Lady Mary Is an 8 – Downton Abbey and the Enneagram

I have been hoping for a couple years that my beloved, Courtney Perry, would guest post here at Theoblogy. Her photos have appeared many times, but not her words. Well, I’m thrilled to introduce her first post:

A verbatim conversation had while Tony and I caught up on the Downton Abbey he missed (and I put on hold) while he was in Malaysia:

TJ:  “She’s such an 8.  I like her.”

CP: “No way, babe.  She’s totally an unhealthy 2 who is stressed a lot.”

Immediately my Love begged me to write a guest post on the Enneagram numbers of Downton characters.  I’ll do what I can.  I’m no Suzanne Stabile, but when it comes to the exaggerated, soapish characters of D.A., it’s not too hard to pinpoint a few personality types.  If I’m wrong, please chime in.  (If you think the Enneagram is a load of bunk, 1) I’m sorry for you, and 2) we get it and don’t need to hear it.)  This post is called simply having fun.

Isobel Crawley: Matthew’s mother, Isobel is the “I can help! I can help!” version of an unredeemed 2 that inspired the aforementioned conversation.  Tony thought her forcefulness indicated her 8-ness, and it did, but not as her core.  Twos go to 8 in stress, be it good or bad stress, and the Crawleys are usually in some state of imminent peril.
Twos need to be needed.

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Barack Obama Is an Enneagram Nine – What That Means

Barack Obama is an Enneagram Nine with a strong Eight wing.

I’ve been wondering what the Enneagram numbers are of our two candidates and what they means about our choices in the election. Although you’re not supposed to pin a number on another person, when someone is as much in the public eye as a presidential nominee, it’s pretty clear to Enneagram experts what number they are. So I asked around in the Enneagram community and found out that they’re a consensus on Mitt Romney’s and Barack Obama’s numbers. On Monday, I posted about Mitt Romney, an Enneagram Three.

Barack Obama is an Enneagram Nine, with a strong Eight wing. Other famous political Nines include Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Dwight Eisenhower.

I asked Suzanne Stabile*, my personal Enneagram guru, to write up something about Nines, and here’s what she sent in:

Enneagram Nines are called “mediators.” They are men and women who intuitively try to maintain a sense of peace and balance. They avoid conflict and believe that having a single or personal agenda threatens harmony, often unnecessarily. They frequently merge with the other in order to maintain peace. They are self-effacing, tolerant, even-tempered and likeable. And their gift is their problem in that they see two sides to everything.

Nines are the primal person. They connect with everything and yet they stay disconnected from everything at the same time. These are people who are not stuck in their own way of thinking so they have the capacity for holding varied opinions and for finding value in most points of view.

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Mitt Romney Is an Enneagram Three – What That Means

I’ve been wondering what the Enneagram numbers are of our two candidates and what they means about our choices in the election. Although you’re not supposed to pin a number on another person, when someone is as much in the public eye as a presidential nominee, it’s pretty clear to Enneagram experts what number they are. So I asked around in the Enneagram community and found out that they’re a consensus on Mitt Romney’s and Barack Obama’s numbers.

Mitt Romney is a Three. Other famous Threes in politics are George Washington, Bill Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice.

So I asked Suzanne Stabile*, my personal Enneagram guru, to write up something about Threes, and here’s what she sent in:

Thanks to Tony for the invite to share some Enneagram wisdom about Threes.  It is always a gift for me to talk about this great spiritual tool and all that it has to teach us about ourselves while challenging us to see others as they are rather than as we are.  Threes are ambitious, self-confident, success oriented, image conscious and focused.  The United States is the symbolic country of the Three so we all have a bit of Three in us and in some parts of the country; in Dallas, if one is a Three it’s like being an alcoholic who lives above the bar.  Dallas is consumed with image, media, status and success.

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