Here's My Achilles Heel

(Handy Reference Post)

"I'm standing guard, I'm falling apart

And all I want is to trust you

Show me how to lay my sword down

For long enough to let you through.

Here I am, pry me open.

What do you want to know?

I'm just a kid who grew up scared enough

To hold the door shut

And bury my innocence

But here's a map, here's a shovel.

Here's my Achilles' heel."

~"Eight" by Sleeping At Last

Can we just take a moment and appreciate how hauntingly beautiful this verse is?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All Eights stand guard. Eights who have been burned by love stand guard with an extra sword.

For Eights, this is fine. This is how we are. This is how we prefer to be.

But then sometimes, someone comes along that we actually want to let in, and we realize in horror that we are less in control of that decision than we thought.

The beginning of being with Gabe was me standing guard, falling apart. All I wanted was to trust him. I had decided that he was (relatively, probably) safe and I wanted to trust him, to let him in. But I didn't even know how to do that.

For a long time, I would let him through only to stab him with my sword, then look down at it in horror and wonder why I had done that.

Show me how, I asked him. To lay my sword down for long enough to let you through.

He showed me inhuman patience, unconditional love, and fierce protectiveness for a long time. Eventually, slowly, I began to believe him. I was able to lay my sword down. (Not throw it a way, mind you. I'm not sure Eights can ever throw their swords away—nor do you want them to. We'll get to that in a later post.)

Even after I let him through, I didn't really "open up"; I just didn't stab him. There was a lot of—very welcome—prying open of my heart and mind.

The next line made Gabe laugh out loud when we heard the song a few months ago: "Here's a map, here's a shovel." He told me that was what I had done to him when I finally started to trust him. I had finally invited him to know me, but he was going to have to make the journey himself. I wasn't able to plop the treasure chest of Real Me in front of him. He'd have to follow a map and dig it up himself.

"Here's my Achilles heel."

The moment an Eight lets someone know the things that can hurt her is a strange one. If the Eight is anything like me, she will feel both totally exposed and ready to grab her sword again at the slightest twitch.

My Achilles heel isn't one specific thing, but sort of a state of my mind and heart, I suppose. However, even if I could narrow my Achilles heel down to one specific thing, I still wouldn't tell you here.

When an Eight reveals her Achilles heel and you don't shoot an arrow through it, everything changes.

~Stephanie

When I See Fragile Things

(Handy Reference Post)

"When I see fragile things, helpless things, broken things

I see the familiar

I was little, I was weak, I was perfect too

Now I'm a broken mirror."

~"Eight" by Sleeping At Last

I never realized that my affinity for “cute things” was part of being an Eight.

I know that’s not exactly what these lines are referring to, but it is common for Eights to have a fixation with things that remind them of childhood innocence. Those of you who know me well know that I still sleep with my childhood stuffed animals (known as “bed friends”). While we were dating, Gabe once casually asked, “If we were to get married one day, would I be sleeping with your bed friends?”

I looked at him as if he’d asked if I planned to continue needing food to survive. “Yes?”

Gabe nodded. “Just checking.”

I love cute things. I guess you could say that cute things are one of my more light-hearted Achilles heels.

However, these lines really refer to the Eights’ drive to protect the innocent and vulnerable—which is NOT the same thing as “the weak.” Innocence and vulnerability are states of reality; weakness is something that people choose. It’s like a character flaw. A puppy or a toddler is innocent and vulnerable. A man who refuses to stand up to his overbearing wife is weak. Eights will go unusually above and beyond to protect the former, but may take delight in tormenting the latter.

According to Enneagram philosophy, this is because Eights remember being taken advantage of while they were weak and vulnerable, and wish someone had taken up their cause. The same thing is not going to happen to something or someone else on an Eight’s watch.

I never noticed this about myself until the Enneagram, but once I thought to pay attention to it, I noticed it more often than I would’ve guessed. I do feel a need in my body to intervene when I see wrong or sad things happening to those who I see as vulnerable.

Especially if they are cute.

~Stephanie

My Healing Need More Than Time

(Handy Reference Post)

"I want to break these bones 'til they're better

I want to break them right and feel alive.

You were wrong,

You were wrong,

You were wrong:
My healing needed more than time."

~"Eight" by Sleeping At Last

These first two lines made me want to pump my fist in the air and yell, "YES!" at my speakers.

I've spoken about this a tiny bit before: I enjoy working on myself, whether mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Often, that involves breaking something in order to fix it. I will figuratively break my bones all day til they're better.

I want to break them right.

When I told Gabe how much those lines made sense to me, he frowned.

"But you don't need to break them in order to make them better," he said.

"You do if the bone wasn't set right when it broke the first time," I told him.

No one knew about Heartbreak #1. After Heartbreak #2, everyone basically patted me on the head and me that time heals all wounds. After Heartbreak #3, I was feeding myself that trite line.

But they were wrong. They were wrong. I was wrong. My healing needed more than time.

If the heartbreak isn't set correctly, it can't heal.

I was messed up after Heartbreak #3, which is very hard for me to admit. Anyone who has been in an extremely toxic or emotionally abusive relationship knows what a number it can do to your heart and head. Had I not gotten the tools to help me process and grow as a person, I might never have healed from it.

For one thing, I needed to learn to see myself the way God sees me. God looks at me and sees brokenness, but he doesn't exploit that or use it to condemn me. He wants to heal me, not use my brokenness as a weapon or an excuse to abuse me, make me feel less. God sees my brokenness and loves the good he sees in me through Jesus. He forgives me. He has my best interest at heart. He wants me to be a part of his plan to prosper me, not to harm me. There is nothing I can do to separate myself from his love.

I can't imagine successfully recovering from heartbreak without this kind of healing love.

For another thing, I needed to experience what it was like to have a healthy romantic relationship, one that didn't end in being socked in the stomach, forgotten, etc.

For a long time, I would not have wanted to admit that Gabe played any role in healing my heart. How gross is it to say that a girl needs a GUY to show her what she's worth, to heal her heart? I can do that on my own, thanks, and if you can't, you're weak and sad.

To some degree, I guess I still believe that XD I know that if Gabe had not come along, God and I would have healed my heart by ourselves. However, I am so thankful that God chose to use Gabe in my healing process.

More on that later.

~Stephanie

All That I Have to Lose

(Handy Reference Post)

"Now you won't see all that I have to lose

And all I've lost in the fight to protect it

I won't let you in, I swore never again

I can't afford, no, I refuse to be rejected."

~"Eight" by Sleeping At Last

I love those first two lines. They're so beautifully, paradoxically parallel. How much can you have to lose if you've already lost so much?

Well, for an Eight, the answer is "a lot," because there is just a lot inside of us. There's a lot inside everyone, but Eights cultivate intensity, so when I say "a lot," I don't mean "many things," but "many things, each of which has the depth and intensity of a firework set off inside a lunchbox."

Since John, I have had my heart broken by people two more times. One was deep and simple; one was deep and you'd have to read five years of journals to understand it. Each time, it became harder to let someone in.

The first time I listened to those two lines of "Eight," I felt startled and exposed and teary. It put into words something I've felt for the past decade or so. I wish I could explain it.

What is it I feel that I have to lose? Innocence. My heart.

What is it I feel that I've lost in the fight to protect my innocence and my heart? A measure of my innocence; the tenderness of my heart; the veracity of my feelings. Everything I am, everything I feel is intense. It is exhausting to drag all of that to the surface and have someone set it on fire just because he is cold. After each heartbreak, I began to feel more cynical, more unfeeling, more disconnected from my heart.

As backwards as it sounds, for a long time, I sawed off pieces of my heart and buried them away—away from anyone who might try to access them, but also away from myself. Those are the pieces that I lost in my fight to protect them. As long as I never accessed, acknowledged, or exposed them I knew that they were safe. However, they were also useless. What's the point of saving the perfect little black dress for the perfect occasion if you never end up wearing it? You might as well not have it.

When Gabe came along, it was very difficult for both of us. I was a normal, fun, sarcastic college student—on the outside, based on the pieces of my heart I could still access.

What's interesting is that in the midst of all this, I never felt like one of those movie characters who's become hardened and cold and impervious to hurt. I never felt like the caricatured badass who has decided that she's given up on love. I actually think I would have enjoyed feeling that way, but instead, I thought I just felt like my regular self. I thought I was hard and cold—through and through—and always had been (?!). I thought that was my true and natural state of being. I did not think that warm-fuzzy love was a realistic expectation for me.

I genuinely did not realize that I wasn't letting Gabe in. Even now when I look back, I don't...I don't know what I was doing or not doing. It's kind of the exact opposite of having "the minute" when a switch was flipped.

Refusing to be rejected is a quicker, though trickier, line to examine. I don't know whether I struggle with being accepted/rejected now. I do not THINK that I care very much about being accepted/rejected, but then, am I just in denial? Do I actually care very deeply that you accept me, and I just haven't unearthed/accessed that piece of my heart yet?

I guess the jury's out, though in my conscious mind I can assure you that you are free to react to me however you want and I will not take it personally :)

~Stephanie

Enneagram Series Reference Post

Disclaimer: I'm not an Enneagram expert. However, I'm no longer the LEAST educated person I know on it, so I've made progress. All my thoughts have some amount of legitimate research behind them. (Translation: I know what I'm talking about, Karen. Unless you find something wrong in what I say, and then I reserve the right to pull the Not-An-Expect Card.)

Handy Principles of Eight-ness:
1) Our Basic Need is "to be against." Even if I agree with you, my INSTANT instinct is to position myself against you or the belief we actually share.

2) Our Childhood Wound is that there was a "rejection experience" with relation to our parent(s). (This DOES NOT mean that the parent was the one doing the rejecting. Sometimes it just means that we felt controlled/manipulated by the amount of love shown us by our parent(s), and WE stiff-armed/rejected the parent's love.)

3) Our Basic Fear is being violated, controlled, or betrayed.

4) Our most accessible emotion is anger.

5) We struggle to be vulnerable because we feel like everyone is out to get us or sell us out.

Posts in the Series
I Remember the Minute
All That I Have to Lose
My Healing Needed More Than Time
When I See Fragile Things
Here's My Achilles Heel
All In


~Stephanie