As an enneagram one, I seek perfection. However, I make up the section of the enneagram known as the body center. This refers to how I make decisions and move through life. Body center enneagram types go with their instincts or gut above their feelings and logical thinking. In fact, enneagram ones are known to repress thinking altogether. When I first read this, I was in disbelief. It was bizarre to me that someone would make the assumption that I don't think before I act. However, that was a misinterpretation of what repressed thinking under the enneagram means. In reality, I repress productive thought. I think so much that I jumble everything together and over criticize myself and others to the point that my thinking does not help me come to a decision in any way.
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works
I spend so much time in deep thought. My anxiety and my insomnia are both driven by my inability to turn off by brain for even a fraction of a second. Many of my friends have tried to determine how my mind moves and works. To explain it simply, there is very little pattern to the way in which I think about things. Often, I assign myself a task to distract myself from the wild jungle of thoughts running around inside of my brain. One of my favorite comparisons to the way that my thinking works is to refer to The Sound and the Fury. In Benji's chapter of this novel, his thought jumps from past to present based upon his senses. Similarly, I will see, smell, or hear something that reminds me of a memory and then my thinking train barrels on from one thing to the next. In my mind, this is how everyone drives their thought process, by stimulation of their senses.
I also replay every possible outcome of a scenario that I can think of. This drives my anxiousness when it comes to making big decisions. But ultimately it boils down to one thing: choosing what I trust is right. As an enneagram one, the main reason I am so hard on myself and others is because I judge by a set of high moral standards. I dislike how critical I am of other people and of myself, but I work on ways to combat this problem. My ultimate goal is to do the right thing by myself and by other individuals.
Additionally, my thinking is driven by anger. Everyone I know tells me that I am not generally an angry person, but I wholeheartedly disagree. As a One, I get angry and my patience is short when other people don't do the right thing or live up to my high standards of self-discipline. Rather than showing my anger, I repress it. It becomes one of the subjects that consumes my thoughts. In my mind, hiding my anger, and often other feelings, is a way to seem perfect. And if I seem perfect on the outside, then I must be on the inside too, right? WRONG. Anger as an emotion that I constantly run from takes a mental and physical toll on me as an individual. It can be the reason I cant sleep at night. And, it can cause me to be extremely tense to the point of migraines and "aches and pains." If I dwell on my anger too long without expressing it in some way (I write poems, songs, and journal to achieve this release) then I can become irritable and unbalanced.
Finally, I've tried to include mindfulness strategies in my day to day routine. By trying to see the good and beautiful things in the situations around me, I notice myself relaxing my thought process a little bit more. I want to focus on the positive and be able to analyze the negative without letting it drive me crazy. This is one thing I aim to develop over time in order to create a more productive thought process.
