Enneagram and burnout

I've been talking a lot about stress and burnout from a nutritionist's perspective, but in this episode of The Less Stressed Life podcast, I look at these two using Enneagram.

So Enneagram is a system of personality typing. It has nine personality types and each one is a description of patterns on how one sees the world and manages their emotions. How do you know which Enneagram you are? You can take a quiz from this website - Truity.  

It's entertaining and interesting to know which Enneagram type you are and how you deal with stress.  I talk more about my experience in this episode.

If you want to know which Enneagram type you are, here's the link to the quiz.

If you want a free assessment on your burnout level, here's the quiz we created just for that!

Scroll down to listen to the episode or to read the transcript.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

So this week on Instagram, I asked what people want to know about stress hormones, adrenal resilience. As we get ready to launch our resilience reset, which is a four-part adrenal workshop to promote productivity and hormone harmony, one person named Meg asked what are some tips for reducing stress and worry. This is a great question that deserves a ton of regular reflection from all of us. The most harmful thing that can happen to us is our own lack of awareness. And I don't care what the problem is, but it could be anything let's use my dad. For example, he's not going to pick up on those little whispers or symptoms that our body sends that something is wrong for me. For example, those whispers look like being tired or my skin feeling a little dull or I'm breaking out, or I'm either an unmotivated, or I just cannot wake up without energy for others. Like my dad it's maybe that his arm or leg is going to be totally swollen to twice its size before he asked my mom, if he should do something now I'm picking on him a little bit, but it's just pretty common to not think something is wrong, unless it's on fire. And that's not all our fault because there's the common phenomenon of not feeling great, but labs looking normal. So we're a go, go go society. It's easier not to stop and reflect on where we are right now and not stopping and reflecting and not being aware is dangerous.

I don't know where I heard this expression, but I use it all the time. You can't. I see the label on the bottle when you're inside the bottle, but seeing the big picture or seeing the label is right really important from time to time. Actually, one of my favorite new quotes that I got from Dr. Jennifer Love, who is a triple board -certified doctor works at the amen clinic. She's had life. She boils it down to like snorkeling that it's really fun. Like look down in the water and see those shiny objects and say, Oh, there's a starfish over there. This is over there. Drift when you are snorkeling. And if you don't lift your head up from time to time, like pretty soon you'll be on shore, you'll be way out in the sea. So I love that analogy so much. So back to the question on Instagram, on how to reduce stress, I look at this from two angles, what's going on at the top of the funnel? What are we sticking in? What are our sources or causes of stress? That's the number one biggest problem is we think it's one thing. And sometimes it's something else. Can we reduce those? And by the way, moms with babies are those teaching kids at home or whatnot. I just wrap a big virtual hug around you because I know how important it is to make some quiet space alone in that particular stage of life. So you can feel like yourself, but if you can identify triggers, that's a big deal because then, and we can stop filling the funnel from the top. The second angle of how do I address stress is how do you manage it or mitigate it or essentially digest it from the inside. So from backing up again, step one is what are you putting the bottle? And then how do you manage digest, mitigate stress on the inside? Because the reality is that there are physiological downstream effects of stress on gut health, hormones, skin.

This is my jam, and this is what I'm most interested in is what are those physiological downstream effects and how do we reverse those? Or how do we prevent them? I asked this a while back also on Instagram, but resoundingly women will say, they'll notice a big difference in their menstrual cycle on a stressful month. That's because stress is a roadblock for the calm T gene that is part of the detoxification or elimination of estrogen. So women will have more cramping or moodiness or breakouts on more stressful months during their cycle. Okay? So two things stop putting so much in which is not really simple, and it takes some massive self awareness, which is truly your best defense and to improve our body handles it. And the resilience reset. For example, I'm specifically covering action steps for better circadian rhythm and sleep protocols for adrenal gland support, depending on the stage of stress you're in, whether it's just some mild vacation stress, or like it's been a long time eating for adrenal health and then hormone relationships like thyroid and sex hormones. So it's a lot of great material boiled into simple action steps that will yield big results. No matter what stage of adrenal stress you're in awareness is the key to not getting burned out. Okay. So how do you know if you're approaching burnout? Well, we have our adrenal stress assessment you can take.

And some of the questions ask if you're getting grouchy with your family, if you're finding it hard to take breaks, or you're feeling overwhelmed by your to do list, but today let me share a totally different way. You can really dial into your own self-awareness and truly understand how to be your best self based on your individuality. So you might know I'm obsessed with the anagram. I don't know. I've maybe mentioned it a few times. It's a real obsession for me of late. It's an ancient personality typing method or model where we basically all fit into nine types and none are better than the others. We all have our unique attributes, but we can draw on traits from the other types it's really about self-development because there's the healthy and secure version of each of our numbers or traits. And then there's also where we go under stress or where is our unhealthy version. So you can find out what Enneagram number you are from taking the Enneagram quiz.

Truity is a website that my daughter and her friends seem to like most, I know how old is this woman talking me? Right? My daughter turned 16 on Friday and I'm pretty sure I'm too young to have a 16 year old, but no worries. It's not stressing me out or anything. And anyway, Trudy is free. Enneagram Institute is also a great place to learn more about each type, each type in a relationship with GEs. I think super fun. For example, my husband and I both like to be in charge of different ways because he's an eight, which is kind of a control and challenging person. And I'm a three, which is an achiever and we can totally butt heads, which I knew, but it's fun to read about in a positive spin when they make it very positive. That is a positive dynamic. So each Enneagram disintegrates under stress, leading them to behave like another type in that types dysfunctional form.

So there is literally a shift from your normal behavior when you are stressed. So I'm going to go through each Enneagram type really quickly for those that know their number. And if you don't know, this might be more fun for you to pause the episode, figure out what type of Enneagram you think you might be. You don't have to decide in the moment and then pop it back in and finish the episode. So in the show notes, I'm also going to include a link to the blog post that goes over the solution. Okay, let me back up. Truity is one place to get your free Enneagram type. You could also just go to Enneagram Institute and read each description and say, Oh, that's probably me. And then in the show notes, I'm going to link a blog post that goes over the solution for each

Enneagram types of burnout. So under stress, each Enneagram type goes toward the negative characteristics of another type. And then there's also solutions for each type. But to keep this short, I'll just talk about what you act like under burnout. And then you can just click on the show notes and go read about your specific type, because I don't want to go through it so quickly. I want you to actually have a chance to reflect on it. Okay? So let me go through each one under stress, the Enneagram type one or perfectionist turns in to the worst attributes of the type four or individualist. You become more in tune with art music lyrics, but you feel misunderstood or melancholy, or just kind of lonely in Enneagram type two or the giver or the helper. You become the negative parts of type eight or the challenger. You get pushy trying to secure affection, praise or love. And you start trying to kind of control those around you or those around you start to feel like they need to walk on eggshells, very atypical in the Enneagram type three or achiever under stress. This is me. I get the negative parts of type nine or the peacemaker.

And I fall into a rabbit hole of procrastination, lethargy, daydreaming, and just simply numbing out. If I am super exhausted with work, I am going to scroll house blocks. Like I'm going to look at dark, like I'm just going to numb out and do like, I don't want to do anything. I'm also going to cheat and share some of the solutions for Enneagram type three, because I'm talking about myself here. So you're supposed to keep, I'm going to give you a taste of a couple of them because you're supposed to create, keep a gratitude journal to remind yourself of the things you've achieved, because for example, and this is where you kind of have to get to know yourself a little bit, any gram threes, forget to celebrate victories and just keep pushing. They don't celebrate successes. Like they don't make benchmarks. They just move on to the next thing and it pushes them to exhaustion. So if you have a gratitude journal, for example, it makes you stop and be aware. So recurrent theme here, right? I thought this was funny. It's also suggested to have a pet or houseplants to learn patience. I would say about myself. I'm a very impatient person, but it's getting better. And so you have the patients and you can enjoy watching your companion grow. And I will tell you what if I spend time with my pigs or my chickens before I go to the office for the day, I am so much happier in a stupid way because they love me. They like run up to me and they're so excited.

And a three, his greatest desire is to feel worthy and loved. So I'm giving you this example because I understand my own number and I would so love for you to understand your number. So learning your type is so powerful and becoming the better version of yourself to piece together, some of how you can be and understand yourself better. Okay? So the type four or individualist under stress becomes the giver or number two, where you start to think that everyone needs something from you unnecessarily, and you might volunteer for a bunch of new unnecessary things. You might create some new friendships for the wrong reasons. If it doesn't sound bad, but you're just basically over committing to things, right? And so you're going to create a worst burnout for yourself. So for any Ram type five, the investigator, when your personal space gets invaded too much, you might push past your own type five downfalls and become the type seven or enthusiast. So you just like, let it all go. I remember that movie, the hangover, and there's the dentist and he's definitely a type five. So he's like very black and white. Maybe he doesn't want to share a lot about himself. And then he gets really drunk and all inhibitions go. And he just becomes like, he ends up with tattoos and like cuts a tooth pulled. And I just think like that's a perfect and your gram type five investigator becoming a type seven. I love me a type seven because they're always ready to go when it's time to have a good time, but type sevens are enthusiastic and they get FOMO.

They chase an adventure to the point of intense addiction and satisfaction of pleasure. So that's kind of the most negative version of it versus just being fun, loving for the loyalist or Enneagram type six under stress. You disintegrate into the Enneagram type three or achiever, and you fixate upon getting ahead, becoming more competitive and appearance driven. And in this case, social media is your worst enemy because you're posting only the things for your best life. And you're trying to make yourself on subconsciously look like everything is together for the enthusiastic or Enneagram type seven under stress. They disintegrate into the type one or perfectionist. They become more rigid nitpicky of injustices in the world with a big interest in social issues. And they become angry with the world for any gram type eight or the challenger. That's my husband under stress. You disintegrate into the negative traits of a type five and spend time alone with pessimistic thoughts, you develop tunnel vision and maybe miss the big picture, just naturally becoming negative. And finally, the Integram type nine or peacemaker under stress disintegrates into the loyalist or type six is worst traits suspecting that others are out to get them. They read between the lines or things that aren't there and think that everyone has an ulterior motive or hidden agenda. And now I'm worried about all my, that are type nines. I have a lot of type nine peacemaker friends, and I've worried that they think I have an ulterior motive when they're under stress. So we all have our vices and our negative traits we go to when we're stressed, the most important part is being able to recognize them. And if we don't, we push into the stage two, how I call adrenal stress stage two resistance, where we push on, even though we hear the whispers that our body is sending, okay. And the final step is exhaustion and it's absolutely unsustainable. And I am begging you to be aware, love on your stress, hormones, and adrenals.

And if you feel inspired to join us for the resilience reset in March, starting March 5th, because we all need a reset from time to time to step back and see the big picture piece out. My friends, you know, I've really spent some time reflecting on my own phases of burnout this year and past years. And I know I'm not the only one that has gone through or goes through these peaks and valleys. And while sometimes you need Lowes to appreciate the highs in life. Some valleys are pretty difficult for both your mind and your body in a very literal physical way. This year, I'm feeling really pulled to help others work through burnout, nourish their adrenals, mind, body, and spirit, and have some incredible things in store to help you feel refreshed and renewed. I invite you to take my quiz. Are you approaching burnout to assess your stress resilience and find out more about how to help you overcome it? Go to Christabigler.com forward slash burnout to take that quiz. And it'll also be in the show notes.