Season 1, Episode 32: Vanessa Sadler of Abide Enneagram Coaching on the enneagram under COVID

Vanessa Sadler is a wife, mother, trauma-informed enneagram coach, excellent hugger.

We check in with Vanessa and how things are for her and her family of 5 in Nashville, TN under COVID-19. They are hunkered down, social distancing.  Her kids are home for the duration of the school year. Her family had homeschooled a few years ago so the shift back to school at home wasn’t too difficult. Being an enneagram coach has allowed her to have a lot of flexibility in her schedule and she has shifted to accommodate the school at home schedule.

Overall she said COVID has been a mix of joy and sorrow.  Vanessa believes Grief and Joy are two ends of the same spectrum — to the degree that you’re willing to allow grief in that is the extend to which you will be able to experience joy. There’s been a lot of tears in her house, mostly from her, as she has come to accept the loss of her autonomy.

Vanessa says that so many of us are reverting to coping mechanisms from our childhood and adolescence in highly stressful or activated situations. For her that looks like binge watching Gilmore Girls. She realized the last time she had binged watched Gilmore Girls was when she was postpartum with their first born child. It is a kind of self-soothing that brings comfort in the midst of things feeling like chaos.

Maggie said she loves that idea of grieve and joy because it feels true for her in this current time. She said it’s like there are really awesome days or really bad days and nothing in between. It’s very extreme and high emotions are her home right now.

Vanessa says they have a lot of outside space behind their house for their kids that can fill either their boredom or their curiosity/imaginative play.

Danielle has it’s harder to watch her kids go through boredom more so than it is to experience her own boredom. She says it it affects her, it feels personal. It’s like an personal attack!

Vanessa agrees, “You’re invading my space.” She says there’s a connection with boredom and food: “When you think you’re hungry but you’re really bored and you’re just eating all the food.”

Maggie can relate. Her husband as been baking, especially baking chocolate chip cookies. When he came home from work, he asked her if she had had a cookie. To which she replied, I’ve had six!

Danielle acknowledges the spectrum of our experiences and yet there’s some specificity that is similar.

Danielle has four kids at home, each 2 years apart. Sometimes their birthdays mess up her ability to name their ages.

Vanessa asks, “How many days?!” have we been in this COVID [implying it affects all our ability to keep things straight.]

Maggie tells how she and Vanessa became connected through the Certificate Program in Narrative Focused Trauma Care at the Allender Center in Seattle and she asked how being trauma-informed helps her practice as an enneagram coach.

Vanessa helps her clients unpack the ways they have emerged from childhood with their dominant enneagram number and then spending time looking at how that lens and wiring plays out in how they relate to others. She always, and especially now under COVID, spends the first part of her sessions checking in with her clients and seeing what they are bringing in with them.   And over the past few months, she’s noticed those check in times have gotten longer. She likes to leave space to diverge from her “planned” session, giving God and the Holy Spirit space to move, and right now that looks like tending to peoples current experiences, unpacking layers of survival mode.

Danielle loves that Vanessa already had a rhythm of providing space for her clients that she can be flexible with that now is being used to engage the current collective trauma. It’s so helpful and healing for people to have space for grief or silence. It reminds Danielle why we even had a this check-in at the beginning of this podcast.

As a culture, Vanessa says, we tend to split from thing to thing, checking off boxes. When we actually find time to sit still, all we can think about is decompressing or numbing out. We need rhythms to be able to check in with one another. She and her husband have a way they check in with how they are feeling, affirming one another, being attentive to needs, and even owning things that need to be named. Sometimes that is Vanessa owning that the laundry isn’t done.

Maggie says “There’s grace for that too!”

“Yes exactly,” Vanessa replies.

Maggie asks Vanessa to give a brief overview of the Enneagram, what it is and how it is used.

Vanessa describes the enneagram as “an intricately layered, multifaceted map of our internal world.” Where most personality tests and assessments do a good job of pinpointing people’s behavior, tendencies and quirks, the Enneagram is going to drop a few layers deeper and tells the why: what’s motivating the behavior, what’s pushing certain responses and actions and the styles of relating that comes out of it. There are nine basic personality types but they are all interconnected. People will see parts of themselves in all the personality types but there will be one dominate or primary personality that is the lens through which they see the world.

Though the enneagram has become popular recently it’s actually an ancient wisdom tool from the 4th century. 

“It is an extremely beneficial tool to understanding our self defeating patterns. Especially right now in a pandemic knowing and understanding the each enneagram type is seeing the world through a different lens and that each type is exhibiting certain behaviors in stress is extremely helping in extending compassion and kindness to one another…"

Each type has a core fear and a core desire that is driving the behavior and Vanessa briefly describes each enneagram number and the way she sees them playing out under COVID and gives practical tips for how to engage yourself in this season.

You can connect with Vanessa at https://www.abideenneagramcoaching.com/

facebook and Instagram Abide Enneagram Coaching.

Vanessa is reading: Gender Roles and the People of God by Alice Matthews

Vanessa is listening to: David Arms Art Gallery Soundtrack

Vanessa is inspired by: Her kids - they pull her outdoors by being enthralled with creation

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.