How's That Working For You?

Host Art Wimberly delicately dissects his interview with Enneagram 3, Marty.

The drive to perform, excel and be noticed - and thus to feel accepted and loved - is a trap for many of us.  The underlying distress that without a successful image we could not possibly be worth loving has driven many to high levels of achievement but often at the expense of losing touch with their inherent belovedness.

That dynamic played out in real life for today’s guest, ennea-type Three Marty H., accomplished broadcaster, therapist, educator...and recovering alcoholic.  Listen in as Marty recalls his early life on a farm in the Canadian Prairies, where even then he sensed he had to over-achieve in order to be accepted, how that drove him unconsciously for decades, and how he ironically found unconditional love and acceptance in the recovery community where he became authentic about his worst failures.

All that and we also get to commemorate Bobby Orr’s birthday ( a Canadian National Holiday, eh?) and relive the glory days of professional hockey (say what?) in Birmingham, Alabama!

Host Art Wimberly delicately dissects his interview with Enneagram 5, Kristi Fines.

Recovery has been described as “solitary work that is too important to do alone”.  In other words, the hard work of recovery is on the interior self, but, the journey inward needs to be taken with compassionate, caring others.  At the same time, one of the major drivers of addiction - both in its beginning and its prolonging - is shame, and shame often keeps us from being willing to enter healing community and relationships.

So finding a community that can help absorb the shame is often a key to successful, long-term recovery.  But imagine you struggle deeply with shame and alcoholism but also tend toward an introverted personality, one that would prefer to do life through an escape inward into the life of the mind, withholding much of your emotional life and your true self from those around you.

That was the challenge that our Ennegram-type 5 guest faced both in her early attempts at recovery and in a later confusing and terrifying relapse.  Join us as Kristi Fines shares with raw honesty and hopeful insight about the struggles of her personality type to seek out and 'give herself away’ to a community that could help her move way from the grip shame and isolation had on her life.

Host Art Wimberly delicately dissects his interview with Enneagram 4, Shannon Reeves.

French philosopher, writer and mystic Simone Weil believed that “the soul’s natural inclination to love beauty is the trap God most frequently uses” to draw us closer.  All souls are designed to be attracted by beauty, and that “trap”, as she terms it, has the potential to draw each of us up to a deeper experience with the Divine.  Allusions to this powerful truth abound in many sacred traditions, such as in the Hebrew scriptures in Psalm 27 where this primal yearning of the human heart is expressed: “This only do I seek…that I may gaze on the fair beauty of the LORD…”.

Beloved ennea-type Fours seem to feel this heart-ache for beauty at the deepest of levels. Nicknamed The Holy Bringers of Beauty, when healthy, Fours are often unmatched in their ability to create and connect the world to beauty in many and various ways. Wired to be introspective, intuitive and keenly in touch with the hidden facets of soul, Fours can plumb the depths and heights of the human experience, seemingly at the same time. But when living life unconsciously, Fours can drift into over-sentimentality and overly dramatic states when they feel misunderstood, abandoned or disconnected from their true source.  Their need to be unique like no other traps them into feeling like something essential to life and happiness is always missing, just beyond their reach, which can lead to them swimming in envy and melancholy.

Now, imagine a sensitive, beauty-and-authenticity-seeking Four soul growing up in a home where alcoholism, image management and abuse were daily dynamics.  And where the unspoken family motto was ‘Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel’, and that you were the crazy one if you tried to speak truth?  Join us on this episode of Hows That Working For You as radiant Four Shannon Reeves shares about that childhood and reveals how early intervention in therapy, 12 Step communities and later enneagram depth-work helped expose and soften the unhealthy coping patterns she was living out.  Plus, we learn about how cancer surgery led to an impromptu pajama party, how she and her husband brought their dancing styles into harmony, and her fave 12th step “giveback”: World Central Kitchen!

Host Art Wimberly takes a deep dive into his interview with Alison Robinson.

Enneagram type Fives often feel they did not get some of the instructions everyone else was handed about how to be human.  Deep and cerebral, Fives sometimes become a bit bewildered about how to effectively bring their ‘inner world’ outside to the rest of us, or, when, how and for how long to allow us access to their full self.  As a result they can default to hoarding their time, space and energy in an unconscious manner and doing life and relationships primarily thorough their head space.  This can result in them losing touch with the fullness of their heart and body centers, which can cause great anxiety and suffering for our beloved Fives and frustration for those of us who want to know and love them well.

But when a Five has suffered enough, they can start the grace-journey of re-integrating all that they were created to be, beginning to re-collect the true, beautiful and good pieces of self they left behind in childhood. They can begin to understand - in a deeper, more precise way - how they were crafted by God and relax into their blessedness and live out their unique blessing and giftedness for the world.

Join us as delightful ennea-type Five Alison Robinson - Shakespearean actress, therapist, Mom and pastor’s wife - shares that ongoing journey back to her unique fullness, including dealing with mental health issues, cultural expectations and why she didn't get to “crush the pandemic” as she had hoped. Also: we get a tantalizing teaser on how we will all get deeper access to the inner life of Fives (and ourselves) in Alison’s soon-to-be-published sci-fi / fantasy novel!

Art Wimberly delicately breaks down the Enneagram impact from his gripping interview with Adam Fines.

One of the strengths of beloved type Sixes is their built-in ability to forecast what might possibly go wrong in life or need special attention beforehand. In fact, one of the humorous conversations you often hear in enneagram communities is if you are going to parachute out of a plane or go on safari you really want a Six to be in charge! If something could go wrong their mental vigilance will anticipate it and alert the community to prevent it.