The Enneagram 9 is placed in the crown of the Enneagram and thus it serves as the conduit of the Enneagram. It represents all the teachings of all the Enneagram types, and at the same time, it represents none of them. The Enneagram 9 is born without a normal life mission and thus the mission of the Nine is to embody the mission of all the types. The Enneagram Nine is the sum total of all other Enneagram types.
The Enneagram 9 Mission
This is why the Enneagram 9 is said to struggle with indolence or a general apathy. It has no inner drive, no inner motivation, its motivation is purely derived from its connection and relationship to the outer world. The Ennagram 9 is therefore described as a mediator, as it represents a compromise between all personality types.
It cannot reflect the pure version of any of the other Enneagram types, and cannot fully comprehend the true nature of any of the other types, but it can understand parts of everything. It is nowhere, and it is everywhere. The Enneagram 9 type has no inner voice telling it what to do. It can only hear the voice of other people. This makes the Type Nine the most impressionable of all types. It lacks the critical thinking and base defences or suspicion of other personality types, and it lacks inner judgement. This has made me describe the Type Nine as The Innocent child. The Nine never loses the innocence of our younger years, never stops being curious about the outer world. It believes and trusts in all that it sees and reflects and mirrors the energies that it receives back into the world. Don’t believe me?
When the Enneagram 9 dips into and experiences the raw melancholy of the Type Four, it reflects back and feels the same sadness the Type Four does, and expresses this back to the Four and the world. When the Type Nine is in the space of ambitious, goal-oriented people, the type nine balances this energy by mirroring it, but only to the degree to support the general views of the Eight, and never in a way that compromises the well-being of other types.
The Enneagram 9 Fixation: Nothingness and Non-being
The Enneagram types describe nine core fixations and how we can become attached to our life purpose. We may see our own values and lifestyle as superior to all other. We may think that the choices we make are superior to the choices that other people make. We may believe that the world would be a better place if everyone chose to act and live the way that we do. The type nine can form no such attachments, because there is no stable self to form an attachment to, so the only thing the type nine can hold on to is non-being.
This means retreating to a comfortable, peaceful lifestyle, a life without goals or ambitions, a life without any dangerous energies or emotions that can upset the general balance of the type. The type nine becomes attached to nothingness, non-being, and cuts itself off from the source and the world. The more the type Nine moves in this direction, the more it moves towards disintegration. The nine becomes small, weak, and meek. It makes no effort to assert itself in the world. It neither moves or is moved. It is the essence of Sloth. Small, and starved of energy. The more you cut off from the world, the less you become. You are because others are. Without others, you lose yourself.
The Enneagram 9 Path To Integration: Everythingness and Multi-Being
When the type nine moves towards integration, it opens itself to the world and accepts the energy of the universe. It listens to the lessons of all types, and surrenders itself to the chaos of conflicting energies and paradoxical forces. It becomes one with everything and so, it takes on the mission of true love. It becomes a force of awe – awe over joy and enthusiasm, awe over goals and power, awe over melancholy and sadness, awe over rain, and over sunshine. The type nine when healthy is a conduit of the world and a reflection of the world around it. The type nine when unhealthy is cut of from or blocking out the world around it. It is the ostrich with the head stuck in the sand, the innocent, but with its hands over its eyes and ears. It sees nothing, hears nothing, besides what reaffirms non-action and apathy.
The Enneagram 9 is all types, and it is no type, its mission is the mission of all types, and to be the balancing agent, or conduit of all other types. Your goal is to connect with everyone and everything and to develops the boldness and awe to face the world in its fullness and totality, both the good, and the bad. You are a shapeshifter and mirror of the world. This is a difficult mission, and nobody taught you anything about this in school. Your parents had no clue. You have to figure out the answers to yourself on your own.
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