I’m an Enneagram 8, which is really the worst of the Enneagrams. People have told me they were frightened of me when we first met.  Or that I was intimidating.   Enneagram 8s are often seen as TOO MUCH.  We have big personalities, big opinions and sometimes we have big egos.

People are afraid of 8s.  We’re seen as aggressive and unkind.  As bulldozers.  Sometimes those things are true.  I’ve worked for an unhealthy 8.  It didn’t go well.

In the Road Back to You, Ian Morgan Cron suggests that Enneagram 8s developed their protection mechanisms because something happened in their childhood that caused them to grow up quickly and develop self preservation habits.

This is very true of me.

It would seem that I have a thing about feeling forgotten.  Overlooked.  Unwanted.

Lest you think I had a terrible childhood, it really wasn’t.  My parents love me.  They did their best as they were raising me.  But things happen.  In my case, I was forgotten or overlooked in three instances that are seared in my memory.

When I was three years old, my oldest brother swung a bat that connected with the head of my middle brother.  They both came racing home with blood trailing behind them.  It was determined that my middle brother required stitches.  The babysitter rushed them both to the hospital.  She only forgot one thing.  Three year old me.  I don’t know what I did home alone.  Probably played with dolls.  But it left an impression.

A few years later when my aunt and uncle came to visit there was a miscommunication between the families on the way home from church that Sunday.  My parents thought I was in the other car and my aunt and uncle assumed I’d gone home with my parents.  I was left at church with our very kind pastor and his wife.  I recall eating cookies and drinking tea in their living room.  This too left an impression.

The final story isn’t from my childhood.  In my late 20s, early 30s, my parents were still married and both serving in various capacities in the larger church ministry.  My two brothers had chosen to become pastors.   Our family had been noticed by our larger extended family.  Relatives circulated a newsletter to all of the descendants from a family tree connecting back to the Netherlands.   The editor had decided to write a story about this amazing ministry family.  Unfortunately for me, I was a stay at home mom and didn’t fit the narrative. There was no mention that my parents had a daughter.

I can still remember the feeling that washed over me as I read that newsletter. My heart raced. I could hear it beating in my temples.  I was awash in hurt, shame and embarrassment.  And then anger and the desire to never let this happen again.

These days, as soon as something happens that remotely makes me feel overlooked, this feeling resurfaces and I go into full self protection mode.  It isn’t pretty.

I don’t tell you this story to drum up pity for poor 3 year old, or 6 year old Sarah.  Though 30 year old Sarah could probably use a hug…

No, I tell you this story because I know this is the mantra that cycles through my head when I am unhealthy.  I look for ways that I’ve been forgotten and overlooked in my current life.  I nurse my wounds. And it starts to get in the way of my real life.

I draw painful experiences in close to my heart, and let them take over all of the other feelings.  I give small things a megaphone to pronounce lies over how the world sees me, how my co-workers see me, how my friends see me.

Because of the old wounds, I give the lies power.

I build walls around my heart to keep out anything that could possibly hurt me.  The isolation is lonely and can feel pretty dark.  One feeling can spiral into more hurt feelings and pretty quickly I have a view of myself that is so far from the truth.

I’m tired of this cycle.  Of listening to the lies.  Of creating little worlds of isolation.

The best way that I know to combat these feelings is to bring the lies into the light.  To identify the things that I’ve given power and label them for what they are.  To humbly raise my hands in surrender to God.  Turn over the hurt to him; let go of my grip of self protection and allow myself to be vulnerable to being hurt again KNOWING that he has promised to protect me.

Doing this is a constant cycle of surrender.  I acknowledge my feelings to God, turn them over to him and listen to his words of affirmation.

I am a child of God, chosen and dearly loved.  Never forgotten or overlooked.  Precious.  

It involves risk.  Risking that I can be hurt again.  Sadly, when something new happens, the cycle begins again.

I’m getting quicker at recognizing when I’m in an unhealthy place.  At flailing for help from those closest to me.  I just wish I could fall on my face a little more gracefully and a little less like a train-wreck.

If I never fully let go of the old wounds, I’ll never fully be able to deal with my present life without seeing it through a lens of pain.  I just don’t want that anymore.

I can’t forget what happened to me years ago.  But I can choose how much it determines my present reactions.  My hope is that by writing this down, making it a part of my public story, it will sink in that I can’t protect myself from ever being hurt again.

This is me, making an effort to trust God with the pain and allowing him to transform it into something healthy. I’m holding myself accountable for listening to the lies.

How about you?  What patterns are in your life where you’d like to transform the narrative?  When you are at your most unhealthy, what story from your past is just beneath the surface?