Alice Nuccio 0:00
I think the coziness the nine seeks is not the coziness of pleasure. The coziness nine seeks is the coziness of being unborn, you know, like, there's, there's, I think specifically what I'm trying to say is that, like the fact that we experience anything at all, is the issue we are trying to rid ourselves of experience. I think the essential question is whether or not we want to be alive at all. Do we simply want to exist? Welcome
Josh Lavine 0:34
to another episode of what it's like to be you. I'm Josh Lavon, your host, and on this show, I interview accurately typed guests about their experience as their Enneagram type. Today, my guest is Alice, who is a social self pres nine one with 973 trifix. This conversation was extremely rich in imagery, and it was a really good representation of the kind of swirling cauldron esque nature of the nines in our world. Also explore a lot about how nines are incredibly absorptive and the line between, you know, where they end and when the world begins, can be very blurry. And we also talk a lot about what we kind of termed the ambivalence that nines have towards existence itself, like, am I fully opting in to be here, or would I rather just be cozy with a blanket, literally or metaphorically? And something really interesting that came up in this conversation is how nine can accidentally pay attention more to the ambient background world than to myself or to the specificity of characters or whatever. And that came up for Alice in terms of her writing, and also in terms of her literally orientation to herself and her life story. So a lot here, in terms of core nine territory, really good stuff, and Alice is extremely articulate and has such a rich imagination. And so this was a really good and lively exploring conversation. So if you would like to know more about the Enneagram I'd like for you to come check us out at the Enneagram school.com you can go right to our website. We have interviews just like this. You can browse by type or instinctual stacking. We also have a lot of free content about Enneagram basics on the website right there. And also we have our intro course, which is a great place to go if you're a beginner or if you're an advanced student and want a refresher on the basics. All of that can be found at the Enneagram school.com. Okay, without further ado, I'm very excited for you to learn from my friend Alice. So I want to start by just commenting on your energy today, which is very light and fresh and a contrast to the last couple of times I've talked to you. So you and you just quit your job, which is a huge part of it. So can you just give us a sense of what's your current life context, what's happening, and then we'll go from there.
Alice Nuccio 2:46
Absolutely. So I just quit my job as a bar back at a very busy, fancy cocktail bar in the wealthiest neighborhood of Chicago. And, yeah, I've been doing kind of physical service work my whole life, like since I was 17. I'm 30 now, so the physical part of the work is not the worst part, but I don't know. It was my first time working a nighttime gig. And yeah, what were your hours? Shifts would typically start at five or 6pm Yeah, and typically go until 233 in the morning. Saturdays, though, were the big one. That's where we made all of our money, and those were 5pm until sometimes, like 430 in the morning. It's like nearly 12 hours, and those were busy hours, like there's no downtime, so you're just moving the entire time. Yeah, I kind of shot myself in the foot there. I had been a barista for 13 years before that. So I was used to, you know, a variable schedule. I was used to either starting work at 545, in the morning, or 12 in the afternoon. But, yeah, I don't think I considered very much the the difference of of waking up at 430 in the morning versus going to bed at 430 in the morning.
Josh Lavine 4:53
Bless you. Yeah, well, okay, I actually relate to this because I was, I used to play piano at a piano bar, and, yeah. And had the same schedule. So I know, I mean, I know we had schedules like, yeah, it's kind of life growing, yeah, yeah. It's, and it's, I mean, it makes it totally changes your social availability. Like, yeah, you can't really hang out with people on their normal schedule. Like, you're sort of ice the night life night the nightclub scene is just because of the nature of the schedule. Is socially isolated from the daytime scene. You know, absolutely,
Alice Nuccio 5:29
yeah, yeah. It's, um, it's isolating in that way. And I think in other ways too. It's interesting. I might have trouble articulating this, but I um. As much as it was physically exhausting to work evenings and to work really, really hard in the evenings, it was also kind of like emotionally and spiritually exhausting, and that everyone you're interacting with um, they chose that lifestyle, you know, these are people who work in the night for a reason. Like all of my co workers were lovely people, but they were all, like, pretty closed off, like, kind of tough, you know, and all the clientele I don't know, working in the Gold Coast of Chicago, these are very, very wealthy people. I did not consider that. So it was a lot of, like, rich old dudes and like, their escorts, and like, late night, like, I don't know, things got weird and ugly. Sometimes I mopped up a lot of puke, and, yeah, generally, just like, kind of strange atmosphere. But at the same time it was exciting. It was like, I don't know, it kind of felt like being in a fucked up like Tom Waits song or something like nightlife underbelly kind of thing, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And with
Josh Lavine 7:23
the wealth that you're surrounded just in that particular yes instance of that scene, I mean, there's all kinds of different bars to be able to work in, but that particular one, yes,
Alice Nuccio 7:34
so it was weird. So like, you know, working there, you had to dress up really nice, and you had to remain composed, and I overheard a ton of just absolutely crazy shit, just from the people there. You know, they're drunk and they're at the bar and they're talking, and I'm just like a fly on the wall. So, yeah, I don't think I considered how much that atmosphere would affect me working there four or five days a week. So I think throughout my life, I have struggled against this, but now that I'm getting older, I'm like, trying to accept it and settle into it more an extremely sensitive person like I, I pick up on stuff like, really, really easily Other people's emotions, like, the way that people think I don't know I'm, like, constantly taking in everything around me, kind of against my knowledge if I'm not aware of it. Every like physical impression, every emotional, mental, whatever impression, it just goes straight into me without much of a barrier. And I don't know, working in a dark, basically candlelit, crowded bar
Unknown Speaker 9:14
just full of people who I don't know, like the average client was pretty unthinking.
Alice Nuccio 9:24
Like, these are people who are, like, power brokers, you know, like, they like, they fight for their money, and they're proud of it, and, you know, I'm not going to what's the word, I'm not going to condemn their lifestyle, like that's just the way they are, but like, I was not suited to the environment, and it was, it was exhausting in a way that was beyond physical, like I found my my rootedness in myself and myself, because. Session and confidence totally slip away, and life got to feel pretty meaningless after a while, especially because, you know, like, you can't see your friends, and I couldn't see my partner very often either. We worked opposite schedules, so done with that. Now, yeah, I've been out of there for not even a week yet, and today was the earliest I've woken up in about six months, which was 9:30am Wow, which is not early, and I don't know, seeing the morning sunlight, just like the angle of it and like the color of it and everything, like, really, it did a lot for me. It's been a while,
Josh Lavine 10:53
yeah? Well, just okay, even just that moment of you cracking and laughing and smiling and just being infused by the sun, that's, yeah, just, I mean, there's a lot of energy awakening in you that has been dormant for a long time and got suppressed by this lifestyle that you had been sort of trapped in. And just want to pull out a couple of nine themes. The main one I want to just mention here is absorptiveness, like the absorptiveness of energies from your environment, especially as a social nine, the energies of other people, their somatic energies, their emotional states, their Yeah, just, just all that. And also a bar is a particularly saturated social context with absolutely with all kinds of like, every conversation you pass, or every table you serve, there's some new social meal you to enter in the exit, and then you're sort of getting infused by all this stuff. And then you go, and then you have, like, your team, the bar, back, staff, or whatever, like, that's so there's, yeah, as a social type, there's so much going on at a bar, very true. And in addition to, obviously, like it being at night and the social isolation of the overall lifestyle, so I can see how that totality produced an exhaustion in you that kind of took you away from your own life force. You could say,
Alice Nuccio 12:15
Yeah, I am. It's funny, yeah, like, I, I've always been sensitive, right? But weirdly, like, there's, like, a, there's a resilience that comes with that sensitivity. I don't know how quite to explain it, like, my capacity is seemingly infinite, sort of, or maybe I'm just not aware of the limit. And maybe that's the problem, like I, I seem to be able to handle basically anything, um, until it like literally sends me to the edge. And the reason I mentioned this is working at a bar like there's kind of this service culture thing, which I'm sure you're aware of, but I think it's even more pronounced at night, which is that you know you you smile to the guests, or whatever, you present your best self, and then you turn around and you bitch about it to your co workers and, like, the whole, the whole thing is, like, Absolutely, like you are miserable, like everyone is absolutely miserable. And that is the part of the culture. Yeah, it's part of the culture. Yes, totally. And, like, I never understood that it's like, like, what if you guys are this miserable? What the hell are you doing? Like, why are you here? Why do you care? You know, like, I got miserable so I left. You know, I I couldn't handle simply accepting that as my every day.
Josh Lavine 14:07
How long were you there? I was only
Alice Nuccio 14:09
there for six months. And, oh, that's pretty short. Okay, very short. And it's funny I am. It went by really slow. It was, you know, it was a rough six months to do it. Winters in Chicago are really hard, and I started halfway through October. So I went from daytime work during the time of year when the days were shortest, and then I switched to nighttime work. So I just, I didn't see the sun for many, many months. Um, but yeah, like, so you're working really hard with this team, and you get used to each other. And you're kind of, like moving around each other. You get too used to each other's like, rhythm and movement. You. And if you can kind of get lost in that movement, it's fun. You know, there's kind of a dance to it. It's kind of a good time, like a sport or something. But weirdly, I found that the people who had stuck around the longest and the people who had the most personal and emotional stake in the job, those people tended to be the most rigid and the least emotionally capable of handling the everyday stress of the job like they were really hard to work with, and that was really interesting to me. I don't know why that would ever be the case. I don't know, but yeah. Anyway, this was a very long tangent, but as I get older, I just I want to be able to acknowledge the fact that I am so absorptive and that some lines of work simply are Not good for me. I've always had trouble with i What's the word like? I want to feel incapable of anything, but that is simply untrue, and there are limits to my capabilities and what I'm suited for. So yeah, I'm gonna, I don't think night work is where it's at for me. Yeah, so I want
Josh Lavine 16:43
to comment on what you just said. First of all the Okay, first of all this, the sense of nine being willing to endure situations out of like part of the non ego structure is to be almost justify a sense of my own strength, by and through endurance, through enduring situations that may not actually be consonant with my life force. You could say like the environment's not really suiting me, but I am sticking it out, and I am deriving a sense of, I'm strong because of that. That's one but, but the other thing I was gonna mention is just what happened in that in that moment of you speaking, was so great. It was like very there was, like a nine thing I noticed, and I wanted to ask you about it. So as you're talking about your limitations, you remembered this, like irksome thing that happened in your social context. So there's like some seven frustration stuff. There may be one wing as well. But like that, that thing took your attention, and you ended up telling that story, and then kind of like, come back to the original point you were making. So that kind of swirling in your own cauldron, nine, especially nine in one kind of thing, you know, was such a good moment of that. Yeah,
Alice Nuccio 18:00
absolutely. Like, oh, God, like, um, that's the funny thing I think about. And
Josh Lavine 18:10
actually maybe nine seven, I would put that as well, just the nine seven kind of swirling Totally,
Alice Nuccio 18:15
yeah, um, yeah. There's a, there's a funny thing that happens, I think, with nine where. And maybe this is just a me thing, I don't know, but, um, I take in so much information all the time, you know, like, Medic, emotional, social, whatever. It's all just getting dumped into my skull, and I am taking it all in, and I'm not really aware of most of it, yeah. But in addition to all the external information, there's also internal information that is constantly being generated, like my own responses to those things. And because there's so much of it, not all of it can get processed immediately, but all of it does get basically lumped together. So if I am to express a feeling and like, pull that out and express it, usually accidentally, it'll come with like, 12 other things that are just like sewn into that same emotion, yeah, because they happen at the same time, or they're In the same context. And I think that is i I wonder if that's why nines, by default, can be reticent to touch certain topics. It's because they're scared that, like a whole like, I don't know, like you're going for a leaf on a. Tree, but you're scared you'll pull the whole fucking thing out of the ground, or whatever. Like, yeah, yeah. Like, it's a, it's a funny little thing, yeah, yeah. Like, my own or no, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. Like, I think too. Like, my own description of my sensitivity, yeah, there is that kind of, like, prideful thing, of like, I was stronger than these guys, you know, like these, like people who have been doing it forever, like, I didn't show any frustration or pain. So
Josh Lavine 20:38
nine, that's, that's part of it too, the nine ego, about not having an ego, or like, like, I'm not, not making a big deal out of it, you know, like, yeah, I took this and it, didn't complain about it. And like, why are you making such a big but even even though you're actually deeply suffering inside it, all right?
Alice Nuccio 20:55
Yeah. And I did complain, like I was, I was bitching as much as all of them, yeah, sure. I just probably did it in a more pleasant way or something. Yeah,
Josh Lavine 21:08
yeah. Let's see. Just plus on that real quick. The complaining thing, it's like, as especially as a social type and a social attachment type, it's kind of, you know, it would be hard not to get swept into it's like, this is how people connect in this context, you know, just reading like, I don't want to be dissonant with the pre established convention of complaining, you know, totals assert, you know what I'm saying. And so absolutely, yeah, okay, there's a lot here. I wanted to mention, yes, this, I loved your analogy pulling a leaf and then getting the whole tree. David Gray talks about one of the struggles he has with writing his book is that it's like every all of his ideas are connected to all of his other ideas in this primordial way. You can't really pull one thread without getting the whole fucking tapestry. Yes, and, and the idea of writing just a page, and he has that nine, seven stem as well, right? He just writing about one topic. It's like, okay, what am I talking about? Right? Like, what, what is, what are the boundaries around this topic, and how do I cut it out from the tapestry? How do I crop the rest of the stuff out and just focus on this one thing has it that's that itself feels like a struggle to do, because it feels like the, I don't know, it's almost like, yeah, literally, you would have to cut it out, or you, you'd have to let it not be connected to or not follow all the connections to all the root structures and everything totally
Alice Nuccio 22:46
and I think part of, part of what makes things feel satisfying to me is the fact that everything is so deeply interwoven. You know, like if I were to express a single idea. I don't know. Here's an example. I've also tried to write. And in my early 20s, I had a very ambitious idea where I wanted to write a fantasy novel. And, um, I kept having this issue where I would try to write, and then I would have ideas for the world that it was set in, uh huh, yeah. And I would spend all of my time building out the history, or, like, whatever I would have. I would spend all my time filling in
Josh Lavine 23:43
the background, yeah, the ambient, yeah, yeah, instead
Alice Nuccio 23:47
of the actual thing that it was supposed to be focusing on, that
Josh Lavine 23:52
is that, like, the best metaphor for none, that's amazing.
Alice Nuccio 23:57
But to me, it was, like, the background was the exciting part, you know, like, I and it was really hard for me to understand, maybe because I'm a nine and this is how I feel in my everyday but like, how do I remove information about somebody's context and not have that impact the story of that individual, you know, like they're as much a product of that world as they are a focus point. You know, I don't know how I could describe it,
Unknown Speaker 24:37
but I mean, here's another example. I don't know his type, but
Alice Nuccio 24:44
I don't know I. I love the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. That dude's entire story is just his world. He's got like, 30 or 40 different point of view characters, and you're just getting. And different sets of eyes experiencing one huge tapestry. But yeah, like it is funny, because eventually, you know, you do need to express a specific idea that is isolated. Um, and perhaps that specific idea is you, your personhood, your personality. But it is hard to dissect, like, Where does my thread end? And the next began. You know, I don't know it's yeah, it's that weird. Nine, like, zooming out thing where, like, you lose, you lose the tree for the forest, or the leaf for the tree, or whatever. It's like, yeah.
Josh Lavine 25:58
And the in the edges of where you begin and the or you end in the world begins are very blurry. You don't actually kind of know, yeah. So I'm on this kick now, where, as part of my book, I'm developing this idea that we're not actually ontologically separate from our environments, but experientially, we feel that we are. And actually, in order to have a sense of self and a personality, we have to defend our separateness, you know. But I would, I would argue that as a type, type nine, being a type in the body sensor, and being the attachment type in the body sensor is of all the types in the Enneagram, kind of the closest to confronting this ontological truth that we're not separate, that there really isn't a distinction between self and and world, yeah, but it's this. We you live in this kind of gray area where it's like, I'm trying to are, I'm trying to be myself, but I'm constantly being infused by the energies of the world. And anyway, this is a whole we could really go into a philosophical rabbit hole about this until we don't have to. But I'm always happy to I know you are, I know I don't want to get to your childhood experience. But yeah. So anyway, just okay, zooming out again. So the point is, yeah, so we have this, like, this absorptive nine structure of like, and actually, just to put this, to tie a bow around all the stuff that we've been talking about so far so we have you've been working in a bar. It's a it's a varied and social it's a varied social scene. As a nine you are profoundly absorptive of environmental energies, and that absorptiveness Also, let's see kind of installs like whatever you're absorbing from the world, whether socially or intellectually, whatever, kind of installs itself in your inner world as this completely integrated, interwoven inner tapestry. And to say any statement about something like to recall a memory or whatever, it's like you pull it one thread, but it's connected to the whole thing. You get, you know, you get the whole quilt with it. And so just period as a, whoops, as a, I don't know, as a way of characterizing nine, and I would say especially nine, seven stem, yeah, yeah. And
Alice Nuccio 28:19
I think there's an when you were saying the quilt metaphor brought something else up in my mind, where, especially with nine wing one, that tapestry, that quilt, that interwoven thing that is the world, because we have to pull individual threads out of it to express anything, or to be anything. There is like an ethical component to that, where I feel like I'm ruining the tapestry, you know, okay, yeah, unweaving it. And I don't think that's conscious fully, you know, like, I don't think that's like something I'm thinking in the moment, but there's that feeling there where it's like I'm ruining something that was perfect, or that existed fine without me, and now I'm pulling it apart From my own selfish ends, and the selfish ends being the fact that I am an extant individual, like I just simply exist. And that is not a moral question, but it feels that way. So, yeah, that just that brought that into my mind when you were saying that metaphor, interesting,
Josh Lavine 29:43
I know we're living in really abstract territory in this moment of our conversation, sort of we're talking about like an inner tapestry that exists in your inner world, in which every idea is connected to every other. Within that imaginary tapestry inner world, there's. Almost like you feel bad about disturbing it, yeah, you know, or or something. And it's like there's just, even in the private recesses and inner chambers of your inner world, there's still this nine, oh, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, you know, like a hesitance, to exert your life force, I guess you could say, or to have agency over, like, I'm allowed to cut this thing out, you know, let me play with it. It's like, yeah,
Alice Nuccio 30:24
yeah. And I think that's been the process of growing for me, like, kind of the process of becoming more mature, or just kind of coming into myself more there is now kind of a visceral satisfaction that comes with just tearing that thread apart and just just obliterating that tapestry. I yeah, I really enjoy that feeling now, because I know that like, not only I feel this way, you know, like everyone, for the most part, I don't know, nine is a super common type, and nine fixes are super common. And I know that, like going out in the world, I feel like most people probably have this, like, secret desire to kind of fuck up the tapestry a little bit, and I have a lot of fun doing that, but the default impulse is still there, like, if I'm not fully cognizant of myself, or if I'm not, like, fully if I'm not really on or if I'm in a bad place, that comes back, and I feel really bad just doing anything, um, there is this weird, like, it's almost like the world is this like laboratory experiment, And I feel like I'm like, corrupting the whole thing or something by altering the I don't know, you know, like, it's not like I'm the world is a clean slate, and I'm out there just, like, getting it dirty or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if that makes total sense, but it does.
Josh Lavine 32:21
I mean, it's like a, it strikes me as a deeply 911 thing where it's like you're sensing, almost like the a, like, before I arrived, there was some primordial perfection to this thing, and now I'm here. And just even, even, like, moving around, or something is disturbing, some primordial thing, yeah, but I guess it also, it's like this. I mean, it's a very evocative way to express this, I don't know, often unconscious. You could call it an assumption, I guess, or like a I guess the way I think about what what's going on with nine sometimes, is that nines are taking the environment as pre given and unalterable, like I have to, I it's my responsibility to adapt myself into what is given. I have to, like, if there are bricks here, I have to find a way to fit into the cracks, right? I can't move the bricks around. I'm not allowed some of the you know, and, and, yeah, just from an object relational point of view. The reason the quote, quote, unquote, reason you're not allowed is because you want to be held in a cozy, yummy body way by what is, what has been pre given. And so you're kind of trying to figure out, well, how do I get that holding How? How do I need to change or shift or adapt into this in order to get that? But the assumption that nine has is that I'm not, I'm not allowed to actually move shit around here to make it better for me. I just have to find a way to fit into it. Yes,
Alice Nuccio 34:02
that sentiment extends like literally into the world, like I often have this issue at jobs, especially where I will problem solve, assuming that the physical environment is simply unalterable, right? It is not. It is alterable. And people will typically have to remind me, like, hey, like, you know, if that's in the way, just like, move it out of the way. I don't know. I think to wrap up the abstract thought here with yet another metaphor. I did a lot of work a couple years ago with John lockevich and like breath work and talking through stuff and context of the Enneagram and his image. Came up for me, I think pertains to nine really well. It's really dark, but I think it suits it really well. So nine, nine wants to go back in the womb, you know, like we want to be back there, like swimming around to that amniotic fluid. It's safe. We're getting fed through a cord, like you're one with this larger living thing, and you are not separate. Um, the issue is, though we have been born, and I think metaphorically, nines are trying to crawl back into a womb that is dead, like it cannot give us sustenance. Yeah, it like there's nothing there for us to crawl back into. The tragedy is for the nine, like it's over. You know, your greatest desire was squashed when you were born, and the rest of your life is just dealing with that. And I don't know, like specifically the image of trying to crawl back into a dead womb, that was really evocative for me, because I see it happening all the time in myself and in those around me. It's like you're trying to get comfort from something that cannot give you comfort. You know, there is no larger thing here that is going to take care of you, um, in that way, like you can foster something, you know, you can foster a nice home for yourself, or a nice community or whatever. But those things do take to upkeep. You know, like your contribution always has to be there. You can't just let go and let something carry you anymore. So it's weird, like it seems like nines have this weird sense memory for being unborn. I don't even know if that's possible, like neurologically, but, um, it seems to be the case, at least. I'm obsessed
Josh Lavine 37:29
with what you're saying, and I just, I mean, it's in, in the kind of formulation of my own theory about the centers I've I've used similar language, what you're scribing, but you're, you're saying it so evocatively, like this project of trying to crawl back into a dead womb. That's such an image. And I guess you know, to get a little bit theoretical. Just to keep this I do want to get to your childhood in a second. But just to keep this thread for one second, it's, it's, it's like, I the rage of the body center is the body center is enraged because it's no longer in the womb. It has to fend for itself at any every breath you take, every finger you move, everything you do requires energy, you know, and you have to, and you have to defend yourself against an environment that's assaulting you energetically from every angle, all the time. Yeah, and it's really hard, and actually in many ways impossible, to have a solid boundary against the world, because the predicament that makes you vulnerable to that environmental assault is aliveness itself. Yeah, so having been born, you are now in a world that is fussing with you. You know, yes, it's yeah and and you have to defend yourself against it in some way. And you that so that like desire to crawl back into a place where you're not going to be bothered anymore, you know, you can just kind of cozy up with your warm, you know, blanket or whatever. Yes, that's kind of like an unconscious fantasy that nines are essentially holding, you know, yeah, absolutely and yeah, I
Alice Nuccio 39:16
would even, I would take that further even. I'm a big fan of describing the fundamental natures of each type really, really starkly, just like they really hit really deep. And I think there's some truth to this, where I think the coziness the nine seeks is not the coziness of pleasure. The coziness nine seeks is
the coziness of being unborn, you know, like there's there's, yeah, I think specifically what I'm trying to say is that. Like the fact that we experience anything at all is the issue we are trying to rid ourselves of experience, of perception, of feeling, of anything like there is, somehow there is this like indignancy pushing against the fact that we are conscious at all. I think the average nine like I think the fundamental question is, is not if we're willing to assert ourselves on the world, though that is like part of it. I think the essential question is whether or not we want to be alive at all. Do we simply want to exist? And I think for most nines, that question is unanswered, you know, like the classic image of like curling up in a blanket and falling asleep on the couch like that is pleasurable to the human body, but I think more so like pleasure is not the end being sought. It is the fact that it lessens our experience the like, any single thing happening, a thought, a feeling or something happening in our environment that increases the intensity of like our our living field, or whatever, and like we Want to bring that intensity down to zero. So, yeah, I know that's kind of dark. It implies that nines would rather be dead. But, like, it's, I don't know, there's this weird, like, I don't know. The Classic, like joke with nine ones is that we surround ourselves with plants, you know, like, I think we'd rather be a plant than a human being, a vegetable, I guess is,
Josh Lavine 42:11
well, I love the the starkness of these images. I genuinely love them. And I think, you know, you're pointing to something that's really, let's see, I don't want people to misinterpret what was what you're saying as nines are in this question of like, am I gonna do? I not want to live anymore. But there is a a powerful ambivalence about existence in this in a certain sense, what, when you really look exist, what, it means to exist and to be alive in the face, it's like I have to accept that I'm in a place that I'm always going to be interfering with my life force and always going to be bothering me. And to be available for pain means also to be available for oh, sorry, to be available for pleasure means also to be available for pain. You can't just select the kinds of sensory experiences you're going to have if you want to, if you want to feel the coziness of the blanket, you also have to feel the prick of the needle at the same time. You know, yeah, and so just because you're a sensing being, and there's this way that, actually, as you were talking, I was thinking about the lines to three and six that nine have, because in nine, this ambivalence about existence. It's kind of like, it's this inner split that is characterized by the line of six, where it's like, I'm here, but I haven't really fully opted in yet to be Yeah, I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be here. Exactly, yeah, I'm here, and I'm being bothered all the time, and I just want to be cozy. And so it's like, like, I have glimmers of, oh, I want to be here, because sometimes it feels nice, and then when it doesn't feel nice, I'm like, Oh, I don't know if I want to be here. I'd rather just close up. And so you kind of hang out in that ambivalence all the time. And the line to the nine, line to three is, you could say energetically or spiritually or something, it is that choice to opt in. It's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be here now, right? Yeah.
Alice Nuccio 44:04
And then I think, like, moving up from, like, the fundamental question of nine, you know, like, do I want to experience anything at all, moving up further, like, okay, like, maybe experience is fine, but I'm gonna limit it to things that are acceptable, you know, right? Or maybe, maybe I don't have to do things that are acceptable, but maybe I have to do things that are, you know, pleasurable, or whatever, and like, I don't know, like, moving all the way up to simply being okay with, like, whatever the hell happens, happens like, it's this weird thing where it's like, there's this, like, obvious like, there's this thing where nines, like, seem to have, like, this affinity with Buddhism, which I think is cool and, like, one of the central tenants is life is suffering, right? I don't think the point of that saying. Is that we should eliminate suffering. I think the point is that, yeah, this is life. Life is suffering. That's good, you know, like suffer, experience it like there is joy in that and there's pain. But the fact of the matter is, it is experience like, I think, when the nine can simply accept the concept of experience in all of its ugliness and all of its overwhelmingness, if we can just look it in the face and say yes to it. Maybe that's cheesy. I think that's the key, you know, like, if I have to assert myself, to put myself out there in the world to get what I want, is going to be painful, like I'm going to have to grind against so many things that's gonna feel really bad. But that is simply how it is. And I think that is kind of the antidote to the question of, Do I want to even be here or not? You know? Yeah,
Josh Lavine 46:28
yeah, period. All right, how's this for a segue? Yeah, always like that as a child.
Alice Nuccio 46:40
Well, it's funny as a kid, I was a really sensitive child. I was very internal. It's funny, okay, a lot of the stuff I have to say about my childhood is secondhand hearsay. I don't remember a lot of my childhood. I don't really remember being a kid, but from what I've heard, I was very happy, like I was really giggly. I was kind of just delighted, you know, with stuff like, my mom has stories about me, like we would, like, go to the park or something, and I would just be, like, absolutely enamored with the fact that, like, grass existed or something, you know, like, Whoa, this is here, and it has smells and texture and like, I would just play around with whatever was around me. I was also a very timid child, though, like I was happy to experience the world on my own, but when it came to dealing with others, I was really, really shy. I grew up with a huge Italian family, so they were big and loud, and everyone's arguing or whatever, and I would literally, if there were too many people in the room around me, I would simply fall asleep, like I would just pass out, Like somehow, like so my limit would be reached in my like nervous system, and it would just cut out, and I would be out. And that would happen fairly frequently. But yeah, I think that that raw sensitivity was there. I don't think I would consider myself daring in any way. I don't think I was really willing to assert myself into the world until probably the later half of my 20s, so it took me a long time to get there. I
Josh Lavine 48:59
want to read you something that you wrote about your midlife just this. The theme is being afraid to quote, unquote, put yourself out there despite being really involved in the world. So here's what you wrote midlife for me, was about 15 years old, so I'll take an example from being a teen. I was very much a social DJ. As a teen, I wasn't a social butterfly by any means, but somehow I ended up with very few large friend groups. Oh, sorry, with a with a few very large friend groups. I would frequently hold parties and mix these friend groups together. I was very much a social chameleon, but I was so internal that I never really fully succeeded growing up and talking to the people I knew when I was a kid. People generally thought I was mysterious and deep, which I think is funny, as I was mostly just afraid to put myself out there.
Alice Nuccio 49:50
Yeah, that's very, very much it. Yeah, I that's actually,
Josh Lavine 49:58
that's that ambivalence there, too. Right? It's like, it's like, I'm I'm here, I'm in the world, I'm even organized in the party, but I'm not really here, I'm not really showing up. Yeah,
Alice Nuccio 50:07
yeah. It was funny, like, I would, I would organize these parties. They would be my parties, they'd be at my house, and I would still be kind of on the sidelines, not to say that I was like, outcast or anything, because I wasn't, I mean, I was, like, pretty universally accepted, but I don't know, the urge for connection was absolutely there, you know, like I wanted to feel part of something, but that's something I don't know. I was always dipping my toe in, and I would never jump in. I still have that problem in friendships today, honestly, like I have amassed a lifetime's worth of stuff inside of me. I think I'm constantly terrified that if I really connected with somebody, I would just, like, freak them out. You know, with everything I have going on, that being said, I mean, I've got friends that I've had since high school that are really, really close friends. But yeah, I think the theme has always been, we connect in specific areas, and we stay in those little areas, and we very rarely venture outside of them. So, yeah, it's the classic social nine thing of like, Yeah, I had a few different friend groups, but I was a different me, and each of them, like, they each saw kind of a different facet of the jewel. Yeah, that was me, and no one saw the whole thing. So I never even saw the whole thing either. I never, like, put it all together until I was older. Um, just funny.
Josh Lavine 52:13
Yeah, I'm just really struck by this whole um ambivalence thing where it's like, I'm here, but I'm not really here. I'm not really opting in because, to, let's see, there's something, I guess, in a way, that's what, that's what eight energy in its health, like, in its essence, is really all about. It's like, yeah, like, like, all of me is, like, vividly here, robustly, fully here, right? And there's something it's like, when you meet someone who is fully online, like that, you have a choice. It's like, am I gonna like? Do I want this? Do I wanna meet this person here? Right? Because if I, if I, if I say yes, then I have to summon all of me, almost out of respect, like I can't. I don't want to fast this thing. You know, I'm saying because this person's bringing so much of themselves. But I live as a nine almost, in this, like, I don't know, is this the one? Is this? The where I want to show up? Is this where I'm going to show right? And I guess this is sort of leading to a question like, what, what do you think? What are the conditions that you need, or what is it going to take for you to what would it take for you to access that robust or to actually summon the whole wholeness of you?
Alice Nuccio 53:31
Yeah, well, I going back to, like, my teenage years as an example, or my childhood, I think an added layer to this, specifically for me, is being trans, you know, like I didn't come out. Yeah, I didn't come out until I was like, 22 and but I knew, I knew since before I had words, like I was aware of it, and so, you know, one of the first things I learned how to do as a human being was withhold information about myself. Wow,
Josh Lavine 54:15
that's a powerful statement right there,
Alice Nuccio 54:16
because it was forbidden. You know, it was like, if I express this, I don't know what the hell is going to happen, you know, I'm for, you know, like, I can't, I don't know. I also grew up pretty religious, and I don't know, even if I hadn't, I think it would still be hard to express that. Like, hey, I'm not who you think I am. Like that's a crazy thing to say for a child, especially someone who depends on their character caretakers to survive. So I kept that in, and I kind of tried to suppress it for many years, and never, I've never really left my mind or my. Heart or my body. And I think by the time I was a teenager, I don't know I'm I'm a generally, I'm a wreck. I'm a fairly assertive individual, you know, I've got that seven fix and that three fix, like I can, I can push, you know, I can put myself out there, and I do have a desire that, like, three, seven stem like, I do want to be the center of attention sometimes, like I have stuff to say, I have stuff to do. I want to put myself out there, and I want to be seen doing it. But to answer your question, what would it take to do that? I think by that point in my life, I had fractured myself so much that the idea of basically telling everyone in my life, Hey, I've been lying to you the entire time you've known me. I'm not who you think I am. You know, you've got this one little shard and I am this whole pane of glass that was really scary for me. I often, you know, thought about this where, yeah, it was this feeling of like, you know, if these people knew all of me, they wouldn't treat me the same way, you know, they wouldn't like me the same way. I'd be rejected. And I think growing up hiding that such a fundamental fact about myself, that fact, the fact that I am trans, you know, it became kind of corrupted, like and it started to feel dirty, like I really felt it was this, like, I don't know, it's perverse thing about myself that was shameful and that, like that made it even harder to bring out. And, you know, growing up, when I did, I didn't even know what words. I didn't have words for that feeling until probably high school. Like transness wasn't really like a topic we talked about in the 1000s. You know, I was born in 95 so I don't know. I feel like around 2010 2011 was one that kind of broke into, like, the societal conversation. But before that, I thought I was just fucked up and weird, you know, and like everything I'd ever seen, all the media I had taken in that represented trans people was, you know, like we're, we're the joke, you know, we're kind of this gross, like, grotesque thing. I just want
Josh Lavine 58:21
to mention, just real quick, I'm hearing a lot of three fix stuff here as well, just the the the way that you're aware of, especially as a social type, yes, how this thing that you think you are is valued by the collective days. Yeah,
Alice Nuccio 58:38
that's, that's a huge, really good point. Yeah, and it's funny, like, three is my last fix, so I'm often unaware of how it affects my personality, but it does. And, yeah, like the fact that it was not just not valued. It was devalued. Like, how can I ever show this thing that, like, will get me, yeah, like, I don't know, shunned from society or whatever, like, so I think it really took me moving out of my home, living on my own, and I think at the end of the day, it just took bravery, like I just I had to do it. I had to tell people. And that was hard, I mean, and it was a slow process. I mean, the first people I came out to, I came out to when I was 19, but I didn't start transitioning until I was 22 I don't know that age range, like you're just doing all sorts of stuff, like you're wrapped up in relationships, and you're figuring out who you are, on top of everything else. And so. So, yeah, by the time I had a cohesive enough experience of myself to even put myself out there, I was probably, like, 25 or 26 years old. But I got there, you know, and I'm, I mean, I'll probably be struggling with nine stuff for the rest of my life, obviously. But like, there is a comfort in knowing that I can never go back to
Josh Lavine 1:00:32
this. I was just gonna say that it's like a one way door, you know? It's a threshold moment, yeah? And
Alice Nuccio 1:00:36
that's the scary part, right? It's like, okay, like, here's a cliff I have to jump off of it, and if I jump off of it, there is no going back. But there's a thrill in that too, like it's, I don't know, it's funny, so I'm at the point now where most people don't know I'm trans. You know, I go out in the world and I just kind of live, and it doesn't really come up until I kind of know somebody pretty well, and then I have to come out all over again. So there's kind of this, like eternal feeling of like every single person is a cliff that I have to jump off of, yeah, but at this point, it's still scary, but I like it, like, I like the feeling of it.
Josh Lavine 1:01:39
What's the what would be the meaning, if you didn't sort of announce yourself to that person, what happened? Yeah, I don't know the problem there.
Alice Nuccio 1:01:48
I there's a part of me that feels like it's lying, you know, like, Aha, yeah, my transness like being, being a transgender woman, it's not my whole life, but it's a huge part of it. And if I, like, got to know somebody, and then eventually tell them, if then just naturally come up in conversation, like, that's like, a big chunk missing, you know, from that whole thing that is me. And, yeah, if I want people to experience all of me, that's got to be in there, you know,
Josh Lavine 1:02:30
this is, again, I point to the three fix on this, because it's, it's like, there's, you know, three when it's how do I say this when it's not being shrouded and deceptive and only giving you a piece of, you know, this piece? Yeah, you know, when it kind of comes into itself, what it actually is. It's like, it wants to be seen in its totality. And there's an allergy to hiding. Actually, it's like, I don't want to be hiding. I want, if this, if you matter to me, I want you to get the whole shebang, you know what I mean, and so I don't want to hide anything from my past. I don't want to hide anything. I want. I want just all the dimensions of me to be on the table. Yeah? Just as a way, it's like, that's how you feel connected. You could say, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
totally and like, I don't know I. Genuineness is big for me. Like, I, I don't want to live any way other than fully, authentically, you know, like, I don't want to lie, I don't want to withhold,
Alice Nuccio 1:03:47
because if I did, that would be a distortion of the truth of that Big tapestry we were talking about earlier. Like, like, I Okay, I can see, uh, how do I put this? Um, well, maybe this is a one wing thing. I don't know, but like to distort the truth in any way. Just feels really bad, like, I guess, sinful, but it also feels like an affront, like it feels disrespectful to reality itself, like somehow the experience of anything at all is its own entity. And I have to respect that entity of reality, you know, just because you know it's a the right thing to do. And. Um, I think on top of that too, there is some image stuff, like not presenting my whole self, not presenting who I really am. It makes me feel sick, like it makes me feel bad, like I feel kind of twisted up inside, and I don't, I don't like that feeling, yeah, I guess that's basically it, yeah.
Josh Lavine 1:05:32
I feel like I'm on the edge of some insight about this, but I really relate to this as a social three and also with a nine wing one fix. It's like, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes people are confused in my life when I'm like, I want to share something about my past that I just want you to know about, you know, like, or my journey. I want you to know about my journey, like, coming from a place where I, you know, used to lie a lot, or was deceptive and had this, you know, history of like, shady shadiness with academic work and stuff like that, and then arriving into myself and then becoming the person I am. I kind of want people to know that, yeah, if they're close to me, you know, like, if you're going to be close to me, you're going to know, you're going to end up knowing about that at some point. And absolutely, there's something about that that people have challenged me on that too, and it's and it's something that I'm kind of like mulling over in myself. Like, yeah, why is it so important that I let people know that they couldn't just meet me in this moment as I am without having the whole backstory? Maybe there's something social about it too. Like, I want you to know the whole like you're seeing the baseball card version of me. I want you to know the whole story, or something. You know
Alice Nuccio 1:06:36
the baseball card version of me. That's a great metaphor. I love that I would just, I would say, like, this present time is not the only time I have existed. Like to ignore the history of me is to ignore a facet of reality. Like, I feel like that's just kind of a a given, you know. And to like, showing people what you've accomplished, I think, like,
Josh Lavine 1:07:14
oh yeah, there's more three there, yeah. I think, I think
Alice Nuccio 1:07:16
it's okay to, like, be proud of yourself, you know. And to like, yeah, to
I think it's okay to be proud of yourself and to show like, Hey, I am a complex individual, just like everybody else you know, like, it's a good thing. And how are you complicated? You know, it's kind of this, like, there's kind of a question imposed. Like, not imposed, but implied there. Like, can we share, like, our complexities with each other so that we can know each other more deeply? Like, I think that's a good thing. I think it's beautiful.
Josh Lavine 1:08:03
Yeah, there's also just this, like, submitting my whole self to your gaze, as a, as a, as a way, let's see it's, this is, I think this is the hair to split, or this is why I've been challenged, and this is why it can become a distortion. Is like, Am I doing it? I don't know, so that you like me, or am I just doing it to facilitate more connection? What would happen if I showed this and you didn't accept it? What would that do to me anyway? So there's all these, there's a lot of attachment stuff. That's hap attachment to gays, right? That's happening. At least my end of the conversation would talk about all this, but it's, I don't know, yeah, this whole, I guess I'm just, I'm noting how, like, resonant this part of the conversation is for me, personally as a social heart type, because it's like, yeah, showing people who you are matters, and it's a bid for connection, and it's also a bid for reciprocity. You know, I want, I want you to do the same, and I want to, I want to, like, celebrate each other's stories and triumphs, and that's a way towards connection for me as a social three. And I'm hearing from you, for you also,
Alice Nuccio 1:09:08
yeah, yeah, um, there is this impulse in human beings that I think we don't talk about often, and I think it's one of the fundamental impulses that we have, is that humans want to increase the complexity of the field of existence. You know, it's interesting to us, like we simply want to have richer experiences. And I think that is an end in, in and of itself, like, I don't even know, I don't think we need to justify that ever like, we are these emergent things that just kind of happened, you know, like, I. Yeah, life itself is weird, like the concept of life, like as a biological entity. Even weirder than that is consciousness, like, what the fuck is going on there? So it makes sense, like we want things to interact with we want things to perceive, and when we show the complexity of who we are to somebody else and hope that they respond in kind, I think that is simply an innate instinct that we have to experience ourselves and one another, I don't know. And, yeah, whatever we do, it happens. Like we don't have to even be conscious of it, like even other people's dissatisfaction with you doing that is increasing the complexity of our experience, like there's no getting around it. So, yeah, maybe that's it. That might be the most fun thing I've ever said aloud. But
Josh Lavine 1:11:07
well, there feels like a natural transition, actually, to this. Can you just tell the story about L Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, everything's going to come together in this story.
Alice Nuccio 1:11:15
Yes. Okay, so, yeah, I was thinking this when you were mentioning three and, uh, it is a long, complicated story, so I won't go into too much detail, or I will if you ask me to, but um, would it be helpful if I read you what you wrote? Yes, that'd be great. I'm gonna get prompt.
Josh Lavine 1:11:38
You said, Okay, I yeah, there's a few different versions of the nine core fear that bounce around depending on school thought. But I'd say the core fear of nine is most aptly defined as dissonance. And then in parentheses, you said, which I just made up. Haha. It's funny how your seven fix like shows up in your writing. It's just kind of like, Yeah, I think it fits well with their deepest desire of harmony. They want consonants and beauty in the world around them, but they're afraid to add their note, of their notes to the music of existence, fearing it will be dissonant and off key. They also recede from dissonance in the outside world. Again, look at me referring to nines as they and taking myself out of the picture. You said, Okay. And then so all that being said, I say this core fear typically gets activated in social and intimate settings. For me most intensely, I fear that whatever I have to say is too off beat or strange, so I keep it to myself and don't really show my entire self to anyone except perhaps my perhaps my partner, Kelsey as a specific example. Here we go. As a specific example, I got involved with a girl about a year and a half ago. Kelsey and I are non monogamous, and we hit it off very well, simply delightful, very smooth, with a lot of chemistry between us. We were very different people, but I found her fascinating for that very reason, and I think she found me fascinating too. She was difficult to read, effortlessly charming, but would use that as a way to avoid talking about herself. I saw a lot of similarities in us. In that particular thing, she was embarrassed of her real self getting out after a long courtship and flirtation period, we ended up starting to hook up. The sex was incredible. The intimacy was very real and refreshing. I could tell she was new to trying to be herself with someone, so I took things slowly. Eventually, though, I think as the feelings got more intense for her, she retreated very suddenly, she broke things off of her text and implied that she wasn't ready to be fully herself with me, and I never heard from her again. I reached out many times, but after that, I gave up. So, yeah, well, actually, and I'll just keep so the final paragraph, that whole episode greatly activated my own fear that my note was too dissonant. I I was scared that I had frightened her with my desire and my want to see her deeply and just with my personality in general. I still feel activated by the whole thing, and still feel I perhaps did something wrong, but no, no, but don't know what I've certainly been more afraid to be myself with people since. But I believe it also showed me the dangers of the very feeling firsthand. I wonder how many people to which I've done the exact thing she did.
Alice Nuccio 1:14:14
Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I am so yeah, with that whole episode, I mean, so she was somebody who presented this very it's hard to even put into words her, her whole thing was enticing, but not engaging, if that makes sense, but she wasn't cold, you know, like she had this really interesting way of maintaining a neutral space around herself while also being. I don't know, kind of magnetic in this way. And, yeah, we would. So we met initially. I used to work at this coffee shop that was a chain, and I worked at one location, and she worked at another, but she started temping at our location, so we kind of hit it off there. And we're like, we're just kind of chatting as co workers. And we both realized, like, oh, we both had this, like, really deep interest in humans and like how they work, you know, from like neurological psychology to just like spiritual Mambo Jumbo. It was very nine wing one, and we really hit it off. We started hanging out outside of work. Eventually, she went back to work at her own location, and then we would hang out outside of work. We would talk for like, six hours at a time, just kind of going everywhere, you know, talking about beauty and depth and whatever. And I don't know, like talking to another human being is always kind of a crapshoot, right? Like you're both have whole life experiences, so your brains must be super different and to be able to understand one another at all is, it's really hard, you know, to find somebody who just speaks the same language as you, who you can kind of effortlessly flow with. But me and her were like that, and there was also a significant amount of attraction between us. For context, I had been working with John at this time on my sexual instinct. So I felt like this new like eye had been opened, like I felt like I was perceiving a new color in the sexual instinct, like, Oh, my God, there is this like whole lattice. There's this whole, like filter of reality that I just wasn't seeing and that I can now kind of see, that's crazy, and
Unknown Speaker 1:17:30
she, you know, I don't know, I don't know what her type was, but
Alice Nuccio 1:17:38
probably, like, social, sexual or something, She was in that, like, she could see it too, and like, we were kind of just like, kind of toying around with each other for a while. Um, in any case, uh, she, she was so comfortable existing in this small sliver of herself as this mysterious, sexy, magnetic woman with all these interests and stuff, and she was kind of like perfect in that sliver. But getting her out of that sliver was really hard, and I think when I tried it just, I don't know, it fell apart. Like, I still wonder, like, was I just too assertive, you know, like, was I asking too much of her to show
Josh Lavine 1:18:38
yeah, there you go. Yeah, asking her to show herself, yeah?
Alice Nuccio 1:18:42
Because, yeah, there was, like, glimpses here and there where, like, I got the sense she was testing, like, oh, like, can I reveal this information about myself, you know? Like, can I tell this story? And yeah, she was kind of
Josh Lavine 1:19:00
testing. How do you know she was testing? What were you What would you
Alice Nuccio 1:19:06
notice? Um, she had this really polished image, and she was very charming. Um, so noticing when she was like, uncomfortable was really easy. You know, she would get nervous. And, you know, it's funny, I do wonder, like, you know, the sexual instinct is, is partially tension, right, and partially this, like, kind of polar thing, where opposites are kind of tugging on each other, and that's kind of sometimes where the magnetism comes from with my seven fix and with me like, just like I. Kind of coming into my own sexual instinct. A part of me, I think, thought it was kind of fun to, like, kind of poke her a little bit like, take her, like, polished image that always knew what to say, and to kind of like, throw a wrench in the whole thing.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:21
I would often just kind of like, I don't know how to explain it, just like flirtatiously, like, fuck with her a little bit. But I think on top of that, though, like, I
Alice Nuccio 1:20:43
there was almost this voice that would come out of her when she was being vulnerable that was just softer and more timid, like underneath this whole confident, self possessed person. There was this really vulnerable, shy girl, and I saw glimpses of that, and it was really nice, you know, I mean, like, we shared a lot of really, really lovely times together. But I think it was just really scary also for her, um, it's taken me a long time to come to a place of kind of grace around that whole thing, I was really angry for a really long time, yeah, and hurt, you know, like I wondered, like, you know, was it, I mean, she was so charming and so, you know, there was this performance aspect to her whole personality, like, was she just acting The whole time? Like, was any of it real? Was it because I was trans, you know? Like, Was it my fault? Like, did I push too hard? Was the sex not good enough? Like, it, like, all those questions, like, and there was no way for me to answer any of them, because she was gone and, um,
you know, I, I do still wonder like, Was she a nine, or was she a three? I don't know that that stem, that line, is very evident to me. But like, the act of ghosting is really interesting from an Enneagram standpoint, because literally, it's self deletion, like you are simply ceasing to exist for somebody else to another parent, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think typically, we understand it as an act of malice in our kind of societal conversation, but I think more it's an act of shame, like there's a lot of shame in that action and a lot of fear and kind of cowardice. Did any of that make sense? Was that,
Josh Lavine 1:23:26
oh yeah, no, I wanted, well, I wanted to ask you about there's two pieces of this that really stand out to me. One is your, let's see you weren't exactly saying this, but I think you were kind of implying it like your sense of your questioning of yourself, of too muchness, yeah, Was I being too much right? And what strikes me just about that in this context is that this is a person that you you saw the possibility of a genuine like soul to soul contact. Oh, yeah. And you're like, looking at her through this portal. And you're like, let's just make it wider, because it'll be so much better, you know, just show up. Like, let's just be, let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah, yeah, let's go and but you're kind of like, you know, peering through it's like, I see you in there. I see you in there, but like, Please come out. And anyway, and she obviously wasn't ready and and I like your point about ghosting and shame, but my comments about the your questioning now of being too much is almost like a re instantiation or reinforcement of the self suppression pattern of nine, you could say, right? Because it's kind of like you were expressing a genuine desire, yes, you know, and that that came from the real place in you, like I want to actually connect from myself to you, yes, from the depth. The me to the depth of you, and I want us both to show up and that that's a vulnerable thing. It's kind of like the eighth thing that we were taught. It's like, when someone is showing up with that robustness, you have a choice, and she her choice, you know, right? It wasn't, she wasn't ready. But that's it's like, it is a lot. It is, you know, for some people, it overwhelms them, but then this, like, Was I being too much? Thing is kind of where nine, the nine ego structure will go. It's like, Well, should I flatten myself more? Should I have, like, just not done all of that? Yeah? Anyway, so just that, that is a commentary.
Alice Nuccio 1:25:36
Go ahead, for sure, and I do it, yeah, I have a response to that. And like, I mean, that reaction was so strong in me, I am God. I mean, okay, I can't understate how painful this experience was. Like, my entire life fell apart. Like, I'm not gonna
Josh Lavine 1:25:59
kind of okay. So it's really, really, really
Alice Nuccio 1:26:01
sweet around the book Bucha, like, I, I like, absolutely follow pieces. I was, like, I was deeply in love with this girl. And I say that as somebody with a lot of experience and love, like, I'm not, I'm not naive when it comes to that stuff, I have a lot of it took me a long time to even learn how to be vulnerable enough to love. And when I got there, you know, I know what the sensation is, and I know what the connection is like, and I can confidently say I was in love. So losing that in that way, so unceremoniously, without any closure, any explanation. I mean, the only other time in life when you are cut off from somebody that quickly and suddenly is when somebody suddenly dies, you know, right?
Josh Lavine 1:27:00
It's like a death. I agree, yeah,
Alice Nuccio 1:27:03
yeah. I didn't know what to do with that, so I really descended into a very, very deep depression, and took a long time to kind of put the pieces together for myself and come up with an explanation that seemed likely because, again, I was not operating on with any information. I was totally in the dark, yeah, and the whole thing had been about like eight months of interacting with this girl.
Josh Lavine 1:27:35
Yeah, that is, that is hard.
Alice Nuccio 1:27:39
So, yeah, that's the context from there, when it happened, you know, I started to wonder. I was like, fuck. Like, you know, is this sexual instinct stuff real? Like, is the Enneagram real? Like, like, what do I know is real? Like, was I acting in ways that were, again, too much like, all of it is an extension of this too muchness, like, basically, like all of these like ways that I thought that I was decoming myself, and all these ways I thought I was bringing my more genuine self into the world. I kind of went to six, you know, like it was like, were these lies? Was I living in a lie? Like, was I deluding myself? You know? But when I think about it, her reaction speaks to the same fear. She was afraid of being too much too Right? And so I think that's where that kind of dark mirror thing comes in that I mentioned in my initial writing. The whole experience really showed me just the amount of fear and shame and everything that three nine stem does to flatten itself and to shine itself up to be glossy and beautiful, It's all such a sacrifice of your being, and at the end of the day, like her experience of herself must be really horrible, like, I can't imagine living that way. But at the same time, I kind of relate to it, like, weirdly, I saw a lot of myself in her when I was in the closet. Like, there's, like, more than half of her that's just not being shown to the world. And, you know, it's not transness specifically, but like, I think we all kind of. This,
Josh Lavine 1:30:00
I agree. It's y'all kind of do that attachment types all have to come out of the closet in some way. Yeah. Like,
Alice Nuccio 1:30:08
as a side note, I've always kind of thought this like being trans is just kind of a visible version of what everyone has to do, right? Everyone has to assert who they really are at some point in their lives. And sometimes it's big and scary if you've been living a lie for a whole time, the whole time, yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:30:31
yeah. What else came up around the Dark Mirror? Thing, like anything? I guess maybe my question is, anything still present, or, let me say it like this, having gone through your trans journey, one might imagine that you have fully arrived into A place of radical authenticity all the time. And you know, what we find often on the journey is that we we hit these new plateaus, and also we see other places that are still concealed, or where we're not really fully showing up and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm wondering what resonated
Alice Nuccio 1:31:15
for you? Yeah, I mean, that's just it, you know, it's like
there's so much of me, you know, there's so much of every person. There's a lot of me that's probably hidden from me still, that I have yet to discover, and when I do, I'm gonna have to bring that into my self definition too, and it's gonna have to come out into the world. And it's gonna be this whole thing. It's a whole renewing process. I think part of the reason that the whole thing with L freaked me out so bad is that I saw the consequences of not fully existing. Yep, she was a vibrant human being and very, a very colorful person, you know, but you did get the sense like this person is not fully here, and it hurts people around you when you do that. Like the consequences are not just personal, they're also interpersonal, and they can be really big consequences. And I think after that happened to me, I had already contended with this a little bit earlier in life, but I had to contend with the fact that I had probably done the same thing to a lot of people. You know, especially before I had come out like I've always been kind of a serial monogamist, until now, I'm not monogamous anymore, but, um, I, I do remember a few specific times where I got too close too quickly with people and cut and ran, you know, probably left them in a lot of pain,
but I don't know that's kind of it like dealing with that and dealing with the small ways in which I've done it, too to my friends over the years, or to my partner now, or to even to my family like it probably hurts a little bit every time I kind of recede back into my own little private space, right, right? They probably wonder why, if it has anything to do with them. So
Josh Lavine 1:33:58
hearing everything you're talking about, I can't help but thinking that there are micro and macro ways that we recede or choose not to fully opt in, or to kind of let things go in on autopilot for a while. This is kind of the nine pattern, right? And, you know, I'm thinking about this job that you took and just quit, and your vision for your life. I think you want to be an academic or a professor of like, literature or psychology or something like that. Is that still true? Yeah,
Alice Nuccio 1:34:27
I so I want to study clinical psychology, and I want to there's a couple of things I want to do, not really fleshed out yet, but I know that I want to practice therapy with people like I would love to do that, like talk about therapy. And I also do want to teach, but I also do want to do research. I would love to be like a research psychologist as well. So narrowing down those possibilities will happen later. I. Um, as I start going to school and stuff, because I never really went. But yeah, what was your question? What's my vision for my
Josh Lavine 1:35:09
life? Sorry, the reason, the reason I brought it to that place, is because this is kind of nine going to three also is like in my experience. What it appears to me from the outside is that what nines are doing is conserving their energy until such time as they have a clear runway to do the thing that they've always wanted to do in the first place, sure, and and there's this incredible sensitivity to pressures, and even little micro, minuscule pressures that, oh, it's not the runway. It's not quite clear yet. There's this little thing in the road. And I don't anyway, but they were waiting for this perfectly clean runway to just like finally get after it, you know, yeah, and there's this, as we're talking about, this part of opting into existing is also facing the obstacles that are on the runway as part of the runway, and not just waiting for the perfect runway. And so I just tee that up as an idea for you, just thinking about this vision you have of wanting to be a psychologist, a researcher, these are and these are all you would be so brilliant at this stuff, just knowing you, you know, yeah. And so I'm wondering, you know, what's, what's in the path there, or how are you orienting to that now? And what's,
Unknown Speaker 1:36:17
yeah, yeah. It's funny. You say that it's like, not to like, toot my own horn or whatever, like,
Alice Nuccio 1:36:27
but every single time I reveal the information that I want to do this for a living, like study people study psychology, how they work, like, whatever, like, every single time I say that to anybody, their first reaction is always, wow, you'd be great at that, you know? Yeah, yeah, I still haven't done it. I still have not taken the steps to do it, yeah. Well, I kind of have, but I haven't, like, I haven't taken the official steps yet. But I, like, I read, like, really technical, like, Psych textbooks and research papers and all this shit in my spare time. Like, I do that for fun. Like, I think it's interesting, yeah. I mean, speaking, tying it back to the whole l situation, like, that whole thing, um, it got me into attachment theory and all this stuff. And I got, I there's this whole like, kind of pop psych bullshit thing around attachment theory, and breaking through that and getting to like, the actual like research and the actual like scientists that are working on these really complicated mechanisms of human existence behind the screen of like pop psychology, like breaking through that felt really good. And like, I don't know, the whole experience opened this whole new rich interest for me that I can get stuff out of look up Patricia Crittenton and her dynamic maturational model of attachment. It's fascinating. But anyway, like taking that desire, taking that obvious proclivity, and taking that obvious direction that I have and applying it to anything is the hard part. I don't know why. Like, I still don't know why. Um,
Josh Lavine 1:38:33
it's the same thing as building the world before telling the story of the characters.
Alice Nuccio 1:38:39
Yeah, I think you just did four years worth of therapy. To me. That's crazy, yeah. Like, I, I, well, that's it, right? Like, I can take in information as much as I want, and I can dissect that information. I can put it back together. I can come to my own insights. But once I have to take that into the world, and I have to be the one doing it, I have to cut out me the person, and put her through college, like, make that person do stuff, yep, that feels somehow unnecessary. And I just love that word, yeah, yeah. I feel like I, I don't. Maybe this is the seven fix too. I know David Gray has talked about this with his seven fix and his four fix, but there's like, an exempt quality. It's like, I don't have to do that.
Josh Lavine 1:39:54
Yeah, yeah.
Alice Nuccio 1:40:00
Yeah, it's funny. So you interviewed my mom.
Josh Lavine 1:40:05
Yes, I did. Yes,
Alice Nuccio 1:40:08
she's an example of someone who just does stuff, you know? I mean, she put herself through college in her 40s and early 50s for kind of the same stuff that I want to get into. She just did it, you know, like she's been doing stuff her whole life.
Josh Lavine 1:40:29
Core seven. Core seven, also self, Pres, right? Self,
Alice Nuccio 1:40:32
Pres, yeah, one fix to fix. So it's funny, like, I've got all of that desire in me, but I don't have the it's almost like I don't know the mechanism by which to Apply that desire. Does that make sense? Like, it's like, like having all this fuel, but I don't know how to put it in the car and make it go like I feel like. I don't know how quite that forward movement works, and I think I get caught up in the specifics of it, like, which college do I go to, and like, which classes do I take, and like all that stuff. And then I talk myself out of it.
Josh Lavine 1:41:32
It's funny. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, I amazing is a good word for it. I mean, I just have to acknowledge that my impulse has a three, right? It's just to be like, I just want to be like, do it? Class? Pick at any school? Yeah, yes, yeah. I mean, that's my reaction as a three, but I like being inside yourself as a nine I am wondering if, if the resistance to choosing, I mean, I get that there's optionality, and that's we can get lost in optionality, but coming from a core nine perspective, what I would expect, and I'm curious if this is true for you, is that there's something about like, well, if I if I narrow, let's see if I choose something like a path or a road to drive on, or whatever. I'll get a few steps ahead and I I'll run into some obstacle or something that will irk me, and I just won't feel like myself, and I won't feel like I have fully autonomy to and the freedom to and you have all kinds of you can read whatever you want right now. You don't have to answer it. You don't have to answer it. You don't have to write any papers for anybody. You don't, you know, you're just a free agent right now, in an unstructured life and world in school, quite a lot of structure that you have to answer to, you know, yeah,
Alice Nuccio 1:42:54
for sure. Like, yeah. Like, right now, I think I'm kind of doing the same thing I was doing when I was a teenager in that, you know, I've got people I can talk about the Enneagram with, right? Yeah, um, but I'm also into other typology theories, you know, and I talk to those people about them like I I've got little slivers that I take up, and I kind of put myself into these slivers one at a time, and the slivers don't meet. And then I've got, like, I've got my books about, you know, advanced psychological theory over here, and I don't talk about those with anybody. I just read them. And then I've got, like, Maslow and Carl Rogers and whatever over here. And like, maybe I talk about it with my mom a little bit, but nobody else. And it's like, I've got all of these disparate things that do sit within a circle together. I am this whole circle, but it's all kind of fractured still, and choosing to put it all together and make it my life, make it my whole existence, like going to school and doing this for a living, I think maybe part of it is the fear that They would all touch and they would all become one thing. They would all become my life. And yeah, when that happens, there is a certain loss of freedom in a certain weird sense, even though it opens everything else up. I
Josh Lavine 1:44:40
actually the image, I brought something different up for me. I want to throw this out and see if this resonates for you, but it's it's because I was surprised where you, that you went there, that you have all these different kind of pieces of you, and if you actually put them all into a fused mosaic, that everything would come together. And. You'd have this integrate, and that's scary. What, actually, what came up for me was it's like you exist in this in this kind of hub center, where you have all these spokes that you can at your own leisure and whim, and when you have the energy for it visit, you can go visit these places, and you always have this safe haven to come back to, to conserve your energy, to rest, to recuperate. But if, if you were to bring them all together, then you would have to leave that haven, yeah, yeah, that, that, that sacred sanctum of rest, or whatever you have, is it would, it would get obliterated in the commitment,
Alice Nuccio 1:45:36
yeah, I guess that's, that's huge. I mean, that is definitely a part of it, too. It's like, ever
since I was a kid, I always had a private part of myself, you know, yeah, and I giving up that private part no matter what it is. I mean, it's changed over the years, becoming a whole person outside and inside. Yeah, that is a little scary. Like it does feel like giving up my room, you know, like the place that I come back to, the place that is mine, my own, that nobody else sees, no one else touches. It's almost a weird flip of that metaphor of kind of like fucking up the experimental, like going into like a lab and like contaminating it or something, yeah, yeah. I almost feel like the world's gonna do that to me, in a certain sense, but,
yeah, at the end of the day, it's funny, like I have done so much work on understanding myself from so many different angles, and I've gotten a lot of insights out of it, but there is still this one tangible thing, this thing of taking off. You know, like I've been going down the runway forever. I've been taxiing, but finally, like, taking flight, yeah, in my life, I still don't know why I there's, like, a there's a weird block that's invisible, and I can feel it, but I don't know what it looks like, and I Don't know how it Yeah, like it's weird, but I think what you said definitely touches it a little bit like, yeah,
Josh Lavine 1:47:53
yeah, yeah, makes sense. Well, okay, I'm noticing the time we should come to a close. What has, what has this been like for you? It's been good.
Alice Nuccio 1:48:05
You're a fantastic interviewer. I, I don't know I, you know, I may be a nine, but I do have this quality where I do enjoy talking about myself. I it's pretty rare that I get to share all of these disparate things with people, and I I don't know it is, um, it does feel like working out in a certain sense, though, like it does always get me a little tired, which kind of just, I don't know, Maybe that's just a sign that I was actually doing something like exerting some some will into this, yeah. But yeah, I feel good, and I want to thank you for being just like a lovely human being and for taking the time to do this, and this whole project is so cool, and I'm just really glad I got to be part of
Josh Lavine 1:49:28
it. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for being a part of it. I really appreciate it. Yeah, okay, thank you so much for tuning in to my conversation with Alice. If you liked this conversation, then please click the like button or subscribe if you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening to this as a podcast, and you can leave up to a Five Star Review if you're watching on Apple or Spotify, and you can also leave a comment. Those are free and very effective ways of supporting me and this show and the work that we do at The Enneagram School. And by the way, if you'd like to support or learn more. What we do at The Enneagram School, then you can come check us out at our website, the Enneagram school.com I recommend that you get on our email list. That's where we send updates about when we release new episodes, also when we drop new courses and launch new retreats and things of that nature. And also on our website. While you're there, you can check out all the writing that we have that is basically free content that you can learn the Enneagram from scratch. And I really want to draw your attention to our intro course. Our intro course is, I think, the best place on the internet to go learn the basics of the Enneagram. We lay out all of the basic introductory concepts that create a type, and then we also do deep dives on each of the nine types in bite size, 30 minute chunks that are digestible but don't sacrifice depth for the brevity. So if you think that you'd be a good candidate to be interviewed on this show, then I would love to hear from you. You can go to the Enneagram school.com and contact me through the contact form. Preference very strongly goes to the type to people who have been officially typed by the typing [email protected] I kind of partner with them to select people for the show. The typing team at enneagrammer is, in my view, the world's most accurate Enneagram typing team. And so you can go check out their typing services on their website, enneagrammer.com and also, while you're there, you can check out their subscription service to a kind of members area where you can watch them type celebrities in real time based on YouTube videos. Finally, I want to mention that this podcast and The Enneagram School is part of a wider network of Enneagram collaborators, and we are all coming together under one roof in a single Collective Project, which is a new podcast called House of Enneagram. That is a podcast where we kind of pool our collective talents and expertises, and we come together in a rotating cast ensemble to discuss things like art and politics and pop culture and current events through the lens of the Enneagram. And we just released our first few episodes, and so you can go check us out. There will be a link in the show notes to all of this. So that's it for me. Thank you very much, and I will see you next time
Unknown Speaker 1:51:56
you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
