What is your worst fear? Maybe the first thing to come to mind is snakes, or spiders, or heights. But, that’s not what I’m looking for. What is the fear that subconsciously affects your actions, addictions, and relationships?
That’s pretty deep and it is something I’ve been thinking a lot about these days. Last week I had the opportunity to attend an event presented by the Women Ambassador Forum. The speaker, Nilima Bhat, presents on Shakti Leadership which dives deeper into masculine and feminine leadership styles. She walked us through the hero’s journey as originally described by Joseph Campbell.
- Crisis — First comes the crisis where the hero is “shaken out of normalcy.” For me that happened last year when I left my family. I remember the week before I left giving a message to my church congregation regarding the importance of my family and my hesitant willingness to leave them for this calling.
- Trauma — Second, comes the trauma. Whereas the crisis happens in the world where we live, the trauma is an internal and spiritual struggle. Bhat noted that usually in this portion of our journey a mentor is provided so that we are not alone in this. The hero must “come to grips with the new unfamiliar world,” and there is inevitable a villain that plays on the hero’s greatest fear.
- Transformation —Transformation occurs moving the hero into the third phase of the journey, only when the hero has faced the word fear, what many refer to as the “Shadow Self.”
I want to move on from trauma and into transformation, so I decided it would behoove me to figure out my worst fear and face it.
Shadow Self
Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and author, provides powerful daily meditations and it just so happens two weeks ago he ran a series on the “Shadow Self.” He defined the “Shadow Self” as “any part of ourselves or our institutions that we try to hide or deny because it seems socially unacceptable.”
When I thought about this, my first guess was pride. I pray a lot to God to humble me and strip me of my pride. He has done a great job of that over the past year, and I can say my prayers have certainly been heard and answered. However, as I dove deeper into it, pride didn’t seem to fit as my worst fear. So, what could it be?
Enneagram
My friend Aubrey turned me on to something called Enneagram a couple of months ago. It is another self-reflection tool with a test like Myers-Briggs or DiSC, but this one reflects even deeper into the soul.
My test revealed that I am a Type 3 with a Wing 2. I know — what on earth does that mean? Well, the Type 3 personality is centered on “action, efficiency, establishing, encouragement, inspiring and excellence.” Elisabeth Bennet is a Certified Enneagram Coach and runs a simple and inspiring Instagram page describing each personality type. She ran a series of images that addressed each type’s deadly sin and worst fear.
I turned to her page when I wasn’t satisfied with pride, and low-in-behold what she wrote had goosebumps prickling up my arms.
“Deceit is the deadly sin of Threes.”
What!? One of my strongest life values is honesty and integrity. I cannot and will not lie. I thought there is no way that deceit is my deadly sin. And then she went on…
“Threes are so good at reading you that at times it doesn’t occur to them not to be who you need them to be. This is a way they assume they’re making you comfortable or loving you. Deceit means to misrepresent the truth. Deceit is the voice of ‘they won’t like you if they know you’re too busy to take that on, just say you have time and figure it out later’.”
Yes, folks — I can own deceit in that description. And I know I’m not alone in this.
So, then what IS my worst fear? Again, the description for a Type 3 was spot on.
Worthlessness
“Threes want to prove to themselves and others that they add value to the world,” writes Bennet.
Ah, yes and there it is.
That means when you are unemployed and have been for four months, your fear could really begin to bubble up. The whole point of this exercise is to move out of trauma and into transformation. That begins to happen with the recognition of that fear, and so this past week that has been happening for me.
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness” — Brené Brown
