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A blue whale swimming underwater.

Enneagram Type 9

Enneagram Type 9 chart.

9: The Peacemaker, Mediator, Naturalist, Accommodator or Abdicator

Energetics: Avoidant and Adaptive - Adapt boundaries to seek harmony and avoid anger

Hidden Essence: Divine Harmony  

Type 9 Introduction

Black and white portrait of a middle-aged man with a beard, mustache, and floral decorations on his beard, wearing a suit and tie, looking to the side with a slight smile.

Type 9 Subjective

Actor Bill Murray

People with the Nine pattern fixate on being comfortable and avoiding anger.

The urge to be comfortable is so deep they often don’t even know when they are uncomfortable. They self negate to avoid discomfort.

They neutralize - if you are too down they bring you up, too up they bring you down. They tend to be in denial around negative issues - may not perceive the problem at all. They can minimize, or reject a problem if it feels unpleasant. 

They lack a sense of self, of separate identity, due avoiding intensity. They believe they have a limited capacity to handle intensity so they numb out.

They feel inferior - “it doesn’t matter” really means "I don’t matter". This makes it difficult to initiate or go against the flow. They disappear if they really don’t want to do something - not respond to phone calls, or become sick.

They dissociate in a daze or day dream and not hear when people are talking to them. They will often not be aware of what they may have been thinking.

Avoiding anger leaves them lacking energy. They are afraid their anger is homicidal. They often use the expressions “that would be too much for me” or “I couldn’t handle that” when it comes to feeling emotional pain or anger.

Type 9 Objective

Black and white portrait of an elderly man with gray hair and a beard, smiling slightly, wearing a dark jacket.
Actor Morgan Freeman

They have rock like, solid, and dense bodies. Their pace is slow and methodical, lacking spontaneity. They want to please and go with the flow, but are immovable in ways.

Their avoidance of anger, confrontation, and intensity makes them passive and passive-aggressive. There is a glazed look in their eyes, at times vacant. This happens more when they feel threatened, judged, or anger.

They pleasantly sink into the background. People feel accepted. When they judge it is often of people who are judgmental, demanding, critical or too dramatic intense.

Type 9 Childhood

A young boy with light brown hair sleeping on a teal sofa, holding a tablet device in his hands, wearing a white T shirt with dinosaur patterns, green pants, and gray socks.

Children with the Nine pattern feel overwhelmed by their families. They try to disappear and/or make peace. They dissociate from drama by becoming invisible or mediating.

They are very low maintenance. They learn that having needs, getting angry, or having difficulties is not acceptable. They lose energy and become listless.

Type 9 Subtypes

Self-Preservation Subtype: The Consumer

They merge with and get sense of self from the material world - I consume therefore I am. They consume many forms of stimuli at the same time. They are very loving people with no sense of being loved. They avoid social interaction and would rather be at home watching TV. 

Queen Elizabeth II wearing a crown and jewelry, standing next to a Canadian flag.
Queen Elizabeth II

Social Subtype: The Networkers

They merge with and get sense of self from groups. They are peacemakers and bring people together. They are emotionally disengaged. They need to join groups because they feel like they don’t belong anywhere. They are generous and mindful of satisfying the needs of others.

Portrait of a mature woman with shoulder-length gray and blonde hair, smiling slightly, outside near a tree with green foliage in the background.
Feminist Activist Gloria Steinem

Sexual/Attraction Subtype: The Merger

They merge with and get sense of self from a partner. They take on the characteristics of their partner - likes, dislikes, passions. They lack their own passion and needs.

A middle-aged man with short gray hair and facial hair looking at the camera with a serious expression, resting his head on his arm.
Actor Kevin Costner

Type 9 Wings

A black and white portrait of Mahatma Gandhi smiling, wearing glasses and traditional attire.

9 Wing: The Secret Critic

Create external order to simulate internal order, get caught in nonessential details, less energy, detached, proper, introverted.

Mahatma Gandhi

8 Wing: The Jolly Good Fellow

More out going and social, sensual, energetic, and expressive, can be explosive but quickly become calm, extroverted.

A man with gray hair in a dark suit and blue striped tie speaking at a podium with two microphones, smiling with American flags in the background.
President Bill Clinton
Abstract artwork with a dark background, featuring a large orange circle with colorful rays and a pathway leading to a small triangular structure.

Type 9 Continuum

Lower: Unresponsive to life, dissociated, depressed, and listless.

Middle: Ignore problems, get lost in routines and habits, and agree to things they don’t want to do.

Higher: Maintain peace and harmony, easy going, kind, truly peaceful and dynamic, spontaneous, still ego based.

Liberated: All inclusive, intrinsic harmony is known deeply and they embody divine awareness. 

enneagram type 9. A digital collage featuring a whale swimming among green ivy leaves, with a colorful, abstract background and a white number 9 overlaying a faint geometric pattern.

Type 9 Essence: All Inclusive Intrinsic Harmony

The essence of each type is the quality of character - a particular expression - that remains when the fixation softens and releases. While these qualities are human they are not personal and cannot be developed.

The essence is revealed when fixation is recognized and freed through awareness and compassion. We all have the potential to realize the essence of our type - our more subtle authentic nature. This authenticity means living from open, free, wholeness.

The essence of the type Nine is true harmony.

Each type has a blind spot that creates a unique experience of separation. Each blind spot is directly related to the essential nature of each type. People with the Nine pattern have a blind spot for all inclusive harmony. 

This blind spot prevents them from perceiving and experiencing authentic beauty and love. All nurturing environments are inadequate to some extent. This inadequacy is experienced personally and interpreted through the enneagram pattern. When this is experienced by the child with the type Nine, they fixate on avoiding intensity and confrontation.

Explore The Nine Types

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