Introduction

Adam 1:11

Hey everyone. Welcome back to your Enneagram coach, the podcast. I'm Adam Breckenridge, joined by my good friend Brian Lee. Uh, Brian and I get to work together every day to serve our community of certified coaches, and for a few episodes this summer, we are filling in for Beth, Jeff McCord to host the podcast. And we're so glad that you're here. Um, it's our mission here at your Enneagram coach to help you see yourselves with astonishing clarity so that you can break free from self-condemnation, fear, and shame by knowing and experiencing the unconditional love, forgiveness, and freedom and Christ. And if you love this content, turn on the automatic downloads like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also, share this with someone who would enjoy or benefit from this content too. Well, on this episode we're gonna talk about the Enneagram and emotions we're gonna get into beneath the hood of consciousness and into our emotional world. And our guest and conversation partner for this episode is Phil Herndon. Phil is a licensed counselor. He is the clinical director for the River Tree Counseling Center and 10 Man Ministries, both based out of the Nashville area. He co-wrote The Voice of the Heart Bible Study along with Jeff Schulte, uh, which is a compliment to the book, voice of the Heart, written by Chip Dodd. Phil also spent years serving as a pastor. He is a mentor to so many pastors, coaches and therapists who are in the caring professions. And personally, Phil is a friend and a mentor to me. He also happens to be an Enneagram nine, which is about as good as it gets. Uh, so with that, I wanna welcome him to the show. Phil, thanks for being here.

Phil 2:47

Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Brian. Good to be here.

Adam 2:50

We were joking

Brian 2:51

So good to meet you.

Adam 2:53

Record that you and Brian, uh, are in sync today with the same, with the same kinda shirt.

Brian 2:58

That's right. I was gonna say, if you're watching the podcast on YouTube, you get to see, uh, Phil and I matching. Cause we got the memo.

Phil 3:04

You cannot hide style, right, Adam? I mean, right.

Adam 3:07

You

Brian 3:08

right.

Adam 3:09

you can't. Yes,

Brian 3:12

I love it.

Adam 3:15

Hey, Phil, go ahead, Brian.

Brian 3:17

I was gonna, I was gonna start jumping in, but you go first.

Adam 3:19

Yeah, dude, go for it. Jump in. I, I was just gonna say, is there anything else, Phil, that we should know about you? Like is there any favorite foods, favorite color TV show? Like is anything you wanna share about, about who Phil is?

Phil 3:32

I mean, obviously fried catfish, favorite food. I mean that, that, that goes without saying Born in Mississippi, raised in Georgia, educated in Oklahoma. I mean, you know, that that was coming. Uh, no, that's really kind of it. I love, I, I was, I, you know, I'm an old guy now and I'm doing things. I was, you know, never going to do. And one of them was, I'm not ever gonna become that old sage mentor guy. Now, when you said mentor, I thought, yeah, man, I really love mentoring younger guys. So I'm just adding that to the list of things I love. But I do, I do love this stage of life to be able to do things like this.

Adam 4:08

Love it.

Brian 4:09

amazing. Thank you. Um, so I have read and Loved Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd because Adam recommended it to me. It's helped me, impacted me tremendously. There may be listeners or viewers out there who have also read it. Um, and as Adam mentioned, you helped co-write the companion to that book, the Voice of the Heart Bible Study. Would you be able to give us kind of some background or some understanding for people who don't know about it or who haven't read it, about both of those resources, the book and the workbook, and how they work together?

Phil 4:38

Yeah, love do that. Um, chip and I met, I was a graduate student in Grapevine, Texas in 1990. We met, we tell the joke we met at a psych hospital. We were staff at PSY Hospital and uh, uh, we, we were asked to write a Christian based or scripturally based program for the hospital for sexual trauma slash sexual addiction. So people who had both of those things going on at once. And so we got together, several of us, but he and I were two other people doing that. And we just had, had an, a personal affinity for one another and kind of professional. He was way ahead of me in terms of he would, had been outta school, finished his PhD. He was actually running, directing a really large practice in Dallas. I was in a fledgling little practice with a former professor of mine over in the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex. And so we kinda did that, did that thing where, hey man, one day it'd be great to work together and yeah, sure would. And just a few years later, here, here we are, uh, he had moved, he's from here. He is actually from Murphysboro, the town that I'm, that I'm in outside Nashville. And he moved, had moved back home. For him to start a treatment program for professional men was kind of the niche and what the affinity was between me and him. And he was certainly the pioneer in this. But it, it hit home for me emotionally and, and even, even logically guys, it's like, you know, Professional men, and a lot of people have a lot of men. Intellect have a lot of morality. They have a lot of willpower. So they're smart and they're good people and they're tough, but they get in these situations with addiction and unhealthy relationships and those kinds of things. And so real healing for humans comes at a heart level on this emotional, emotional life that we have. And so that was our connection, the beginning. And so he sent me the Advanced Reader's Edition, a Voice of the Heart in about 2000. And uh, so I read that thing and I'm one of those people. I read it and I thought, man, this makes so much sense. I read the book one time, I haven't read it since it made sense to me in 2000, about 2001 maybe. And so that point in time, time went on and I came out here, joined him, and we worked together the treatment center that he had begun in 1996. We did that together for 17, 18 years. And we just saw man after Man After man, and, and women and their children. Uh, grow, grow their roots down deep into the soil of, of life based on dealing with these eight, eight core feelings and opening back up those portals that had been closed off, uh, through trauma woundedness and other things. And so the book came about from chips recognition of working with lots of people that something that was missing in what you might call classic therapy, was this whole idea around what happened in your story on an emotional level, not just the content. What, what's the emotional content of this story you lived? And so that was the, the book came from that. And lots of research that he did in synthesizing some things and some, some original things from him that created the book. And so it's, it, it wasn't funny at the time. It's funny now looking back, he and I went to, I, I won't name where it was, but we went to a place made arrangements to go talk to someone about treating some of their. Folks in our treatment center. And we traveled for several hours in a car, stayed in a hotel that night, got up and the guy we were there to see gave us about 10 minutes of time and then dismissed us like, okay, okay, thanks for coming. Goodbye. And so we spent 10 or 12 hours in a vehicle for about 10 or 15 minutes. So on the way back here to Nashville, I was just, I was just angry and scared and hurt. And, uh, I said, you know what? I said, we, we just need to do a Bible study, raise the flag on like their solid theology and these feelings like this, this is script, this is in the word of God here, feelings and having experiences with people. And we just need to do that. We just need to write a Bible study to go along with this thing and just let people know where we're, and Chip said, that is a great idea. Call Schulte, y'all write that thing. Whoa. And so that's literally the genesis of, of the Bible study. So Jeff, Jeff lived nearby. He lived in a little town called Anchorage, Alaska. At the time. And so, so he and I were back before we had these, these platforms or that I knew about it, we were Skyping each other and his mouth would move and, you know, three minutes later the words would come and I was doing the same thing to him. And so he flew down here to the area three or four weekends and we just locked ourselves. And our treatment center, lecture room, we called it, we Whiteboarded and we knocked that thing out. And, and, uh, cause to me, to him and many other people, like the theology is super clear. It just wasn't overt in the book. And so Chip gave us one instruction on, he has told people this publicly, as of Jeff and I, he said, listen, you guys, do not write a Bible study for your seminary professors. Write a Bible study for people who are living day in and day out dealing with these things. And they may not even know it. Write it for them. And so that's what we, that's what we set out to do. That's kind of the, the, the creation of both of those works.

Brian 10:00

I love that.

Adam 10:01

Love it. You know, you're touching on something, Phil. It's, it's, it's a place where I want to take the conversation. Um, you, you talked about, Hey, there's, I can hear your anger when you said it. There's theology in this, like this is all rooted in the life of God and the heart of God. Like, this is not, this is not, our feelings are not what's wrong with us. They're part of our anthropology. Like, I can hear all of that, you know, and there's something I've heard you say over and over again and Jeff and, and 10 Man as well, and you talk about it in the book. It's just that this idea that feelings are the doorway into our needs and therefore the doorway into relationship and intimacy. And, and, um, you know, the problem having said that is that that's, that's not always the way that we're taught. Uh, I, I, I got asked recently to speak at, uh, speak to the students in our college ministry at church, and the topic was, uh, what's one thing I wish someone would've told me when I was your age? So I guess being 40 now, I'm, I'm like, considered the guy that can actually answer that question. You know, when I, when I was your age, here's one thing I wish someone would've told me, and our mutual friend, Chuck Ashwin, was actually staying with me here in central Arkansas that, that, uh, for that couple days that week. So he, I said, Chuck, you're gonna teach with me. We're gonna teach the college students. And I, I said, here's the topic. And so we both kind of prayed and, and thought, and we both came up with, uh, together. Like, I wish of all the things I wish someone would've told me, there's a lot of things I wish someone would've told me. That feelings are not what's wrong with me. Feelings are places to meet with God.

Phil 11:38

Yeah, boy.

Adam 11:40

feelings are, are, are doorways into relationship and, um, Having said that, that's not really the way most of us are taught, right. To approach our emotions. And, uh, that's kind of the genesis of, of what created this, this resource, this resource that you guys made. And so here's, here's my question.

What is the “Voice of Convention?”

Adam 12:00

In the book, you talk about that as the voice of convention. You know, you say, here's the voice of your heart. Uh, you know, let's take sadness for example. And then you go into the voice of convention, which is how you've been taught to deal with your sadness or whatever the emotion is. So Phil, how would you sum up what the voice of convention is that most of us growing up here in the West have heard and experienced when it comes to our emotions? How, how are we pretty much taught to deal with our emotions?

Phil 12:29

Yeah. I'll cotail off a statement that Dallas Willard made popular years ago, and it's sin management. Um, a lot of Christian families, super well intended parents, and some many cases. See feelings as being your, your statement Adam is really beautiful. Like, my feelings are not what is wrong with me. They are how I relate to God and to self and to others. And so, and they're scary. They're vulnerable. They are literally the language of vulnerability. You look at any of those eight and like when I, when I confess, I'm feeling one or more of those, I'm in a really vulnerable place. And so perhaps unwittingly really good people can raise children and they say feelings are bad. And so the way you manage sin and the way you act right outwardly is to make those things go away because they get you in trouble. They do this, they do that. They, they're a sign of not having faith. And so perhaps in the, for the purpose of creating really good compliant children, Parents will, the voice of convention will say, if you have those, do away with them because they can't be trusted. And the way you live successfully is don't sin outwardly. Be nice, be cordial. And those are important things to be. And that will, if you won't have those feelings, you can manage your sin and well, and that's the point, that's the, that's what the voice of convention often says.

Adam 14:00

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Brian, what about you? Cuz I know you know, you know, you, you're, you've been a pastoral ministry for 20 years. What, how were you taught explicitly or implicitly by, you know, family of origin, culture, church to, to approach your emotions?

Brian 14:17

explicitly I wasn't taught implicitly. I was taught to ignore them or set them aside cuz we're intellectual or we just don't express emotions. Uh, grew up first generation, Korean household firstborn son of immigrants. And it's like there's so much trauma that that already carries. And then growing up in a pastor's house and being the firstborn oldest son of the pastor and in the family and setting the example for everyone else. So it's just like, and being an Enneagram one on top of all of that, there's a whole range of emotions that I'm not allowed or supposed to show because they would be wrong.

Adam 14:57

Hmm.

Brian 14:57

So I don't get to express being hurt or lonely or sad or angry or ashamed or any of those things. Um, and then growing up or leading in or working in churches who have a theology of toxic positivity, right? Where you're only supposed to claim the victory or have healing or any of those things to express grief or fear or hurt or loneliness, or any of those things would be viewed as not spiritual enough,

Adam 15:27

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brian 15:29

So for me, I think the first introduction to emotions came through counseling, um, through books like Untangling Emotions or Voice of the Heart or any of these things. It's like, oh, emotions like you're saying are a pathway to God. They're an invitation to something. It's a sign that something is wrong or something is going on. So tune into that, figure out what it means. And for me it was, I was introduced to that whole feelings wheel thing. Which can be a really helpful tool for some, for me, it was just utterly overwhelming. It's just too much to look at that. It's like, I have to figure this, like, there's too many words on here. So when I got introduced to the Voice of the Heart, I was like, oh, eight feelings. I can do eight.

Phil 16:10

Mm-hmm.

Brian 16:11

that down. Um, and it was so much more instantly helpful to me. Um, and Phil, like you're saying, it is just, it makes so much sense and there is so much good theological background and underpinning to the whole thing, um, that, that just, it really turned things around for me like in the last two years, I'd say.

Phil 16:34

So glad to hear that, that that really is true. You move so often, Brian, I've heard that story so often. You move from, have nothing to do with these to look on this wheel of these 77 words and

Brian 16:47

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Phil 16:49

Wow. That's like

Brian 16:51

It's whiplash.

Phil 16:52

Uh, it really is.

Adam 16:56

Yeah. Thank you both for sharing. I mean, my, my story is really similar and as, as I listen to both of you talk, um, I mean, I think what I'm picking up on is there's. There's a few basic ways, toxic ways that we are taught to deal with our emotions. Um, both of you, both of you picked up on all three of 'em, but one is that we, you know, we demonize or shame our feelings. This can be explicit or implicitly taught to us as well, right? Some of us, this is explicitly taught, uh, don't, don't be a baby. I'll give you something to cry about. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Don't be weak. Um, and both of you said it too. There's even a spiritual version of this, you know, so, you know, now all of a sudden my fear, and I'm an Enneagram six, right? So I have a close relationship with fear. Uh, I was taught most of my life that my fear was the opposite of faith. That if I'm afraid it's, it's precisely because I'm not trusting God. So now I've, now I'm loaded down with shame, um, because I'm afraid, and I'm not, I'm not man enough. According to the culture, and I'm not spiritual enough according to the church, so I don't trust God enough. Uh, or, or sadness. You know, what do you have to be sad about? Cheer up. Jesus is alive. So, you know, we wanna do the thing where we bypass Friday and Saturday and just skip to Sunday and be like, Hey, look man, everything's okay. Um, so that's, that's shaming our feelings. Um, the other one is, is diminishing or minimizing our feelings. So it's this idea of, hey, look, on the bright side, things could always be worse. Um, you see this with comparison a lot, right? And other people. In fact, my wife called me out for this last night. So a as wherever you are in time and space, as you're tuning into this episode, we're recording it. In late June, 2023 and I'm in central Arkansas, and the heat index yesterday was 107, uh, and our, our AC unit went out. So literally as I'm recording this, I can hear guys beating on stuff outside cuz they're here and they're working on it. And I'm, I've got tons of fear about the, the bill of what that's gonna cost. So last night I was, I was expressing myself honestly of I'm, I'm afraid I'm angry, uh, you know, and I was expressing these things and then I kind of came back around and shamed myself with this comparison of, man things could be so much worse. Other people in our church have it so much worse. I need to grow up, I need to have, you know, I need to have more faith. And my wife just kind of stops me and she was like, Hey, There's an appropriate way to look around and have some perspective and be grateful that things are not as bad, that things could be worse. But like what you just did was spiritually abuse yourself. And she just got, she just, she just sort of called me out, you know? Um, and so then I had a little bit of healthy dose of healthy shame, and I felt right sized a little bit. Um, but my point is that's, that's one of the, one of the ways we're taught is just minimizing, comparing. And then the last one that I heard both of you pick up on, which is essentially just distracting, you know, so medicating ourselves. So whatever you gotta do to avoid it, to stay out of your chest, stay outta your body, don't feel, stay busy, you know, and, and we'll use anything to, to numb. But I think, I really think those are the primary strategies handed to us by either your family of origin, culture, and sadly, even the church kind of hands, those tends to hand those strategies to us and says, here's how you deal with your feelings. Right.

Brian 20:28

Mm-hmm.

Phil 20:28

Mm-hmm.

Brian 20:30

That's super clear. Um, super, super clear and helpful. I think for people as they kind of examine their own relationship to their emotions. Do you tend to demonize them, diminish them, or distract from them? Um, and the problem with all three of those is it goes against our fundamental anthropology the way that we're built and put together, right? And the truth is that our feelings or emotions are absolutely an essential part of who we are and what it means to be human. Right. So books and resources like Voice of the Heart for me was like untangling emotions by Alistair Groves, emotionally, hair Thief, spirituality and Discipleship. You hear that a lot from Pete Zaro. They help us to see how our emotions are deeply a part of who we are.

Adam 21:12

Yeah.

Brian 21:12

And if we look at the Enneagram, we recognize that the nine types are each dominant in one of the three centers of intelligence. Twos, threes, and fours in the heart, or feeling center, five, six and sevens in the head, or thinking center, eights, nines, and ones in the body or doing center. And then you have the stances, which show us where we are the most repressed in our thinking, feeling, or doing. So it can be really helpful to know through our centers of intelligence and our stances that we all tend to overdo or underdo in one of those three areas, and that we have access to all three of those centers, whether we recognize it or not.

What are Emotions and Feelings?

Brian 21:52

So, Phil for you. The question is, what would you say or would you say more about what it means that humans, by definition are emotional beings and maybe would you help us tease out, do you recognize a difference between emotions and feelings?

Adam 22:10

Hmm.

Phil 22:13

You're hitting on something obviously very, very powerful in how humans are made. Brian said, you know, we're so, you know, I don't know any parent who's ever had to send their little baby to a seminar on how to express yourself Limbically first. I know. They, we are, that is anecdotally evident. Uh, I think the world has like 7 billion people and there's 7 billion points of data to suggest that a child, no. Whether, whether a child is born comes out a really apparent limbic creature. You know, they, and you talk about the, you know, the, the body to, so as a, I'm tied into that, but you know, the original cry out. Of little bitty babies is so body, can they cry out limbically, emotionally, uh, because they're wet or they're cold or they're hot, or they're hungry, or they're thirsty or they're dirty. They, they pay attention to their bodies and they cry out given from that. And so children, you don't have to train a child when she doesn't get invited to the sleepover, but everybody else in the class did that. She's gonna cry about that. And everyone got a Valentine except for me. And they may not know the words sad or hurt, but they will come home and their bodies and their words and their tears will say, I'm a limbic creature. The content, oh, he didn't know I was on the list. Or they, they thought I lived across town and wouldn't wanna come. None of the, none of that content stuff matters cause we're limbic creatures. Primarily we, we relate to other human beings and to God and with even their own identities through that limbic part of our brains. That right brain that says, this is where the story lives, the real story lives here. Uh, that, you know, Brian, you mentioned earlier, you're first generation of, of immigrant. You, you will have a different experience internally when you see something about Korea on TV or whatever, than I will, and I will have those same different feelings about the state of Mississippi, which is my native state, just because we're limbic creatures.

Adam 24:28

Hmm.

Phil 24:28

I care about your story and where you're from and you care about my story, where I'm from, but we don't have the same internal experiences when we're moving into that story.

Brian 24:38

Yeah.

Phil 24:39

so you don't need all the content around Korea to have feelings about your own heritage.

Adam 24:45

Hmm.

Phil 24:46

something what we would consider to be simple like that, uh, we are limbic creature. Our first responses to life are limbic. We have feelings about things and memories and lots and lots of people who know a lot more about brain chemistry than I do say, you know what? Even our senses run through this thing in our brain called the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that, that lets us know what's really going on in the world emotionally. And so when to take cover. So we, the this idea around how, how we are wired primarily as you even watch children develop, just simple observations says children develop obviously physically first with the brain stem as they're growing in utero. And then when they come out of, of, of that birth canal, they are limbic creatures. They are, they are crying out and using a language of right brain immediately. And so we, in the voice of convention, so often teaches them how that's not okay,

Adam 25:44

Yeah.

Phil 25:44

which is where the, where the problems come in. And so we're just, by simple observation how humans are made from their earliest days says, oh wow. These, these humans are limbic creatures. They reach and grasp and desire life.

Adam 25:57

Mm mm Yeah. And you know, Phil, two things you've said that I wanna, I wanna piggyback on. One is you said, you know, the facts or the content, you know, the fact may be that they thought this kid, you know, lived across town or whatever, and so that the whatever, the kid didn't get the invitation because the facts were, were skewed or whatever. But those facts actually don't change the fact that the kid has the fact of the kids' feelings. And so we, we see this, you know, I've got three little girls when they were younger, um, you know, they would be scared of like the boogeyman or something in their bedroom or whatever. So they would call in their fear, they would call out to me in the night, which is a perfect example actually, an illustration of. How our feelings are the doorway into relationship because her inner fear, she calls, she, she expresses her need for refuge and her need for her father, and she calls out to me. And so it's like a magnet to my heart. I come running, right? I I'm, I'm here for you, baby. I got you. You know? Uh, so there's intimacy through, because she walked through her fears. But what I learned was I, I was unintentionally shaming them because I would come in their room, give them a hug and a kiss and a drink of water, but then I would turn on the lights and give them all the facts about how there's no such thing as a boogeyman. Look under the bed with me. I want you to look under here. There's no, and I would kind of give 'em all the truth and all the facts and tell 'em to go back to bed. And then the next time they called out to me, I would be angry. Cause look, I already fixed this for you. I gave you the, all the facts that you need. Uh, but it doesn't change the fact that they're, that they're afraid. Right. So I, and I think that's, that's speaking to that. That reality you're picking up on that, that we are first and foremost limbic creatures. Like we actually come out of the womb experiencing life emotionally way before the cognitive stuff ever comes online. Right?

The 8 Core Emotions

Adam 27:53

Um, and, and so I think it was Kurt Thompson in, in in the Soul of Desire, who, if I could paraphrase him, I actually have the full quote in front of me because I, I, I pulled it up for this episode in case, in case I had a, I was looking for a way to work it in. Um, but to paraphrase him, he says, if our brain is the engine, emotions are the gas.

Phil 28:15

Yeah.

Adam 28:16

And he goes on here, here's the full quote. He says, although researchers have not developed consensus on how to characterize it, they do agree to emotion being the energy around which the brain organizes itself. So emotions are the energy around which the brain organizes itself. When we examine human behavior, we find that if we take emotion outta the equation, we stop moving. The, the derivation of the word emotion includes its Latin root motion, which means to proceed, move movement. This suggests that whatever emotion is it, it, it energizes and gives rise to human movement from the time we are born. Emotion is a primary driving force of our existence. If attention is the ignition, uh, of the mind, then emotion is the fuel in the tank that the engine runs on. Developmentally emotion is present and active even before birth. Hence, emotion is of primal significance when it comes to our doing anything. Phil, you wanna piggyback? I mean, do you have, does that, does that stir up anything in you?

Phil 29:24

it, it does. Adam, I love that quote, and I love that book, and I love his work. Uh, A ati, this rabbit trail is only about five yards long. But I, I love even, even to go along what you just said, they called their groups confessional communities.

Brian 29:41

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil 29:41

thought, what a, what a beautiful way. You know, the, the word means to say the same thing, which is where we get our, you know, confession is agreement with God. So, to think about even that word that we are gonna sit in this group, we're gonna say the same thing, and what is the same thing? Those eight words, you know, I, I love how that, how he ties all that together. But yes, it does move me and, and, and it really takes me back at him to, part of what you said about your, your daughters, what you missed and what I have missed. What a lot of humans miss is. Those girls were already being comforted with the knowledge you were coming. And so everything we do after we get to the room is just superfluous. Like, Hey dad, I even if there is a dragon under the bed, you're here. So I'm not, I'm not afraid. Cause you're with

Adam 30:31

Yes.

Phil 30:32

And, and we, uh, I too have done the bomb scan under the bed seat. Luke, my son's name is Luke's, Hey Luke, no monsters. And he's, he's forgotten the monsters because dad's in the room. And, and again, that limbic territory says that's where attachment is made. And so like I make attachments with people that are coming to provide refuge and we parents can often forget, my child is afraid in the dark. My child's afraid in the dark alone. And so when they hear daddy or mommy coming, they go, I'm gonna be okay. I'm being attended to, I'm being attuned with, and even if there is a monster, so what I, I tell this. I, I had to go to defensive driving when I lived in Texas because of the narrow mindedness of the highway patrol in Texas. Uh, they wrote me a ticket for going over the speed limit, and I was in a hurry. So I don't understand. uh, I'm in this, I'm in this defensive driving class, and the, and the DPS officer walks in. Now those guys all look like they're eight feet tall and you know, this broad and guy walks in, he goes, y'all need to know before we start the glass that, uh, the state of Texas leaves the nation in railroad, uh, locomotive to vehicle. Not one instance. Did the train leave the track to hit the car. Stop at railroad crossings. Now let's continue. And by the, and in the same vein, it's like there's not one recorded incident in humankind to where a monster came out from under a bed. If mom or dad were in the room. It's never happened. And so they crawl out from everywhere when mom and dad aren't there. But once, once mom and dad are in the room, or they know they're coming, there comes that limbic experience of attachment. The cry out is being answered.

Adam 32:19

Yeah.

Phil 32:19

And so to to that, the energy that brings up in me, and even in my body, Adam, is like, yes. One more picture of how the cry out being answered builds faith. Your daughters did not build their faith by being not afraid. Your daughters built their faith by being afraid, crying out in their fear, and being attended to. So, so often we get the message that fear and faith can't coexist, and that could not be any less true. That story you told that most parents have the experience of being called to a room at night that their their faith bills when daddy or mommy show up their faith bills by speaking their fear, not ignoring it

Adam 33:05

Oh

Phil 33:05

and shaming themselves

Brian 33:06

beautiful.

Adam 33:08

Yeah. Yeah, man. That's so good. You know? On that note, let's talk about the eight feelings, because you know, You, you, you've mentioned this a couple times, Phil, that the cry out of the feeling is, is around, you know, leads to some kind of relational need being met. Right? So if I'm afraid I need, I need the presence of a refuge, I need a safe place, you know, I need a protector, but I can't get that need met unless I'm willing to walk through my fear and tell the truth about it. Right. So can, can you just, I know, I know your, you know, your book, the, uh, voice of the Heart Bible study and, and Chip's book, um, are, is kind of built around these eight feelings, which we would say there's a lot more than eight, but these are like primary colors, right? So all the other feelings sort of find their home in these eight. But could you, could you briefly just explain what the eight feelings are? Maybe give us a little definition and, and I would love it if you, if you, if you can share about the need or the gift of walking through those, those feelings.

Phil 34:08

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important, um, Adam, uh, Brian, to, to say, first of all, that we will often hear the phrase, Hey, hey Brian. You, you need to deal with your fear. Hey Adam, you need to resolve your anger or whatever. And so we go, okay. And if I'm Brian, I'm going, okay. Wow, that's lightning thunder. Hope y'all didn't hear that. That was loud.

Brian 34:32

saw that

Adam 34:34

I did. I did.

Phil 34:35

Wow. Ladies, goodness sake. There. He there, he just saw it. Um, but we'll hear those phrases. And if I'm Brian or Adam and I hear those phrases, then I'm going, ok, what, how do, what does it mean to deal with these things? What does that even mean? And so before we move into, the eight is super simple. If people were, remember the, the initials? I e e and the first step is identify, which is why we pound away at know these feeling, so identify what is going on. We explore it, what is this about? And then we express it to someone safe. And so we'll go back to your, your daughters Adam. I'm like, they identified, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. And so they, they explored it. I'm afraid there's something in the room. I'm afraid there's something hiding in the closet. And they expressed that dad, mom. And so that's an example of that. So when we say, how do we deal with these feelings, that's what we're talking about. That's the importance of sitting with another person that's safe to say that I'm feeling this and I think it's about such and such, and so and so. So we'll start with a, with a famous one. Let, everyone wants to talk about anger and, and first of all, I'm, I'm not a proponent. I'm actually of anger management. And here's the reason why. Um, anger is the feeling that lets me know that I care and what I care about.

Brian 36:02

Hmm.

Phil 36:02

produces movement and clarity. When I'm angry, I'm angry about something that matters to me. And I move towards something with great clarity. It doesn't mean I'm gonna get it my way. It doesn't mean it's gonna change to suit me, but it means I want it. And when it's not happening, I'm angry about it. Injustice, people being mistreated, my son being left off the team, or my wife and I getting in, in a conflict where she's, of course she's wrong naturally. Of course. And, you know, and, and I need that, I want that to change. I hope she doesn't listen to this. Uh, but you know, so anger just says, I want something to be different. And so the feeling itself isn't necessarily tied, uh, to what we would consider to be accurate data, but it means I'm feeling it. I care about this and this is what I care about. I'm moving toward doing something with it. And so if I'm angry with my friend Adam, or my friend Brian, I'm going to move toward them. Not with my arms extended to choke them, but I'm gonna move toward them and say, I'm willing to, I, you matter to me. This relationship matters to me. What I about matters to me, and I wanna move into you, and I'm asking you to move into me. And let's deal with this. Let's identify it, explore it, and express it to one another.

Brian 37:21

Hmm.

Phil 37:22

And so that's why I don't want my anger managed. I want my anger identified, explored, and expressed. And so the gift that comes out of, as I do that, I receive this gift called passion, which means pain. It's painful to care. It's painful for something to matter. That's what's so attractive about depression or, or apathy. Like it's, it's so much less painful to not care. And anger says, I'm too angry. I chip and I Chip would say to me once in a while, like, I think I'm depressed. I would go, you're not depressed. You're too angry to be depressed. No, no one is angry as you could ever be depressed. You know, it was like, and I really meant it. Like, this man is so full of passion. And so it's like, okay, anger says I'm moving towards something and it's painful and there's a need to get exposed to that call. I, I need voice. I need a relationship in which I can be heard about what I'm after. It doesn't mean I'm gonna get it. It means I need to be heard in my want of it. So words like wanting, desiring, reaching, yearning, those are words of anger.

Adam 38:26

Love it.

Phil 38:27

So

Brian 38:28

that's really

Phil 38:29

think, think about the anger of Jesus. Like you talk about life and people mattering ultimately as, as God incarnate. It mattered to him. We mattered to him. Um, so. Uh, the second, uh, one, I guess we all might as well talk about fear. Let's, let's go to the big two first, I guess. Talked about a lot in church. We've talked a lot, Adam, using an example of your, of your daughters. But fear just simply says, I could be in danger. And fear is, is yes. It's the beginning of wisdom because I recognize who God is and I recognize who I am. Yes, that is a fear like job like Isaiah, who saw God and said, oh, I get it. I see there's on, and then the, the, the feet, the boots on the ground idel around fear is, I want to be alert. I want to watch and see if I'm in trouble. That, so I, I tell this half jokingly, pastors who say faith and fear cannot coexist, do not be afraid. They need to stop studying. Then for sermons, Because every time a pastor studies for a sermon, he's listening to healthy fear that says, I fear if I don't study, I will teach God's word inaccurately. Or I'll tell people information's not true. And so I want my pastor to have healthy fear so he can study God's word. And when I'm teaching it, to study God's word and to teach people accurately and truthfully what it says. And so healthy fear says that's my, my reach for a thing called discernment and wisdom, which is the gift of it. Like when I'm fear is what drives me to ask good questions. Hey, I'm not sure about this, but tell me more. I need to know more about this cuz I, I, I feel fear, though I wouldn't say it that way. I feel fear. I'm getting myself into something I may be sorry for later. So tell me more. I, I need to know more about this. And so every time we study, every time a team practices, every time a choir practices or an acting group rehearses for a play, they're listening to healthy fear to prepare themselves. So if you put those two feelings together, fear prepares us for battle. Anger takes us to it.

Adam 40:36

Mm

Phil 40:36

And so I want to have the wisdom and discernment of being afraid. So I prepare, well then I want to go do it. I wanna go get after it.

Adam 40:43

Yeah.

Phil 40:44

this need, and my fear, my need is like, I need refuge and I need safety. I need to, I so the children afraid in the in bed, in the dark are saying, I need, where can I sail this ship that's in choppy, scary waters where I know I'm safe for refuge?

Adam 40:59

yeah. Phil, it might have been you that I heard say one time in a cohort that. I would never want to go to war with people who are not afraid,

Phil 41:08

Yes,

Adam 41:08

because if they're not afraid, they're not gonna, they're gonna, they're not gonna prepare, and they're not gonna have, they're not gonna be wise and they're not gonna be careful, and they're gonna get out there and get somebody killed. Or get themselves killed. So, I love that. I love that of the, the reality of, of fear leads to the, the, the need to for safety. And it, and it leads to the gift of being prepared and, and, and, and wisdom. Oh yeah. Thanks for sharing that. That's

Phil 41:34

for sure. Yes. Sadness is another one. I, I, I have two acquaintances. Uh, one, one was very close to his dad and they were actually together, and the dad died suddenly of a massive heart attack. And the mutual friend of the son whose dad died, I asked how he was doing, how's Joe? Not his real name, but how's Joe doing? And my friend said, this is about a week later, he goes, oh man, he's just moving on. He just knows his dad's in heaven with the Lord and he's doing great. And about that time, my son, Luke was walking up the stairs and I couldn't help myself. I said, well, I'll tell you something I hope. His grief lasts longer than a week when I die like that, that was horrifying to me. And so sadness is that feeling that we have that says this life mattered to me. It mattered, and I'm having these tears and this sadness in me. So sadness leads to a condition called grief. And the, and the outlet of that grief is called lament. Uh, we lament, I've, I've taken to saying that we grieve nouns. We, we grieve people, places and things. We grieve the loss of dreams. We grieve the loss of place. We grieve the loss of relationships with people and pets and those kinds of things. So we, we, we are made some most universal experience of mankind is the experience of loss. And here's something very important, guys, that the writer of Ecclesiastes says this to us. If we're listening and reading, well, we'll hear it. We'll see it. Here's what we intuitively know with Eternity Place in our hearts, we intuitively know. That every human relationship on earth ends painfully every one of them. I can have the greatest relationship in the world with my wife and at some point death is going to part us. My friend's gonna move away. Someone's gonna drift away from me. They don't wanna be my friend. We just get busy and like every relationship ends, ends very painfully on earth. Therefore, if I'm unwilling to be sad, I will not attach. So sadness and attachment are inextricably linked because the we, we stand and look at our wives and say, till death do us part, I will not leave you nor forsake you on a human level till death do us part something inside a bride and a groom says, this matters. I'm doing something of great gravity. It's not the rings, it's not the sign of the covenant. It's those words till death do us part forsaking all others.

Adam 44:06

Mm.

Phil 44:07

that, that speaks to eternity in our hearts. It says, I'm going to, I'm signing up for sadness. I'll be dying and you'll, I'll be looking in your eyes. You'll be dying. I'll be looking in your eyes or something. I'll get the phone call that you're not here anymore, or you will, but at some point when this ends, it's gonna, it's gonna be very painful and I'm gonna be so sad and I'm willing to do it. So sadness says I have suffered loss and it mattered. And the, and the gift I get is a thing called acceptance. And I remember Chip telling me this one time, he, uh, like, and when the way we taught it, he said, I really think that acceptance is probably, it's not okay and it's okay. There are gonna be times that it's just not okay. And overall it's okay because in my humanness and in my walk with Christ, I've recognized that the great interrupter interrupts

Adam 44:59

Mm

Brian 44:59

huh.

Phil 44:59

and it isn't okay. And it is. And so the, what I'm, what I'm looking for in that need of sadness is a need for comfort. And the word comfort, actually, the closer word to comfort would be the word strengthen. It means to fortify through pres comfort. Fort means to fortify through presence. And so what I'm by a friend. That's what's so powerful about the, the phrase you hear, non-anxious presence. But my friend Brian, or my friend Adams, sits with me in my grief and they're just sitting with me and they're just saying, I'm with you. They're you. You guys would be fortifying my you. But through your presence, fortifying my ability to stay in my feelings where I am. So grief can do its work.

Adam 45:41

Hmm

Phil 45:42

Like the Aaron and her holding up Moses's arms like we, three guys, two of us hold up the other guy's arms to fortify that man in the comfort, exhausted his sadness.

Brian 45:53

Yeah.

Phil 45:55

Uh, loneliness. Loneliness speaks to how we're made as humans, where we spent the first several minutes talking about attachment and limbic experiences and those things. Loneliness says, I need relationship really lonely. And I won't, I won't go far into this for time's sake, but one of the reasons we didn't think, uh, that, uh, Tom Hanks' character and Castaway was insane because he wanted to leave a perfect environment to get back to Memphis. The reason we didn't think that guy was crazy is because we knew that the people he loved were in Memphis, and I would fight tooth and nail wherever my family was to get back to them. And so him being on a tropical island where he had no hassles, no traffic, no boss, perfect weather, he, he risked his life and he got a relationship with a volleyball. And I, like millions of other people, freaked out. I even said this one time, man, I freaked out when Wilson jumped off that raft. My wife is like, it is a volleyball. He didn't jump. It ain't even a heat. Oh yeah, that's right. So I was so much in the movie cause we're relational creatures. Like, heck yes. I get a relationship with the volleyball for sure. His name's right on the front, right Wilson. And so, know, we went to that movie and the movie made sense to, and we were rooting for him to get back home. Cause we know loneliness. I'm made for relationship for intimacy, which is the gift of loneliness into bc I'm made to connect deeply with other people and when I don't have it, I'm lonely for it. And that uncovers this need to be known. I, I need to be known relationally. The loneliness is a very, very human feeling then hurt. Hurt is a, by definition, hurt is woundedness. And just like if you were to cut your leg, your brain would get really busy marshaling forces to tend to that cut on your leg. It does the same thing for emotional hurt and which you notice, guys, the euphemisms we use to describe emotional hurt. S slap in the face, punch in the gut broke. My heart stabbed in the back. Well, when scientists discovered ways of reading the brain in real time, they discovered that emotional hurt and physical hurt were processed in exactly the same spot.

Brian 48:11

Wow.

Phil 48:11

So a, so a guy named David in was Psalm 1 39 says, you know what, we're fearfully, wonderfully made. It's just really mysterious and crazy how God has knit us together and our own, even our language was telling us we were experiencing emotional hurt That's hooked in with our bodies, in our brains in exactly the same spot. And so that, that's remarkable. I've experienced woundedness cuz I got a gash on my leg. Woundedness cuz I have a gash in my heart. My heart is broken or my leg is broken. That's one of the reasons by the way, that opioid addiction operates. When my bones are hurting and when my heart is broken,

Adam 48:49

Wow.

Phil 48:50

get hooked on opioids because it addresses hurt.

Adam 48:55

Yeah. Wow.

Phil 48:57

people will, we will help people deal with emotional hurt. The opioid epi epidemic will get a, a dent in it because people are taking opioids to anesthetize hurt, but not a bone heart. And so that, that need for loneliness to be known, I've heard, is the need for attention. And so when I feel hurt, when our kids are low, they run in the house and they show us, oh, show us the boo boo. Give attention to me. I'm hurting. And when, when he's not, doesn't make the team, or she's not invited to sleepover, they need atten attend to in heart. Give attention to the hurt. You go into the er, the doctor gives attention to what's going on.

Brian 49:37

Mm-hmm.

Phil 49:37

those kinds of ideas, like, so hurt needs attention. And then, uh, guilt. Guilt is, is that really valuable feeling that says, I've, I've done something to cause harm. I've harmed someone and that's not okay. And guilt lets me know that I've done it and it's not okay. And so the gift of that is, is called freedom. It's like, wow. Because here's what happens. If I, if I have sinned, if I've caused harm to Brian, and Brian doesn't know it, but I know it, I'm in bondage to a secret. And then Adam is our friend too. And I go, gosh, I gotta make sure. Because I don't know if Adam knows that I did this or not, but if those two have coffee, I could be in trouble. So I'm gonna be really working hard to make sure Adam and and Brian never get together. Or if they do, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna make sure I'm managing Adam. So he doesn't say anything. It's just bondage. And so when I, when I make confession of my guilt, I'm free of the bondage, and my need is forgiveness. So Brian's a human, and I receive forgiveness of God, his promise, and the secret is out. I'm now known and of my loneliness and, and I'm free of the secret. It may take Brian longer to forgive me because he's human. And so that's where I say, okay, I will wait. I will feel fear and maybe even hurt that Brian's not showing up, forgiving me yet. So even that has limbic experience with it. And so that guilt says, and, and then the need is for forgiveness. I need to be forgiven with guilt. And then shame, healthy shame. Our, our mutual friend, uh, Adam, Jeff Schulte is a great word. He said, you know, shame is such a buzzword that, that he had, he, he told me one time, he said, I've come to telling people healthy shame. Shame means unashamed ness. I'm unashamed of my humanness. And so healthy shame simply says, I have limitation. Like I'm unashamed of my limitation. I may have feelings about it, but I'm unashamed of the fact that I need a lot of help. And so that's where the, the gift of humility comes in. Healthy shame. Gift is humility. Like I tell the truth about my giftedness and I'll tell the truth about my limitations. Humility. If you used a phrase earlier, Adam, right size

Adam 51:54

Hmm.

Phil 51:54

like Hu Humility's, just right size. Your wife confronted you, you're being grandiose and comparing and all that stuff, and you went, oh, yeah. Limitation. My air conditioner breaks down and I need someone to fix it, and I'm scared about what it's gonna cost. And that's just the truth, right? Size, humility. And then the one that, that we need to talk about. Last one. What we need to talk about, uh, what it isn't first. So gladness, everybody says, you guys have heard it. How come there's seven bad ones and one good one? se seven negative ones and one positive one? Well, here's how that operates. If gladness is my goal, I will end up living chasing gladness, which actually means sensual experience.

Brian 52:40

Mm-hmm.

Phil 52:41

And so we're, we're stimulated as humans in four places. Our brains, our bellies, our genitals, and our skin. So I will attempt, if I'm chasing gladness, I will attempt to learn enough to make myself okay.

Adam 52:55

hmm.

Phil 52:55

Eat enough or restrict my eating enough to belly is tied to both anorexia, bulimia. Binging, purging all those things and overeating. And so I will use my belly stimulation by eating or not eating to make myself okay genitals, I can have enough sex or act out enough sexually to make myself okay. And skin stimulation are thing we used to call 'em adrenaline junkies. Things that make your your neck end up affairs, secrets, uh, those kinds of things. High risk behavior, excessive working out things that keep me going. Stimulation, addiction. And so if I'm chasing gladness and gladness is my goal, then I'm gonna end up living seeking stimulation. It's not true Gladness, true gladness is an outcome of living fully in those other seven feelings. Gladness is I'm human. I'm living in my humanness, I'm connected relationally in my humanness, and I'm glad. Like this, the life, life I'm living, life as life is to be lived as God created me. And the gift of that is joy and sadness because the sadness is back to Ecclesiastes. It hasn't always been this way and it ain't gonna stay this way. It's sad. And then the need celebration. I, when I'm glad I need people to share in the joy with me, people that I love celebrate with me, that's blow through. But that's kind of an articulation of the list, the charts as we call.

Adam 54:20

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian 54:22

Thank you. That is profound. Um, and I feel like your explanation on Joy just, or you're glad flips so much theology on its head

Phil 54:34

Yeah.

Brian 54:34

what we're taught in churches or in Sunday school. Um, and I love just the way you explained how we pursue the wrong things or the, the lesser things, right? Um, instead of finding the fulfillment and the fullness of all the other seven. Um, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I just wanna summarize the eight feelings and their gifts. Just so you know, talking about feeling anger and living into it. To discover the gift of passion, of feeling, fear to find wisdom, feeling sadness, to find acceptance, to find, feeling lonely, to find the gift of intimacy. Feel hurt, to receive healing, feeling guilt to receive freedom and forgiveness. Feel shame to find humility, and glad to find a joy with sadness. Um, and I loved what you said at the very beginning of how do we deal with these feelings to process them? And just remind everyone. I e e, you wanna identify what's going on, name the feeling, explore what it's about, where it's coming from, and then express it to someone safe. think that expression and that community building is so much of where that safety comes from. Um, and like you're saying, that intimacy part, um, man, that's just so helpful, bill. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Phil's Experience as a Type 9

Brian 56:00

Um, and before we go, we wanna kind of tie it a little more to the Enneagram and talk about how it helps us to explore and connect with those feelings. So Phil, you're, you're a type nine, you're in that body and doing center. Um, you and I both primarily express anger and feel that, right? So for you, how do you discover that your relationship to these feelings and your expression as a nine affects those experience of those emotions?

Phil 56:31

Well, you know, Brian, I think you would agree nine is kind of the perfect number to, you know, to kind the perfection is tough to deal with, but,

Brian 56:41

Someone's gotta carry it.

Phil 56:42

Somebody's gotta do it. uh, you know, I, I, I connect deeply. The first time I read about Enneagram, I connected deep with that idea around harmonizing being, you know, kind of being a harmonizer, wanting things to work a certain way, and really getting the clinical term, just really getting dysregulated when it wasn't, when something wasn't harmonious. And y'all certainly far more knowledgeable than I am around that, around the Enneagram. But, uh, my, my layman's take was I get really dysregulated when anything's is in any kind of disharmony. I really, uh, get rattled around all that. So I find myself having to really consistently, and, and I learned this fairly late in my career over the last decade or so, the importance of me paying very close attention to, to the B O D Y, pay attention to my body. What is happening here. Because man, I had, for years and years I had GI stuff, sour stomach, like all those things. And I went to every doctor in the world and, you know, there wasn't enough, there wasn't enough pepd to knock down, to knock down what was going on in my body when, when, when things were in disharmony, which is kind of how the world works, disharmony. So I find even in my, in my work, to be very careful to, to start looking out for, do I try to get really, really busy in solving something or do I find myself really rattled and having these physiological things come up, even sitting here in this chair working with people. So I find that, that some, sometimes my desire for harmony becomes a demand, and I get really triggered around demanding that things be this way so I don't have to be afraid.

Adam 58:32

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I love that, Phil. It's, you know, my, my wife's a type nine, so I'm gonna make sure she listens to this, uh, episode and learns. Learn something, uh, from you there. Um, it's been so good to be with you, Phil, and I, I, you know, I, I just wanna say, um, to our listeners, you know, the, the real gift of the Enneagram, uh, in, in exploring your emotional world is the Enneagram. This is why our mental health professional friends love this tool is, it really is pulling you in, be beneath the hood of consciousness, into the space of emotions and the emotional processes, we might say, core motivations that are driving us. And it goes back to that Kurt Thompson line earlier. Look, nobody does anything if not motivated by emotions. Like it's it, you know, there, it's the gas in the tank, right? That moves us. And so the Enneagram is helping you explore that world. It's, it's not, it's not pulling you out of the left brain, but it's, it's helping you get an integration. So I think the, I think the, the, the word of application for all our listeners is regardless of your type. Pay attention to how emotions are showing up according to your type, and pay attention to how your type is showing up to your emotions. Um, every type has a unique expression to their emotions. You know, one's eights and nines might access their anger a little easier than other types. Although nines may wanna soften the term and call it frustration. Um, fours might have a closer relationship to their sadness than say a type seven might. Fears obviously have a closer relationship, or sixes, fears, I just called sixes. Fears. So there's, there's a Freudian slip for you. Uh, so sixes have a closer relationship to fear and, and we could obviously walk the wheel, but I think, I think pay attention to how, how your emotions are showing up according to your type. Uh, and let the Enneagram help you experience how your type is showing up to your emotions. And I think coming back to Phil's three things, regardless of your type, what's healthy and human is to identify what you're feeling. Explore what you're feeling and express what you're feeling to someone safe. That's the pathway to deeper relationship.

Brian 1:00:46

Yeah. Amazing. Uh, Phil, this has been so insightful. Thank you so much for coming on, giving us a better understanding of how our feelings are tied to our bodies, right? They're not something separate that happens, and how even what we commonly perceived as negative or bad emotions actually offers really beautiful invitations and gifts, um, and how the Enneagram helps us to see why and how we feel the way that we do. Um, so to everyone listening or watching, remember, if you're interested in learning more about the Enneagram, visit our website@yourenneagramcoach.com. And if you're ready to take it a step further with a personalized Enneagram coach, check out our incredible certified coaches and the directory@myenneagramcoach.com. For those of you who may want to bless others by becoming a certified coach, check out our leading certification program@yourenneagramcoach.com. Our team is here to guide you every step of the way, and join us in blessing others with an accelerated transformation. Adam, you wanna close us out?

Adam 1:01:46

Absolutely Phil. Uh, last question. If anyone that might be interested in, in working with you or, or like with Tinman, for example, uh, how, how, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Phil 1:01:59

Uh, yeah. Thank you. Website, 10 man ministries.org. 10 man, like Wizard of Oz. Uh, 10 m.org and we make a call. There's a form submission on the website. Uh, our, our friendly intake crew, which is Jordan, guy named Jordan, will talk with you and get you matched up with someone and we would love, love to serve in that way. Had a blast today, guys.

Adam 1:02:21

it man. Thanks

Brian 1:02:22

for being here,

Adam 1:02:22

and thank Yeah, thanks Phil. Thanks Brian. Next time Brian and I are gonna be talking the Enneagram and Healthy leadership. It's gonna practical and insightful episode, so make sure you're subscribed. So miss it. And remember, the Enneagram reveals your need for Jesus, not your need to work harder. It's the gospel that transforms us. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you in the next episode.