Ask a group of people what they think of Shel Silverstein’s book The Giving Tree, and you’re almost guaranteed to start a heated debate. Is it a sweet story of unconditional love, or is it a tragedy about how people can give until they’re all used up?
If you’re an Enneagram Type 2, the Helper, this question will hit home especially hard for you. Can you ever give or help too much? Is it shameful to feel angry after you’ve willingly given everything you had but gotten nothing in return?
These are central questions that Twos battle with their whole life, but a little Enneagram guidance can go a long way toward finding comfortable answers.
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. To read the previous entries, go here: www.ffs.media/story-tips/category/Motivation+series
Today, we’re talking all about the Enneagram Twos, “the Helpers.” We’re going to dive deep into what motivates someone with these core fears and desires, and how we can build a nice little 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 strong Helper characters, but I guarantee you have a Two close to you in your life and understanding them will only strengthen the relationship.
At their core, Twos’ desire is to be loved. Their fear is that they’ll be unworthy of love. Love and service are central to this type, who can enjoy fulfilling lifelong friendships as well as plenty of one-sided relationships if they’re not careful.
The Twos I know are almost too sweet for this world. They have so much love to give that not showing it to others can be physically and emotionally painful. They’re natural nurturers, which makes them exceptional at anticipating the needs of others. But if they don’t learn a few raw truths about the nature of help vs. enabling and interdependency vs. codependency, the world around them will use them up. And as you can imagine, it’s hard to get the words down when you’re all used up.
If you’re a Two, it’s important to attach everything you do to a deeper motivation of nurturing the world, and that includes yourself. We hear the words “self-care” thrown around in somewhat obnoxious ways all the time, but it’s a necessary ritual for Twos to build into their daily routine. I’m not talking bubble baths and manicures (though feel free to treat yourself to those, too). I’m talking about protecting your writing time like a mother dog defends her pups. I’m talking about learning to ask for and accept help. While caring for others comes naturally for a Two, these forms of self-care generally do not.
Twos: You must learn to protect your flow of love! It’s a bright and bubbling font that attracts all kinds of creepy crawlers of the human species. It may feel rewarding to provide that nurturing at first, and you may even convince yourself that by drinking from your well, those creepy crawlers will be transformed into adorable little forest creatures. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
When I’m working with a Helper who is struggling with motivation, it’s usually because this exchange of energy is off. If you’re a Two who sits by yourself all day, you may need to work more social time into your schedule so you can expend some of the nurturing energy that’s building up inside you. But more likely, your day consists of too many people with endless needs, and you’ve left nothing for yourself and your art. This is a tragedy, and obviously I won’t tolerate it. I care about you too much, Two.
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 Two in the three categories of development (healthy, average, unhealthy):
Healthy: Feels unconditional love for others and self, is empathetic, attuned to the needs of others and gives what is needed rather than whatever will win approval, maintains clear boundaries and is able to accept help, flourishes in interdependent relationships
Average: Gives to ingratiate or people please, forces help upon others, becomes possessive of those who have received the help, acts self-important based on ability to give
Unhealthy: Relies on forced reciprocation to manipulate others, feels entitled after giving, refuses help from others then plays the martyr, feels perpetually victimized, acts helpless to force others into codependency
If you’re not a Two, you’re now thinking of someone you know who is. Or maybe even a character. As you can see, Twos 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 trick is simple: You need to be writing books that provide nurturance for your readers. Twos often end up writing romance for this reason. The promise of an HEA gives readers who need some TLC a safe place to find it.
Write stories that heal others while you heal yourself. Write stories where the conflict is resolved through your protagonist’s self-love. Show your readers, through the art of fiction, how we can build healthy relationships where love flows equally both ways and leave toxic relationships that take more than they give. Inspire others to love themselves the same way they love the world. You are a healer and nurturer by nature. Write stories that serve your soul, and those stories will serve the souls of your readers as well.
To a certain extent, American/Western culture expects all women to behave like Twos—selflessly giving and not asking for anything in return, yet somehow lasting in this way for decades and decades—mothers especially. And because these average and unhealthy traits of a Two are rewarded (by not being actively punished), Helpers can easily fall into that unhealthy trap.
Other types will usually reach a point where they say, “Yeah, this just ain’t me,” and default to their particular core motivations instead, but the Two is left behind, accepting the crumbs social rewards and avoiding punishment by being their unhealthy self. What a shitty situation to be in!
Twos who struggle to express their needs, or have done so in the past only to be met with indifference and neglect, can fall into what’s called the Drama Triangle. This includes three roles that a person rotates through: rescuer, martyr, persecutor.
In Twos, it starts like this: their genuine desire to help and care for others becomes an overexaggerated ego need that expresses itself in such a way that the Helper takes on the role of “rescuer.”
From time to time, most adults benefit from help, but not necessarily rescuing. Rescuing a person establishes a relationship dynamic where one person gives, and the other receives, but not in anything close to equal measure.
Once the Helper’s resources for rescuing are tapped out, they realize the situation is lopsided. Their stores are exhausted. They’ve given all their love to someone and left none for helping themselves. And then—gasp—in their time of need, no one is around to rescue them! (Twos’ pride usually means they show no obvious symptoms of needing help and therefore expect people to just know.) This leads to the next stage of the Drama Triangle as the rescuer becomes the martyr.
There’s a certain satisfaction to being a martyr. It shows that you have more love to give than others, and in the eyes of a Two, this might make you feel a pop of superiority. But that dries up quickly, and when your rescuer still hasn’t arrived, the third part of the Drama Triangle goes into effect, and the martyr becomes the persecutor. How dare no one else give until they drop over dead! How dare people not do for you what you did for others.
This is obviously not a healthy way to live, and to be fair, most Twos only experience mild versions of it. But none of it is good, and all of it is a missed opportunity for growth and development of healthy boundaries.
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 Two, the red flag is people pleasing. This is the point at which the Helper switches from giving the help that she is 1) able to give without over-giving and 2) is the amount needed by the recipient, and instead she begins giving based upon what will ingratiate her to those she’s giving to.
For example, maybe your friend needs $10 to cover a cab, and you give them $50 instead. It’s important for Twos to ask why precisely they threw in the extra $40. Because the recipient is wondering the same thing. What are they expected to do in return?
This creates a strange dynamic called “forced reciprocation.” It leaves the recipient on edge because humans have evolved with a sense of reciprocation (it’s what keeps us a social species), and we have a primal reaction to someone doing something for us: we want to return the favor and in equal or greater measure.
So, when a Two gives more than what the recipient genuinely needs, they’re putting them in a power-down position, socially speaking. The recipient will feel indebted to the Two, which is the groundwork for codependency (unhealthy attachment) rather than interdependency (a healthy and free flow of love and energy).
Combating these less than desirable patterns starts with a single word: no.
“Yes” comes naturally to a Helper, but saying “I won’t” before having to admit “I can’t” is called boundaries, and it’s a developed skill.
Writing a book is a long process. There are weeks, months, or years between when we write the first word and when others see our product and can benefit from it in the way we intended.
This means that those quick-fixes our brain often craves—instant gratification for our core desires and numbing to soothe our core fear—are not always baked into the book writing process. (If we’re smart about it and self-aware, though, we can build those in.)
So, if you’re a Two, you may know in your heart that your book will provide the nurturance to your readers that you hope for, but between the first word and hitting publish, what are you supposed to do, hold all your love inside?
No way. Especially when there are all kinds of people you can help on a daily basis! Woohoo!
So, you wake up at 6am to pack lunches for your kids and have breakfast ready for them. Then, it’s time to sit and write for two hours.
But then your wife overslept and can’t find her keys and the printer isn’t working but she needs to print out something before she can go to the big meeting at work in half an hour! Helper to the rescue!
Finally, you sit down with an hour and fifteen minutes left in your writing time. Better than nothing. But your sister just texted you saying that she had a big fight with her husband last night. Poor thing. You give her a call. When that’s done, you sit down to write and only have fifteen minutes left.
Well, shoot. That’s hardly any time at all before you head over to the women’s prison to volunteer. Probably better to leave 15 minutes early in case you hit traffic.
Suddenly, no writing.
Is this a familiar story?
I would never tell a Two not to care for the people they love. But when giving becomes a matter of instant gratification for our core desire (to be loved) and a balm for our core fear (to be unlovable), then it rules our schedule and kills our ability to create projects that require time before the payoff.
Don’t come at me with pitchforks, but maybe your kids can order lunch at school. Maybe they can fix their own breakfast. Your wife got herself into this mess and she’s a grown-up. Let her fix it for herself (she’ll feel better about having done it solo). And while your sister might need a shoulder to cry on, she can wait until you have available time, or she can speak with a therapist. None of those options makes you selfish or unloving. It’s normal boundary setting. People may (will) respond poorly at first as you break the pattern, but if they genuinely love you, they’ll adjust, and you’re helping them in the end by asking them to solve their own minor problems.
There’s really nothing like watching a Two who’s developed their gifts of love and caring express all of that through their creativity. Dolly Parton is an example of this. She made a name through the soulful songs that could only be created by someone with the ability to feel love so truly and deeply. As a result, she’s amassed enough financial resources to have plenty to give without 1) leaving nothing for herself or 2) expecting others to reciprocate. The people she has in her life love her fiercely and freely because of the love she’s given without expectation of receiving.
Same for Stevie Wonder, another Two. As far as fictional characters go, you have the loyal servant Samwise Gamgee, whose love for his friend Frodo inspires love back (okay, shippers, I see you). And then you have Molly Weasley, whose love for her many children takes all sort of shapes, from knitting them every article of clothing they own to uttering the only instance of “you bitch” in the entire series. The love of the Two can be fierce when it needs to be.
Helpers may be sweet, but they are not weak. The opposite, in fact. They’re strong enough to love in a world that doesn’t always show them love back. They’ll fight for love. When they’re healthy, they’ll be the shoulder to cry on in the hard times and the stalwart defender of those who cannot defend themselves.
There’s that now famous quote from the late Fred Rogers. We’ve all heard it, but it’s worth reading again in the context of this discussion:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”
Helpers, you restore our faith in humanity. You are the heart of humankind.
So if you’re struggling to put the words down or market your book, see if any of these scripts are running on loop in your head:
“I should be helping [whoever], not selfishly writing a book.”
“No one wanted my last book, so why bother with this one?”
“This is the book where everyone is going to read it and stop loving me.”
“My family needs me more.”
“I shouldn’t need a break.”
“If I stopped writing, no one would care.”
“I haven’t earned my writing time.”
“I can write after I’ve completed X,Y,Z.”
“I’ll write once [whoever] is in a better situation and doesn’t need my assistance.”
“How can I write when there’s so much pain in the world and no one’s doing anything about it?”
Creativity is a human requirement like exercise or a healthy diet. If you’ve chosen writing as your passion (or it’s chosen you), then it is not selfish to meet your basic human need. It is also not selfish to meet it before you meet the needs of others. After all, the only person who can meet your creative needs is you.
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 when we’re Helpers.
So, if you’re a Two who’s struggling with motivation:
Remember what your purpose for writing is and the caring world you want to create for your reader.
Find ways to connect with readers frequently (daily, even) throughout the writing process so you don’t have to wait months for any meaningful gratification.
Express your needs to readers. They care about you more than you know, and you probably have a lot of Twos who would benefit from seeing that modeled.
Learn to recognize when a relationship has fallen into a pattern of you giving more than you’re receiving and address it. (Maybe they’ll leave, or maybe they’ll change their behavior. Their response is outside of your control but standing up for yourself is not.)
If you start to feel like a martyr, ask yourself who you’re trying to rescue and whether you’ve been helping or enabling, then set aside time ASAP to care for your own needs.
Build relationships with other authors who will support you when it comes time to set and enforce difficult boundaries around your writing time.
Schedule frequent time for self-care like exercise and sports, journaling, psychotherapy, preparing healthy meals for yourself, naps, and time with competent friends who make you feel unconditionally loved.
Next week, we’ll discuss how to find you writing motivation if you’re a Type 3, the Achiever. This is the type of Taylor Swift, Oprah, Odysseus, and Jay Gatsby.
I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this type. Maybe you just realized this describes you and you feel slightly attacked but equally seen. Maybe your spouse or parent or sibling is a Two and suddenly everything makes sense. I live for these insights, so send them my way. And if you have remaining questions, I’ll take those, too.