You don’t understand what everyone’s so worked up about. The common ground is easy enough to spot, in fact, that’s usually all you see. You want to ask everyone to take a few deep breaths, but you know they wouldn’t react well to that, and you’re absolutely not looking for a fight.
It’s probably easier if you let it go. None of this matters in the grand scheme of things. Might as well turn on some Netflix and watch that cooking show you love. Ah, that’s better. And when you’re asked for you opinion on the issue, a quick, “I see where both sides are coming from,” will pass the buck along to someone else. After all, it’s true. You do see where both sides are coming from.
If you’re nodding along at this point, then you’re probably an Enneagram Type 9, the Peacemaker. And congratulations, because you’re the easiest of all personality types to get along with. But, unfortunately, that accommodating energy that everyone loves is also the biggest threat to a happy and productive writing career.
Welcome back to this series where we explore what motivates us and how we might build a life that works with our creative impulses rather than against them.
Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Nine, “the Peacemaker.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build an active author life for ourselves if this is our type.
If this isn’t your type, I strongly suggest you read it anyway. Not only will it help you write complex Peacemakers, but I guarantee you have a Nine in your life, and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.
At their core, Nines’ desire is to feel whole and harmonious. Their fear is to be separated or cut off from the rest of the world. The concepts of peace and unity are central to the way the Nines relate to the world.
I’m married to a Nine, and the naturally calming energy they bring is what first caught my interest. It’s what I continue to love about him. But it’s also at the core of every moment when he makes my eye twitch. That’s because the same peaceful energy can stagnate into inaction and a somewhat soporific approach to life. It can also turn to ambivalence, which is a passive-aggressive way of making everyone else take on responsibility for major decisions. For a type like mine (One, the Reformer) who has a strong opinion about everything even when it’s not necessary, you can see how this might lead to tension over time. I’m fine making decisions, but maybe not all the decisions.
And this kind of conflict is not limited to Nines and Ones. It can form between Nines and any other type. The irony is that Peacemakers believe that by not having a strong opinion, they are avoiding conflict. And maybe that’s true in the short term, but not in the long run.
That conflict aversion is at the heart of Nine’s suffering. It’s their big lesson to learn that not all conflict weakens bonds and creates disunity. Sometimes conflict the only path to the harmony Nines so desperately seek. (Don’t we all have fun ways of keeping ourselves from what we need?)
When I’m working with a Peacemaker who’s struggling with their WIP, it’s often because they sense the inherent conflict in writing and publishing a story. Stories require conflict, though, or else they’re just “stuff that happens,” and no matter how carefully you tiptoe around all the triggers you know of, there will be readers who take issue with your book (I saw a trigger warning on a video today for “chewing sounds”). So, yes, publishing is inherently confrontational.
But it can also be especially hard for Nines to believe anyone wants, let alone needs to hear their story. At some point in early childhood, Peacemakers learned that their wants, needs, and opinions didn’t matter, and you can imagine how that might lead to counterproductive self-talk during the writing process. If the scene is proving tricky, here comes the “Nobody cares about this anyway,” moment. Disengagement can happen quick to the sensitive Nine.
It also becomes a huge problem if the Nine’s living situation does not actively support their writing goals. If you’re afraid of conflict and every time you sit down to write, your partner acts like you’re being selfish or unhelpful or makes a snide comment, the path of least resistance, and the perceived path to external harmony, will be to either stop writing, write less, or write only when the partner is not around. But this is not the path to internal harmony. Instead, it’s a fast track to dissociation from self.
A sure-fire way to avoid conflict with someone else is to merge with them, abandoning your own wants and needs and replacing them with theirs. It’s also how Nines end up never completing their book, losing sight of themselves, and generally feeling like a ghost floating around an old, abandoned manor.
But never fear, Nines, because you have this one amazing thing going for you: you are at one with the universe, especially when you claim your wants and needs publicly. And you’re the best suited for the tough conflicts of life because you can see things from the other side’s perspective and find a solution that works for everyone. Only through those types of solutions can true peace—not a false and precarious one—be achieved.
Each of the nine types of the Enneagram has nine Levels of Development within it. Three are considered healthy, three are average, and three are unhealthy. We move through these levels at various moments of our lives, but we usually have an anchor point or baseline that’s our default. As we unlock some of the unconscious patterns associated with our type, our anchor point can move slowly upward toward healthier levels.
Below are descriptions of a Nine in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):
Healthy: Senses true autonomy and wholeness and at one with self, compelled to action by desire to spread love and connection, feels present and alive, feels and shares a deep sense of serenity, caring and diplomatic, mediates conflicts without diminishing POVs or importance of the conflict, exemplifies strong and compassionate communication, easily spots and communicates common ground without ignoring the differences.
Average: Views conflict as something to be avoided, begins to self-erase to accommodate others, says yes when they mean no, becomes complacent and ignores problems, starts tuning out from reality, acts emotionally neglectful to themselves and others, takes a fatalistic approach of “none of this matters anyway,” frustrating in their procrastination, getting a reaction or opinion from them is like getting blood from a stone.
Unhealthy: Disassociation intensifies, disconnection turns to harmful neglect, numbs self in attempt to silence inner voice, eventually becomes catatonic as they completely self-abandon and merge with others.
If you’re not a Nine, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Nines can make great heroes or villains in your books, depending on what development level they most often inhabit.
Okay, so how do you use this information to motivate yourself as a writer?
The key is to remember that unity is a matter of addition, not subtraction. You don’t create harmony between two people by erasing one of the people. That’s not harmony, it’s decimation. For harmony to exist, everyone must show up as whole as possible. The universe is a complete system, and it was born out of about as much conflict as we can imagine. But that heat gives birth to new stars and galaxies, and without it, there would be nothingness, not wholeness.
Your ability to resolve conflict is why you need to be writing, completing, and publishing your books. You can put your characters in the most perilous situation and show the reader that hope is never lost, that the solution requires everyone showing up and offering their unique gifts, and that no matter how dark that dark night of the soul, confronting it head-on it is the only path to personal and social harmony.
Every type has a wake-up call associated with it to tell us we’re plummeting down the development levels and it’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and reevaluate some of the premises we’re working from. For the Nine, the red flag is accommodation. This is the first warning sign that we’re losing connection with our own wants and needs for the sake of avoiding interpersonal conflicts.
In writing, this could look like following whatever our critique group or editor or beta readers suggest without a second thought (this turns the book into a knotty, inconsistent disaster). It could look like writing the genre you think your parents or partner would be proud of you for writing in rather than the one you feel most drawn to. It could look cutting out the cursing for characters who would 100% curse because you don’t want to upset readers or your grandmother. And sometimes it looks like not writing at all because protecting that time requires asserting your boundaries, and enforcing those almost always leads to conflict.
However, you Peacemakers are natural storytellers because you see the complexity and richness of a situation. Your talk-style is “epic saga” as a result. Further proof of that can be found in some of your notable fellow Nines like George Lucas, Walt Disney, and Jim Henson. Talk about creating a complete and believable fictional universe!
Joseph Campbell, the first person to popularize the idea of the Hero’s Journey, is another interesting example of the Nine finding commonality in humanity.
And then, of course, there’s Harry Potter, whose superpower was literally the love flowing through him, who refused the call at every turn and just wanted to be surrounded by his friends and family outside of conflict, but who ultimately saved the day by allowing that powerful love he felt for humanity to push him into action to come into big-time conflict with the villain. And it took a LOT of pressure and no way out but through before he finally took the necessary action. Sound maybe a little familiar, Nines?
So, if you’re struggling to put the words down, see if any of these are running on loop in your head:
“Does anyone even care about this series?”
“If I stopped writing tomorrow, no one would care.”
“There’s no rush. I can finish that chapter when I feel like it later.”
“I want to include diversity, but I’m not going to do it right and everyone’s going to get mad at me.”
“I need a few more people’s opinions on the plot before I’m ready to write it.”
“I should drop this and write about a safer topic.”
“This isn’t really the genre I want to write, but it’ll make [whoever] happy.”
“I don’t know what any of these characters want.”
“This is more effort than it’s worth.”
“What’s the point? The world won’t end if I don’t finish this.”
Each of these thoughts diminishes the importance of your voice or tells you that you don’t have the right to be heard. Sure, maybe you should run it through a sensitivity reader, but their word isn’t law. You could have two sensitivity readers who disagree, and then what? You’ll have to make the final call anyway. Own your voice. It’s just as important as everyone else’s.
Your words build bridges. They help opposing tribes see the other side of the argument. They heal wounds caused by separation. To say your stories don’t matter is, plain and simple, an egregious abdication of responsibility. No other type can do what you do the way you do it, and no other Nine has the personal experience you have that shapes your unique voice. Keeping it to yourself for fear of conflict is selfish. Will your books change the world? Maybe not. But they’ll change some people’s world, and those ripples add up.
Drawing conscious thought to our subconscious scripts is like drawing blood to an injury to help it heal. And that’s how we begin to break these cycles that hold us prisoner so we can move to healthier development levels of our type.
It’s also how we keep ourselves motivated and connected to the work when we’re Peacemakers.
So, if you’re a Nine who’s struggling with motivation:
Find a Nine role model who inspires you—George Lucas, Abraham Lincoln, Gloria Steinem, Audrey Hepburn, Barack Obama—and keep a picture of them on your desk or near you when you write. Let it be a reminder that they had the same self-doubts that you did and found the courage to speak anyway, and look at how it shaped the world.
Set yourself a narrative challenge: how much chaos and conflict can you create in your story that you then resolve? Exercise your gift of peacemaking—I promise it’ll feel great.
Ask yourself what in your life you’re saying yes to when you mean no, and see if you can rectify one of the situations. This will deepen your connection to yourself, and you can use that energy for your writing.
Think about what stories you needed to read when you were younger—what do you wish someone had told you and encouraged in you? And then write those stories. (It doesn’t have to be children’s books or YA, either. The inner children of adult readers need to hear your wisdom, too.)
Learn to recognize your body’s signals of yes and no. Your type is in the Gut triad, which means you experience the world through your body. Except, Peacemakers tend to detach from that to avoid the dreaded conflicts of life. Get back in touch with it through journaling and through paying attention to yourself when you make decisions to see how it feels. This will help you write characters who are more in touch with what they want.
Remember that slow and steady is a perfectly good approach. Slow and unsteady is how you will lose steam, though. Fast and steady is how you will likely run out of steam. If you feel yourself slipping into the frantic fear energy of your stress number (Six), take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Extent the timeline. Your work doesn’t have to be urgent to be important, but you do need to keep at it if you want to publish it.
Hit pause on listening to others’ suggestions for your work. You have enough voices in your head as it is without the input of everyone else. The answer you’re looking for is already in your mind. Take a moment to listen, then forge onward.
Maintain a regular movement practice. This doesn’t have to be intense, but physical exercise is crucial to combating unhealthy lethargy and inspiring the kind of action you must take to reach your healthier levels of development. When you feel the sleepiness and apathy start to set in, evaluate your life critically. Are you actually lacking sleep, or would you benefit from elevating that heart rate and getting your blood pumping?
Build a network of authors who value your voice and will remind you why it’s needed. External accountability might not make you write when you don’t feel like it, but it will help you keep track of how long it’s been since you’ve written, and that keeps weeks and months from slipping by unnoticed between writing sessions.
Now that we’ve covered the nine types, you might assume this series is over. NOT SO. These discussions have only scratched the surface by addressing a person’s dominant type, with a focus on average development levels.
Next week, we’re going to discuss further considerations and answer questions like, “Why do so many of these sound like me?” and “Why do I relate to most of the things you said about my type but not all?” and “These things used to describe me but don’t anymore. Have I changed types?”