Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Still You, the podcast where we take the patterns we developed to survive, understand where they came from, and figure out how to stop letting those patterns run our lives. You are the one in charge, not them. Today we are talking about the Enneagram Type 8, also known as the Challenger. Sounds super fun, right? Yeah. They are also the protectors, the powerhouses, and the ones who walk into a room with a magnanimous energy. Fortunately for you, you can spot them a mile away. And if you are an eight, you ah probably heard things like,
Speaker: You're intimidating, you're intense, you're so independent. You always seem like you have everything handled. And maybe you're like, yeah, and But underneath all that confidence, intensity, independence, and strength is a much more vulnerable story because type eights aren't simply born wanting to control everything. There is an innocent little baby child underneath everything who learned, if I don't protect myself, nobody else will. And if you want to go even deeper, maybe you learned that being vulnerable gives other people the opportunity to hurt you.
Speaker: So the eight learns to become strong very fast. They felt that they had to grow up and be an adult way too young and all of that for varying reasons, which we will get into. But they learned to read people, stand up for themselves, not to depend too much on others. Anger is safer than fear. That is a huge one. But also that control is safer than being helpless and strength is safer than vulnerability.
Speaker: Yes. That is a lot to absorb, but here's the problem. The defense that protected the eight child can become the exact thing that prevents the eight adult from experiencing the intimacy, softness, trust, and connection they actually want. like we all want, but this is a specific hurdle for the eights having life. And that's what we're unpacking today. yeah We are going to talk about the childhood wound of the type eight, why eights become so fiercely independent, how anger becomes a protective emotion, how the childhood wound affects relationships, and most importantly, how the type eight can heal without giving up their strength. Because healing isn't about becoming weaker.
Speaker: It's about discovering that you don't have to be hard all the time to be safe. But before we dive in, You know the drill. Please rate and review and mostly share this with someone who reminds you of all of that. So let's go back to the beginning where it all started for my closeted emotional little teddy bears.
Speaker: Firstly, as many of you might already know, this is my Enneagram type. So if this feels more in depth than the other episodes, I'm sorry, i'm I'm not trying to be biased. But as you can surmise, I naturally know the most about the type eight and can offer more information and real life examples. So if there's an episode to share, this is the one to do it with for the type eight in your life. But moving on.
Speaker: Many eights describe the feeling as though they had to grow up and become adults much earlier than other children, a comment that I got all the time growing up and took as a compliment, actually. But some may have taken on ah responsibilities such as helping provide financially for their family or caring for younger siblings because of an absent parent, a financial hardship, or some other difficult family circumstance. Others may have grown up in environments where they had to stay alert and quite literally protect themselves from unpredictable, volatile, or even ah ah violent, I guess that's the same word, adult in the home. But again, not every eight comes from an obviously difficult or traumatic family system. Some grow up in relatively stable homes and still develop a strong need to protect themselves.
Speaker: For these eights, the sense that they had to become ah strong and self-reliant may have developed for different reasons, often rooted in how they experienced vulnerability, trust, or authority, or their place within the family's system.
Speaker: My childhood, i will be brief on this, my childhood is an excellent example of this. I did not experience any sort of trauma or abuse, but like any family dynamic, there is going to be dysfunction, even though I would not trade my childhood in for anything in the world. Regardless, I still was the youngest and only girl of three older brothers.
Speaker: My father was an average to unhealthy don't quite sure know where type 8, as you can imagine, and I was put through wringer and often felt alone and had to fight for myself to protect myself. and I would literally go days without a voice because of how much I'd be screaming at them.
Speaker: I also did not have a good relationship with my dad, ah but was extremely close to my mother. But she could only do so much in a large family of type A boys. And still, she was my safety net, but couldn't protect me all of the time. So I had to learn to do it myself.
Speaker: Regardless of what the type eight family environment looked like, young eights often come to believe that being gentle, soft, or overly giving is not safe. To them, these qualities can feel like weakness, especially with really mature boys who take any opportunity to... You know what i mean?
Speaker: This isn't about me. But the traits that leave them exposed and vulnerable to rejection, betrayal, or hurt, and they learn that keeping their guard up is the safest option. And if warmth, nurturing, or tenderness is going to exist in their lives, they feel that someone else will have to provide it.
Speaker: Hence, my angel of a mother. Okay. But many eights ah remember experiencing intense feelings of rejection or betrayal as children. They were often bold, assertive, adventurous, and willing to push boundaries, which could put them in situations where punishment became a frequent part of their experience. Rather than ah retreating from the people who punished them, young eights often fought against the feeling of rejection by developing an attitude of defiance, like, forget them, i don't need them, nobody's going to tell me what to do.
Speaker: Oh boy. But of course, like every other type, eights deeply want to be loved. But the more they experienced rejection, criticism, or being treated as though they were a problem, the more they began to harden themselves emotionally.
Speaker: Young eights can easily become the family scapegoat or problem child. In family systems theory, scapegoats often ah bring hidden family issues into the open, either through what they say or through their behavior, which I am so guilty of doing. No regrets. But as adults, eights may continue this pattern by becoming mavericks. right, challenging authority, resisting restrictions, and pushing it back against systems they believe are trying to control them.
Speaker: I do not do good in office settings. This is the reason why. But sometimes to the ah the decision to harden themselves happens after a child experiences a profound betrayal from a parent or another trusted adult. They may have been sent away to like boarding school or left in the care of other relatives or had money or possessions taken from them unfairly. And some may have experienced actual physical or sexual abuse.
Speaker: But because of the enormous imbalance of power between a child and the person who has harmed or betrayed them, they often have little ability to defend themselves or change what is happening. The only power they believe they have is to make the decision, this will never happen to me again.
Speaker: For eights, betrayal can become a defining moment because it represents the loss of innocence and the realization that the people they trusted cannot always be trusted. And when someone important violates their inner world, eights may decide that vulnerability and innocence are simply too dangerous. They learn never to completely lower their defenses, never to let their guard down, and to never give someone else enough power to hurt them again. oh brother. But for a while, an eight may quietly mourn the loss of that softer, more innocent part of themselves.
Speaker: Eventually though, they ah can come to accept their heart and exterior as necessary for surviving the world. And when their early environment was ah consistently threatening or unsafe,
Speaker: Eights can become just as relentless toward themselves as they are toward everyone else, if that makes sense. Once the heart has been buried deeply enough, the the grief surrounding what was lost can eventually disappear that armor or beneath that armor. Right. Really sad story there. And all of this sounds so dramatic as though I just got back from war, right? But the core of the experience is true for every eight, that I have to protect myself. And sometimes there is adversity, obvious adversity. But again, this doesn't have to mean that an eight experienced obvious trauma. How many times do have fucking to say that? Anyway, sometimes the wound develops through ah repeated experiences of feeling that and being soft wasn't effective. Maybe crying didn't get them comfort from mom or dad, or when asking for help was not met with or when asking for help was met with just get it done or someone repeatedly crossed their boundaries.
Speaker: And instead of waiting for our protection or being victimized, they became the protector. So let's put it a little bit more simply and less dramatic. Imagine an eight child who gets hurt, like falling off their bike and they're bleeding and crying. But mom or dad says to them, stop crying. You're okay. Something I have heard in varying forms thousands of times growing up. And a a lot of the time saying that to your child, it's really okay and appropriate. Or maybe they ask for help and nobody comes or again is met with, figure it out yourself. So...
Speaker: They learn, I better figure it out myself. I can only rely on myself. So over time, the child begins building an identity around strength, right? I can handle it. I don't need anyone. I'll take care of it. Nobody gets to tell me what to do.
Speaker: And eventually it becomes nobody gets to hurt me, right? I want to circle back um to an earlier comment I made. One of the deepest themes for a type eight is an early loss of innocence. The child begins to recognize that the world can be unfair.
Speaker: People can lie, manipulate, and take advantage of weakness. And once that realization happens, the eight becomes determined never to be powerless again.
Speaker: This is why eights can have such a strong reaction to injustice. It's not as simple as like just a dislike of unfairness. They can feel it in their bodies, which is so beyond true. If I start to think about someone hurting an innocent child or animal,
Speaker: or someone being a bully, my blood, let me tell you, instantly starts to boil and I immediately get like a huge, it's happening literally right at the second, I get this huge surge of pent up energy that I just want to explode onto that person. I'm just instantly ready to stand up ah against them and hand out justice myself.
Speaker: Sound a little bit like Dexter? yeah I actually really love that show. But Aids don't just protect themselves, they often protect the people they love with incredible intensity, if you haven't gathered that already. um Like you can't even begin to comprehend. And when I say i would die for the very few people i would die for, 1000% mean it.
Speaker: all right. I could keep going on with that for a while, but hopefully you can kind of feel where I'm coming from, right? But I also want to ah touch on anger because we're already there, right? It's a huge theme for eights, nines, and ones. But unlike nines and type ones, eights actually express their anger. um But anger isn't necessarily the eights problem. like Like you still have to take responsibility for it, but let me explain. um Anger is one of the eight's greatest gift. Healthy, healthy anger can tell you something is wrong. A boundary has been crossed or this thing, situation matters or something needs to change.
Speaker: But when anger becomes the only emotion that feels safe, it becomes it can become an armor and and very toxic for themselves and their relationships, which anyone could have guessed that, right? but Instead of saying, instead of the eight saying, that hurt me they might say, who do I need to confront about this?
Speaker: Instead of them saying, I'm scared, it becomes, I've got this. Instead of saying, I need you, it becomes, I'll do it myself. And underneath the anger is sometimes an emotion that the eight has much more difficulty assessing.
Speaker: Fear, which is fear, right? All right, so let's take a second and pause here. A little bit of a mental homework to do right now. If you are an eight, I want you to ask yourself, what did I learn about vulnerability growing up?
Speaker: Were you allowed to cry? Were you allowed to be scared? Could you ask for help? Why not? What happened if you did? Could you admit that you didn't know what to do? Did someone protect you? And perhaps the hardest question you can ask yourself, what would happen if I stopped being strong for a moment?
Speaker: Sit with that. Don't fix it. Just notice what comes up. Do you feel that rise of anger? That's okay. Let it pass, kind of like a wave. Just let it pass and see what emotion comes up after that, okay?
Speaker: Okay, so what happens when that eight becomes an adult? That eight child becomes an adult. Let's talk about what things look like for you now. oh boy bug in the survival strategy gets more sophisticated the child who learned i have to protect myself becomes the adult who says i don't need anyone the child who learned i can't trust people with my vulnerability becomes the adult who says people better prove themselves before i let them in and the child who learned
Speaker: I need to stay in control becomes the adult who has a very specific opinion about how everything should be done, which who does that kind of sound like? Yeah, our type ones. But we have as we have learned, the motivations are severely different, okay?
Speaker: How about relationships? All right. This is where the eight wound becomes especially interesting. And depending on the level of health, particularly difficult to be in relationship with. Yes, I'll call us out on our own shit.
Speaker: Our Enneagram type is literally labeled as the challenger for heaven's sake. But But like any other human on earth, eights crave a deep, meaningful relationship. And they want loyalty and honesty, intensity, authenticity, and superficial things are just off the table and quite frankly unacceptable. They want to know, can I trust you? Will you stand with me? Will you tell me the truth? Will you stay when things get difficult? Will you call me out on my shit?
Speaker: But intimacy requires vulnerability and vulnerability is exactly where the eight's defenses become activated. So some eights unconsciously test people, which sounds incredibly toxic and definitely can be, but it is truly unconscious. They'll they'll push, they'll challenge, question their partners and confront them on things that they are unsure of or create situations that reveal whether the other person will stand their ground.
Speaker: Woohoo. So fun, right? The underlying question is often, are you strong enough to handle me? Because if you crumble the moment they show intensity, the eight may conclude, I can't trust you, but Here's a paradox in all of that. Sometimes the eight is testing people so intensely that they don't realize they're creating the very distance that they're afraid of. That's the toxicity and the prime example of how protecting yourself from what you fear
Speaker: puts you exactly in those situations that you fear. We really can become our own worst enemy, right? So what is the big tragedy of our eights, you ask?
Speaker: It is that they become so good at protecting themselves that sometimes... ah They protect themselves from the very intimacy they crave, right? I just said that. They want people to know them, but they don't always let people see them. They want support, but they don't always ask for it. They want tenderness, but tenderness can feel suspicious. They want ah someone strong enough to stand beside them, but they never admit that they need someone there.
Speaker: This is the beginnings of what vulnerability looks like for our eights, which is a huge journey for any type, but for an eight, even more significant. Okay, I do not care if you like reading self-help books or not.
Speaker: I need you to go to Amazon right fucking now and order Brene Brown's book, Daring Greatly. It is one of the few books where I can confidently say that it changed my life after reading it. I am not joking. She focuses her research on shame and vulnerability and writes about it in an academic way that isn't all floof and flowery. So I respected it and absorbed it so much easier because it's coming from that intellectual standpoint. It literally taught me that in those moments where I want support or tenderness, I could pause
Speaker: and gather the courage to ask for it, to go in for the snuggle or kiss when I want or even need it. It showed me how much unnecessary armor I was carrying each day. And it was exhausting. Like, why am I doing this to myself? And most importantly, to the people I love who definitely don't deserve it either. So, okay.
Speaker: That leads us perfectly into our next segment, healing that childhood wound and what that looks like, because I'm not here just to point fingers and push you on your way. I love giving some actionable steps because after things like this, people tend to feel ah like, well, what now? and Feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Speaker: God, good thing you have me and this podcast, I swear. But for the type eight, healing for you does not mean becoming passive. It doesn't mean becoming agreeable or losing yourself. And it definitely doesn't mean letting people walk all over you. Okay? No one's asking you to become some human doorman. All right? The goal isn't less strength. The goal is more flexibility.
Speaker: Okay? yeah Firstly, learn to identify the feeling under the anger, which I lightly touched on already. But when you're angry, literally pause. Not joking. Do that count to 10 shit. Ask yourself, what else am I feeling?
Speaker: Let that anger pass like a wave. Sit on it. What are you feeling? Maybe you're scared, you're hurt, disappointed, rejected, rejected embarrassed, or just overwhelmed, maybe a bit lonely. You don't have to stop being angry. Just get curious about what's underneath all of that. Sometimes anger is the guard standing outside the door. Healing is being curious about what's inside the room. Okay. And the beauty of these moments is that it can be just you and yourself, right? Vulnerability is hard enough, but it always starts with you.
Speaker: You don't have to do this in front of an audience. This is where it starts before you act out in anger, pause. Okay. That's all I'm asking. Second,
Speaker: Start asking for help. Again, start small with this. Everyone with these growth tidbits and tricks, you just start small, okay? is that capisce?
Speaker: um But again, start small with this and all of ah all of these, right? You don't need to call your best friend and announce that you're going to be emotionally dependent on them or everyone. Just ask for something. For example,
Speaker: My boyfriend, I love him, calls me every single day. He checks in with me and sees how things going and whatnot. And then he asks me if he can pick up anything from the grocery store.
Speaker: What a sweetie pie. It took me a while to get used to how reliable he was for one, but then to take him up on his offer and then now starting to ask him to stop on the way home before he even asks.
Speaker: Growth. Each time though, I still feel like a tinge of guilt because I feel like it's a massive inconvenience for him and that I can figure something else out, right?
Speaker: Other times it's ah much more important. Like when we are in a disagreement, I have ah the courage and vulnerability to say what I'm fearing in that moment or that i'm so that I simply don't know what to do from here. And that motherfucking man shows up every fucking time. And the relief I have when I go to lean on him and he is in-movable, quite literally my rock.
Speaker: This isn't about us though. But all that to say is that it took me time, small moments every single day, little by little, opening myself up, knowing I can't control the result or the person on the other end. And side note, all of this growth I'm talking about for me happened before Mark. Okay? He was my reward.
Speaker: But as you lean into this practice of asking for help or ah to lean on someone a bit, you will find out that being supported doesn't make you powerless. Okay?
Speaker: Thirdly, this goes um in conjunction with asking for help, but this one can be surprisingly difficult. Practice receiving. When someone offers help, don't be all, no, I'm good. Just say, thank you.
Speaker: That's it. No explanation. No, are you sure? I'll pay back. You really don't have to. Just thank you. Let yourself receive. There's many times where I quite literally got it and the helpful friends I have...
Speaker: always offer their help, and I take them up on it. Because what it also can mean is I get to spend extra time with them, or doing a task together with my partner makes me feel ah close to him, or just the feeling of being supported overall.
Speaker: That's so nice, right? This will also help you with the urge to control things, okay? Let's say your wife asks if she can help you with whatever, like hanging a picture on the wall.
Speaker: Say yes. Let her hold the fucking hammer for God's sake. um So you have a free hand. Can you do it alone? Absolutely. But that's not the point. Learning to receive and letting go of control in these moments will take you leaps and bounds to the healthiest version of you. Okay?
Speaker: Okay, next. Fourthly, i know these aren't words. Stop, and I mean stop it, making every conflict a battle. Not every disagreement requires a winner. Sometimes the goal isn't who's right, sometimes it's how do we understand each other in this moment. You can still be direct without being aggressive. Like what I'm doing right now, I am not being aggressive, but I'm being very direct, okay? See how my verbiage and the way I'm giving this to you is so much different from all the other episodes because I know I can talk to my eights like this. It's actually so nice. Maybe this should be like a type eight podcast instead.
Speaker: Anyway, it's not about me. Anyway, moving on. So you can still have boundaries without building walls and you can ah disagree without declaring war.
Speaker: I could make this a very long section because it's so dynamic and really dependent on situations, but unhealthy type eights love getting a rise out of people. We get this weird sense of intensity that we're always craving and oddly enough, sadly, enjoy conflict to an extent. It's very hard to explain to a non-type eight For example, my type eight father loves a good debate. The thing is, it didn't matter where it was happening, when it was happening, what it was about, and if he was right or wrong, he would work you into the fucking ground and you'd give up before he'd ever admit guilt, take responsibility or whatever. The opportunity presented itself and he'd take it.
Speaker: That's an unhealthy practice. Yes. So this one will take you some time to recognize in yourself. I still get ah to this day, have to stop myself in these moments when I just want to keep going, keep driving my point across, bring up another example of what my point is and I would just see the life drain from that other person's eyes. And I started to witness just how that was literally driving them away. Right. And I literally just needed to shut up and that my focus needs to be connection. What is the issue? How can we come together? And what part do I need to take responsibility in?
Speaker: Ego and pride have got to get lost in these situations. Okay, my fifth and final tip is the opposite. Learn to be soft. This may be the most uncomfortable one. i don't know, you tell me in the comments or whatever, but softness isn't surrender, okay? Tenderness isn't weakness. Crying isn't weakness. Needing someone isn't weakness. Love isn't weakness. Okay, do do i to keep going? In fact, allowing yourself to be soft requires enormous courage when you've spent your life believing softness is dangerous. I remember a young version of myself where literally nothing could make me cry. These veins were icy cold back in the day.
Speaker: Now I could cry at the drop of the hat of a hat and I'm not ashamed of it either. And I don't mind getting teary eyed in front of my friends or having a full on breakdown in front of my boyfriend. Expressing my soft side makes my relationships so much stronger and having my ah boyfriend see my ooey gooey center solidifies and strengthens our foundation.
Speaker: And I couldn't ever imagine doing that with any of my exes, hence the X. All in all, the softness started with me being soft and gracious with myself, having um healthier self-talk and just being nicer to myself.
Speaker: That's where it begins, okay? Okay. All right, folks, that that is the episode for my type eight peeps. Thanks so much for listening. Also do that rate and review thing that you're about to do. Okay, please. ah But we're about to end this childhood series and we only got one more episode left in the series. And I want to hear from you guys ah some things that you would like me to talk about on here. Okay. Always looking for inspiration.
Speaker: Anyway, in closing, remember my type eights, you became strong for a reason. The armor ah didn't come from nowhere and you don't need to hate that part of it yourself. You can thank it. You can say you protected me when I needed you and then you can tell it, but you don't have to do it alone anymore. Okay. Because remember two things can be true at once. You are allowed to be strong and soft, powerful and vulnerable, independent and connected. You can say no and still let someone love you. You can so you can need help and still be powerful. You can cry and still be strong.
Speaker: You can trust someone without giving them control over you. And perhaps the greatest lesson for the type eight is that you don't have to control everything to be safe.
Speaker: You don't have to fight every battle. You don't have to prove that you can handle everything. You don't have to be the strongest person in the room. Sometimes strength looks like standing up and taking ah something head off head on.
Speaker: And sometimes strength looks like finally letting yourself sit down. You don't have to protect yourself from love. You don't have to protect yourself from being cared for. You are allowed to let someone carry the weight sometimes.
Speaker: You are allowed to be held and you are allowed to be human. And after all that, you are still strong. Okay. Until next time, this is the Still You Podcast. Stay with yourself.
