Trusting My Gut as an Enneagram Type 4
New goal in life!
From now on I am going to work on listening to my gut and activating my gut center. Which is gonna be hard because I am very much a heart-centered person. My heart is the one that makes most of the decisions in my life. But my gut is where I’m supposed to be the most confident, the most daring, the most courageous. I want to be more of all of that! So does that mean I’m going against my Enneagram type? Not exactly.
The Enneagram has taught me a lot about balance. I’ve learned to respect the traits of other types, even if I’m not that Type. For example, I can respect a Type 1’s organizational skills, believe that they are a bit too rigid (if you ask me), and acknowledge that I need some of that organization in my life, too. That kind of respect is what we’re working on today. I don’t usually listen to my gut, but it doesn’t hurt to try it out, like a Type 1 does.
In this very personal episode, I’ll be sharing some updates on my life, my new goals, and how I’ll be listening to my gut and not just my heart. And also why listening to my gut apparently means barreling down the side of a mountain in Slovenia at top speed on skis? Gut people are very adventurous people and I guess I’m one of them now...
The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.
Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com
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Check out Jayla Rae’s free Enneagram guide on goal-setting here! jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide
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TRANSCRIPT: Trusting My Gut as an Enneagram Type 4
[00:00:00] Jayla Rae: Hey y'all. Welcome back to the Heart of a MilSpouse podcast. I know it's been a while since I recorded a solo episode, so I'm stoked to kind of just sit in front of the microphone and see what comes up. I'm sitting here with the Weens, with my two wiener dogs, so you may hear background noise.
[00:00:20] Jayla Rae: Anyway, so I wanted to talk about what it means to activate my gut center through the lens of the enneagram. But first I think I'll just provide a little bit of a life update. So I'm recording this on June 1st and life has been a lot lately. if we know each other on Instagram if you're over on Instagram and you see those coffee updates that I provide.
[00:00:48] Jayla Rae: Those are usually not about like happy, positive things, but more about the struggles of living and moving overseas, especially for those first, I don't know, [00:01:00] six months that we got here. it's been about nine months now, which is crazy to think about because time has gone by so slowly and so quickly. At the very same time.
[00:01:12] Jayla Rae: but I've kind of, been absent on Instagram recently. There's just a lot going on personally, in terms of with my family, in my relationship, and with my stepkids, and I am a part of the withdrawal stance as a Type Four. So if you see me disappear from social media or I don't even know, people are probably not even noticing, but if you see me disappear from social media, it's usually because I'm very busy bee, I don't know what to share because there's like too much going on essentially.
[00:01:53] Jayla Rae: So slowly getting back into the swing of things over there, there's lots of really great professional things happening.[00:02:00] I started work as an online business manager again, just about three months ago for the first time in a year in working in that capacity. So that's been really exciting to kind of get my feet wet again with that.
[00:02:14] Jayla Rae: And it's so nice to remember. To realize how much I remember and what I'm capable of. So I've loved supporting those clients and it has kept me very, very busy. I've also been continuing engram teaching and coaching, which is super exciting. If you saw on Instagram, if you're over there, if you don't know me over there, you should definitely, we should follow each other.
[00:02:39] Jayla Rae: Say, “Hey,” reach out, send a dm @mil.spouse. Super easy. Uh, but about a month ago now, I hosted an in-person engram workshop here in Rome, and we talked a lot about stress triggers per personality type and what it means to [00:03:00] enact traits, behaviors, and characteristics of your stress number, and then to also how to like work backward from that.
[00:03:09] Jayla Rae: If you know what your triggers are and you know what gets you to, a season, a moment, a week, a month of significant stress, you can then be on the lookout for those triggers. So I love talking about that. In particular for military spouses, state department spouses, those who continually move overseas or transfer back and forth between overseas posts and stateside posts because that in of itself is very triggering.
[00:03:41] Jayla Rae: it's very stressful and some personality types prefer to focus on. All of the positive aspects that come from living and moving overseas. And then others are kind of caught in the weeds when it comes to, the stress of it all. So I love walking through [00:04:00] those kinds of things In a workshop setting, people always have really like revelatory moments of, of realizing, oh shoot, yes, I am in my stress response right now.
[00:04:13] Jayla Rae: So anyway, we're gonna talk about the opposite of that in this podcast episode. we're gonna talk about what it means to activate your growth line, to activate your growth number. Another way to put that and to use that as a tool to build deeper self-awareness. what I usually say is that learning about.
[00:04:37] Jayla Rae: What you're like in times of stress is probably a bigger teacher, to me, versus what you're like in growth because we are often under a lot of stress and I think it's a really great tool. but I wanna talk about the opposite today because I've kind of been [00:05:00] Experimenting on how to describe this process, particularly to my email list.
[00:05:06] Jayla Rae: so if you're over there and you've been reading about what it means to activate my gut center, or any conversation I've had over with the email list about. About that activation. it's been kind of an experiment for me on how to articulate it. And I think my next step was bringing it here to the podcast because it's a verbal articulation, which is sometimes a little bit easier for me, even for a writer.
[00:05:33] Jayla Rae: Okay. So how am I working on activating my gut center in 2023? This was a personal goal of mine. First, I'll give a little bit of an overview of the three centers in the Enneagram. And if you know anything about your type, you probably know which center you are assigned to, and which center you belong to.
[00:05:56] Jayla Rae: And basically that just means that it is [00:06:00] most dominant. It is how you have learned to navigate the world and it is essentially overused. And what happens is we overuse our primary center and then the other two centers, Become less dominant, and they're definitely tools that we can pull out of our tool belt, but it takes work and it takes practice to understand when to use them.
[00:06:29] Jayla Rae: So, we have the gut center, which is Types Eights, Nines, and Ones. And they are very intuition-driven, grounded individuals who are struggling with a sense of autonomy in a way, which also leads to a primary emotion of anger. And then we have the Heart Center for Types Twos, Threes, and Fours.
[00:06:52] Jayla Rae: They're very feeling-centric, more relational, and struggling with a sense of shame in some [00:07:00] way. And then finally we have the head center Types Five, Sixes, and Sevens who are very thought-driven, dealing with preparations and struggling with a sense of fear, and that is a very like simplistic way to put it, but hopefully that kind of helps.
[00:07:21] Jayla Rae: Just to give an overview.
[00:07:22] Jayla Rae: So as a Type Four, who lives in the heart center, I love to focus on my heart space. I love to focus on how a situation makes me feel, how a person makes me feel. you know, when people ask me, what do you think? I'm often telling them how I feel, not what I think. I am able to.
[00:07:46] Jayla Rae: Activate my head center as well, especially when it comes to making decisions, but I still get really caught up in the feelings of it all, in the heart space of it all, and have [00:08:00] to work to turn that down, turn that knob down a little bit to activate the head center, in order to approach decisions from a more, rational place versus reactive place.
[00:08:15] Jayla Rae: And then there's the gut center for me, which is like, I'm completely blind too, basically, I don't know how to use it. that's why it's been an exercise for me this year to really figure out how to use it and when to use it as well and what is most beneficial to me. So part of the gut center is what it sounds like.
[00:08:39] Jayla Rae: It's in, it's located in your belly. It is like the belly/abdomen area, and those who belong to the gut center probably have a hard time, articulating what that means to them. I think from what I've heard from a type [00:09:00] one perspective is that yes, there's a lot of like intuitive hits, but it's just this inner knowing that they act from.
[00:09:09] Jayla Rae: And since a One is very focused on the morals and the ethics of a situation, knowing what's right and wrong is truly coming from their gut, and they may not be able to describe to you why that is. Something similar could happen with a type eight, for example. there's not a lot. There's typically not a lot of thought going into a decision.
[00:09:32] Jayla Rae: It's just a gut. Reaction to something. now that can lead to a little bit of impulsivity and not wanting to slow down to really consider all the angles when making a decision. So that's kind of the other side of the coin with someone in the gut center. knowing when to activate, you know, cuz they have the same struggle.
[00:09:52] Jayla Rae: They need to understand when to activate their head center and their heart center in order to make decisions. And then for a type nine, this [00:10:00] is a little more, there's always one type in each of these centers that doesn't quite match up with the other two and feels a little bit more like an exception.
[00:10:10] Jayla Rae: But for a Type Nine, those intuitive hits and that that gut center that they are utilizing is probably a little bit quieter, but it is, it is from a very grounded place and it's used to determine, Which action to take next? To take next, essentially. So, as somebody who doesn't automatically activate this gut center, like what have I been doing this year to really focus on this and to figure out how to get a more balanced approach to situations and to grow as a human being and to like foster
[00:10:53] Jayla Rae: Deeper self-awareness for myself, even as an Enneagram coach. All Enneagram teachers and coaches out there are [00:11:00] doing their own work and utilizing this system themselves. hopefully. So here are some things that I've been doing. I talked a little bit about this to my email list and a little bit on Instagram, but this year I really tried.
[00:11:16] Jayla Rae: Skiing and I had skied for the first time last year. and that lesson did not go so great. And so I was really determined to try it again this year and to do it with the family living in, you know, a country like Italy with so much access to. Its own slopes and mountains, but then having such, you know, close proximity to other countries, who are known for skiing is definitely a benefit that we knew we wanted to take advantage of while living here and to hopefully give that experience to the kids too.
[00:11:52] Jayla Rae: So we went skiing in Slovenia. If you've never been to Slovenia, I understand cuz it's not like, One of those [00:12:00] countries that people talk a lot about. It is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and I cannot recommend it enough. And all of our interactions with Slovenian people were just so, positive and welcoming.
[00:12:12] Jayla Rae: And it was the second time we'd actually gone there in like the span of three months and it's just right there over the boat, over the border. So anyway, we took the family skiing and. The reason skiing for me was such a challenge is I've never really been good at like, hand-eye coordination, but I've also never really been good at using my mind to control my body, but then also letting the mind go and just letting your body lead you.
[00:12:49] Jayla Rae: That's never been something I've really been good at. I've been told from a very young age that I have the body type of an athlete and I could have played a lot of different sports [00:13:00] and it was never something I really enjoyed because it required, I felt like it required a lot more effort from me to do that than it did for other people.
[00:13:12] Jayla Rae: Now I realize that I'm trying to like set myself apart by saying that, and that is something that a type four will do. But what I mean by that is I never had a natural athletic ability. I had to work at it. And I think the other athletes growing up that I was surrounded by had. Such autonomy over their body and control what it is that it could do.
[00:13:42] Jayla Rae: and I'm not just talking about like, you know, sports like. I was around soccer players or baseball players. I was also around a lot of dancers and you know, I tried out just as a, as a side note, I tried out for the dance company in what was that? Ninth grade and didn't [00:14:00] make it. And when I look back at, on those experiences now, when I look at it through the lens of the Enneagram, I see why that was.
[00:14:09] Jayla Rae: I can now explain why that was. And the reason to me is that I had to work really hard to activate my gut center and to work from my body, not to work from my heart, and not to work from my head, but to trust my body to do what is necessary. So an endeavor like skiing. Woo. It was a new activity. It requires every ounce of self-trust as you barrel down a mountain at top speed, and you learn how to connect your mind and your body to work in tandem with one another.
[00:14:46] Jayla Rae: And also just to like, just to shut off the mind as well, and to just trust your body to do what is necessary, like I said before, so. That's, that was a very big, prominent experience for [00:15:00] me this year. I don't know that I got to a place where I was fully able to turn off the brain or, you know, turn off like all of the worries that were happening while I was skiing.
[00:15:12] Jayla Rae: But I did get further along in the process. And I did go down a mountain and there were a couple instances where I did it by myself and I didn't need someone to go with me. it required a lot of persistence. my family, my, my husband and my stepkids took to it a lot more naturally than I did, and.
[00:15:36] Jayla Rae: I really had to work at it. I was really worried that I was, you know, holding everyone else back around me and was getting all caught up in that and, you know, the feelings of it all and like the relational aspect of it all, the heart space of it all, and had to learn how to quiet it and tone it down, turn the knob down so that I could get back to [00:16:00] the action and the activity of skiing itself.
[00:16:04] Jayla Rae: So it was very challenging and I plan to do it again and it's, that's one of the ways that I've been working on activating my gut center more in the year of 2023.
[00:16:16] Jayla Rae: Something else I've been working on is deep breathing, and I've said this online multiple times. I'll probably continue saying it. I hate taking deep breaths.
[00:16:27] Jayla Rae: I hate the sound of breathing. I hate hearing other people breathing, like being in a closed, like an enclosed small space in a yoga class, for example, where you can hear everybody Taking intentional deep breaths is my nightmare. I, I know why I have such a resistance to it. Maybe I don't need to go into that, but like, When all of my personality triggers are flaring, [00:17:00] deep breath is the thing that I will continue to avoid as long as possible.
[00:17:05] Jayla Rae: Because when all of my personality triggers are flaring, and this is something that, you know, belongs to the heart space in particular, but, you know, there are several more, reactive types on the Enneagram, myself, among them. Who will use a situation as fuel to continue feeling that way. And because your thoughts really inform your emotions, if you continue to think over and over again about how fired up you are over that trigger and how that person has really upset you, or this situation really frustrates you and you just keep going in a loop.
[00:17:46] Jayla Rae: So as to continue feeling the intensity of the moment that is not activating a gut center that is remaining in the heart center and [00:18:00] refusing to utilize other centers. So that's a common experience for me and it's something I'm aware of and it's something that I have been working on for, I mean, years at this point.
[00:18:11] Jayla Rae: But it takes a lot of practice to pause. To take a deep breath and then to continue breathing. Like, don't do it in short spurts. Take it as deeply as you can into your belly to really activate that gut center and to allow it to calm you so that, that emotional outburst or however you wanna put it, doesn't continue.
[00:18:36] Jayla Rae: I'm getting better at remembering to center my breath before moving into decision-making mode. So I'm really aware that like I have to have the emotional reaction to a situation first. That's gotta happen for me. And then I can move into decision-making mode.
[00:18:55] Jayla Rae: It's just something I like know about myself, especially when I think about myself [00:19:00] professionally. If I don't have the moment to express the feelings around the situation, I'm not gonna be able to get into action-taking mode quickly. I gotta have that moment to just say it, whether that's to the person I'm around to a trusted source, what have you.
[00:19:19] Jayla Rae: But I'm getting better at remembering to center my breath before moving into the decision-making mode because activating that gun center is also activating my intuition and it's activating that quick little hit that's gonna happen that tells me what it is to do next and how to handle the situation going forward.
[00:19:41] Jayla Rae: So that's something else I've been working on in the year of 2023. is the deep breathing and then that connection to listening to those intuitive hits. And in the past few months, whether that's online, in [00:20:00] any gram typing sessions, in that workshop that I just hosted, for example, I've gotten a lot of questions about what does it mean to.
[00:20:09] Jayla Rae: You know, use your heart to make a decision. And what does it mean to use your gut to make a decision? Because we have like two phrases, right? It's like, listen to your gut or listen to your heart. And the question I've gotten has been, are those the same thing? And if we're looking at this from an approach of the Enneagram and utilizing that system to analyze, are those two things the same thing?
[00:20:37] Jayla Rae: The answer is no. They are not the same thing because your gut is your belly. It's representative of how your body responds to making that to to that situation and what to do next with what your body is trying to tell you. Your heart [00:21:00] space is trying to tell you how you feel and I hate.
[00:21:05] Jayla Rae: Saying this because especially when I'm all fired up and someone says this to me, it's truly not helpful. and I think it's because it's, it's also used in like a toxic, positivity way. And that really annoys me. I think people misuse this a lot, but when people say feelings are not facts, right? Like you can't just base your decisions off of feelings all the time.
[00:21:29] Jayla Rae: Like we know that logically. But one of the reasons you could claim that that is so important is because your heart space and telling you how you feel about something and using your heart to make a decision is not always the best tool. It's not always the most reliant tool. It's, it's not always. [00:22:00] The space in your body to use to make a decision.
[00:22:04] Jayla Rae: Sometimes it should come from your gut and listening to your gut is a practice. And it takes, it takes a while to understand what that feels like. and I think it's slightly different for people, in how they describe it, but I'll just tell you how I would describe it. so like an intuitive hit.
[00:22:26] Jayla Rae: First of all is very, very quick. it's in your gut, it's in your belly, it's in your abdomen. It's, it's in that general area. if we're bringing human design into the conversation, for example, that's happening within your spleen, so think about where your spleen is located. If you're receiving an intuitive hit that tells you what to do next.
[00:22:47] Jayla Rae: It is very, very quick, and this is the reason why people miss it. And aren't trained to be listening for it. and then if we go back to the Enneagram [00:23:00] and we use our personality type to say, okay, well why do I have such a hard time, listening to this part of my body to help me make decisions? It's because it is not the dominant one that your personality type has.
[00:23:15] Jayla Rae: Picked essentially when you were young and when you were, growing up in the world and using all of that information to inform your strategies, your ego, et cetera, it's just not the one that made the most sense. So it was softened and it was dimmed. And part of the practice is to learn how to turn that volume up a little bit more and how to use it and when.
[00:23:42] Jayla Rae: It's good for you to use that.
[00:23:45] Jayla Rae: So with all of that in mind, when we're talking about me, I'm talking about activating my gut center. your question might be okay, but how do you know that it's your gut center that you need to activate based on your type? How do you know that that is [00:24:00] the center that is not as dominant and it's not the one that you use?
[00:24:05] Jayla Rae: There's a really easy way to answer that question. So you have your Enneagram type, it never changes, that's your core, but you can borrow traits and characteristics of your growth, number of your growth, of your growth line, as a type four. I'm supposed to be looking toward a type one, for advice for direction.
[00:24:31] Jayla Rae: and that kind of thing. And a Type One belongs to the gut center alongside, type eight and type nine. So when I talk about activating my gut center, I am also talking about what it means to be more One-like, and to let some of these unhelpful patterns and behaviors that keep me stuck in type four all the time.
[00:24:59] Jayla Rae: how to let [00:25:00] some of those go so that I can move more toward, one traits and characteristics in times of personal growth, in terms of, you know, exercise and stepping outside of my comfort zone and skiing is an activity that to me, encapsulates all of that going Skiing is me acting more like a one versus acting more like a Four.
[00:25:26] Jayla Rae: So, That's what I mean by that. there's also like a theory kind of floating around in the Engram community and I'm, I'm so sorry, I'm not gonna remember like who to give credit for this cuz I, it, I've heard it in a few different places at this point, but basically there's a theory floating around that.
[00:25:44] Jayla Rae: our growth line really our growth number showed up really early on in our childhood. But we split off from it into a different type because we thought those strategies weren't [00:26:00] really working for us, so we kind of headed in a different direction. That's obviously not scientific or using, psychology terminology to describe that, but our relationship with our growth number often feels pretty torn.
[00:26:17] Jayla Rae: It feels contentious in a way. And it's because we see those traits and char characteristics in that other number, in that other type. And we're kind of annoyed. We're like annoyed. So let me give you an example. When I'm around a type one and I see how. rigid. They can, I view it as rigid. They would not view it as rigid.
[00:26:44] Jayla Rae: I see how rigid they can be in their routine, their to-do list, and their need to kind of organize life's chaos and take that all on their shoulders. I see how they communicate with other people. It's often in a very, polished [00:27:00] demeanor. And, you know, sometimes that is at odds with me just wanting people to authentically express themselves.
[00:27:08] Jayla Rae: And if you're putting on a polish, is that really authentic? You know, there's a lot about a type one that really gets under my skin. but then when I look at myself, in a role like Director of Operations or online business manager, which are two things that I've done, to employ myself, I become more one, like I have to, I won't make it if I act like a four all the time.
[00:27:36] Jayla Rae: So it's stuff that simultaneously annoys me, and yet I recognize the benefit in it. I recognize the fact that if I act more like a One, I do become more productive. If I develop a couple more, routines, I do get more space in the [00:28:00] day to act and to do, which is important. But then it also has a reverse effect where if I give myself a routine, that does mean that I have a little bit more space to be.
[00:28:12] Jayla Rae: Creative and to fill in the blanks and, and do the things that, you know, my four self likes to do. So it's sometimes you just need to borrow from your growth number in order to become more decisive, a little bit more productive. In my case, that would be a goal and more grounded in that pursuit. And to me, taking on those traits of a type one also means activating my gut center and acting more from those intuitive hits versus getting caught up in all of the heart space feelings and relational of it all.
[00:28:55] Jayla Rae: And, you know, wondering and worrying, well, how is someone else going to feel if I [00:29:00] do this thing? And you know, it's more about doing what's right for me. At that time and not allowing myself to get caught up in all of the feelings of it. So hopefully that gives like a, a good example of what it means to enact your growth number, and how it's not easy.
[00:29:26] Jayla Rae: It's not an easy task, and I know I spend a lot of time talking about our stress line and our stress numbers and using that as a tool, but I just wanted to spend some time highlighting that. We gotta think about that in the reverse as well. If we know what not to do, we also need to know what to do. So if after this you want to understand more about what your growth number is and what your stress number is, And the relationship that you have with those two other types, [00:30:00] feel free to reach out.
[00:30:01] Jayla Rae: I would love to hear from you. You can send me a DM on Instagram at mill dot spouse cuz I can literally talk about the Enneagram for hours. So reach out if you're a little confused and then I can point you in the right direction with different, resources to check out. potentially a couple accounts on Instagram to follow that really.
[00:30:22] Jayla Rae: Break down this process in, you know, a post format, but still remain true to the depth of the system. So I'm excited to hear from you. if you're looking for Enneagram coaching and really want someone to help you wade through what it means to enact your growth path, I've got you. One way to break that down really easily in real-time is to just ask yourself.
[00:30:53] Jayla Rae: for me, I would be asking, okay, I'm in a situation. I need to make decisions. [00:31:00] I'm not really feeling, you know, motivated to do so, to do so, or perhaps I'm just feeling really fired up and activated in terms of my emotions. One easy question I can ask myself is, what would a type one do? How would a type one respond in this situation?
[00:31:19] Jayla Rae: Is there anything I can learn from that type to help me navigate this? So those are some questions to ask yourself. if you do indeed and know your Ngram type and know what your growth number is. To try on,
[00:31:37] Jayla Rae: coaching opportunities can be found on my website, jay laray.com, and I'll include all of these links in the show notes as well.
[00:31:44] Jayla Rae: and if you know you're any gram type and you really would like to hear about how to actually use it and to develop deeper self-awareness, maybe to develop, you know, three things you can work on in the year 2023. to enact your growth path, just kind of how I've [00:32:00] outlined for you, then consider My Personality Map Call.
[00:32:03] Jayla Rae: it is an hour long, it's only $97, and would give you a really great baseline on how to view, a problem or a behavior or pattern that you've been experiencing that you want to shed and the growth path forward in order to do that for the rest of the year. All right, y'all. Well, it's been great to kind of sit in front of the microphone and go through some thoughts again.
[00:32:31]Jayla Rae: hopefully they were coherent and I will see you next time. Bye y'all. Thanks.