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Many pastors, helpers, and care givers may resonate with the heart types. They are good at tuning into other people’s emotions while being sensitive to their own emotions. Kristi shares her journey as a “helper” type and how the Enneagram has helped her process shame and find acceptance in God.

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Enneagram — Self- Acceptance (Heart Types)

Bill and Kristi Gaultiere 

Bill

Kristi, thanks for the tea again this morning. 

We’re here on a cold winter morning and it’s nice to warm up with some tea.

Kristi

It is. 

Maybe our listeners wherever they are, will get a cup of tea and sit down and participate with us having a Soul Talk with Jesus.

Bill

That would be awesome. 

We want to give a shout out to our Soul Shepherding associate Craig Davis. 

Craig, we’re so thankful for you and how you teach with us in the Spiritual Direction Training program that Soul Shepherding has, and we are proud of you and your pastoral work at Rose Drive Friends church in Yorba Linda, California.

Kristi, you have a fun story about Craig, who was leading a retreat using Soul Shepherding materials and we didn’t even know about it.

Kristi

Craig and his wife, Debbie.

We love all of you.

In our Soul Shepherding community, it’s so fun to see how God is working in this community. 

So yes, Bill, I had gotten a text from one of our Institute grads. 

She texted me saying that one of the women that she has been ministering to was at a retreat, doing a Sabbath retreat, and had texted her and said, “I never would have done something like this without your example, your teaching and encouragement. I just kept thinking and wishing you were with me sharing it. And then the leaders pulled out some of your Soul Shepherding materials.” 

She got all excited. 

We found out that it was Craig and Debbie actually leading this retreat. 

So it was just fun here, there were two Soul Shepherding ambassadors, in a sense, touching on this woman’s life. 

God was in it all and working.

We’re just so grateful that God is working through us, through you, through other people, and through the resources that he’s given us to give.

Bill

Yeah, so you out there, we want you to be in community with us. 

We want to partner with you and bring Soul Shepherding ministry into your circle of influence. We are all about that. 

It’s fun to see what a small world it is, especially today. 

We’ve got people tuning in literally from around the world, sitting down at our kitchen table with us. 

So today we are going to be talking about the Heart Types. 

So many of you listening to us are heart people —  probably all of you more or less. 

But in particular, we’re going to draw from some of the ancient wisdom of the Enneagram, as we’ve been doing, and look at the Heart Triad — the specially compassionate people, for those of you who know the Enneagram. 

And if you don’t know the Enneagram, that’s fine. You’re not going to be jargoned out of this conversation. 

We are including everybody. 

But the Twos, Threes, and Fours of the nine types are the Heart Types. 

And the Twos are the helpers. 

The Threes are the Achievers or Performers.

The Fours are the Individualists or Romantics.

Compassion and the Enneagram

Kristi

Well, I like you saying that we’re the compassionate types, but I’m not sure that that’s actually true or fair.

Bill

You think I’m being too cheerful, too optimistic.

Kristi

Yeah, I think you might be a little bit optimistic or generous there. 

Hopefully we are.

I think yes, what you’re getting at there is that we are very much aware of other people’s emotions.

We definitely can be sensitive to our own emotions, and we want compassion.

Bill

So why do you think you’re not compassionate? 

Because you’re the most compassionate person I know, and you’re a Heart Type.

So many of the pastors and leaders I connect with are Heart Types and are very compassionate.

Kristi

I don’t want to say that heart types aren’t compassionate. 

I think we are but I don’t want to say we’re the only ones. 

I see compassion in the Nines. Nines are so compassionate, they’re not in the Heart Triad. 

Eights, their compassion is different, it’s very action oriented. 

It’s very much for the underdog. It’s a form of compassion, it just looks different than the compassion of the Heart Type. 

So that’s why I’m saying it’s not really fair or accurate to say we’re the compassionate ones.

Bill

Oh, okay. I was afraid you were letting some shame leak out there.

Shame and the Heart Types

Kristi

Okay. Well, I’m glad you brought shame up, because that is our core root emotion for the Heart Type. We are under this shroud of shame. 

Oftentimes, as Heart Types, we’re trying to deny that, and we’re repressing that, but there’s other times we just can’t escape it. 

The more I’ve thought about this, and learned about this from my own experience, and reading and working with other people, I’ve kind of had a new insight into it, and I really think that the assignment of the enemy against the Heart Types is shame, to just take them out with shame. 

I’ve seen how he does it in my life and I’ve seen the way you fight for me to help me with that. 

I see that just thinking about it that way, and knowing that way has helped me fight him off and not let him do that to me. 

So it’s been really, really, really helpful to become aware that shame is a major area of spiritual battle for me. 

Bill

We had an experience of this. 

Just yesterday, we were visiting a church, which we appreciated very much. 

It was a great community and great message.

But there were some things about the message that felt should-ing and burdensome and condemning in some of the ways that the Scripture was being taught and what was being asked of us.

Whenever we go to a church service and listen to podcasts, we ask each other, “So what did you learn, how are you encouraged?”.

Because it’s important for all of us to really make use of our experiences in church rather than doing the typical thing and judging the pastor or speaker or teacher, thinking what they could have done better or what we liked or what we didn’t like.

That totally has no benefit to our souls and our relationship with God. So it’s a discipline that we do.

Kristi

This minister, like other wonderful godly men, loves the Lord. 

He is sincere, so earnest, and so much of what he gave and offered yesterday was so good.

Bill 

He was probably an Enneagram One like me. 

And this is a mistake that I make at times, where we can be overearnest and try so hard to bring wisdom and truth and ideals of how to be a good person, that it can be overwhelming and people can feel weighed down and like they’re not good enough and inadequate and ashamed. 

That’s been a trigger for you.

Kristi

Oh, so many times I’ve left church just totally under shame, just feeling like I am a failure. 

Why do I even try? I’m just pretending at this. It’s not genuine in me and I’m so far from the mark of God’s Word or what this pastor is calling us to.

Just feeling depressed and sinking down into a hole of depression because I just feel like I could never be enough.

Bill

And the heart types are really prone to this — the tender hearted, the earnest idealists who really want to be virtuous and good and want to please the Lord and so forth. 

We can internalize a message of ideals or principles and put it on ourselves in a way that we’re judging and condemning ourselves and walk out of church with our tail between our legs.

Kristi

Definitely. 

Bill

 But that didn’t happen to you this Sunday. So how come it didn’t? 

Freedom From Shame

Kristi

I was so grateful, just praising the Lord because I’ve grown.  

Because I’ve come to see that shame is not of the Lord. It’s not healthy. 

It’s not true conviction; it is not godly sorrow. It’s not repentance. 

It’s shame, and it takes me out and it cuts me off from God and others and myself. It paralyzes me.

Bill

Yeah, one of the things that we teach is that shame is really not of the Lord. 

It’s different from Godly sorrow, which Paul teaches about in 2 Corinthians 9, I believe it is. 

And he says worldly sorrow leads to death. 

But godly sorrow leads to life. 

And godly sorrow is sadness because we’ve hurt the Lord that we love, we’ve hurt a person that we love ourselves. 

That’s the conviction of the Holy Spirit that leads to life. 

But Satan comes in with condemnation and judgment and shames us. 

Even if we sin, shame is not helpful, because shame leads to hiding and it leads to avoiding God who can cure us with mercy. 

So you were able to see beyond that emotional pitfall and appreciate what the pastor was trying to say, and what was being communicated and many good things that were in the message.

Because the last thing he would have wanted was to have been condemning and judging anybody. 

He didn’t realize that the sort of intensity on his part, super earnestness, and all of the values and ideals he was putting out for us were pretty overwhelming to people, especially to the tender hearted.

Kristi

Yeah, well, I appreciate you bringing up shame because it is something that is sneaky, and just personally speaking, I can be under shame and not realize it. 

So being conscious of that and aware of that, and you’ve helped me over the years saying, “It seems to me like you might be in shame.”

It’s been so helpful for me to wake up to it and to learn and realize that.

And the Enneagram has been helpful to me to wake up to it and learn it and then as I learn it, I can make a different choice. 

I can call out to God and his grace to call me out of it. 

I think, though, that the other thing that Heart Types do is we try to avoid that feeling of shame at all costs. 

And one of the things we do is really try to please people.

We try to please God. We’re very, very, very preoccupied with our image, how we think people are perceiving us. 

And I would even say, in the immaturity of my faith, probably even more than I know, it’s still there, being concerned about what God thinks of me in an unhealthy way. 

I mean, of course, we want to be loving God well.

Bill

So help us see the difference. I forget the reference, but Paul teaches us about seeking to please the Lord. 

And, you know, we can make a case that it’s really important to consider other people and to do our best to please them, and certainly to seek to please God. 

So you’re talking about something else?

The Enneagram Reveals Mixed Motives

Kristi

Well, I’m glad you asked this, because it’s a really important distinction. 

When I’m in unhealth, when I’m in sin, I’m doing all that for the wrong reasons. 

I’m doing all that out of pride and vanity. 

I’m doing all that out of trying to secure myself. 

It’s not out of this true, pure heartedness. 

Oftentimes we’re not conscious of it. We think we’re doing it for the right reason. 

But if we really do some soul searching, we find that there’s a lot of vanity in it, a lot of selfishness in it, and a lot of trying to secure ourselves.

Bill

Now you have done a lot of work in self reflection.

Even years ago, being in your own therapy, and a lot of processing, a lot of work in recent years with the Enneagram to be able to realize this about yourself that your motives aren’t always as pure as you thought. 

That’s a really big deal, especially for the Heart Types. 

Because just thinking about all the Heart Types I know — and they are people with the best of intentions — it’s so hurtful to them when people don’t realize that they’re intending something good. 

So there’s a mixing here of just some of the best motives of love and caring, generosity and helpfulness, with this image control thing you were talking about. 

And this feeling of shame that mixes in there and a certain selfish need to be perceived as good.

Kristi

Yes. 

We’re trying to overcompensate for the shame that we feel sometimes by trying to earn favor with other people and to have them think highly of us and think well of us.

Bill

So the Enneagram has helped you be aware of these conflicting motives within you.

Kristi

Yes.

Bill

Now when they’re conscious, the good and the bad motives, then you can separate out the wheat in the chaff and bring more of the good.

Kristi

Yeah, so let me get a little more concrete and specific with this because I’m struggling with this right now.

Two weeks from today, we are going to be having the Soul Shepherding Institute in our home. We’re going to be having 20 people every day, all day in our home. 

So I have a temptation to be preoccupied with my image. Oh, no, what if they open the cupboard and see that it’s not all organized? 

Oh no, they’re going to see my weakness. 

They’re going to see what I’ve neglected for the last 20 years in our house because I’ve been doing Soul Shepherding and raising kids and I haven’t been maintaining our house to my standards.

I can be really preoccupied with what they’re going to think.

Okay, so that’s not healthy, that’s not good. 

On the other side, I have some really good motives.

I want to be hospitable. 

I want our home to be a conducive place for them to be at rest and be meeting with God.

I want to provide a clean and comfortable and hospitable place for them and their retreat. 

I want to provide a good learning environment and good meals

So there’s these good motives too that I want to glorify God.

All my intentions aren’t just selfishly preoccupied with “What are people going to think of me?”.

Yeah, so it’s mixed in there.It’s mixed in — the wanting to secure myself and pride and and really good intentions of wanting to be hospitable and loving. 

So that’s helping me to sort that out and realize “Okay, let go, Kristi, the vanity piece.”

Let go of worrying about being judged. 

Let go being worried about people seeing your weaknesses. 

Let go that your house is not perfectly decorated like your children want it to be, you know, like part of you wants it to be.

Or like the pressure you feel and culture where these emails are sent to your inbox trying to sell you decorating items for your home. 

Let go of all that. 

The most important thing for you to be doing, when you’re under that temptation, is calling out to God for his grace and realizing Jesus is enough and praying that Jesus will prepare your heart and their heart in your home. 

And preparing spiritually, the spiritual hospitality piece is so much more important. 

So it’s an opportunity for me to kind of look at it through the eyes of the Lord, and try to let go. 

Now I don’t do this perfectly. You know, I went online last night and I ordered a tablecloth because I realized I don’t have a tablecloth that fit.

So I’m still thinking about this.

Bill

It’s not all or nothing to focus on your hospitality and the substance of the relationships and the experience.You’re doing that and so you’re reorienting around that. 

But you can do some things to sort of improve the decor and the ambience. And that’s great.

Kristi

Yeah, it’s a balance. 

But the main thing is, if I get caught up in my Heart Type and I let it run the whole thing, I’ll make the mistake of being in shame over the state of my house not being what I want it to be. 

And I’ll make the mistake of worrying too much about trying to impress people, and those are not of the Lord. 

Those are not good things. That’s not loving God, self, or others.

Bill

If you did that, if you went crazy with perfecting the house and giving into that insecurity and those feelings of inadequacy, then you would be diminishing the wonderful strengths that you’re bringing as a Heart Type in the way of hospitality.

Not only the physical hospitality of opening our home, and all that that entails and feeding people with our good friend and other Heart Type who’s going to be helping us. 

But also the spiritual hospitality, because you’re co-leading the retreat, the teaching and the prayer times, and the meditation times and leading spiritual direction — leading groups, all of this. 

So you’re really in your sweet spot there, your gifting. 

And many of you who are listening are Heart Types, not just the Enneagram Twos, Threes, and Fours.

Many of the other numbers — I’m thinking of some Sixes I know who are real heart types and compassionate. 

So that gift is that concern for other people, that care, that sensitivity and attunement to them and really wanting to bless them.

Kristi

Yes, it is. 

But that gift can get covered up if we get caught up too much in managing our own image and worrying about what other people think.

Heart Types Need for Empathy

Bill

So as I’ve been listening to you share some of the stresses and opportunities of leading the Institute in our home, which we haven’t done before, it’s been tempting for me to reassure you, and point out all the wonderful things about our home. 

Of course, there is a fine line between reassurance and affirmation and validation, because I have done some of that. 

But what I felt was most important for you is to hear you share and to empathize with you to validate the emotions.

To help you put words to the stress that you’re feeling, the pressure that you’re feeling, and how this tweaks your sense of self image and how people feel about you.

Kristi

Yeah, I’m really glad you’re saying that, because something that the Heart Types really want and we really thrive with is a lot of affirmation. 

We just want positive attention. 

We want affirmation and we play to it. 

We try to get it, and it’s not really what we need. 

What we really need is what you’re offering me, and that’s empathy and true Godly love and grace.

Bill

Yeah, well, let’s ferret this out, because I think that you don’t need reassurance. 

Reassurance would be if I would say to you, “Oh, you know, don’t worry about people coming into the house and looking in the cupboards. Probably nobody will do that. Or even if they did, you know, you’re bringing such gifts with spiritual hospitality. That’s the main thing.”

Now, that’s all nice things to say. 

But the problem is, the implication of me saying that is, don’t feel insecure, don’t feel ashamed, don’t feel pressure. 

So I’m invalidating your emotions. That would be reassurance or cheerleading, and you wouldn’t feel loved. 

I used to do a lot of that, and I’ve learned not to.

Kristi

Well, we feel some love because it’s kind of like you’re giving us candy. And we want the candy. 

It tastes really good, but just doesn’t really do anything for us other than feel good. 

Whereas empathy is actually ministering to our soul. 

It’s giving us something that we need that can help us to grow and make use of it.

Enneagram Heart Types Overcoming Shame

I want to talk a little bit about the Twos, Threes and Fours because you know, Twos aren’t the only Heart Types.

 I’m a Two, but Threes and Fours all have a little different flavor on this Heart Type thing. 

So with the Two, one of the things we do with trying to cover our shame is we try to earn people’s love by helping, or by flattering, or by giving.

The Threes try to overcome their shame by performing, by achieving, by doing great things, by being highly accomplished. 

The Fours try to overcome their shame by being special. 

So we have different flavors and different ways that we’re really trying to react to and overcome this sense of shame. 

Like we’re bad, like we’re not good enough, and we need to be better, we need to earn something. 

And we put that on God, and we put that on other people.

It’s very hard for us to believe that we’re not in and of ourselves as God made us. 

So Henri Nouwen was a Two. 

He writes a lot about this. 

He’s a Heart Type, you see that in his writing, and a lot of a lot of Heart Types just really appreciate his writings because we can relate so much to that. 

You know, one of the Three things he talks a lot about is “I’m not what other people think of me.”

“I’m not what I do.” Specifically the Three struggles with that, but even the Two and the Four have different flavors of that. 

But we’re trying to overcome this shame, talking about, “I am beloved, God loves me as I am, I don’t have to do anything.”

I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me, I don’t have to be special. 

You know, I am beloved, just because God is so loving.

Bill

Yeah, and the Heart Types are giving us a window into all the personality types, because we all can struggle with feelings of guilt and shame. 

We all can struggle with image management or feeling like I am what I do. 

It’s just that the Helpers and Performers and the Artisans especially struggle with this.

I’d like to hear you make a comment about what it’s like being a tender hearted person who is sensitive, who really feels the pain of other people. 

You know, through the teaching of Dallas Willard, and being mentored by him, we really came to a different understanding of Jesus’ famous Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” which is in Matthew 5. 

We think, “Oh, it’s so it’s good to be merciful.”  Of course it is. 

But what we’ve learned is it was really not Jesus’ point here. 

He’s not saying be merciful. He’s saying, “You who are merciful, and suffering under that, you have a blessing in the Kingdom of God.”

Kristi

Yeah, well, our blessing is that God is in control.

God is loving.

God’s enough when we’re not, and we don’t have to carry all the pain and fix all the pain and help everybody.

Bill

Let’s pause there for a moment. 

That’s a huge thing. Because you’re tending to carry the pain and the burdens of everybody. 

And many of you listening are Heart people.

You are pastors or counselors, small group leaders, or parents. 

You’re people who have compassion, and you’re sensitive to and absorbing the pain of other people, and it’s weighing you down.

Kristi

Yeah, it weighs me down, it distracts me. 

If I carry it, it will keep me from being able to be present to other people, because I’m so preoccupied with carrying somebody else’s pain that I’m close to, or just listened to, or just been with. 

So there’s that tendency for us. 

And yet, the answer is right there in the beatitude. “Blessed are you because the Kingdom of God is available to you.” That’s the answer. 

When I give all that over to the King who can carry it, he will carry it and it’s not for me to carry.

Bill

Yeah, and this is what we teach in Your Best Life in Jesus’ Easy Yoke and also in our Institute.

The blessing of the Beatitudes is not in the conditions, like being poor in spirit or mourning or merciful etc, but it’s in the Kingdom. 

Yes, it’s in the Father’s world. 

It’s in intimacy with Jesus, and learning from him.

Kristi

And we get that opportunity every day, to make that choice to wake up to this beautiful gift that our happiness, our blessedness, our security is in the Kingdom with Jesus under his loving rule, moving with his presence and power.

Bill

Yeah, and you keep using that term to wake up.

I love that because that’s really spot on with this series. 

That’s the great gift that the Enneagram brings, or really any personality test.

But the Enneagram goes deeper into our emotions, our soul, our relationships, our spirituality, our psychology.

The Enneagram is a lot deeper than the other tests. 

But they help us to wake up in our awareness and understanding of ourselves, which therefore can then enable us to be more loving to God and other people. 

Prayer

So Lord, we rejoice in your goodness to us.

We are so blessed that the Kingdom of the Heavens is open to us. 

And Lord, we just pray for our listeners who are the tender hearted helpers and caregivers who are sensitive, who are people of compassion, and they’re reaching out to care for others and absorbing the pain and the concerns and the stresses of others. 

And we just pray, Lord, that they would hear your words, Jesus, “Blessed are you who are merciful in your sensitivity and your tenderness and the burdens that you carry.” 

The Lord is present for you. 

The kingdom of God is open to you. 

And we thank you God for the great honor for all of us of serving you and sharing your love and grace and empathy with the people around us. 

Bless each of our listeners. 

We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.