Loving Message to Enneagram Fives

Dear Capable, Intelligent, Five,

I’m going to be lovingly blunt with you about a few things.

First, You’re not always right. Nor do you need to be. You’re not perfect. Nor do you need to be. You can be in progress, figuring things out. You NEED to be in progress and allow yourself to both act while also learning, implementing what information you’ve obtained along the way. We need you to be in progress, but to act at the same time. There is grace for things you don’t feel like you’re doing perfectly. We don’t need you in a perfect state, or your version of ready. We need you present, willing to risk for yourself and others.

Oh precious, capable Five, please dare to act, to risk the fact that you don’t think that, whatever it is, you’re ready for something just yet. Take the risk, even if you don’t have all the information you think you need to make it go perfectly.

Second, It’s also okay for you to have needs. One of your fears may be that your needs are a burden to others. But please allow me to ask you a question. For someone you care for deeply, are you willing to give of your precious reserved time and resources? Isn’t there a weight you experience when, to help someone else, you give some of that energy you’ve saved, to care for them with something you’ve reserved for a specific situation you still see coming? Doesn’t that feel like a certain weight?

Please allow me to lovingly express that, needs, from anyone, whether yours or someone else’s, while it does carry a weight to it, does not mean it’s a burden we’re unwilling to share.

So, your need is the same. Your need carries a weight with it as all needs do. But, and please hear me, your need is not a burden. From those of us that love you, we want you to know that we are willing to carry that weight and meet your need. We choose to bear that weight, to meet you where you’re at and carry it with you. So while yes, it is a weight, as most actions of love can be and as all of our needs are, we still choose to care for you. We choose to care for your need, to meet your need. Because we love you. YOU are not a burden. You come with some burdens you bear on your own, but we will gladly bear them with you.

I encourage you to pause real quick, and read Galatians 6:1-6.
Now, please allow me point out a few things.

Vs. 2- As a community, a body of Christ, we are here to share your burden. You may feel like you have to do it all on your own. You don’t. Your community is there and you are meant to allow them to help you carry your burdens. You aren’t meant to do it independently.

Vs. 3 and 4- One of your challenges as a five, is that you see larger picture items and circumstances. You see how things work together for the larger good. But in doing so, sometimes you become arrogant, and sometimes prideful that you’re right. I encourage you, continue to be a learner. I challenge you to challenge yourself to pause and hear someone else’s perspective and mindset, even if what they’re saying doesn’t line up with what you know. You may not agree with what they have to say, they may not even be right, but by pausing and listening to what they have to say anyway, you will have invested in them as a person. And THAT is better and far more beneficial than you being perceived by them as “right” or having all the exact answers, because you get to build relationship.

Vs. 5- You do still have to carry your own load and responsibility. While you do need other people, and it’s okay to need them, you are also still responsible for your own things. You still have to act on the amazing things you think about and are gifted with. And, I would challenge you that you need to act on more of them, sooner.

You have your own weight to bear, yes. So bear it well. Don’t spend all your time trying to get it to perfect, to enough knowledge. Instead act, try. Try before it’s too late and you miss out.

Sincerely,

A Two Who Loves you

When You’re Weary: A Prayer for Enneagram Two’s

As a follow up to last week’s “Message to Enneagram Two’s,” this week I wanted to share some additional thoughts, specifically my prayer for two’s, as well as anyone else feeling weighed down by the burden of the needs they see and are needing a filling of their own.

“Dear Heavenly Father, 

The Two reading this is tired, weary. They see so many needs, and yet, in so many ways feels so very empty themselves. This two struggles with wearing themself out with the constant evaluation of other’s needs, the constant caring for the desires of others, seeking to show others how loved they are, and the weight and energy that this takes.

Yet, while we don’t wish to admit it, we also know WE are are in need. We need care, we need to feel loved and wanted. We need to be invested in. But being needy is one of our biggest fears, and feels like one of our biggest weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Sharing that need with others, speaking what we actually want or need seems too much to ask, seems often too great a risk, because of the fear it will impact someone else’s need or can be a fear that the vulnerability that it takes from ourselves. 

There’s a fear that someone else won’t be able to step in to care for us when we do express it, that having our need cared for is too much to ask. We fear saying it for worry that, when it’s finally spoken, others won’t move towards us in love, but instead pull away. We fear the pain of that rejection. Father, because of this, it’s hard for us acknowledge, admit, and to speak our needs. 

But Father, you know we are in need. Would you help us to see that you, you know our need even before we ask?

Would you help us, to not only see our own need, but to be able to sit in and identify with it? To acknowledge and admit our needs, first to ourself, then to you, and finally to someone else? Would you help us to see that our neediness does not make us less than, it does not keep us at a distance from others, and it is not too great for you. Instead, would you help us to see that this is the very place for other people to enter into our space and care for us? That it is the very place that YOU meet us in? That admission of this need is the place where the connection and care that we so desperately crave actually begins? Help us see that when we hide our need, we arrogantly lie to both ourselves and others that we do not have them, but that our need is not a sin, not an error, but rather a way in which we are human. 

Greater still, would you help us as twos to see that YOU are the source of provision that never runs dry? Would you remind us, help us to know with confidence that when we ask, and as we keep asking, you will not hold back your care, your presence, your love, and that nothing we could ask for, nor keep asking for, is too much for you?

Would you help us to see and truly know, know that we are loved and wanted by you?

God, sometimes we need to see you with skin on. Would you also provide for us as twos, someone that speaks love to us directly, that meets our need in a physical way, and reminds us of these things tangibly? Would you open our eyes to see just how much we truly are loved and wanted?

In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Before you Ask: A Message to Enneagram 2’s

“You know… before a word is on my lips, you know it altogether.” Ps. 139:4

The way God speaks love to us, sometimes mirrors who he created us uniquely to be.

As enneagram two’s, we want to be known. We long to be wanted, and loved. But also as two’s, we help people because we see the need and want to meet it. We are those who, while not all knowing, have been given the gift and ability to see other’s needs. We see the way the words are said and not said. We see the look that someone’s trying to hide, hear the tilt in someone’s voice and know that there’s so much more behind what was just communicated than what was audibly spoken. And then we ache… oh how deeply we ache for and with someone. And this drives us to act, to care for and love the person before us that we see is in need. 

But, a large struggle for you and I as two’s is that very few others tend to understand the same weight of the needs we see. Some, but not many understand the needs we feel compelled to act in care for the person before us. Greater still, we have our own needs that we deeply long for others to see and yet struggle to acknowledge and request help on. To you and me, one of the greatest ways in which we feel loved is when someone, without us asking, sees our need and acts on it in loving care of us. To be known so deeply that we don’t HAVE to say something. That the other person has taken the time to find out or just knows and gets us. This is where we can often feel seen and loved, because it’s a way we love others. As part of a community, we long for someone to step in, see OUR need, and act on it… without having to ask for it. It’s a way we feel loved and cared for.  

But few see that and act on it towards us in the same way because it’s not their given ability, it’s not their role in the Body of Christ. While we have that gift, that doesn’t mean God has given it to all those around us. BUT, God has that same trait, and we have been given it because it’s reflection of himself in us. So we reflect that from him because it’s part of who HE is… towards US. 

Something that I’ve begun to realize more recently is that, the way I long to be loved by someone with human flesh on, is a way I’m already loved by God. And so are you. In Psalm 139:3b-4, the Psalmist writes, “…You are so familiar with all my ways that before I speak even a word, Adonai, you know all about it already.” Before I speak, before you speak, the Father already knows your tendencies, your thoughts, the words and the way you speak. 

And then, consider Matthew 6:8, “…Your father knows what you need before you ask him.” Did you catch that? Before you ask. 

Dear Two, your Heavenly Father knows YOUR need. Even if no one else does, your need is known, understood, and acknowledged even before you say it, even before you ask. He still invites you to speak, to share your thoughts, and encourages you and I to ask (Matt. 7). He still longs to hear what’s on your heart. But even before you ask, He knows what you will say.

Your need is not too great for him, dear sweet two. He’s already providing for it, whether a physical provision, the strength and grace to endure, a way out of a situation, or simply the needed reminder that you are seen and loved, he is already working to give what is needed. Your thoughts are known. Your needs are known. The Father is actively caring for you, because he knows you, intimately, deeply, and like you resemble from him, he acts in care for you. And this, is what brings me and you comfort. We’re known, our needs are known, before we ask. 

“Before a word is on my tongue, you know it altogether.” Ps. 139:4

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask…” Matt. 6:8b

You. Are. Known.

You. Are. Loved. 

You. Are. Wanted. 

Your need is not too great for him. He longs to meet it…and yet he sits patiently, ready and still willing to hear you. 

What if Birthdays are for Rest?

Birthday weekend is going well so far. 

Over the years, some of the most meaningful things for my birthday have been when God’s given me something, just for me, just between Him and me. But it’s taken years to shift my perspective and arrive at this place. 

Honestly, I think the reality is that all too often I place such a high hope on a birthday. If I’m being vulnerable, it’s the one day I don’t want to HAVE to help other people. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE helping people. It’s who God designed me to be, the way He designed my heart to beat, and I find both satisfaction and joy in that. But the other thing I know He designed my heart to long for, is the feeling of being loved. Unfortunately, I sometimes equate helping people, being needed with also being loved and valued. If you know anything about the Enneagram, you might know this is actually a struggle for those of us who are Type Twos. We tend towards the idea that we have to help others to be valued, loved, needed. 

However, one speaker and author I appreciate, when talking about community, challenges us with the idea, “We are both the needed and needy.” I am needy. I hate that… but it’s true. I want to be the person who doesn’t need anything from anyone, who can just give and not need to receive. But that’s also not who God designed me to be. I am not the Savior. That’s not my role. 

This is also where I see the Gospel gets to transform my heart and perspective. Jesus walked on this earth, and even while in human form He was both needy and needed. He needed rest, he needed community, he needed food, he needed time with the Father. I need rest, community, food, and desperately needed time with the Father. 

So, while I do try to pursue that throughout the rest of the year, my birthday is also often a weekend I try to intentionally pause, rest, seek the Father, to spend intimate time with Him. Yesterday, I got some time to sit in on my balcony, reading, writing, praying. Then I got time with someone I love. Someone who took the time to hear what I had to say, to invest, and care for me in my need. And you know what? I needed it. There are things I can do for myself, but other things I need someone else for.

Today, I get more time reading, writing, journaling and praying, and later more time with still more people I love. It fills my heart, it reminds me I’m not alone and that I was created for community both with the Father and those he’s placed in my life. I need them.

And you want to know a secret? Something I was just journaling about yesterday, just crying out to the Father about, only hours later He answered. While I know this doesn’t always happen that quickly, right now, it’s a reminder he’s with me. He hears me. He’s walking alongside me in this season and ever so very present and involved in the story of my life that he’s knitting carefully together. 

Sweet brother or sister, I pray today that you find comfort in the presence of both your Heavenly Father, and also the joy of fellowship and community with your loved ones.