Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life
Welcome to Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life — a podcast that brings personality wisdom into everyday moments. Hosted by life and relationship coach Wendy Busby, each episode offers honest conversations, real-life stories, and practical tips for your everyday life. Whether you're new to the Enneagram or deep in your growth journey, this space invites you to explore who you are, how you relate, and what it means to live with more clarity, compassion, and confidence. Tune in, share with a friend, and keep becoming Uniquely You.
Uniquely You: Enneagram + Real Life
Your Unique Pathway Holds the Key to Everything
What if the key to saving your relationship isn't trying harder, but seeing deeper? Relationship psychologist Tracy Baker-Lawrence reveals how our unconscious patterns can either destroy or transform our closest connections.
After witnessing countless couples on the brink of divorce after decades together, Tracy developed the DNA method – a powerful framework that examines each couple's unique dynamics, neurobiology, and attention patterns. This approach helps partners understand what's really happening beneath surface behaviors that trigger conflict. As Tracy explains, "Two good hearts in the room, but they start to story... they misunderstand differences and then expect their partner to meet needs they can't even articulate."
The conversation explores how our developmental pathways (what many call Enneagram types) interact with attachment wounds to create predictable relationship challenges. Tracy shares a fascinating example of Four and Nine patterns during stress – how the Four's emotional expression triggers the Nine's withdrawal, which feels like rejection to the Four, creating a painful cycle neither can break without understanding these underlying patterns.
Most compelling is Tracy's collaboration with Dr. Dan Siegel on developing a scientific framework that integrates temperament, attachment, and personality. This groundbreaking work explains how our earliest adaptations for survival often become the very blocks preventing authentic connection in adulthood. For anyone who's felt chronically misunderstood or confused by their partner's reactions, this episode offers a profound map to greater compassion and clearer communication.
Listen now and gain insights that could transform how you see yourself, your partner, and the beautiful complexity of human connection. Your journey toward wholeness begins with understanding.
Learn more about Tracy at https://theinsightagency.com.au/
Follow Tracy on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theinsightagency_/
Are you curious about what your Enneagram is?
Click here to buy the online Enneagram Test https://wendybusbycoaching.com/enneagram-type-test
For more Enneagram insights follow Wendy on Instagram @your_enneagram_friend
www.instagram.com/wendy_lifeandlove_coach/
Are you ready to take the first step?
Schedule a complimentary Discovery Session today!
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Welcome to Uniquely you, the podcast where self-discovery meets everyday life. I'm your host, wendy Busby, a life and relationship coach who believes that you were never meant to fit into a box. On Uniquely you, we explore the Enneagram real-life stories and practical ways to help you grow with more clarity, compassion and confidence, all while being unapologetically yourself. Today on the podcast, I have an amazing guest and I'm so excited for our conversation. Tracy Baker Lawrence is a relationship and personality psychologist and Enneagram practitioner. She has worked with the Enneagram as a therapist with individuals and couples for over 20 years and she founded the Insight Agency five years ago. Tracy and I connected on Instagram recently and I knew immediately that I wanted to have her on my podcast because she is a wealth of knowledge and she has such a passion for cultivating healthy relationships. Hi Tracy.
Speaker 2:Hi Wendy. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 1:It's a real delight yeah it's such a pleasure to have you, so I like to begin by asking my guests to share a little bit of their Enneagram story. When did you first learn about the Enneagram? How did you figure out what your Enneagram pathway pattern, which we're going to talk a lot about? That today or what we usually refer to as type. How did you learn about all of that?
Speaker 2:Well, I started psychology later in life, in my 30s, and just after I graduated I was working in a community center down south of Brisbane and this lovely young man leant in my 30s and I, just after I graduated. I was working in a community center down south of Brisbane and this lovely young man leant in my doorway and said oh, you know, I think maybe you know you might be a seven, and I thought you know, is he rating me? You know what is that about? And it turns out, of course he was talking about this incredible system of the Enneagram and the nine pathways, and so he invited me along to some panels that were happening in Brisbane. Turns out there's been 25 years of panels running in Brisbane and we went along and we saw those, and then I got very interested in that.
Speaker 2:As a new psychology graduate, it was the first time I'd felt here's some actual, real information that can point to the inner life of a person where psychology doesn't do that. So I was really fascinated and I really wanted to know if it was truth and, of course, if I was going to use it in my clinical practice. So my husband, luke, and I were the first. Well, that man, that young man is now my husband, so we're both Enneagram practitioners. Oh really, I didn't know that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, who knows that that's?
Speaker 2:cool, yeah, and so it's just as well. He paused in my doorway and introduced himself and we were two of the first to train in Australia in the narrative tradition, which our trainer had trained with Helen and David and then brought it to Australia and started up an academy here. So we were two of the first to train and it was very rigorous training. It was for a year and then I was involved in that community for about 10 years and we would run live panels and we would do many, many, many video recorded clinical typing interviews to determine someone's type. I now call it a pattern of developmental pathway and so it was very rigorous training.
Speaker 2:And then I trained in America and then I started a PhD and did four years towards the PhD around helping develop an Enneagram protocol so that we'd have something that we could use in clinical practice that we would not see. Enneagram that's making the difference, not something else. And, long story short, I put that on hold after four years. I experienced an academic bias and I thought I just want to bring it to as many people as I can, and I really wanted to bring it to relationships and further Lovely David Daniels' legacy and his great love and care about relationships, and so I founded the Inside Agency, and that was five years ago, and then I've been developing a method. So yeah, it's a long story.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. That's such a fun story about you and your husband. You know it was meant to be yeah yeah, it was meant to be, it was lots yeah, and do you feel comfortable sharing what your type is or your pattern PDP is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, of course. So I've type is or your pattern pdp yeah, yeah, of course. So I've got the three pdp and my instinct is more one-to-one so that really flavors it.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, yeah, and I know that pio hanrahan and beatrice chess and I've done wonderful work around the subtypes and that was really helpful to me when I recognized that it was the one-to-one pathway, because the social and the self-preservation three, or the general writings about three, didn't fit me so much. It wasn't so much about being really confident and being able to put myself out in the world really easily. I was a little bit sort of a little bit more shy than that, and so the description of one-to-one three really fitted me and about the great care of bringing out value in others and seeing potential in others. The work is still the same. It's still the three work that I have to do around really knowing my own inner world so that I can more often be as authentic and loving as I can, and that's been the work.
Speaker 1:What was the most surprising thing when you learned about the 1-to-1-3?
Speaker 2:I think it was just lovely that it resonated, because all the other three material that I've read about really chasing success and being a high achiever and having done really well at school and got trophies, that was not me at all. I was the opposite. I felt really quite lost and wasn't sure what I was good at. But I did know I really wanted to be good at all. I was the opposite.
Speaker 2:I felt really quite lost and wasn't sure what I was good at, but I did know I really wanted to be good at something and I wanted to be able to offer something, which is part of that three about. I need to show you my value, because it feels like it's outside of me and in fact it is inside of me, but it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that core of the three is still the same of I I must achieve to be loved, I must achieve to be seen.
Speaker 2:it just shows up differently, it can it does in the social three or the self-preservation three yeah, it does, wendy, and I guess mine was more performing, so I would make people laugh and I'd um, you know, as a um, you know. And for my parents what they needed was for me to be really happy and no trouble. And so that's what I was and I even tried my. My dream at one point was to do acting, because I knew that I could do that shifting and put myself in other people's shoes, and I did that for a while and found that not meaningful enough. And then I discovered Carl Rogers in a library talking about unconditional positive regard and I started weeping and I just thought that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I really care about people seeing their own value, and I didn't realise at that time that that was actually my story, that I wasn't certain. It's like please see what I can do, because that's my value there. It's not intrinsically in who I am, but I see yours and I want to bring it out. So the journey is to be able to truly rest in my own journey sorry, my own rest in my own value, I guess and to deeply know what's going on in me in the moment. Especially when I'm with somebody else. It's always been easy to know what's going on in me in the moment, especially when I'm with somebody else. It's always been easy to know what's going on in somebody else, but to know at the same time what's going on in me. That's been the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean and that's one of the gifts of the three is being able to read people right and read the room and read what's going on, to know how to show up, yes, but then also to do that and to offer that gift for others while you're still able to stay connected to yourself, yes. That shows such growth. That shows intense inner work, because it takes intense inner work to get to that place. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's a that's really get to that place, and so that's a that's really. I love the way that you described that and I talk to people all the time about you know, looking at the instincts and looking at subtype, but we call it right because it does make a difference. Yes, and in some of the PDPs it makes more of a difference than others and that's important to know.
Speaker 2:But, um, it really does because it flavors how it you uniquely show up absolutely, and that's such an important you've articulated so beautifully wendy and like our attachment really overlays um the pathway, and so that changes the flavor of it as well as the instinct.
Speaker 2:And just speaking to that point, I can remember part of the academic bias that I experienced at a university. Here in Brisbane was my head of school, and when I told her I was doing my PhD on the Enneagram, she said, well, maybe you should be doing it on compassion. And I said well, the Enneagram is all about compassion. How do we be our most loving selves? And I asked her what has been, you know what has got in the way of you taking up the Enneagram or reading more into it? And she said, well, I've read lots of books and I can't find my type, so there's nothing in it. And so when I did offer to do a clinical interview process with her and we determined that she had a self-preservation version of three, then she could really resonate it and she could really take that on board. Well, at least she was open to it right.
Speaker 1:At least she was open to it. I had well, not a similar experience, but when I first discovered the Enneagram I was just like. I felt so seen and understood and heard.
Speaker 1:And I had been in therapy for a number of years at that point but had really hit a block. I just it wasn't out of effort on my part, it wasn't a lack of desire on my part to continue to grow and understand myself and where I was finding myself, and so I brought it to my therapist and I said look at this, like look what I found. She just really shut it down.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, at this, like look what I found, she just really shut it down.
Speaker 1:oh wow, she was just like oh you know, that's just like people use that at work and it's kind of for parties.
Speaker 1:That's what she said she's like it's kind of for parties and I was just like, oh, that's kind of unfortunate, you know, and so I never went back. That was the very last session I had with her and it was because she was amazing and she offered me such a gift in that early few years of therapy. Like I will forever be grateful for the way she showed up for me in therapy and the place that she took me, but I knew that there was something else for me.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I knew that it was in the Enneagram yes, and so I had to move on. Yes, and I'm so glad that I did. Yeah, you know. Because, I wish more therapists were open to it.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, that's interesting. You say that because I've had exactly the same experience years back, 10 years ago, talking to peer therapists. Because what we need to know is making sense of our feelings, thinking and behavior, and the definition of personality is actually that it's the inner motivations. And yet no personality model in the world which is what I was assessing other than the Enneagram system of personality, can, um, you know, really do that to describe somebody's inner world and their motivations, how it leads, their core beliefs and their needs and what will trigger them.
Speaker 1:it's incredibly powerful and that's what I'm saying. Blind spots right, it was what was blind to me, why I couldn't move forward. Yes, yes, I couldn't see it for myself. Yes, I needed this tool to help me, to give language to me to talk about. You know what the core of the four is? Yes, it immediately resonated with me and I was just like, okay, immediately resonated with me and I was just like, okay, and I had um at that point from that point on.
Speaker 1:I should say better to say I experienced growth and continue to experience growth, like I have not had that same block again.
Speaker 2:That's so wonderful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So wonderful. It gives us something that nothing else can. It's a truth that we often can't get to and to that point, Wendy, that's why I'm so passionate. I'm very passionate about the method I've created for couples, but I'm equally passionate about bringing this Dan Siegel's PDP framework, which is a scientific underpinnings to the Enneagram, to all clinicians. So in Australia a number of therapists have sought me out and said, oh, there's something in the Enneagram, and have started training with me and really see its value and are, all you know, buying Dan's book and I think it's out and so many therapists here are really wanting that, so I'm very keen to be training them.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for sharing a little bit about you personally, but I do want to get into your professional work, and you mentioned the model that you created for couples, which you call DNA. Yes, so can you tell me about that? Tell me about what DNA is?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, thank you. And so it's about helping a partnership, a couple, to know their couple DNA, which is completely unique. There's no other couple on the planet like them. So it's about determining their two PDPs, their two patterns of developmental pathway or enneagram types but I don't use that language anymore and how they interact and also their wounds from childhood and any traumas and attachment, how that overlays the PDP pathway for each, because that flavours the interaction and plus their primary needs.
Speaker 2:So I use nonviolent communication to teach partners to know what's going on in you in a way that they can honour that and speak it their truth without triggering the other person. So those three keys all come together and the DNA stands for, like your couple DNA so it was for you and your husband is your dynamics. The D is based on your neurobiology, so temperament through to personality, and A, where your attention in life goes. It's all about where we place our attention and so that's couple dna, your dynamics, neurobiology and attention and the dynamic neurobiology intention dna yes yeah, can you give an example of two pathways coming together and maybe what that, what that dna would look like?
Speaker 1:maybe you could use.
Speaker 2:Whatever I mean, I don't yeah, sure, yeah, I have so many examples. And of course, this is never about excuse me, we know I'm it any groundwork.
Speaker 2:This is never about compatibility, you know it's about deep understanding and loving the one you use, um and so, um, I've had almost, I think, every combination come through, come through the agency. But if I think about a four and a two that I worked with recently, um, you know, of course, having the four pathway, it's all about authenticity and being deeply known and deeply understood. There's often something in there around consideration. And then for some of the two pathway, it's about being able to predict the other's needs and hoping that the other person will see their needs and just automatically meet them. And you know, using Dan Siegel's language, the four pathway is bonding inward, so they're a tension, so the primary motivation is bonding or connection, but it's an inward flavor, so that there's a lot of inward attention on what am I feeling, what's going on in me. And for the two pathway, which is bonding outward, then that's all the attention's out.
Speaker 2:And so one of the dilemmas they're experiencing is that the four wife found it really difficult to um see the two's authenticity, because there was a lot of reaching out to other people and um sometimes being some not not being in contact with his own feelings, which is understandable, that's. That's the work so how people understand from temperament plus their attachments, how they've ended up now here in their 40s and what they need to honor in each other. And it's been remarkably, remarkably helpful.
Speaker 1:That is such a good example, especially with the attention one being inward and one being outward. Yes, and the four. I will tell you, as a four myself, and I've heard other fours say this like we can forget that there's someone else in the relationship. Wow, yes, because we're so inward focused. Yes, it's like, oh, wait, a minute, there's someone else here. And so that's the work of the four is to turn their eyeballs outward, turn the eyes of their heart outward, to the other, and using that connection to to the line right, and using that energy to be like, oh, oh, wait a minute, like there's someone else here and their needs are valid, just as my needs are valid, yeah. And to pull, to pull the attention outward, right, because it's all about balance.
Speaker 2:Right To be balanced.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad that you used that example to highlight that, used that example to highlight that. So yeah, in your work with couples, have you found like one, two or three things that a couple can do that would contribute to the longevity of their marriage?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's the three keys that I I found. So that's such a great question. So when I founded the inside agency and I'm only word of mouth, I'm not not, I'm stuck in the 1970s, so I'm not good at marketing the people that found me were people in crisis, people married up to 40 years that were at the point of separation and um and so what I was looking for was what could they have known and done differently at the earlier stage of their relationship that they wouldn't have unintentionally hurt each other? And it was always unintentional. I often say two good hearts in the room, but they start to story. They start off, you know it's all about the other person's needs, and then at some point the differences become more apparent and they misunderstand those and then they start expecting the partner to just meet their needs. It almost swaps from the attention goes to a partner's needs to now. We expect our partner to meet our needs, but we don't know what they are, we don't articulate them, and so what I found is the main things that were getting in the way of the longevity were that they hadn't known accurately the inner world of their partner. They did not know their partner's primary motivation. They didn't know their, their partner's um, uh, you know core beliefs, um, and where their attention naturally went and what their primary needs were and what their wounds from childhood were. That they will step on. So in a long-term relationship we will have a defence system set off and that nervous system wiring is in here and there's implicit memories and many things can go off in us and we will step on that.
Speaker 2:And it was heartbreaking, wendy, it really was, to see people, two good people, doing the best they can, almost like in the dark of you know, in the dark, trying to love each other the best they can, but then starting to build up stories of well, you just behave like that, so I would never do that. So that's what this means. And then once you have some story, negative story in your head, you go looking for confirmation of that and you'll find something. And then you get stuck in your own stories and it's almost like so they're not able to grow, they're not able to see the potential in each other and help each other grow. And so when we determined their PDPs and that's why I've been so passionate and continue to be passionate about partners accurately working out their PDP and I'm in the middle of developing a more rigorous clinical interview process for determining the PDPs. That includes attachment.
Speaker 2:But accurately knowing the two PDPs was incredibly eye-opening for them and they would say to me oh my God, why didn't we know this at the start of our marriage? And then we'd talk about, I'd ask them about their childhoods and certain questions around that, and particularly what are the unmet needs of childhood that you each had and that would bring tears often to one partner or both, because the very needs that weren't being met in childhood you know, backing upvel Hendricks research were the very needs that are not met in the marriage. Now you know. So if the wife with the four pathway, if she had never had enough attention from her father growing up, it was that same very thing that she was not getting from her husband. And so knowing their pathways and then knowing the wounds from childhood in a new, really compassionate way, where they knew what the needs were under that and the strategies, the adaptive strategies that would be tweaked to meet those needs, and then they had this beautiful way that I was teaching them and translating what they were saying to.
Speaker 2:When you say that, I think maybe what you're trying to say is this. And then the other partner would say oh well, I can understand that. So it's almost like I was translating German and Japanese or something like that. And so many marriages stay together and they stay a bit more connected, and that every couple I've worked with Wendy, or 99 percent have said why didn't we know this? And I say I know, that's why I'm trying to get it out there, so that all couples before they get married know it. Um, so hope I've answered that in terms of you know, for longevity, it's those three keys you must know yeah, yeah, no, you did.
Speaker 1:You answered, answered it beautifully and, um, I mean, that is one of the reasons why you do the work that you do and why I do the work that I do. Right, because there's so much power in knowing who you are, yes, and seeking to know the other as best as you can, right, as best as you can. It's such a gift that couples can give one another and I mean my. My own story reflects that you know of often look at each other and just going like what is wrong with you, like I don't, how could you feel that way? Or how could you think that way? Or I feel so misunderstood. I spent a lot of time feeling misunderstood. Yes, that has been a very common experience, for fours is to feel misunderstood, and so I spent a lot of time in my marriage feeling misunderstood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he would have been yeah, and you would have been yeah. And him as a nine.
Speaker 1:It's just trying to hold on for dear life, right, just trying to hold on for dear life. And it gave us a completely new language to understand one another. Wow, so wonderful.
Speaker 2:I just want everyone to know it, oh it's so, I just want everyone to know it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so wonderful I just want everyone to know it.
Speaker 2:It's so wonderful, wendy, and you know the gift that you bring is the depth that you see in things. You know whether it's the depth of your questions or the depth of your care, but the depth is what's so powerful and that you want everybody to be like. I want everybody to see their value, to really sit in it.
Speaker 1:That.
Speaker 2:And for you, like you really care deeply and authentically about people not being misunderstood, and this is the way to do it. And there is a predictable. I've done it like a relationship matrix, but there is a predictable point in any combination that you will get to a point where you actually can't nurture each other for a period of time. If there's enough stress on that combination, then there's a predictable point. So, for example, if it was four and nine pathway, when when you know, when the defense, um, and if I'm talking about a couple that doesn't really know their pathways and hasn't done personal growth works and not not your marriage but the challenge will be that the four will feel really stressed and the more stressed they feel it's an express.
Speaker 2:The way that you regulate is upregulate, whereas the nine pathway is shift and reframe it away. So you will be upregulating a whole range of emotions that are going on in you. They'll be upregulated and for the nine pathway, that will look like tension and everything in them. Their whole nervous system will want to pull away from that. When they pull away from that, then the person with the four pathway will feel rejected and abandoned. More emotion will come up.
Speaker 2:The nine will desperately want calm and you get stuck in that, and so you need to be able to know there can be these predictable points that when there's enough stress on a marriage external or what have you um that you need to know that there'll be this point and can you still love each other, can you still hold on to the best of each other, even if the worst is on display, can you accurately see that each is hurting? And maybe you can't be supports for each other in those moments because your defense systems are so set off, but that's why we need to do the work, because we're yeah but what you just described is where we were right at one point before we both started working on ourselves separately.
Speaker 1:When I first started going to therapy, right, we were in exactly that place that you just described. That's so hard and I was trying to get. You know, I was upregulating big time. You know lots of big emotions, lots of trying to get attention, trying to be seen, and he was shutting down because he was trying to move away from it and I interpreted that at the time that he didn't care.
Speaker 1:Yes, Right, yes, so that was how I interpreted it which just said rejection, abandonment, all of those inner fears of the four right. Yes, and he just had to shut down because he was so afraid that I was going to leave. Yes, right, had to numb out to that. To numb out to that, which I interpreted as you don't even care, looks like indifference and he's lying. It looks like indifference, right, it's not.
Speaker 1:And so it was. I mean, I say today that we're still married because he wouldn't leave. Oh yes, Loyalty, loyalty, just the steadfast dedication and connection and merge. He was very merged with me at the time and so I'm so grateful. I did everything I could to try to push him away. That's the pushing and pushing, not consciously, no. It was all very unconscious, it was all those childhood trauma wounds showing up in such big and exaggerated ways.
Speaker 2:Yes, your wounds and his wounds Like equally. He's desperately got to move to indifference. You're desperately trying to get some sense of being cared for. It's really challenging. Oh, it's so wonderful you've both worked.
Speaker 1:I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful for the work that we both have done for one another yeah, because it's worth it. Yes, yes, yeah, another yeah, because it's worth it. It's yes, yes, yeah. So, um, when someone comes to see you or they reach out to you and they really don't know about the Enneagram, how do you go about introducing it to them? What is your sort of um pitch, if you will right, yes, yeah, okay, um, I think we've got to be.
Speaker 2:You know, I've learned this over the years because I've met lots of resistance.
Speaker 2:I think I even presented at the conference around how do we overcome bias and resistance around this, and so I start off, I think, by saying um, you know the importance of making sense of our lives, like it's a basic human need.
Speaker 2:We want to make sense of ourselves and we want to make sense of our relationships, and there is this incredibly powerful map of the human condition that can actually, um, tap into like mind sight, tap into our inner worlds in a way that nothing else can.
Speaker 2:And I'll say, you know, most personality models will just tell you your traits, um, which is only in a very small way helpful. But the enneagram is the only personality model that will tell you what's under the tip of the icebergs. The tip of the iceberg is what we see in people's behavior, but there is this map of the human condition that can tell us what's under the water. You know so what? So, in in the architecture of who we are, you know what our temperament is, what what our core beliefs are, you know how that drives our attention and that means that we develop particular, have particular needs, um, and we can predict what will trigger us, and so that all our behavior makes sense like it's incredible and people get a bit interested in that and and then I say how the work has helped so many couples and the couples at the point of separation when they learned their pathways, each through this map of the human condition.
Speaker 2:They were like, oh my god, every couple needs to know this, I wish we'd known this.
Speaker 2:And partners start to feel really interested in that and and then I talk about in the week move a bit into you know what attracted you to each other and finding the foundation of their relationship and the high purpose of their union. And then we look at the repeating patterns and then I start to be able to because I've done nearly 4,000 pvp interviews often when people are coming into my room, it's an, it's an energy with the pathways, and often I have a sense of what they are already. So I can speak to their repeating patterns in a way where I'm really honoring the internal motivation of why that person said what they said and why that person came back with that. And then couples will often say that's incredible, yes, I could never have articulated that. And then I teach them the map and I map it on a whiteboard and show them. And then often I'll bring their children in. So what's your child's temperament? And you know, let's look at how that moment worked out that way.
Speaker 2:And then they start sending their children and their adult children. Yeah, what a gift.
Speaker 1:What a gift that you are to them, and I love the way you present it, too, as human architecture. Yes, there's imagery there. There's imagery that we can understand.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so I appreciate that. I have found that I'm still working that out for myself of you know how to just explain it in a way that really lands yes, and I have not hit on it yet, so I might borrow some of those things you just said, oh please, as I continue to refine my own presentation of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the other piece of saying to partners to each other I know that you're both two good hearts, I know you are. You're doing the best you can. Wouldn't it be wonderful if your partner understood when you do this? They actually understood it and they knew what your needs are and they understood they didn't misunderstand you. That's what this can do and it brings in so much compassion, and it's not about assessing your personality.
Speaker 2:I don't use that term assessing yeah I talk about as an inquiry process or an exploration, or finding your inner architecture, your inner dna, but it brings compassion in for each other in a way that I don't know what else could do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they want that. They're both seeking it, they're both desperately wanting to be understood, to be known, and you can't have intimacy without that. That's the gift of the Enneagram. You cannot have intimacy. Well, a, you need presence first to be able to really feel the love that's around us, as, as you know, wendy. And then you know, and then then we need to know what the blocks are to to. So I don't start with this, but you know, then you need to know what the blocks are to love and to god.
Speaker 2:And it is well, it is our architecture and our defense structures that are hardwired in. It can be changed, but it takes a lot of work, and so I start with what's right about them, as Susan Olasek says in the Enneagram Prison Project. So I've done their training as well, and I love how she starts with that. So I always start with that Look at your superpower. This is your gift to this man. This is exactly what this man needs, and they often get really moved and teary. So we're really starting with what's your gift, and they want to hear that, because parents often haven't mirrored back what our gift is ever. We don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:And people are urgent for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be seen. Yes, so let's shift a little into talking about the work that you're doing with Dr Dan Siegel and with the PDPs, the Pattern Developmental Pathways. We've said we've used that language quite a lot.
Speaker 1:As we've had our conversation here, we'd be a little lost in what we're talking about, because this is a shift in the Enneagram community and it's an exciting and good shift as we get more scientific about patterns, about personality, about where personality comes from and what do we do with that, and so that's why we're using this language, but could you talk about the work that you are doing with Dr Dan Siegel?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So I've just, as you know, come back from New York and doing Dan's training in his PDP framework and I've been following that and using the term PDP for about 10 years, since his book the Mindful Therapist, and I wanted to. So I've been reaching out to Dan for about a year and finally he contacted me two weeks ago and said I'm doing this training and very generously said why don't you come over as my guest and then we can have conversations about how do we train clinicians around the world in the PDP framework? Because I was letting him know that. You know, in my humble opinion, it's very difficult to accurately determine your own I'll change the word determine because I know he doesn't like that word so much but to handle on, you know, to guide you towards your PDP, your pattern of development or pathway, your Enneagram type I'm really adamant that people use the term pattern or pathway, and so is he, and so I had five hours of conversations privately with Dan around, you know, around his framework. How do we get it out to clinicians? How do we create an interview process that's got some rig, rigor to it and some validity, and that's hard to do.
Speaker 2:Both of us are agreeing that online questionnaires, um, as much as I really respect the authors of those and know the authors of probably all of them, um, it's very difficult for people to do an online. It's very difficult, yeah, it's difficult, and it's energy w you know, you, when we first met. There's an energy to you and, of course, the more work somebody has done, the harder it is to see the PDP, because it's harder to see the energy changes. It becomes more flexible and joyous and adaptable. You don't feel the intensity and heaviness of the fullness if we were talking about that so much.
Speaker 2:Um. So you know, I've done four, nearly four thousand interviews to make sure that they're accurate. So what I was talking with dan about is is how about I refine the interview process? Because we really need to add an attachment, because currently the clinical typing interview process that we that I'm particularly trained in and also trained in the narrative school in america um, it is an interview process of asking a range of questions through each of the nine types, and so I'm converting that into an interview process. Um, and nobody else really in the world knows this. I'm telling you this for the first time.
Speaker 2:That's so special.
Speaker 2:I'm still getting my hands around the conversations with Dan and so really trying to create an interview process that's more rigorous and with my very dear friend, suzanne Dion, so we're talking together about how we do that, because she's extremely experienced in this area and helping people understand their nervous system hardwiring.
Speaker 2:So it would be an interview process that incorporates something around temperament, and then questions around your attachment stances, growing up as a child, something that maybe brings in some of the wounds that might be there, because that flavours the PDP, and then maybe something around personal growth somebody's done and then some of the questions around adaptive strategies that the person is using, because it's not just the behaviour that somebody uses. We're looking for the motivation under it. So we need to ask any questions, to follow the thread down, to find out what the motivation of that is. So you could ask a person you know something around, you trust people easily, and somebody could say no, and then your mind might think that's to do with the sixth pathway, but it could be anybody, and so you've got to follow the thread to the heart. You've got to go deeper. So the interview process, in my opinion, needs to be broader, and that's what I'm developing at the moment with Suzanne and then we will represent that back to Dan and hopefully he will have some interest in that.
Speaker 1:That's so wonderful, I love that you're doing that so much, because the questions now seem to be around the adaptive strategies, right, and they can really help us as a practitioner. What we have right now, from my experience, is asking about the way the person is experiencing their world from, from their conscious knowing of it. Right, but so much of our pathway is unconscious. Yes, so how can someone speak to what they're really experiencing if they don't even know? They don't even know, and so I love that you're developing this and there's not a lot of again, just from my experience and from the groups that I'm a part of of not knowing a lot about attachment. Yes, yes, so some information about attachment, some training around attachment, would be really helpful for Enneagram practitioners, absolutely In varying degrees. Right, of course. However, it is that they're using it in their own practice or coaching, whatever it is right, um, and so I I love the, the methodology that you're approaching it with yes, it feels very whole yeah, and it is a methodology fragmented yes it's
Speaker 1:a whole process. Look at that, you know. So currently I use um, the, the CPS Enneagram assessment. We call it assessment, right, and it's helpful. It gives me a place to start with someone, yes, and then continue with the interview process, if you will, because it is so much about asking those deeper questions. What do you mean by that? Can you give me an example, can you right? I mean, I just did this today with someone actually, and you know, and so it's helpful to me, at least right now, with where I'm at to have that. But I would like not to have to do that and to be able to know where to go, just based on this sort of what you're describing thread of questioning that you're talking about, and so I'm excited to see the outcome of your work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, thank you. That's lovely, thank you, and I guess it's been. You know, it really feels like a bit of a life mission, because I did the PhD to be able to train clinicians around the world, so I want to say clinicians, practitioners, coaches or whoever's using it. And so Dan has given us such a beautiful gift and people would know the title but um, personality and wholeness and therapy. Integrating nine, integrating nine patterns of developmental pathways in clinical practice. And so what he's wanting is for all clinicians, so I would say all practitioners.
Speaker 2:You know, we both agreed that it's kind of not rocket science for it to be an important thing for all practitioners to understand temperament, attachment and personality. And this is the first time Dan's 20 years of work with the PDP group has. This is the first time temperament, attachment and personality can be pieced together with the scientific underpinnings. So all practitioners need to know that we're working with human beings, we need to know their inner worlds and we need to have mind sight into ourselves accurately and into our clients, whoever we're working with. You know he talks about. You know that from temperament it seems that you know we have these subcortical networks, motivational networks, and somehow, you know, from our temperament we start. You know, the motivational network for connection seems to be activated more so than agency or for certainty. But they're the three main needs we all have. And then, whether our attention is inward, outward or dyadic, a bit of both. Toggling between those two things are very much part of the temperament, as well as the other sort of nine things around temperament.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like the way that he describes that, as the sensitivity is activated, yes, Right, that we have all three of those. That as the sensitivity is activated yes, Right that that we have all three of those. We all have all three temperaments, but one is some more sensitive than the others. And then you know the do or die situation that when you're born, life becomes this do or die situation and you have to adapt to the environment in which you're in and your temperament helps you do that, helps you survive, Absolutely. And so when I read that I mean I heard him speak about it, but then when I read the four PDP in the book we were just talking about, about that implicit memory of wholeness and the four's experience of life, that something is missing. Yes, Doesn't that make sense? I felt so much relief, even though I knew that. I knew that like I had. I knew that right and intellectually. But for whatever reason, the way he wrote about it really landed with me of like.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to get back to that sense, that implicit memory sense of wholeness, and so I just think that there's something wrong with me. I just think that there's something missing, but there's actually nothing missing, you know, and so letting up the sort of grip on that has been helpful to me.
Speaker 2:I'm so pleased, you know. It is a relief, isn't it? And to know that we're all doing that. We're all trying to come back to wholeness in some way, and our adaptive strategies, as clever as they are and as helpful as they are at times, often are the very things that get in the way of us getting back to wholeness. So I personally actually becomes the block. So, um, we need to know what the blocks are.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we come back to that plane of possibility yes yeah well, gosh tracy, this has just been such a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day and coming on and speaking with me. Where can people find you? What's the best way for people to stay up to date with all you're doing?
Speaker 2:and yes, um well, I'm, I'm. I have an Instagram account, um, called, you know, the Insight Agency, and people can phone me. I've got my phone number there. Just phone me Old-fashioned 1970s, just phone me or email me. The email's on that as well.
Speaker 2:And I've got a website, wwwtheinsightagencycomau, and I think that covers really well what I'm trying to do and some lovely imagery on that about the inner nature scenes of people that we've got a different inner nature scene. It's really lovely imagery and people get a really good idea of my philosophy and what I'm trying to do. I've been on a few other podcasts. If they Google my name, they'd see other podcasts that I've done, like the Psychology of Love, and I'm setting up another Instagram account that's just for clinicians and I need to update LinkedIn about what I'm doing. So I haven't been very present on that, but a lot of therapists are really reaching out to me wanting to learn the PDP framework and the enigma and how that meshes. So there will be a new Instagram around that being launched this week. Okay, I'm excited to see that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I will put all of this in the show notes too.
Speaker 2:Oh thank you.
Speaker 1:So it'll pop up and people can just click on the link to get to your website or your Instagram there. Thank you, it's nice to know that people are free to reach out to you if they have questions. Yeah, it's just cool.
Speaker 2:And I offer a 20-minute free chat. Um, just, they can tell me a bit about what's happening and I can talk about how the method can break through things.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, yeah great, okay, all right. Well, is there any last bit that you would like to leave us with, any last thing you want to say?
Speaker 2:Well, I just you know, I feel really blessed and really privileged to be doing something that's in the area of love. You know, and you are too, wendy we're all really passionate about how do we break down the barriers, how do we make this world more conscious and more loving. Trump is not doing that. He's completely stuck in his own defence mechanisms and sense of individualism, and we have to raise the consciousness of the planet, and I think the PDP framework is the most powerful tool to do that to help people know what their defence mechanisms, how they project, how to manage themselves and regulate and be loving to themselves and create a more loving world. I'm really passionate about that, and I've just turned 60, so I've only got so much time left. So motivation, motivation, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, again, Tracy, just a lovely conversation.
Speaker 1:I hope we can do it again sometime, you know as you continue to just do this important work, and so I always. I decided that because I always felt like it was a little awkward to end my podcast. I was like it just feels a little awkward, and so I have decided that I'm going to start to do a little closing quote, like just a quote for today, and what I have for us today is by Morgan Harper Nichols. It's give yourself permissions to imagine who you could be beyond the boxes you've always known. Oh, I love that. Oh, that's perfect. I felt like it was appropriate for today, very perfect, yeah. Well, thank you, tracy, and we'll talk again soon we will thank you, wendy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bye, much love, bye.