Strength and Vulnerability: A Conversation with Valerie Wheat

In this episode of The Real Enneagram, we had the pleasure of welcoming our dear friend Valerie Wheat, an instructor at the College of Education at Jacksonville State University. Valerie shared her journey with the Enneagram, which began about ten years ago when a friend introduced her to the concept. Initially, she approached it superficially, but as her friendship with Dr. Joe Howell deepened, she began to explore the Enneagram more profoundly, ultimately identifying as an Enneagram Type 8.

We discussed the common misconceptions surrounding Type 8s, including the shame some feel about their assertive nature. Valerie reflected on her experiences and how her son Jonathan encouraged her to embrace her identity as an 8, highlighting the healthy aspects of this type. We also explored the holy ideas and virtues associated with Type 8, particularly focusing on holy truth and holy compassion, as well as the virtue of innocence.

Valerie shared a poignant personal story about her quest for truth during a crisis of belief in her 20s, which resonated deeply with her understanding of the holy idea of truth. She emphasized how this journey has shaped her life and her approach to challenges, including her husband's serious health issues over the past few years. Valerie's self-awareness and growth have allowed her to navigate these difficulties with grace and empathy, transforming her interactions with students and others around her.

Throughout the episode, we highlighted the importance of doing the inner work associated with the Enneagram, recognizing that while it can be challenging, it ultimately leads to personal growth and deeper connections with others. We are grateful for Valerie's vulnerability and insights, which serve as a testament to the transformative power of understanding oneself through the lens of the Enneagram. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you find inspiration in Valerie's journey!

To learn more about the Institute for Conscious Being, visit: theicb.info

Transcript

Scott:
You are now listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. And now, here are your hosts, Dr. Joe Howell and Nanette Mudiam.

Nanette: Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. I'm Nanette Mudiam and I'm here with Dr. Joseph Howe. Hi, Dr. Joe. Hi, Nanette.

Joe: Glad to be here.

Nanette: It's nice to be here with you, too. We're having a good time, you know, during this podcast series because we have really invited what I would characterize as friends to come and talk to us. And so we're excited today to say that we have Valerie Wheat here with us. Valerie, say hello. Hello. Valerie is truly a very, very dear friend of mine. We've been friends for a number of years now and she is an instructor at the College of Education at Jacksonville State University. And she's a great communicator. And we have had many conversations about many, many things over the years. But tell us a little bit about yourself, Valerie, so that the audience will know you.

Valerie: So I have been an instructor in the College of Education at Jack State for 12 years. Before that, I had worked in a couple of different K-12 settings. in this region. So I really enjoy my job. I love that I can be an impact on future educators and to be a part of that grooming and that teaching and training process because I'm very passionate about special education and providing accommodations and support. and access to general education for students with disabilities. So I'll probably talk a little more about that and how I ended up there based on my Enneagram number a little bit later.

Nanette: And that's your professional life. You have, in addition to that, you have two sons.

Valerie: Yes, I'm married to Joseph Wheat and we live in Southside, Alabama. I have two sons. My oldest son is in the Navy and he is stationed in Oceanside, California. He got married a few years ago and they're expecting my first grandchild in August. And then my youngest son, Jonathan, is a songwriter for Capitol Records in Nashville, Tennessee. And he's been married for about four years. And he will have my second grandchild in October. So I have two grandchildren on the way this year. It's a very exciting year. Jonathan actually has a song that's been at number one for almost six weeks now on the Christian charts on Billboard. So I have to throw that out there when I get an opportunity because I'm so proud. So it's been really a lot of fun, kind of that whole ride with him.

Nanette: And Jonathan is kind of the one who maybe, is he how you first heard about the Enneagram or did you learn about it through education? What's your Enneagram journey been?

Valerie: Years ago, I would say it's probably been about 10 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me. Her name was Karen Lafayette. She introduced me. She was studying the Enneagram at the time, and I think a little bit under Dr. Howell. And she just really took a deep dive into it. And so she introduced me to it. And I was interested enough. I really kind of for a long time stayed at the topical superficial level, as many do. And I would teach the content in a course on collaboration that I teach in the College of Education, where we look at personality typing early on because I believe, you know, know thyself first before you can really learn how to collaborate with others. So I began to introduce the Enneagram and my understanding of it, which was very superficial at the time. And only, I think, after you and I became really good friends, we've known each other a long time, we've become really close friends the last three or four years, I think that's when I began to take a deeper dive. into understanding the Enneagram and it's truly been life-changing for me, so impactful for me. So you're an egotype 8? Yes, I am.

Nanette: And you know, there's a few numbers on the Enneagram that I think people feel shame about. I know aids and threes very often really feel self-conscious when they say that because we assume so much, you know, about those types of personalities and maybe feel at liberty to feel judgy towards them because they're so you know, kind of aggressive type generally we perceive. And yet there's so often something so soft under there. And then sometimes so misrepresented.

Valerie: I mean, because of the nature of an eight, we many times are not very self-reflective. So you will see very few eights even doing a self-reflective study. because that leads to vulnerability and that's what we resist.

Nanette: And has that been your experience too, Dr. Joe, that, you know, eight is not our most popular number at the Institute?

Joe: No, no, because it's a hard-nosed number. And people don't like being next to people who the buck stops with them because a lot of people don't like authority and they don't like people who step up and manage while everybody else wants to be in the background. And so they're not going to get up there and manage anything, but they want to, you know, throw rotten tomatoes at the people who do.

Valerie: Yeah, I think my son, when he first just was so convincing that I was an eight, he, I think, was targeting the healthy side of eight and making it, you know, he made it sound a little more attractive. And I really had not looked at it.

Nanette: Because your son, Jonathan, is really interested in the Enneagram.

Valerie: He is and has really listened to podcasts and done reading and has been very interested longer than me, and he is the one that said, no, you are definitely, definitely an eight, but kind of presented it in a more glamorous Oprah kind of eight. that made it more palatable for me. And so I was like, okay, well, maybe I should revisit because I have sometimes had anxiety. And so I think I thought I was a six. And he's like, Oh, no, mom, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're definitely an eight. And so

Nanette: It's interesting how that happens sometimes that sixes and eights can sometimes, what is that overlap? Why is that?

Joe: Especially the counter phobic. I mean, they say that Adolf Hitler was a counter phobic six. Running on fear, but hiding it and using power as subterfuge. So, there you go.

Nanette: Well, I also find it interesting, too, that Valerie, to me, your subtype is social, right? Yes. Yeah. And so sometimes social aids to me, they don't necessarily look like the stereotypical, you know, strong man aid. And so knowing you previously without really talking about the Enneagram, I would not have assumed I wouldn't have typed you as an aid.

Valerie: And that is the most common response that I have when I share with people that understand the Enneagram. Most people say, I would have never guessed that you were an 8, or they will say, you're really the only 8 that I've ever been able to tolerate. We get a bad rep. And so, you know, and I think once I really started studying about the ape, it's probably my resistance to being an ape, because in my mind, it'd be better to be fearful than to be a hated ape. But that's what it, you know, how it seemed. But I think really, in being in a situation where people that really understand when we have our intensives, you know, I've had so much encouragement. from the group, people saying, do you know how amazing it can be to be a healthy social eight? I've had so many people say that to me, so that's very encouraging. being healthy is the part that I have to work on.

Nanette: Well, it's the part that we all have to work on. I mean, that's the universal work of the Enneagram is that we all have work to do. You know, as a type 9, it's so funny if you go into a group of nines and you ask them what is their stronger wing, every one of them will say one because they feel like it's more palatable. You know, to have a wing in one that it is in eight, especially with our strong avoidance of conflict, you know, and AIDS barreling towards conflict very often. I think there's value in owning that eight wing. And I grew up with a family member who was an eight. And really, I can just really look back on my life and now start to appreciate the strength and shelter that she so often offered us because she did what nobody else wanted to do, said what nobody else wanted to say, arranged things that nobody else wanted to do. And so, I really have come to appreciate and value that. And also, she was quite fun because, I mean, of course, eights have seven wings too. And they can be really quite entertaining and funny and strong. And so, We're complex? Yeah, yeah, definitely complex. So, you know, this series has, we really wanted to do this series to take a deeper dive beyond the ego type and to really talk about the holy ideas. and what that journey has been for you to come to that. Because obviously, beyond the superficial, beyond what we all know and can mark, you know, of each personality type and talk about that in jest, but in also in seriousness, but there's some deeper truth beyond all of that, which is the holy idea. holy ideas and the virtues. Yes. So, our holy idea for the Type 8 is holy truth and holy compassion. And our virtue is innocence. And our virtue is innocence. So, do you have a story that kind of encapsulates that, Valerie?

Valerie: Oh, absolutely. The story. So I, of course, without doing a deep dive, you really don't even know about the holy idea and virtues that you don't cover that like in a topical study. So it's only in a deeper study that that even becomes a part of what you're doing. And I think it was in a course, maybe an asynchronous course online with you or something that you were doing, where you began to talk through the holy idea for each type, for each number. And I remember, and I think I might have still been a little bit questioning, was I truly an eight? Maybe Jonathan had not completely convinced me. And when you started talking about the holy idea, 4 and 8 being holy truth and walking through that, it just so resonated with me on a personal level. So to back up, it's a little bit of a retrospective look in my life. About 30 years prior, in my 20s, I had a bit of a crisis of belief and I was in a mainline denominational fundamentalist church at the time and studying the scriptures. There were just a lot of questions that I had that I just never could get satisfying answers for. My authentic, it's just how I live and the relationship I've always had with God. I just began to pray about it. I'm a journaler. I have all those things in prayer journals. I began to just pray for truth and what is truth. When you talked about the holy idea being truth, I resonated because that has been what motivated me for a very long time. In that retrospective look back on my life, of course, you don't see the changes that began to come. and happen in your life immediately after you make those prayers. But my mom was very dualistic in its thinking at the time, good and bad, and good and evil, and black and white, and labeling, which we know truth is non-dual. And I'm really more in that space now, but I certainly wasn't then. So I was expecting doctrinal for God to show me what's right to believe, because, you know, that's important to me is to be right, to be on the right side of things. And so if I really look back retrospectively, what began to happen immediately, I mean, within a few weeks, is I began to be exposed to different ways of thinking, different religious thoughts, different philosophies, and just had a family move next door. Within weeks of praying for truth, they did not believe the way that I do. They were Muslim. From that point forward, I began to just have so many experiences that broadened my dualistic mind. And so, you know, what I want to say is God does respond to those prayers, but you have to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear his response. And I think a closed mind probably wouldn't see that. But I do at the same time feel like a prayer for truth forces. us to open our mind. It was a beautiful thing. And, you know, yeah, it really resonated with me because I thought back to that being such a motivational prayer.

Nanette: It's so interesting to me that the holy idea would be what would confirm your ego type. That's an interesting, that's not a story that we hear very often that somebody finds their ego type through their holy idea.

Joe: No, but it's a refreshing because you have touched your soul with holy truth and that is who you really are.

Nanette: Joe, can you talk a little bit about the virtue of innocence and what that really means?

Joe: Yes. The Jesuits have named that virtue the word simplicity, which they think really boils down the word innocence to let's look at life as a child would in simple terms. As you know, children are not dualistic. They see the spectrum, and they say the truth, even though it embarrasses adults out of the mouths of babes, sort of thing. And so, if you match power with innocence, you have a tremendous combination there, because you have power and strength woven in vulnerability and compassion. And the innocence of a child sees life in simple terms rather than complicated terms. And the flip side of an eight is when they are not healthy, they do not want to see the simple truth. They want to make up their own truth. and have others live by it and make up their own kind of justice and have others live by it. Wow. And intimidate people who don't want to go by that. But the virtue completely backs them out of that because they become vulnerable. They become less overhanded. They become in touch with their own childhood wonders and beauty. They look for the good instead of anticipate how they're going to control others and the backlash that they fairly often have pushback.

Valerie: Yeah, does that resonate with you? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, because control, you know, has been something that, you know, I've had to really work on my whole life. So I always know when I'm becoming unhealthy because that will rise up in me, that need to control.

Nanette: So you've had quite a number of challenges in the last few years, Valerie. You have aging parents like many of us and a husband who's had some health challenges. And then obviously you're training a whole generation of students to work in very demanding classrooms. I mean, classrooms have not been the same since COVID. I mean, teachers are experiencing more stress. It's about like nursing, very similar. And so you have this self-awareness could not have come at a better time for the challenges that you've had to face. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how knowing that has helped you in these scenarios? Yes, absolutely.

Valerie: Of course, my husband had a series of just, well, it was a series of unfortunate events. I mean, just like the book series. I mean, we just had one thing after another with him and very stressful situations. He was in a head-on collision, car accident. His femur snapped his femur in two. The large bone in the leg. Yes, the largest bone in your body snapped it and was of course in tremendous pain. I got a call from his phone. We had just hung up the phone, so I thought he was calling me back and it was a state trooper. And the state trooper really could not, I think they are probably coached not to tell you too much because they can't affirm anything. They don't know. They can't really assess medically. And all he could tell me is that he would be life flighted to UAB, to a trauma center. you know, he could not tell me if he would live or die. He just couldn't, he couldn't tell me. So within five to seven minutes, the Life Flight helicopter literally flew directly above my house. Then we get to the hospital, and he was okay. I mean, they fixed his femur. But in the scan, when they got him to the hospital, when they scan your body after such a horrible accident like that, to make sure there are no internal injuries, they found a brain aneurysm. And so while he was in surgery for repair of the femur, the neurosurgeon came to meet with me about the aneurysm in his brain.

Nanette: And so anyway, so it was just really a miracle because obviously why you wouldn't have known about it. It was not as a result of the accident. It was there already.

Valerie: Yeah. So I mean, it was later. I think that we could appreciate that more than in the moment in the moment. It was a lot of stress. And I can tell you a lot of the work that I had done prior to that time. Via the Enneagram and therapies and some other things that I had done. I don't know what I would have done. I was in a good place emotionally and I believe it's because of the work that I had done. So it made a huge, huge difference and I'm grateful for that. I'm so grateful for that because I think even as that helicopter flew over my house, I just had a piece. I had a peace and I had an ability to regulate my emotions that I don't know that I would

Nanette: And you told me recently that you were really experiencing that two soul child of yours in a way that you really could appreciate. Talk to us about that.

Valerie: Yeah, I really, you know, I think you kind of go through a little bit of a dark night of the soul a little bit based on Enneagram. thinking and processing, you know, I gravitate to a two when I'm healthy. I resist being a two when I'm unhealthy and I have found myself in the last year, just when I reflect back, operating more in a two, in a two-ness than probably I ever have and it's, Maybe intentional, but not so much. I think it just has been natural. It's just been a natural progression for me because I don't necessarily intentionally do the things. I just, it just seems more natural if that makes sense. I'm just not resisting it. So I can't quote it. There's this really great quote about somebody bringing me darkness. And later I discovered that that too is a gift. And sometimes even when darkness presents itself, it can be a gift. And I believe that. I believe that some of these very hard things, when I look back, It was a gift.

Nanette: It was a gift. It's really served to reveal your soul. And I can say that just from knowing you and experiencing you, Valerie, that just so much of your soul has been revealed in these challenges that you've been through. And honestly, it's what has anchored you through them. I mean, I think without it, you would have been really maybe angry or, you know, talk, really talk.

Valerie: It's always been my go-to. And bitterness. I think it would have resulted in a bitterness. And I think if I'm honest with you, the way that I benchmark it is some of my student reviews are very different now. I think because of The empathy that I probably… The student review that you received from your… At school. At school. And other benchmarks, you know, where I had a lady stop me today and say, I just want you to know, you were so patient in that situation. And I just thought how cool that God today, as I come here to talk, because that's how the cloud shows up in my life, is that benchmark would show up for me today through the lady that wanted to comment how patient I was through a situation. Because I can assure you that five years ago, that would not have been said about me. That's how far I've come. Actually, someone might have given me feedback that I needed to get control of myself. So I have come a long way. And so that is the beautiful thing. God continually will give me those benchmarks. They're complete strangers.

Nanette: Well, and that just reminds me of the beauty of amalgamation, which is something we talk about frequently in this podcast and that Dr. Joe has really taught us that there is a beautiful place of what we've learned, lessons from our ego combined with the gifts of our soul, who we really are. that there is an amalgamation of that, that strength and vulnerability in you to see that come together in the lessons that you have learned. That each ego type has that beautiful opportunity to take lessons from their ego and then the strengths of their soul to really transform our lives and to impact our families and situations. And so… I know that makes you proud, Dr. Joe.

Joe: I'm very happy.

Nanette: Yeah, yeah. This I would say just from knowing Dr. Howell is really his life's work. It's why we do the work for the Institute for Conscious Being is because we believe that there's something beyond our ego. And you're just a perfect example of a student that we've had the privilege of participating with and walking out life with. And I've noticed, and I'll just close on this, that you said the word work several times. And it's interesting to me that we often refer to this study, this look at our egos as work, you know. There's a reason people don't do it. It's a lot of work. It is work. It's hard. We could be doing other things. Yeah. But we would be suffering, you know.

Valerie: It reminds me of that scripture, put your hand to the plow and don't look back. I mean, really, you can't if you really want to move forward with a crop. you know, that will bring the fruit in your life. To me, that's really what that scripture would be a great, you can't look back, you stay at it and do the work.

Nanette: Yeah. Well, that's beautiful. Yeah. Well, we're grateful for you and your vulnerability and transparency to share with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

Scott: Thank you for listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. The music for today's podcast was composed and performed by ICB faculty member Drexel Rayford.

Nanette: Thanks for listening today. We hope you liked what you heard. If you did, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your friends and family.