unfiving: an enneagram 5 in progress

I'm chewing on this question: Are all “information binges” attempts to get social needs met? Reflecting on my most recent period of deep receptivity and the fragments of community I found within it. Use what moves you, let go of the rest. And let me know what resonates.   ✨ Instagram: @un.fiving   unfiving@gmail.com ✨ Music by Sleeping At Last

Learn to recognize the stories that carry fear and keep you from risking close relationships. Reach past them into spirit—toward your highest values and the most expansive and free evolution of yourself. Cultivate your strength and connection to intuition by spending time with your points of power—they could be houseplants, trees, mountains, rivers, or an archetypal guide. The natural world has so much love for you. All you have to do is notice it. ⚡️

“You're gorgeous! And you deserve a relationship that allows you to be gorgeous in the way that only you are and to share your gifts that only you have to give. Anything short of that is short of that.” A continuation of the previous episode, with more detail, exploration, practices for real growth and healing, and answers to listener questions. Let me know what you think!

This one is all about the first stage of dating: preparing. If you want your dating life to look different or bring a different outcome, take a pause and reorient. I give you a few tips and starting places in this episode, including: - Let your mind know what you're doing and get its support - Get clear on your what and your why - Make your Mary Poppins list (inspiration: https://youtu.be/fNTzp9grp2Q) - Give your mind work: investigate old patterns, outdated and subconscious operating instructions that have been landing you in not-ideal relationships, research dating apps or other ways of meeting people - Recruit trusted others - Recruit spirit

Announcing a shift: I'm adjusting my focus so that my primary goal is delivering helpful tips, wisdom, reflections, and guidance to help you as you journey along in your Fiveness or search for more insight into Enneagram Fives. I'll include specific and sometimes personal examples or stories to support that, and still share some personal updates, but I hope to bring a bit of a different energy and focus going forward. That also includes hearing more from YOU, my dear listeners! Reach out! Say hello! Tell me what you want me to talk about, or what you want more clarity around. Share your personal struggles or puzzlements or questions as you live your life as a Five or dig into the Enneagram system itself. Tell me what you think of the podcast. Leave a rating or review. Send me a voice memo by email or through Spotify! I might even give you a shout out or feature you on the podcast. ⚡️ unfiving@gmail.com Instagram: @un.fiving Send voice messages to me through Spotify: https://anchor.fm/monicabahan/message

Mentions: Euphoria, Harry Potter, Rick Hanson, Tara Brach

Reflections on breaking norms, hormone surges, right timing, shifting between stability and upheaval, navigating by starlight, the hard work of embodying intentions, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting right now.

More rambling reflections from this spiral of personal evolution.

This week I'm wading deeper into parts work and relating to my ever-changing inner states from a place of wholeness. This shift from being merged with a feeling to being in relationship with it is a powerful one: it opens up a world of possibilities and allows the feeling to deliver its message and move on rather than getting stuck and blocking our flow. The more feelings get stuck in us, the less available we are to life, to giving and receiving and experiencing. At the end of the episode I share a super simple way to shift out of the merge state and into wholeness. The more you practice, the more flow you'll feel. Let me know how it goes! Instagram: @un.fiving Music by Sleeping at Last

I'm addressing my inner skeptics with gratitude and farewells as I reconnect with forgotten ways of caring for myself. I'm also exploring how to honor my inner work while stepping into more outer work: expressing, collaborating, connecting, expanding, engaging, impacting, and making bold moves. We all have so much beauty, love, and creativity to share with the world. What happens when we set it free? My question for you: What love are you keeping to yourself? How can you give it form, let it be known, set it free? Love and gratitude for Grandma Judie and Bonnie Badenoch. Special thanks to Marie Kondo. __ Instagram: @un.fiving Music by Sleeping at Last

A simple, fun exercise to shift your relationship to the shame and fear getting in your way and strengthen your connection to what freedom feels like for you. Let me know if you find it helpful! Instagram: @un.fiving Music by Sleeping at Last

I'm taking a step back to look at the forest, then refocusing on the trees. Setting my values and finding inspiration for the next stretch of my path. ✨ Mentioned in this episode: Jen Sincero - “In order to kick ass, you must first lift up your foot.” Martha Beck - The idea that a tiny, one degree turn will dramatically change your trajectory over time. Chani Nicholas, a personalized affirmation - “Every time I risk my reputation I feel fortified.” Let me know what lands for you! ✨ Music by Sleeping at Last Production by me, Monica Bahan Follow unfiving on Instagram

I'm taking it easy this week, surrendering to the needs of my immune system.

I've been noticing how much I try to avoid relying on anyone or anything and how by subconsciously keeping money tight I both reinforce and undermine that avoidance. I desperately want to break these habits, and I think interdependence with others is the path through the independence-dependence tension that tends to trip me up.  

Anxiety and self-doubt kept me away, but I'm back and have a few new intentions for the podcast going forward.

First, more thoughts on the enneagram frame as I experience it: - Subtypes/instinctual variants: self-preservation (individual), sexual (one-to-one), and social (collective). My attention stack goes in that order: self-preservation first—so I'm a self-preservation subtype of the 5—then sexual, then social. These days I'm focusing more on the social level after leaving it on the back burner for a long time. What does your stack look like? - (un)fiving: using the enneagram to facilitate change, self-awareness, and acceptance - 5 things: reading/consulting a bunch of books and having a ton of browser tabs open at any given time - 5 thing: using imagination to both escape and complement tangible reality - 5 thing: disappearing, minimizing my presence when I'm stressed or people around me are stressed (and I get the sense I can't help or have reached the limits of my helpfulness) - 5 thing: carrying an implicit belief, from the deep past, that I shouldn't take up space (because I'm not worthy, it's selfish, it would impose on someone else, yada yada yada—minds make up stories like it's their job) - 5 thing (moving toward 8): learning to boldly take up my space, assert my opinions and desires, ask for what I want and need, accept kindness (maybe even compliments, but that feels harder—more on trust soon!) and generosity from others Also: A nod to Martha Beck and a small instance of synchronicity / good timing amidst the exhaustion of parenting a toddler. Appreciation for a kind stranger in a purple sweater. Gratitude for the sentiment of “no rush”, forever and always.

What I mean when I say I'm an enneagram 5 with a 4 wing (5w4): revisiting the foundational conceptual frame for this podcast. The episode ends with the full song “Five” by Sleeping At Last (with a run time 5:55, of course). Tendencies include: Hoarding ideas, dreams, favors, credits, intellectual resources and physical materials for just-in-case use in the future. Hiding my vulnerability and retreating into an appropriate social role, especially when I sense meaningful connection isn't available. Straight up dissociating. This can take several different forms. Sometimes shutting down and going numb and coming back to my experiencing self later. Getting hung up on details; sometimes not being able to move forward or take a stance if I feel I don't have a super solid foundation of understanding of something. Feeling deeply and only finding language for those feelings later, sometimes much much later and the words still feel inadequate. More in the next episode.

It's been a while. I was coping with a down shift in support, focused on getting through each day without major problems, and working my way through a couple major problems that did crop up, including crises of confidence and direction. I grappled with hormonal chaos and destabilization in my living situation and closest relationships, all while continuing to care for my toddler full time and getting very little sleep. I went deep into 5w4 survival strategies. (More on that coming soon). I'm finding my way back and feeling stronger and wiser for having walked through those fires. I'm feeling optimistic again. My brain and body are too tired to be anxious. Let me know what resonates and what you want to hear more of.

A brief follow-up to Episode 9. A reflection on some of the ways I fostered a healthy relationship to self, and how that was necessary for engaging with the enneagram of personality as a channel for growth. Before you deconstruct your ego you have to build a robust relationship to self so you have somewhere to stand while you do it. I don't mean developing a static sense of a static self—quite the opposite. It's about developing a dynamic and ever-evolving set of practices and perspectives concerning Self, your selves' observable behaviors, acceptance and change. Now is the best time to start. Begin, continue, begin again. Mentioned in this episode: - The Avett Brothers band and their song Shame - Noting and labeling practice to get to know one's internal processes (a practice I learned as taught by Shinzen Young) - The refractory period of an emotion Self-compassion (particularly the work of Kristin Neff) - Ellen Langer's (very American) definition of mindfulness as a flexible cognitive state in which one is able to perceive and process new information - A popular, secular Buddhist definition of mindfulness as a state of intentional and nonjudgmental attention to the present moment (I think this may have originated with Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose book Full-Catastrophe Living was one of my most powerful introductions to formal meditation practice; I can't recommend his work highly enough) - Barbara Fredrickson's broaden and build theory - The field of Behavior Analysis and the book Self-Directed Behavior by David L. Watson and Roland G. Tharp (I used the tenth edition) for changing behavior - Sam Harris' Waking Up app Let me know what resonates and what you want to hear more about.

Ugh. Are you as tired of hearing about gratitude as I am? No? Cool. Either way, I'm gonna tell you about how buzz words turn me off and how I've opened up the concept of gratitude to build something meaningful and essential to my me-ness in a way that works for me. Also a preview of some ideas coming soon: emotional storms and minimizing my presence as a social preservation response. Let me know what resonates and what you want to hear more of.

Meandering thoughts—on a meandering walk—on one of my growth edges and the attainability of my goal of financial independence; seeing parallels/metaphors in the natural world. Let me know what resonates.

We all yearn to go back sometimes, to when things were good, to when we felt better, to before the loss. We can't go back. But, if we listen, the yearning can show us the way forward. I give a few examples of yearning to go back and explore how our fear and loss can point to what we value, what we're wanting—giving us direction for opening, healing, growing, and connecting. I also give a quick update on the personal themes from Episode 6. Mentioned today: Long exhales ♥️⚡️

I'm approaching dating as a single/solo mom, first conceptually and then in real time (maybe). I have a strong sense that decluttering has to come first—internal and external decluttering, clearing, organizing, and arranging to achieve harmony and carry less baggage. But can dating and decluttering happen simultaneously? I need help. Mentioned today:

I talk about how I see the enneagram of personality—that we become our type through an interaction of our innate personality and early life experience, and that it's all about where we get stuck and how to get unstuck; the difference in perspective between the right and left hemispheres of the brain; and the mind in human design. And then I tell a story from my own life—Mother's Day 2021—that illustrates how these different perspectives came together as I made a major life decision. Resources mentioned:

Accuracy in language is especially important for we sensitive folk (and maybe even more so for wee sensitive folk ☺️). Pay attention to the words you use, both with yourself and others, and get to know your personal lexicon. Words move you, so choose language that gets you where you want to go. If it lights you up, go there. When we rely too heavily on the common language of the culture and neglect to form or attend to our own unique lexicons, we limit our imagination and souls' expression to the narrow frame of cultural consensus. (Blech) Language forms, informs, moves, matters—your words shape your reality. Choose wisely. And playfully. I give you five examples of words/terms and how I like to use them, for now: 1. foresting // getting into the trees, 2. fiving, 3. tinny, 4. tight, 5. noisy. Let me know what resonates.

I felt disoriented and uprooted this week, so I sat by the river and came back to myself. I remembered that my mission with this podcast is exploration in the spirit of freedom and generosity. That clarity brought excitement and inspiration with it, particularly around unpacking language and bits of language that catch my attention—words, phrases, types of words, ways of speaking. Just introducing that mini project today, not diving in yet; I plan to include a series of episodes or segments in that vein, which I'm calling Open Language. Let me know what resonates.

This is all so new to me!

Hellooo! Welcome! My name is Monica, and I'm a self-preservation 5w4 in the enneagram of personality. I'm clearing out internal clutter and stepping out of my cave of self-limitation, sharing reflections and wisdom nuggets along the way. With plenty of mixed metaphors and minimal editing—by intention aaand necessity. Who's coming with me?