Many people know their Enneagram type (if you don’t - schedule a typing session!), but fewer people understand the instincts. The Ennea-world is constantly learning and evolving, and recent research and observations are finding that the 3 instincts are as important, if not more important, in understanding how we humans tick.
The Enneagram type can be described as your “why” (your core motivation), and your dominant instinct is your “how,” helping to explain how you naturally show up in life.
Think back to our cave-person predecessors and consider humans’ innate, subconscious survival needs: food, water, shelter (self-preservation), community (social), and exploration & finding a mate (hunter). Some people naturally want to keep the home resourced and everyone healthy, others tend to the group dynamics, and others are seeking the next great venture. We each have a dominant instinct that we naturally prefer to do, one that is secondary, and one that is neglected.
Barbara’s dominant self-preservation instinct really kicked in when she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Exercise is non-negotiable, and her supplement regimen is on-point (her suitcase is half supplements when she packs for her annual 4-month move to Argentina). Her social instinct is a strong secondary as she lights up organizing a friend group trip or getting an office team humming. Her hunter instinct, though, is pretty repressed. She's grateful her Enneagram Three-ness keeps a little adventure and love of change alive, because it doesn't come naturally from instinct alone.
For Tricia, here’s how her dominant social instinct with secondary hunter instinct plays out if three things come up at the same time, which happens regularly in her family. The refrigerator reveals bare shelves, one of her kids needs to get to practice or a social gathering, and she and her husband need to talk about purchasing a new car. First, she will get that kid where they need to go (social), then have the talk about cars (hunter), and finally, just get take-out, leaving those empty shelves for the next day (neglected self-preservation).
As with so many things, the goal is not to change who we are instinctually, but rather to have more balance. Let’s get our dominant instinct to thrive and shine, and bring in those other instincts for support instead of leaving one behind to rear its ugly head (ex. refrigerator still bare and everyone is hangry).
We can help you uncover how your instincts are playing out in your life and how they work in conjunction with your type.
Knowing the instincts can be transformational in so many ways!
P.S. To make things more confusing, different teachers of the Enneagram use different terms for the instincts – Self-Preservation / Farmer, Social / Teamer, and the most confusing Sexual / 1 to 1/ Hunter.
