some animals might leave. If it's the case that a group of animals doesn't have enough resources to feed its young those that are sickly and old they say for the for the good of every for the good of the group I'm going to take off. Of all things I know a lot of human beings who have heard say exactly that you know if I get sick this is how things are going to work. I buy it in camper I'm getting you know we Kelly and I have an uncle that just passed that was his he essentially took all of his money put it over here put a sliver of his money into a camper because he had a you know a cancer diagnosis that was going to get him it was like this how I want to go out and that's what he did. Yeah for the good of the group it's remove yourself potentially and so to the point of all of this is what's best for the group that's where the instinct pushes. Yeah what's my place in the group I contribute the group protects me. This is evolutionary we have grown up as social species you know the fact that I have indoor plumbing comes by absolutely zero effort on my part right you know I didn't design indoor plumbing I have no idea how clean water gets created from all the the crap we we put into you know drains in the rest right I absolutely require civilization. This by the way kids is why you shouldn't vote libertarian but that's a secondary issue that I require society to be strong informed and you know and for people to specialize in that allows the technologies and civilization I experience and that that's not just in the year you know 2024 this would be true of human beings 2,000 years ago right 5,000 years 20,000 years ago it was still the case that the society the group elevated the likelihood of survival right we weren't there so obviously we don't know this but I would be willing to place some money down that it it's not the case that there was one day a person living alone who said you know what we'd be better off if we grouped up and formed a society no it happened naturally because it's instinctual yep even Ann Rand has methods by which the society works yep they're rules that's how it goes evolution by the way as you will know it's about the four F's feeding fighting fleeing and reproducing the community is required for like if you can feed more effectively you can actually avoid dangers more effectively you can fight more effectively this is the gang instinct that a lot of us have right and obviously reproduction requires being being around some other people and having a variety of mates uh potential mates right probably you don't have a variety of mates kids that that may not be as healthy as you think it will be TJ can speak to this but not true I'm not concerned but I don't want anybody to say anything about it I've thought 12 times I never think this year or podcast I need to I'm so glad I'm editing this because i'll cut it out but it might come across as funny secondly so there's the social instinct secondly is is that narrowly defined pairing it's not the group but there is another individual who has skills passions powers abilities connects with us in worthy ways in which we feel the the pole and it's like this person and I when we get together there's a you know there's a synergy that is created this is another type of instinct that emerges it's not just about the group I pair with the individual and clearly it's the case that you know I this isn't prescriptive monogamy is really common with human beings and it's not just in the I'm going to pair with another person and creating create a home this is true of creating businesses this is create true of creating you know artistic endeavors this is true of people just wanting to get strong you'll you'll commonly see like weight lifters have their their lifting buddy or something people that go on runs you know I go on with Joe and like the pairing instinct this person makes me stronger helps me advance they have skills that I don't have there is a complementedness here this is really common with human beings and again instinctual and and there's also an element of like what makes me stand out what what can we do together to change things like if social if the social instinct is for the good of the herd then you're not going to make a lot of big changes right right but the this instinct this this one that that wants to to pair that wants to you know like accomplish things there's there's an element of of risk involved in that there's an element of like stepping outside of the box and and sometimes you need it's not a safety net but you need a partner you need someone else to to draw in to say this is where we're going let's do like I can't do this alone let's do it together it's exactly right real common in human societies that you leave your home you leave your mother and mother's house and pair with a person because you are going to create you know a new life together right the risk all over that kind of connection and obviously even this type is often or this instinct is often called the sexual instinct probably based on this it's that there is the risk there is I mean in in that sort of move of pairing with another romantically there's going to be intimacy there's going to be vulnerability there's you know commonly we associate that element with nakedness in the rest there is dependence trust at a different level than with the society right you know you shouldn't trust the tribe the way you trust the individual right that you've paired with right and and I think not only not only shouldn't but can't right because because there there are other instincts at work if every individual in the tribe was had the group had the social instinct that the world would look different like that that we could do a thought experiment about what if everyone in the group has the social instinct how does the group move but the reality is that everyone in the group doesn't have the social doesn't isn't dominant yeah it isn't dominant so how do you interact with other people in the group and evolutionarily speaking I think there's a like societies don't work everywhere societies don't work in all creatures the having a functioning group isn't necessarily the best thing for a spider you know but there is something about needing to to pair to partner to be across the fence from your neighbor to to like setting up how we have webs in opposite corners of the room like there there is a thing about interacting with a specific individual with the specific other that is part of nature yeah instinctual again like you have to on this this instinct it seems to me you have to have a ridiculous amount of irrational care for the person in front of you and for your and that will filter down to your young yeah your irrational care for them above yourself is required for them to survive right you know like parents will know you waste a ton of resources on your children in a seemingly irrational move this person isn't you this is somebody else right you know right and yet the instinct is I care for my young and I care for you know the the partner in front of me if there's a partnership that can really elevate I mean this is just this is data it really the partnership really enhances the likelihood of the survival of the young so and I say that both DJ and I have raised by single moms so the right good no knock on on on but it just if you have complementary this is why we seem to be attracted to complementary people is because they fashion environments by which again feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing allows our genetics to move forward right and even and thinking about it in a non-reproductive kind of capacity like like you and I we're we're not making babies together but the work that we do we are trying to pop propagate this work we're trying to create something together to to advance and move and and change the world around us and like that that takes risk that takes some type of interaction between us that that involves mutual understanding and intensity and intimacy because we have to put our energy into this thing we're doing together this to to tease something the oftentimes the bonding one-on-one energy is called the sexual instinct I think this is one of the reasons why we might want to question this and we'll talk about this later but this may not be the best title for this because there are very there's a ton of non-sexual one-on-one bonding pairing relationships essential in a society like ours for things to move forward and we could point to countless pairs of people who have done great goods for you know advancing our tribe our culture our technologies and the rest and it's not a reproductive complementary pairing it's individuals who are like let's let's build something together right you do this idea this and and and we can't fashion something out of that and that's an energy that's an instinct right it may have come from a sexual instinct but now it's it's you know it's a it's evolved right into something bigger right and I more different I should say well much like language has evolved the like the word sexual has I I'd guess that that like when people were using the term sexual when they decided to put this label on this instinct they weren't talking about the type of like they weren't using it the same way that we use it today the language has evolved and now when I say the word sexual it makes you think something correct and it makes middle school boys giggle and like that there's a whole thing about it within our society and the way that the language has changed that invokes an idea that is smaller than what we mean when we are talking about the sexual instinct right this is all right so I was saving this for later but this is a great place to jump I hate the term sexual for this instinct just so you know I think there's terrible branding on the part of any gram professionals now here's here's what I'll grant you're coming to biology in your naming an instinct that is seen biologically and you're like well this is the sexual instinct we want to copulate in order to reproduce right and that is a common primate way of being in the world right I get that yeah doesn't work when we start talking about the anneagram is easily every single person when talking about instincts is probably going to say sexual but let's pause for a second let's talk about that what this really means giving any of them sexual with an asterisk I want everyone to hear I am bowing to you tipping my cap deferring to the origin of this title uh-huh saying you got this exactly right on the scientific biological development of this instinct yep and friends the branding is terrible let's talk let's print let's let's entertain the idea of changing the title to something else my favorite is pairing a lot of people use the term bonding or one-on-one you're just going to float this don't want to upset the apple cart clearly jeff that i am wait wait a second you none you not wanting to upset the apple cart come on we will be talking about the the one-on-one pairing bonding sexual instinct yep as we move into you know the middle half of the 21st century perhaps we can we can change some of the language I don't think that's a bad idea I'm I'm not sold because I don't have any I don't I don't have any objection to the word textual but I do have to explain it every time I say it so we'll have to come come to that put a pin in that so speaking of self-preservation because some people just don't want to fight about things because that's true because there might get incoming fire right it's possible the last of the instincts is self-preservative we all find ourselves in a family in a group and tribe we have a social style of social energy that is going out there either toward the group or the individual that same energy however can get turned inward it can look at myself as myself it can say do I have enough resources I say to myself do I have enough resources am I protected am I feeling good today that is a social energy it is me talking to me and we know what this feels like we know what it's like to self-assess very common it's one of the things that makes us really advanced as a species is that we have self-understanding self-consciousness and can do self-observation so the last of these these instincts then is turning towards ourselves looking inwardly and considering ourselves before everything else and that would be again instinctual what do you think here and there's a lot of ways in which what we're saying here sounds like selfishness it can seem like self-protectiveness it can seem like a self-focus but we're not talking about all of that we're talking about a self-preservation instinct and that means instinctually viewing whatever situation in a way that is focused on the the best way to keep me and my space alive to to to protect my resources to ensure that I'm surrounded by the right people to insert myself into a group in order to make sure that I'm alive and I stay alive the instinct is about protecting myself but it can still be within the context of the larger group it can still be within a relationship in my in a family like there there is a lot about the self-preservation instinct that is misunderstood as a self-focus yep and and I think there there's the the understanding needs to come at to like at at our most basic level we're trying to stay alive and that like that's true for almost for all organisms you know that what do I need to stay alive my mind actually goes toward the presentation prior to take off on an airplane there is a social sexual and self-protective uh message that's going to be given yeah in the event that something goes wrong with cabin pressure yep we parent parents we need you to take care of yourself first yep for the good of everybody here yep there's the social for the good of everybody here you need to take care of yourself first and then you can care for your little ones next yep the self-protective in this in this instance is not selfish it is required for us all to get where we need to get safely if things go badly right and so and and potentially even the this is a great example because the social instinct can also tell us to put on our own mask first because we recognize that that is actually the best thing for everyone around us our place in the group is to make sure that nobody else has to keep us alive that can be a social instinct and rightly so the part of us that says stay alive says put your own mask on first one of the best things that i've learned this year uh came from my oldest who showed me a graph of how people come to the world and it was broken up into a quadrant there are some people who serve only themselves at the cost of others these are thieves in the rest there are some people who on the flip side completely die to themselves on behalf of everyone else this actually does not have lasting goods that emerge from it sometimes it can benefit the whole right but it's not a good long-term strategy right there are some people who are idiots who both make decisions that go against their own self-interest and the interest of others and they're just toxic human beings right the truly genius people the person like that my kid was saying this is who you want to be isn't it is the person who both does good for themselves and for others if you find that sweet spot where what you're doing elevates the lives of the people around you and elevate your own well-being why wouldn't you make that play every time right and i thought that was there was i really tried to focus on that recently in terms of the thing that's required for that is deep creativity but my impulse again bonding pairing sexual type that i am is to self-give every time and that i can i can point to countless spots where that has often got me in trouble yeah like the places where i've really suffered the places where things have gone badly the places where i did damage to myself was when all of my energy was self-sacrificial for the sake of this other and they didn't necessarily want it you know i i was cutting myself for the sake of i'm bleeding out for the sake of you right in this and it just wasn't a great strategy right self-preserving can be incredibly helpful and a worthy instinct to pair with everything else right because it it does keep you alive and that's like what are what are we all here for if not to be alive it's not in this front like there's two ways to fall off a horse you can fall off the i'm incredibly selfish i'm incredibly self-giving both of these probably aren't going to keep you upright and moving right you're probably going to fall off the horse both way you know there has to be a balance right self self-preservation as i see it in the lives of a lot of the people that i love and care about it often is just that first move it's like i just need to make sure that i have what i need so that i can move into my other instincts to care about the people around me i just need to make sure that i'm grounded for a second once i do that i can move forward and that that's the instinct at play in terms of you know doing all the things you need to do yeah i personally appreciate people who actually take care of their health first i want you to not come to work sick i realize you think you're sacrificing for the rest of us by showing up with the flu you're actually not take care of yourself make sure that it got your house in order and then what can you offer to the rest of us right and what can i offer to you and that's where our society works right yeah the um i keep hearing the word narcissism in my head uh because self-focus is more about narcissism self-preservation is about sustaining life and and you don't have to be a narcissist to be self-preserving and and it's it's not unhealthy to be self-preserving self-preserving is about recognizing my resources my health what do i need to stay alive and keep going and that can be the most necessary function for a teacher yep who interacts with kids all day long the most important thing that they can do as a human being is make sure that they are healthy so that they can herd those cats yes you know exactly what is spinning in my head is something like boot camp i don't mean to keep bringing up the military but i imagine when you go to boot camp a lot of it actually is about self-preserving instincts it's we need you to exercise and be in a certain level here's the calorie intake here's your weapon we're going to teach you how to just pull that sucker apart clean it out you need to take care of yourself in this space and then when we're in the middle of combat if you you know somebody's injured and behind here's how we do things in order to ensure that the whole group is cared for but you have to care for yourself first so that you can care for the rest yeah because obviously if you're not caring for yourself you're not going to help injured joe is on the side here well then i i think that with my extensive knowledge and and experience in the world of military and boot camp you've seen some movies i've seen some movies i've read books i have family members who served this is what full mal jackets all about private pile let's talk about the self-preserving instinct oh my gosh but like the chain of command i i'm not a big believer in chain of command in all situations i share my wife and i make decisions together uh the buck stops with me at my coffee shop but i give an awful lot of license to my employees right in the military the chain of command is so important because somebody has to make a decision and if every single private is the one that's able to make the decision then our like the military ceases to function right like it's not a real thing and there's no there's no order to how we go out in the world yeah and every single person is an island and that just it doesn't work but learning that learning how to take orders in certain spaces of your life can actually be a very good thing for you and all of the people around you and everyone back home and the people who are making this decisions at the top if they know that their orders are going to be followed it's easier to make decisions the chain of command is part of all of this yep i think all we're doing is noting notice the more as our as human evolution has progressed into a modern society the way that we we continue to arrange ourselves military is just one element you know in terms of the protection of a certain people geography etc but in the same way you could talk about like corporate america you could talk about the family structure right um you could talk about how um elementary schools work you know or you know there's all sorts of places you know city government and the rest that require something like a you know so social structures by which things are getting accomplished in theory for this you know for the sake of the whole right you know right there's targets at work the self-preserving and yeah there's there's necessary understandings of the social instinct how we are all in the group the these self the the sexual bonding instinct how people relate to individuals and the this self-preservation thing is is at the bottom of it it's not the lowest on the totem pole but it is the one that like all of the others are sort of standing on and and the social instinct is about the the group and the the preservation of the group but it requires the preservation of the individual right and and yeah like even city planning goes has a focus on keeping the individual alive exactly yeah brings up my second topic here and this ends up being i'm just starting to think through this but in terms of our instincts i want to divide these three into two there are instincts that are dependent in nature dependent on the individual or dependent on the tribe the bonding pairing instinct and the social instinct and then there are the independent instincts that would be the self-preservation instinct dependence and independence being a human being being a primate that's that's not going to be something that we can put all of our chips on one of these we can't be completely independent it's it's unhealthy we've talked about this a handful of times it's not healthy to be completely dependent so there there's going to need to be a balance at work here and i want to float this when i come to instincts this was one of the epiphanies or at least one of the lines into the topic that really meant the most of me is there is a tension between dependence and independence you can't solve it it's always attention how much energy should i give to independence how much energy should i give to dependence either with the individual or with the collective that is part of the art of living that's going to be a huge part of what we're going to talk about in a little while in terms of my theory of how instincts actually function when you talk about the map that is the enneagram but uh let me just float that that's how it kind of begins to break down in my mind how instincts work yeah i would want to make sure that it's understood that independence and dependence are not themselves independent they are they are not the goal okay they are a filter through which we get the goal i think that's entirely correct yeah and i know that we'll say it in different words when when we get to um but that it is so easy for us to think as independence and dependence as good or bad and and to to make one of the two things into a goal or a villain or whatever and and i don't i think the tension i think what you're saying about the the tension being present at all times in all people is is such a good note yeah and and these the way that our instincts play and bounce and move like whatever the way that we use our instincts being about the tension between dependence and independence i think is is a great way to look at this yep i want to let me uh let's just jump into this real quick yeah all right dear listener tj and i may be on an island here and unfortunately being a little scrappy being a little uh well both idealistic on my side and not wanting to cause too much controversy on the other yeah and we're coming as theoreticians here here's my take on instincts and subtypes i think that let's imagine that you are a plane okay this is you are in an airplane you're an airplane and you're flying in your flying somewhere yeah your target is on the manifest this is the destination it says it very clearly and that's where you're flying yeah and that's your motive great and when we talk about anagram types in essence all of the types subdivide here into where you going yeah like what are you targeting given your motive so this is the destination a lot of the other elements of the anagram come down to the buttons and dials on the dashboard as you're flying towards that destination you're going to start to tweak some stuff wings for example you know you want to balance you want to make sure that you're not too rocky and the wings do that balancing act and how you handle problems comes out in how you're flying the airplane it seems to me long story short it seems to me instincts kind of our dials that that we begin to turn sometimes you really need to hit the self-preservation dial right and we've talked that we've used a handful of stories of this sort when we interview Jim and Joel from the art of growth next week we we've talked we talked extensively about this that sometimes things really break and nearly all types will push hard into self-preservation instinct that is something happened and you have to really crank that dial to the right for a second nothing wrong with that this is how primates worth how human beings work but you're still flying toward your destination right and so in my mind instincts let's imagine now that instinct that motive that your anagram type is a color so ones are red twos are orange threes are yellow etc we all know that there's all sorts of different varieties of red all sorts of different varieties of yellow etc and and instincts kind of come in at that play it's like i'm a i'm a red type TJ's blue type but the instincts are kind of a filter it's it's you it's it's the style of the blue it's the style of the red and you might you might give a name to that but for the most part it's that filter that comes in after the fact that's where i kind of land presently on instincts it's the it's the dials that we're we're tweaking with as life happens and we find ourselves in a tribal community and and if you have a long history of listening to us you'll know that i can take a metaphor and just keep on going and like that i'm i'm ready for that but the the like thinking about this idea of like dials the the motivation the the destination for the plane doesn't really change there's some things on the plane that are fixed but what if you're in a sea plane like you don't have landing gear okay that's just a reality of a sea plane and you have to fly your plane a little bit differently because of it there are some people who potentially lean really heavily into one of their instincts yeah and they have to fly a little differently because of that and and even bringing in some of the other instincts looks very different for them because they're in a sea plane not a 747 you know yep like there there is something about this idea that like thinking about instincts as something that is fixed it within us i have a really hard time getting there yeah i just i can't see it i can't see it in myself i can't see it in other people i can't see it in evolution i can't see it in nature it doesn't really make sense that the idea that instincts are fixed so dear listener here would be the pitch then is when thinking about engram engrams of theory about human motivation and how we function in the world there's a handful of folks very reputable folks very brilliant folks folks who have thought and worked with a lot of people who want to say that our instincts are dominant instinct being either self-preservation or sexual bonding or social simply takes over and is grounded and wired into us and is part of our personality for the long haul and that because of that our engram type can be classified as self-pres one social three sexual five tj and i are going to land differently here yep i tend i think that there's as i'm looking at the list i think there's four elements some of them are very very very early that i think do get solidified but some of them are flexible on the end i think you're born and you're taking in the world through your primary center head heart gut i think that's wired into you i don't think you can change that i think your stance might fluctuate i think you might for me right now i think your stance might be one of those things that adjusts very early in in your development one to two years old sure and then it solidifies and then your i think your type is probably pretty solid real early on although obviously given human motivation i don't think that you're going to be able to articulate you know this kid is a three this kid is a seven i think instincts wings in our use of arrows are all those components that are really necessary to balance your plane yeah as it were yeah you have your motive is set once your stance and and your center come into solidity that defines your type but now life happens and then you begin to adjust and adjust is a huge part of the human experience yeah and so sometimes you push hard into your social instinct sometimes you push hard into your for me i push hard into my nine wing my parents get divorced i push hard into my nine way i become a pastor i push hard into my two wing that's me navigating the world right stress and stress happens i push into my four tools as a one so two instincts come into play there i have an instinct that i need to be part of the group and the collective what i did to i realized that i'm not very strong there and i married a woman who was incredibly strong in social energy dynamic intelligence and that was how i compensated for the fact that i i had a hard time pushing into that space but i knew that space was important the bonding pairing side of me i push into that very naturally easily it's my go-to tool it's my favorite tool in that box i pull it out and like this sucker will probably fix 78 of the problems and then there's myself protective tool and i pull that out when i need to and that's just making sure that the plane gets to where it's going and the place that it's going is i'm going to be a good man yep that's all i care about yep and that's it that feels right to me at least that feels like a coherent theory of how typing an instincts kind of work waiting yeah i think that's great um i think it it is a great idea to hold some of this stuff a little more loosely as we learn more about ourselves because i think that's this is part of why this gets so muddy right because it it seems when we talk about our instincts it seems like something that's fixed but if we are going to give ourselves space to be who we truly are instead of how we think we should be then we need to provide space to see where our instincts come out in different ways in my mind and gut so before we were recording dear listener tj was talking about how he went online and found an instincts test and the instincts test actually gave numbers one to a hundred of how highly you score on each of the instincts in theory if those numbers moved 10 years from now significantly then we would know that instincts are in flux right and we we have used stories from handful of folks but i think we even brought up uh you know covid here recently and in this podcast a lot of us when covid hit we pushed very hard into that self protective dial because it it like we weren't part of a group as much anymore it was about keeping myself alive yeah and even in our own house we had to learn how to live in our own house with people who we didn't see all the time every day right and what many of us have experienced is we crank that dial so hard and apparently that dial is very heavy we're having a hard time pulling that dial back to where it was and so we're less inclined to go to the movies we're less inclined to go on vacation on that airplane right we we got really self-concerned and and and it's just taken this is i mean half of the reason that we're having a global recession and by the way this isn't just local in america it's everywhere yeah whole world the reason that there was a recession was because so many of us pulled so hard that way and you just can't restart it you know an economy right and and it's it's also we to our theory we naturally move through and fluctuate our instinctual sandwich if you will yeah and for many of us that was all like it just sort of happened and then covid hit and now that is different that our movement through that has changed and it's jarring and we don't understand what's happening and part of that is that we have we're not using good tools to do internal work and so so recognizing that like something is very different about me mean part of that has to do with the way that your your movement through your instincts it changed right and and this is um this is a big theory within the conversation about subtypes and instincts like does your instinct change the the common perception is that big events like say a global pandemic changes your instincts and your your instincts sandwich i think that it changes the way the whole system works as a big part of why it looks different after a big event but realistically we're still all using all of our instincts we're still all moving through them in different ways yeah now that we've experienced a in earth changing events that movement is different and we perhaps favor one more than the others differently than we did before i think alive its experience so i don't think there's anything wrong with identifying yourself according to your vocation i'm a barista i'm a philosopher i'm a real estate investor i'm etc right so in my life and alive you know like i was doing church work for a long time and if i self-identified as a pastor that actually is helpful language i really want to put a asterisk on it it's very helpful language for the person in front of me to understand who i am what i how i am in the world what i'm seeking to bring to the whole group you know what i do oftentimes the that that term passer can rightly be you know it immediately brings up suspicion in the hearts of some it it arises you know some sort of oh this person is trustworthy in the hearts of others but it is how i am in the world and it's i'm communicating something about myself and how i am seeking to engage the world right that is not my vocation anymore it is something that i have actually really tried to cut off and not make part of my identity anymore i have pivoted very hard into real estate investment and that's what i've been doing for the last five years yeah that is an entirely different vocation and when i say that i'm a real estate investor it's still the case people will react to that in terms of the categories that they have you know this is not a trustworthy person for a different kind of reason this is a trustworthy person for because of x y and z as it stands it's helpful for me to articulate things in that way i think instincts are very helpful on this front if i were to say to and i'm i'm happy to do this to say i am a pairing bonding sexual one that communicates something about how i am in the world but break something i care about significantly and i'm not going to be that person anymore right i'm going to go to a different space i'm going to crank a dial in a different way and when i look at the list of attributes of self preserving ones i know exactly what it's like for me to go into that space yeah real similar to when i look at the list of attributes of any gram fours i know it's like to go into four space and i can identify myself in those a gram four spots but i'm not naturally there yeah it's real similar when i look at self preserving ones and it's real similar when i look at social ones yeah i know what it's like when i'm in that space but that's not naturally where i generally go right however and i think tj agrees with this if you broke something significantly or you know if it were the case that my my life and everything i care about depended on me elevating into social space primarily 24/7 like i would take on those attributes yeah give me give me 35 years of having to do that work that's who i would become yeah i can totally see myself becoming a person and naturally pulling out the social tool every single time or not even necessarily something breaking but something changing significantly like marriage yeah marriage can shift your like i lived alone for 15 years and then i got married and but literally my household had to change because it wasn't exclusively mine anymore right like big shifts like that change the order change the way that the tool is working it's exactly right to bring in other personality typing theory and by the way dear listener will probably hit other personality typing theories here at some point in the future but Myers Briggs does this in terms of Myers Briggs is set up in that one to a hundred kind of way where it's like there's fluctuation taking place over time right and there's movement right and you know your behavior and how you're engaging the world can really shift given how the circumstances of your experience change over time right that's part of the human story right here's what what makes Enneagram great it's almost saying here's your identity over time with your primary core what your backbone kind of looks like and here's your flesh that kind of can adjust over time yep you know many of us know what this looks like your your skeleton will not change for the most part but many of us lose weight or put on muscle or you know all sorts of things kind of happen with our physicality right over time and so there's some things that stick and there's some things that you know it's the fleshy part of us that fluctuates right that's helpful by the way skeleton i'm right in that sucker damn yeah you should i'm thinking about it a lot like i can't change the size of my head yeah like it just i just i can't change the size of my skull that's that's just truth right but my face looks significantly fatter than it did 10 years ago because i mean a i'm a dad now b i'm over 35 like it it's just see we just went through a worldwide pandemic the your wife was insisting on that bizarre diet that you had to to go through all these things through which i learned that i'm actually a skinny person i've never thought of myself that way because i'm also a real big eater so i've always been a little bit fat but as like just my body shape is a skinny person and i can't change that all of us i saw a picture of christian bale uh the other day it was like a meme yeah and it had six different films that he had been in and how much he weighed and it's from you know that one where he couldn't sleep and he was like 80 pounds to when he was playing dick chaining and he was 290 pounds you know yep yep and just showing this versus when he was playing batman and he was also 290 pounds but in a completely different way people who really want to alter themselves can probably do it right um i feel like i feel like instincts fall into that space yeah of adjustments like sometimes it's this oftentimes it has nothing to do with will it's real similar to stress and security in my mind like i know it's like to go to four space volitionally i'm going to go to four space in order to try and go to the high side of four and get some of the stuff there yeah but there are other times where like circumstance happens i get punched in the nose and i'm i am immediately just i'm there i feel like that's how things go with instincts as well yeah and and when the the work then for us is not how do i change my instincts but what do i do when i find myself there yeah yep so in our coming you know the podcast that we do next week we're going to talk to the guys at art of growth and i i think there is something about instincts as muscles that's a helpful metaphor yeah okay you don't you don't have to be really strong in your social instinct but you can work on it you can build up some some power there yep you can like i have a buddy who who teaches kickboxing who every time i'm in there he goes to a spot where he asks me about one of my kids in a specific way i always know that this isn't natural for him in terms like i hear the question i'm like he is doing this because he is really trying to elevate something that's not necessarily his wheelhouse right and i actually respect him and care for him even more because i know how much effort that takes for him to get to that spot where he's asking about my kid right and even remembering my kid's name and where they are in school and i feel like a lot of us are like that it's muscles yeah like yeah yeah i'm going to choose to memorize people's names my wife doesn't have any problem memorizing people's names i'm befuddled by how she does this it comes entirely out of the fact that she wants attention and the right right it's super easy to get attention from people if you just memorize their name don't you realize this jeff well i'm not aimed at it at attention i mean the other stuff right but but there you go but like if i want to have a social instinct you know muscle power just that alone memorizing people's names it's going to be a huge growth spot and and working on that muscle builds it up and it it doesn't necessarily fix a quote-unquote problem like if your goal is to to build up your biceps in a really big way like eventually if you stop working out they won't be big anymore right eventually if you stop working on memorizing people's names you won't be able eventually if you put all of the phone numbers that you know into a into a phone in your pocket you'll stop being able to remember phone numbers right like that's just truth right but you can build things up in a way that that gives you some sustaining power gives you some knowledge of how to do this the next time you need it on the flip side if it was the case that you know you were kidnapped a gun was pointed to your head and it was said you were going to memorize the names of a hundred people in the next month and know who they are and know five details about them and that situation played itself out for the next 20 or 30 years it would just become natural it would become habitual and you might even push into that in a way where that was just your default right you know right that i i can't escape thinking that that's how instincts end up working yeah i have that gear we've we've talked we haven't bright up we've talked about instincts is rooms in a house or floors of a home and that we generally live on one of the floors yeah and do business and the other ones and that's how that feels like you you would just get used to doing business on a different floor right and you have that gear you have that that's part of your house that's part of your inventory again you're a primate and that's how you survive in the world right but your target is motive yeah that yeah that is that is unchanging what how you adjust as you get there that that changes and moves yep i think there is something really important about acknowledging that some people do have a really strong dominant instinct yes i am not one of those people jeff is this is this has been my epiphany so okay so i didn't share this with you i was in a text debate early this morning about this very debate topic okay and we were talking about you and your take because they listened to a podcast okay and that was my thing as i was like here's the thing not only is tj on nine so he can see all the sides but tj doesn't push hard into his instinct in the way that you do yeah that was my move i was like no because there's levels here i i think it's entirely understandable that an enneagram theoretician who really pushed hard into one of the instincts would say i can't possibly see myself changing yes and somebody who didn't push hard into their instinct was like no no i'm a little bit more flexible yep that is data so i'm gonna i'm gonna push put a big stamp on that and say you if you're going to tell a story about how the enneagram functions you have to make sense of the people who don't push hard into one of the instincts because they exist too yeah coming back to the sort of the first thing that we said in this episode we do not have the experience or the data collection of people like Beatrice chestnuts and the good folks at art of growth but i do have my story and i do not push hard into one of my instincts over the others and i know that there are other people like me yep so i think it is important to name that there are people who really like the sexual subtype is the one that they use in most situations there are people like that and i cannot deny that yep but there are also people that don't you can imagine a person who's a politician by trade who's never ever ever ever gonna change mm-hmm they're always going to be a politician yep and you can imagine somebody who is a politician for the first four years of life and then they say this really i kind of did my thing and i'm gonna i'm gonna go into personal finance yeah and there's nothing wrong with that it's this is how human beings work or they they simply can give up identity elements for the sake of something else they they pivot yeah for for my money the idea of subtypes this is this is the the big point that i want to say about the word subtypes the idea of subtypes is helpful if you are one of the subtypes it is not helpful for the rest of us the subject of instincts is always helpful that's my thesis that's what i said full disclosure i came into this conversation saying i'm gonna i'm gonna argue as hard as i can for tj's side and just see if let's see what happens because i wasn't i really got moved by our our growth conversation the other way yeah and now i'm convinced on i think that's a great way to put that um this this is a category they can really be helpful i don't i don't want to so for somebody who pushes into the let's say the self-preservation instinct very very very very hard i don't think that's living in excess in the way that we would talk about living in excess in your motive agreed there is something to be said so this is going to be part of our conversation next week there is something in my mind and heart that says i think growth as a human being may mean building up your muscles in the other spaces this would be the tension again between independence and dependence yeah finding yourselves i i just you know the when you listen to our stuff next week you'll see this that we have a long debate about whether or not balance is a virtue and i routinely come back to the place where i'm like i understand that your superpower in your type is really helpful invaluable and there are times to put all of your chips on any gram five because that's who you are and what you bring to the community yep but balance in your type in my mind is the target of any gram work yeah like unless you get to balance in your type you really can't do the heavy lifting of saying here's my five-ness for the sake of myself in my world yeah you're the the five-ness is going to be like it is good and necessary for our society because we're we need all of the types and and there's that that superpower is good and sometimes that superpower is useless in a marriage exactly you know exactly and so balance in terms of instincts it strikes me that that's a place of growth yep then agreed you wanted to talk about counter counter types i also yes i because i think counter types is actually a really big important part of my my note my thesis because when you are a countertype you might mistype yep so the the idea of the countertype so if you have 27 types three types for three subtypes for each type one of the three is a countertype it looks different than the other two this is this is general concept countertype looks different than the others jeff as a sexual one uh they this uh pairing this bonding idea there's a lot of biatristina calls this countertype zeal and like these are the reformers these are the ones that are that are pushing for big change but they aren't necessarily going to represent the kind of perfectionism and that you see in other ones the kind of reserve like good boy good girl nature that's in other ones like that there's something about the sexual instinct coming forward in type ones that makes them just seem different than the other two and this is really important if you have a dominant instincts that represents one of these quote-unquote countertypes i think this is one of this is probably the most important place to think about subtypes is if you are a quote-unquote countertype i think that's good and important to recognize and we should do better about folding countertypes into our teaching we have already started that process in talking about the phobic versus the counterphobic six the far end of the phobic spectrum is one subtype of sixes the far end of the counterphobic six is the uh is the countertype for sixes this type looks like risk it looks like drawing attention to themselves it looks like being more vocal than phobic sixes it looks like trying to like the way i describe counterphobic six is like when you tell them they're like they feel afraid and they come out and say i'll show you how unafraid i am this is a counterphobic move and it looks very different from the other sixes but we have also figured out that it's a spectrum and not a fixed thing you're not always counterphobic you're not always phobic sixes move along that spectrum and so when you are mainly a countertype six you'll look a little different you might be mistyped as a seven or an eight or three or one but you're still a six your motive is still in there the same as other sixes you are trying to protect your own safety and security and and figure out how to navigate a world and keep the resources that you have right countertypes are really important but only for people who are countertypes i think i've been trying to put my finger on countertypes for a while and given our theory the thing that keeps coming to my mind is that counter typing or pushing into the counter instinct is about balance yeah i think this is easiest to see with two threes and fours two threes and fours are all self-preservation countertypes the countertype for two threes and fours is all self-preservation yes the motive for two threes and fours is all attention seeking yep you will notice how there's a balancing taking place here yeah i'm seeking the attention of the people out there but i need to feel like i'm protective and preserving what i have and so when when we walk through this will be our first deep dive we're gonna we're gonna go through each of the instincts and talk about how each it manifests in each of the types but when we get to two threes fours it's going to manifest self-preservation it's going to manifest in a way it's very strange you're a two you want the loving care of other people how can you be self-protective well what it looks like is somebody who's really trying again to balance the dependent and independent right and that's how that manifests in terms of they're not putting all their chips on eight you're you know non red or whatever it feels like there's a balancing this is true of the six so the most famous is the six in terms of the countertype sixes are naturally anxious and and risk averse yeah and the countertype for sixes are counterphobic that means they're pushing into risk well it's the balancing of how do i wrestle with anxiety here right and again i want because pushing into risk isn't always going to work right so there's something i think there's something subconscious in us that wants moderation yeah moderation is a virtue that's classic you know it goes through it throughout most traditions balancing becomes something that's incredibly valuable anyway i think that we intuitively know something about ourselves where it's like i don't think this is healthy and so i'm pushing opposite so i'm the countertype one what i end up doing is the anger is there for me i don't think it's really healthy to be angry at myself the countertype one the sexual energy ends up pushing outward so i'm actually averse to the anger i experience the anger i know what it's like to be angry at myself but i don't think that's healthy and my method of getting rid of the inner critic in the rest is to point it at other people who are buffoons that's a very easy thing for me to do right judgmental one that i am right there's all sorts of buffoons that could be objects of the anger that i have anger is an energy and so i'm going to pick profoon over here you know is that shwashtika you're an excellent target of all my rage right and what ends up happening is i don't destroy myself it goes it goes outwardly in right instead and that's a that is that's a way of me balancing and being in the world otherwise i'll consume myself with self you know self judgment right and and even i'd i'd say even notice like for for people listening like the goal is not to destroy the person with the shwashtika tattoo the goal is to improve the person with the shwashtika tattoo and from a philosopher standpoint it's to show like do you not understand that your way of seeing the world is wrong right and it's not just for that person's benefit but also for all of our benefit society would be better if there were less shwashtika tattoos and since we can't just murder them all we should probably change their minds right better way to be in the world so i the there was a guy i saw the other day he was uh like he would give away uh nazi cover up tattoos for free he was a tattoo artist yeah if you come in with something that's you know you you made a mistake when you were 17 yeah let me let me put a flower over that white power symbol mmm nice you know beautiful that's that's improving the world i'm gonna turn mine into a maze i probably shouldn't make a joke that i have one i was trying to figure out how to make the maze joke and i stumbled into the worst way to say it he doesn't i do not have a swastika tattoo just just to be clear he does have a mom tattoo that's that's both ironic and very well executed yeah yeah by the way the countertypes are two three fours or the countertype for self-preservation instinct ones fives and sixes are the countertype for the bonding sexual pairing instinct in seven eight nines or the countertype for the social instinct and we'll get to all those in time i imagine we need to have a more robust theory about countertypes but in essence that's where i'm landing is it's much more about balance yeah we talk a line we've said this over and over again over the years and i i say it so much i i practically say it in my sleep the instincts and subtypes makes everything else really really messy right and i think the most valuable thing like the the reason that it's all still here is because it's really important yeah for something like countertypes well it's really important in these spaces as ends up going more in my mind toward how we should hold all things loosely as we often say with this sort of material you are flying to use the airplane analogy you're flying an airplane and just imagine you know the you know 20 dials 100 dials that are in front of you and they're all tweaked just slightly to the settings that allow you to fly the plane well yeah and then you were to look at somebody else's control panel yep now they're in a different part of the country with different weather patterns with different obstacles with different destination and you look at their dials and you're like well these are all over the place but you need a theory of dials yep that's what we're doing yep any grams of theory of dials it's way easier to just say look really there's nine airports at the end of the day there's nine airports and you're flying toward that airport let me tell you about all the people flying into dia because there's something real interesting about them all you know here's all the people flying into chicago something really interesting about them all right but if we when we start talking about dials on each of the planes dashboards then you know it's messy yeah but it's still true yep okay i want to land the plane hey hey oh last thing that really hit me with instincts and i just love the hell out of this i don't know what to do with it but i want to pitch it to you and get your reaction instincts has like a toehold in all the things that you and i consistently talk about we consistently are talking about stance motive affect coping style arrows and wings yep not so much wings instincts ends up finding it's it's it's the sand that gets into everything this is why it's a filter yeah this is why it's best seen as a filter it's like all the all that other stuff stance motive affect coping style all that takes place first yep and then it's like you do the final mix you do the final uh filter over it all right and that's the instincts but notice this it seems to me instincts is very much like stance stance is about how you get what you want well instincts really influence how we get what we want it's against the social energy and and so stance and instincts really go together yeah by the way i think we should probably talk about this and uh with with each of the types i think this would be interesting motive and instincts go together instincts color and prioritize really what we want and what's on our radar in in a very similar way to motive i think this is by the way why why why people are inclined to subtype yeah it's so closely tied to our motive yeah the thing that really popped for me is that it's instincts and affect are really close in kind because of the way that energy works so so the bonding sexual pairing subtype they have an outward energy this is very similar to ones fours and sevens their energy is going outward towards grabbing people going to the next thing it's an outward focus two's fives and eights are inwardly focused they're naturally self-protective they're uh they naturally believe that most people will betray them as it were and so there's there's that's real similar to the self-preservation instinct is this you know is that stance the three sixes and nines are pragmatists and their energy is going both ways and that feels real similar to how social uh subtypes would work or the social instinct works i need to check myself i need to check the group i need to think about how the relationship works and how the energy works it seems like like those go together and then coping style is about what counts as a problem and so if your lover doesn't love you and you are you know strongly inclined toward the sexual instinct bonding pairing instinct that's going to be a real problem you know right if the society suddenly says we don't like you that's going to be something that really hurts those with the social instinct etc i think it's also like all of the things that you're saying are really good and also i think that like knowing how these two things interplay is also like this is really important for us because your social instinct does not necessarily mean that you're going to solve problems in your marriage with your social instinct but it could and if you don't know that's what's happening then you may have problems in your marriage because you're thinking of your marriage as a group right like that could be a problem i and just because we've referenced it already what ends up happening since i push hard into the bonding pairing sexual instinct that helps me with my motive yeah the downside of my motive is i'm angry at myself it doesn't help me in the excesses of my affect yeah the excesses of my affect is that i'm an idealist and that it's almost like the sexual energy the the the bonding pairing energy like overwhelms my idealism in terms of how the world ought to be so i will burn relationships here right and not intentionally like it's just and and not with any ill will either it's it's actually a a positive will it i i want you to improve so badly that i'm going to force the improvement on you and and turn you away if i elevated my social energy that wouldn't happen if i if i i mean myself critique often goes here if i had just elevated my self-preservation energy this wouldn't have happened i totally turned off that donor who was giving thousands and thousands of dollars to to my endeavors yep because because i was trying to challenge them on this thing i was idealistic about right now i can be like one that's a that that can be quite tricky i'm advocating for queer folks that this guy isn't getting on board i burn those checks mm-hmm was that the right decision or not i don't know self-preservation was said you know maybe you should mend some fences there my idealism overwhelms that and says you know what i'm fighting for the people and but there you go this is how my type is playing out in the world and my over emphasis that would this is the thing that i really want to emphasize my over emphasis in this space often gets me in trouble because right and and sometimes it's worth dying on a hill right you know yeah and there there can be really good things that come out of that uh over emphasis right but it's never on purpose it it's always a it's an accidental by-product at best right you know so you and i are low actually i'll put this to you you are a sound engineer you know it's like to do a final mix like sometimes you've you've done you've you've put you've set all the dials as it were but the whole needs to get tweaked yep and that's where i think instincts fall it's like the whole thing needs to get tweaked because notice it has an effect on your stance on your motive on your affect on your coping style yeah and and it and the whole needs to be tweaked and you can do some minor fixes in each thing to sort of like help you get there like there's there's a lot of you know audio engineering there's a lot of tips and tricks and tools and and little fixes that you can do to to make the main output sound better but if your subwoofers aren't working you can't turn up the base enough right if if you want to be the type of person that is constantly turning up the base a little bit more because your subwoofers are broken then do that and that's that's kind of how a lot of us are floating around in the world now but if you want to fix the problem you may have to fix your subwoofers bang very last topic and this will like launch everything else for those who've gone who've gone this far with us how should we use the instincts when we are thinking about our own growth our own becoming healthy well i think that that we've been talking about it throughout i think that becoming more aware of your instincts and where you use them and how is the the first and most important stuff yeah just their self awareness yeah yep starting to you you may have to pay a lot more attention to figure out your instincts and and unfortunately it may mean you have to do a lot of reading you know to it could be the case that you need to learn how these instincts work and how what they are before that's why we say wait five years because instincts are a whole thing in and of themselves and becoming aware of your own instincts and where they come out it's the first and most important stuff agreed there's something about once you understand yourself it actually helps you understand other people better especially i think if you have a dominant instinct like an instinct that really pulls you it allows you to have compassion on people who have similar pulls with when with any of the three yeah the last lastly the thing that's helped me most in instincts by far has been really getting a sense of just those three instincts the big idea behind them here's what self-preservation looks like here's what social looks like and then doing what we have said not to do but i think in this instance it can be very helpful and it's to type other people who are dominant i think it's incredibly helpful to to to look at how people behave because i think instincts are very much about behavior into name the behavior this is self-preservation behavior this is bonding one-on-one sexual behavior this is social behavior because what ends up happening is the empathy that can get inserted there is strong yeah so for example and i've used this example a handful of times we have a friend who who's sundied and her energy is clearly social and the solution to her feeling good in the world absolutely requires social spaces and unless those can be fashioned for her to feel good in those social spaces and there is actually there is some one-on-one bonding energy there as well so like meeting her in those spaces really is us meeting her and her grief right and so and i know this about my wife as well which i use this illustration all the time but she's very low on the bonding pairing energy and so putting her in places where she's required to meet one-on-one with another person just doesn't work right that's that's like the that's this is not efficient this is not the best use for time and energies avoiding those situations is something she naturally does but me caring for her is just understanding that's that's not the tool that she longs to employ yep and and for all of the other people in her life recognizing that and and her even potentially saying it out loud it helps like i don't feel rejected by her because i know that she doesn't have the thing that wants to get together for coffee right and just talk for a couple of hours yep we are going to steal our time away from the other things that we're doing together yep and it'll literally be us whispering gossip back and forth in while it works surrounded by a crowd sometimes because yeah that's that's the time that we get she doesn't want to go out and sit and have coffee with me for two hours but i know that she still loves me yeah so those brief social micro interactions yeah really important great i mean you do that through text and like that's it like she's doing that with 20 other people at the same time notice the social energy there right here's my actual crew in the midst of this buffoonishly long presentation that we can all make fun of and remind ourselves that we're on the same team right i suppose on the flip side of that this is real common especially with me and sevens there are all sorts of sevens who are repressed in their sexual energy their bonding energy and i think they don't like me yeah and i'm i'm coming towards them like i want to connect with you and there they're on to the next thing every single time but they don't have that gear right you know to that doesn't mean they all love me don't care about me it just means that's not who they are and so i need to relate to that person in a different way and so especially if that person is in your household is one of your kids you know if the if the your instincts don't naturally line up really important if you just name that say to see this person is this who i am and we just don't i need to find a different wavelength to to connect with this person who i care about right why don't you rock it here my man is that why it's taking so long if we were Einstein we could say equals mc squared and call it a day but we're not quite at that level it takes us two hours it's fair and most grad classes go about an hour and a half or seven or seven and this is this i i warned everybody ahead of time oh and and realistically they like this couldn't have possibly been a criticism of our the length of our conversation because this is still relatively short one for us i do have good news it's going to get a whole lot simpler from now we have defined our terms we have defined our ideas and now we're going to build a structure on this foundation that's going to go fairly quick yeah well friends it would mean the world to us all right so if you've listened to a podcast like this share it with somebody who loves the unigram there are people out there that just don't know about our podcast and say look if you really got into this this is something we're dialoguing about tj and i are probably wrong i thought i have a but there's a guy i really like who says i'm wrong about 25 of the things i think in my field the problem is i don't know what those 25 all that's a that's a great line i think that's where i am entirely comfortable being in that space and saying it's how things strike us right now so yep it's dialogable um to share this with a person secondarily we haven't gotten a star for at least five months so if you we had 286 reviews and then the the spicket turned off so if you are just now getting into our stuff we would love for you to subscribe and to give us a great review saying you know what they're doing some next level stuff yeah that would also help us know that our listenership didn't cap at 280 86 and they're just it's those people listening to it over and over again that give us the bigger numbers uh lastly if you want to help friends of yours find their in eogram type we have created a podcast called start here just look up start here in eogram you'll find it it's got our symbol and this is what we think is the best way for people to get into this material it's very narrative in nature we are helping people see their type through the language of what other people say about themselves as ones themselves as vibes and um it's been super effective we consistently have you know over a thousand people that that type themselves through it each month and yeah it's it's worth jumping into so you got anything else my man i got nothing you see j wilson especially awesome i'm jeff cook and who you want this is an interesting [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]