I'm a FIVE

I'm a very naturally reflective person. I think I'm much better at reflecting than I am at living. That's actually kind of bothered me for most of my life until more recently when more awareness has come out about the gift of introversion versus extroversion. My family thinks I'm weird, but I actually love to read articles about introversion and join introvert groups on Facebook with people just like me. It's a comfort to know that I'm not the only one who hates talking on the phone, who prefers silence, who craves time alone, who thrives with one-on-one conversation and companionship rather than being with a group, and who prefers to listen and observe over talking and participating.

But then I attended a women's event at my church with a close friend, and we stumbled across the Enneagram. I'll admit, I'd never heard of it before, although now I know just how popular and widespread it is. As I've read, studied, and pondered over these nine personality types in the book The Road Back to You (Ian Cron and Suzane Stabile) over the last month, I'm left mesmerized as to how well the number 5 described me and helped me understand myself so much more. It's more than just a Meyer's-Briggs ISFJ personality, more than an introvert/extrovert explanation of who I am. It helped me see my strengths, my weaknesses, my needs, and even the why behind certain odd behaviors that I demonstrate quite often.

According to the Enneagram, as a five, I truly NEED time alone. I live so much of life in my head, that without time alone, I am not able to process the events in my life nor how I feel about them. I am emotionally detached and need time in private (sometimes days) to process an experience and know how I actually feel. I do not feel in the moment. I often have to go back in my head to process the emotions from an experience and feel them later. This suddenly made sense to me why I tend to push people away when I'm going through a difficult time. How can I talk to someone about what I'm going through if I haven't even processed it yet myself? It also made sense to me why I don't cry during movies, why people can pour their hearts out to me in tears, yet a single tear never enters my eye. It also revealed to me why I write.  I love to write poetry because I have no idea what I'm going to write, but by the time I finish a poem, I understand how deeply I truly feel about something, and I find Scriptural or spiritual healing by the end of every poem I write. I always used to say that writing poems was my way of processing my life. Now it makes perfect sense.

As a five, I'm very defensive with my time, constantly seeking security, independence, and privacy. One of my classic traits is to withhold personal information. Yep. Super hard for me to open up personally and share the depth of my heart unless I do so in writing. And if I took the time and showed the courage to do so in writing, then I most certainly do not want to talk about it, too. If I open my heart in a written way, take that as a gift from me and leave it at that.

As a five, I found that I am known for staying calm when everything or everyone around me is falling apart. Fives are knowing for their calmness in crisis. (At home I would not say that's true, but when I'm at work, that's incredibly true of me. A coworker of mine recently told me that when she sees me, she senses peace. Others also comment that they come into my room because they just need some calm vibes to get through their drama of a day. I've been told I have a soothing voice, too.)

At home, as like many other fives, I have to have a special place to be able to withdraw and recharge, a place that's filled with books, journals, articles, and special mementos from my travels and/or experiences. I crave simplicity and am not very attached to material things. I am a minimalist, which can often show up in my appearance (thus why my non-minimalist friend gives me so many cute clothes because she knows I won't buy them myself). Too much social engagement wears me out, which is why I keep a calendar so I don't overbook myself and spread myself too thin. I literally have to plan my energies around a big social event. I'm not so withdrawn that I don't participate in life socially, I just have to mentally plan for those events ahead of time. If you invite me somewhere last minute and I go, know that you must be pretty special to me because spontaneity is not my gift.

I hate to be interrupted while I'm working on something--especially by a phone, and I plan my time to the minute because I know just how much energy I have before my battery is going to run out. If I know an interruption is coming, I plan far ahead how to handle it and still get what I need to get done.

Fives are the most misunderstood of all the personality types. Since I am so quiet and reserved, I am very often mistaken for being snobby, stuck-up, or thinking I am better than others. Every time I get a new teammate at work, I have to explain from the get-go that I'm just not a very social person. It's not that I don't like to be around people--I do. But I need time and space to recharge in silence, plus I think and operate best without noise, so I keep my door closed a lot. Teaching 22 seven-year-olds takes a lot of energy, so when they've all gone home for the day, the last thing I want to do is try to socialize with someone. When I'm at work, my focus is work, not social relationships. I do build relationships at work, but they usually have to start outside of the regular work day (during a luncheon, a team-building activity, on a staff development day, a lunch out, etc.) But if we plan a get together outside of work over a cup of coffee, you'll see a whole different side of me and learn so much more about me. So when I read that my life is compartmentalized, I totally got it. Yes. Every person in my life fits into a different space and purpose. And it's all about learning how to manage my limited social energy before I just need some silence and solitude again. It keeps my from getting overwhelmed.

In the second book they wrote (The Path Between Us) that guides you to understand how to work the best with each different personality type, the one thing that stood out to me about working with a FIVE is to use as few words as possible. The less words, the better. That made me chuckle because it's so true. Talking to extroverts and long-winded or repetetive people wears me out. Once I've heard the main message of the conversation and then it starts to repeat itself, I tend to tune out. Lol. Sorry.

I learned so much in both of these books, not just about myself, but about all the different personality types and what makes them act the way they do. It gave me a different sense of compassion and understanding for my husband and all his quirks, a sense of forgiveness toward myself for all of my own quirks, and a better perspective about my boys and my other family members and why they do and say certain things.

I also finally understand why I started this blog and why I need to write on it more often. It's my processing page, my quiet space to attach emotions to my life, my way of letting others in when I would normally push them away. So my goal for 2020 is to get back on here more and share what's really going on inside me. It's a win-win, I think. I process more and know myself more, while at the same time I let others in.

This journey into the Enneagram was not something I pursued or saw coming, but I believe God led me to it for a purpose. (It really all just started out as wanting to spend an evening one-on-one with a close friend). I'm thankful to know myself and my family in a new and deeper way as I say goodbye to the last year and decade and step into the year 2020.

(**The bold phrases are traits of FIVES that I got straight from the books.)