Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 424 | Should We Beware of the Enneagram? | Q&A

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

In today's Q&A, we discuss the Enneagram of Personality's effect on the church, how we can stay optimistic when there's so much bad news in the world, and a few more lighthearted questions about food and music. --- Today's Sponsor: Fast Growing Trees helps turn your yard into a paradise! Now through June 30th go to FastGrowingTrees.com/ALLIE for 15% off. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day. This is another one of my pre-recorded maternity episodes in which we are going to do a Q&A. I took a lot of your questions off of Instagram. You guys are familiar with the format now. A lot of times I get very serious or theological questions, and I only get to about three or four. Today, the questions that I'm looking at on Instagram are a lot of really fun questions that I don't think are going to take me quite as long to answer. So hopefully I'll get through quite a few of them. However, you just never know because like I say, I'm very verbose. It might remind me of something else. And then I might start talking about something else. And then I'll loop back to actually answering the question. And so it might take me a while.

That's just kind of how it goes. It's how my brain works. The ADD that the teachers tried to tell my mom that I had growing up, it actually, well, it's self-man. first of all. But I actually think that it has, it has served me well in my, in my current job because it makes me, it allows me to think of multiple things at once and then provide you with comprehensive explanations of the things that are going on or the things you guys ask me. All right. Let's get into some of these questions. Someone asked me, what is your favorite music and why? I get a lot of questions about what kind of music I like. And in my old age, I can't answer this question as easily as I used to. See, I didn't have podcasts in high school or even in college. And so I would listen to music a lot more than, but now I listen to podcasts or I listen to audio books or I don't listen to anything. And so typically when I'm listening to music, it is like worship music. It's Christian music. I really like Shane and Shane. I like Chris Renzema as well. There are some other artists, probably like random artists that I listen to and

like, but I don't do a whole lot of digging for music the way that I used to. I used to pride myself when I was in high school on like knowing different kinds or like original music that other people weren't listening to. That's such like a high school thing. And I was just like a little bit email, just like a little bit. Not like fully email. I'm not talking about like, you know, like super thick eyeliner, anything like that, or wearing all black clothes, but I did dye my hair black in high school. That was more just because I wanted to and because I wanted to see how I would look, not really because of the emo thing. But as far as like the music that I listened to, it was pretty email, pretty alternative. Now, I still like some of that stuff. Now, I'm not saying the third eye blind is emo,

but it is alternative rock. I always really liked alternative. And I still find myself liking like 90s, alternative, that kind of stuff. I don't go actively looking for it and I'm not like jamming to it in my car all the time, but I'll randomly just get a hankering for some like motorcycle drive by or something like that by third eye blind. I really like the 90s, the 80s and 90s in general, not just for music. I just like the 80s and 90s. If you guys are ever looking for an interesting documentary, CNN, I know, I know, but they have really interesting, like, I think it's 50, I think it starts in the 50s, like decades, a documentary, so like 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. They have these mini series in early 2000s, I think, on every decade, like the past six or so decades, whatever it is. And I love those. Those are

really interesting, but I just love the 80s and 90s. I don't know why, including the music, just the culture, probably because I like Ronald Reagan, too, even though I know he has some flaws. So I guess if I were to say like besides Christian music, my favorite kind of music, it'd probably be like alternative rock from the 90s. But I mostly, we mostly listen to like Christian talk radio, Christian music and also country music growing up. So I still really like 90s country. I do not like most of what passes is country music today most. I'm not trying to be a snob. I just don't like it.

Like I don't like the lyrics. but I really like 90s, early 2000s country. And so, yeah, I hope that kind of answers your question. I know it's kind of boring. Like, I'm just not anymore like that interested in searching for new music and things like that. I just kind of like hear songs that I like and I listen to it. And then I'm kind of passive about the whole thing.

Someone asked me thoughts on Enneagram. So I get a lot of questions on Instagram about subjects that I've covered before. And I understand, people are new. So you can't know everything that I have talked about in the past. And so I get a lot of questions about things that I have addressed a ton. But one thing that you can do, you can go to Alliebethsducky.com slash podcast, and every single one of my past podcast episodes is categorized. And so that is really helpful.

Also, you can type in on Apple Podcasts and maybe on Spotify too, maybe on YouTube. You can just type in Relatable Enigram or Relatable Pneagram or Relatable, personality test. So I have an episode called personality test. I can link to it in the description of this episode where I talk specifically about the Enneagram, but also I talk about it pretty thoroughly in my book, too. Look, it's got some weird origins. It's got origins in the new age. It's even got potentially demonic origins. And I'm not, I'm not just saying that. I'm saying that the guy who actually inspired the Eniogram and popularized the Enneagram claims that he got a vision from a demon about this whole thing. And like I said, I write about it in my book. And so it's not just

this like, oh, this well-meaning psychologist in the mid-20th century came up with this helpful tool for us to better understand personalities. Like it has some strange spiritual new age origins. But, so that's one issue with it. And again, read about it in my book. I'm not giving it. I'm not thoroughly analyzing it completely right now because I don't have time to do that. And I've talked about it so much. But I think one of the things that it's troubling me about it right now is that Christians seem to be using their personality tests or personality test results as like a justification for certain kinds of sin or certain kinds of things that they are calling quirks that are actually sins or they are justifying, you know, particular things that they do,

habits or hangups by their personality type. And rather than reading the book, Bible. And I've actually gotten testimonies from some of you guys who you temporarily got really obsessed with the Enneagram. I was temporarily obsessed with the Enneagram, like towards the end of college. Didn't see anything troubling about it at all for a very long time until they started seeing so many people at the church talk about their enneagram type more than they're talking about their pursuit of Christ, more than they're talking about their holiness. And so some of you have semi-testimonies where you have found yourself reading the Bible and thinking about how does this apply to my particular personality type or like my

enneagram number or how do I read this as a seven or as a two or as a three wing four or whatever you are or like how do I see like this bad part of my enneagram number coming out when I think about like my sanctification or when I think about my life in Christ or when I'm looking at this particular scripture passage. I don't think that that the Bible gives us that permission, the Bible certainly doesn't give us that direction. I'm not saying that there aren't different kinds of personality types and that we don't do better to understand what they are. Because I do think understanding people does help us in bettering our relationships. It helps us be better friends. But ultimately, what we're called

to do is not to be the best version of ourselves or the best version of our personality types. We're all called, no matter what our personality type is, is to be like Christ. And so being you like serving other people is not a personality type. So just because you're not a two, for example, doesn't mean that you're not called to serve people just as selflessly as someone who is an aneogram two is. Just because you're not a one or you're not an eight doesn't mean that you aren't called to be bold for the gospel in the way that someone who is a one or an eight might be. Just because you are not a nine doesn't mean that you are. are not called to be a peacemaker just because you don't think it comes as naturally to your personality

type. And so that's what troubles me is that the commands that we are given by Christ, the commands that we are given in the Bible are not tailored to particular personality types. Like we are all called to be peacemakers. We are all called to be people who share and show the gospel. We are all called to be like Christ. We are all called to holiness. And yes, God does. gives us certain strengths and we have certain weaknesses, absolutely. And like I said, it's okay to understand those things, but they're not excuses. And they can't be, we can't see them as unovercomable, like just insurmountable, I guess is the, is the accurate and better word, insurmountable obstacles to parts of the Christian life. Like we are all called,

emulate the same fruit of the spirit. And I do think that we all have different spiritual gifts. Like Ephesians talks about that. The New Testament talks a lot about different spiritual gifts that God gives some of us and not all of us. And those are particular to who we are as individuals. But that's not talking about our particular enneagram type. So I just think that the obsession with the enneagram in the church is a lot more unproductive and counterproductive. then it actually is helpful. Again, when I get messages from people saying that they are interpreting scripture or reading scripture, they find themselves through the lens of the eneagram rather than just as Christians filled with the Holy Spirit, that's when you know,

like, we've got a problem. Like, we've kind of got an idol. And there's a lot of self-obsession in what I call trendy narcissism surrounding personality types too. Because there is this message in secular circles that says that your goal in life is to find yourself. Your goal in life is to understand yourself. Your goal in life is not to help other people. It's actually to help yourself, not to serve other people, but to serve yourself, not to love other people, but to love yourself and prioritize yourself. And so, as I talk about so much in my book, what my book is about is this myth that once you go deeper inside yourself and you fully understand yourself and you're able to love yourself and manifest all of your, you know, inner strength and your internal goddess and all of that,

you'll finally be happy and free and whole and fulfilled. Part of that is people use personality tests as kind of like a tool to self-discovery, and that's not what the Bible calls us to. Like the Bible doesn't call us to that kind of self-obsession. We are not on a journey deeper inside of ourselves as Christians. We are on a journey to Christ. we are called to deny ourselves to put off the old self and put on the new self created after the likeness, not of our, the best version of our personality type, but created after the

likeness of Christ. And so you might be thinking those two things aren't mutually exclusive. I'm telling you that when we obsess about all of our different personality traits and our quirks and we are obsessed with self-fulfillment and self-discovery, it will absolutely. inhibit our self-denial and are putting off the old self and pursuing Christ and holiness. It does become an idol. Not everyone who uses the aneogram is idolizing themselves or their personality or not everyone who uses personality tests either is doing that either. Like I said, there may be times and there may be usefulness to some of these things as long

as they are used as tools and not the goal. Again, a thorough answer. I told you guys. It's so hard for me to stay abbreviated, but you guys ask good questions and it makes me think about things. So before you hit me with your anger, because a lot of people are very defensive of the anagram, you're welcome to send me those messages. But please go back and listen to my previous episode on personality test. And then I also did like a new age episode with Doreen Virtue that you can go listen to. And then also read my book about it. I have a whole segment on personality test and specifically the enneagram if you want to know more specifically what I think about it and why I

have some trouble with it. Someone asked my favorite meal right now. My favorite meal right now. That's very difficult. As I'm recording this, I am like eight and a half weeks pregnant. Yes. Yeah, I think that's how far how long I am. It's hard to remember for some reason. And so I've had cravings. I've had Japanese food cravings. Miso soup for some reason. I'm really liking these mixed salad bags that you can get from targets. You can also get them from Whole Foods. Jenny's ice cream. You can also get Jenny's ice cream from Whole Foods. If you guys haven't had Jenny's ice cream, it's really good. J-E-N-I-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-S. They have like Brambleberry Crisp, I think, is what the flavor is called that I really like. It's my favorite flavor. I know this is not a meal.

This is just kind of like a hodgepodge of things that I really like right now. I always like Tex-Mex. I always like pizza, but actually I'm kind of over pizza right now. But I always like Tex-Mex. I always like tacos. I always like guacamole. It made some good guacamole last night. I can never get tired of guacamole. You know, I'm just, I like carbs, carbs, especially during pregnancy. But as for my favorite one meal, it's very hard to say because I'm just constantly kind of wanting different kinds of things. What's my favorite color?

My favorite color, I think, is the color of like my podcast branding. I really like all forms of light blue. I would say like if I have a color that's my color, like that periwinkle color, I like wearing it. I like looking at it. I like decorating with it. Our house is not periwinkle, though. don't worry but i like that i like all forms of light blue it's just calming it's just pretty um someone

said if you're at starbucks and they ask you for your name do you say alley or ali beth i would say alley um it's just easier it's just easier that way i say ali beth and people's brains sometimes just malfunction elizabeth alison elizabeth no i didn't actually say either of this those, Allison Beth, Alice, I don't know why. Like when I add the Beth on there, I was on Fox and Friends one time and they literally called me Mary Beth. I was like, that's not, it's not my name. It's not my name. So people get confused when I say Allie Beth, unless I'm like in the South where they understand, like I've got tons, I've got a lot of friends with double names. And so it's very normal to have a double name in the south. If I go somewhere up north or if I'm talking to

someone that is not from the south, they're very confused. Like, why would someone have two names? So typically I just say my name is Ali. When I'm talking to anyone that I don't really know, honestly, I hardly ever tell people that my name is Ali Beth, just because, again, it just gets too confusing for people. But that is my full name. Like Ali Beth is my first name. And I don't really have the middle name. It's kind of weird. Like, Beth is my middle name, but it's also part of my first name. Like my parents have always called me Allie Beth. My teachers growing up, I'm pretty sure called me Allie Beth. I think my parents' friends probably call me Allie Beth. There's just different people that say Allie Beth and some people who say Allie. And wouldn't the Allie people call me

Allie Beth, or when the Allie Beth people call me Allie, it sounds weird. You got to stick to one. If you're someone who says Allie, you got to stick to Allie. If you're someone who says Ali Beth, you got to stick to Ali Beth. But I would say, yeah, for the most part, I introduced myself as Allie, just because it's a lot easier. But it's actually still difficult because people don't know how to spell the name Allie, which is not their fault because there are a lot of different spellings. And it doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me when people spell my name wrong. Some people get super uptight about that. But it just, it doesn't affect my life. And why would I waste my energy on getting mad about something like that? Let's see. Next.

question, how do I remain optimistic with all the constant bad news? And this is a question that I get asked a lot. So it's really easy to kind of get wound up. And I'm not going to say that I don't get wound up. Obviously, I do. There are times that I'm going to sleep at night and I think about all the craziness that's going on in the world. And I'm like, this is awful. And I think about what's going to happen. And I think about the what ifs. And I think about raising our kids in a world like this. And it's really sad. And yes, of course, I know that ultimately, like our hope is in heaven. our hope is in eternity and that God is going to rule in perfect peace and perfect sovereignty. And I have that to look forward to you.

There's not going to be any injustice. There's not going to be any deceit. There's not going to be any corrupt bureaucracy. There's not going to be any sorrow. There's not going to be any sickness. And so, of course, I have all of that to look forward to you. And that gives me joy. But I also just like in the here and the now do believe that like there's a lot to be done.

And I guess God just like renews the optimism and renews the energy for every generation that he places when and where he does. Because we can't all just start out being completely dejected and discouraged. Maybe I have too much optimism because of my age and I'll grow cynical in several decades. But I just refuse to give up on the country. I refuse to give up on where we are. I think that we are facing unprecedented challenges worldwide to freedom. and to human rights. And I think that we're seeing a lot of moral degeneracy. We're seeing a lot of corruption. We're seeing a lot of trampling of civil liberties. And of course, all of that scares me when

you look at the threats, both foreign and domestic. And of course, that worries me. And it's just constantly another story every day of something terrible happening. And then add on top of that the spin that comes from people on the internet, from activists, from so-called journalists, that is probably the most frustrating part. It's probably not the bad things that happen. I mean, yes, the bad things that happen are, of course, sad and terrible. I think one of the most frustrating parts, though, is how we are just unable to see things as they are, that we are constantly trying to superimpose our preconceived narratives onto reality. That's just, that is, It's just beyond, that's beyond comprehension to me,

that we do not share a desire to see things as they are and a desire for the truth. That is very, it's just frustrating. And that is, I think, ultimately what prevents the left and the right from coming together. And you guys know, I'm not a moderate, and I don't think that you have to be a moderate to care about truth.

You guys know that I am a conservative. and yet I get really frustrated when each side cannot simply want to argue things on their merit. They can't actually have any kind of intelligible conversation or debate about different ideas and different policies and different issues and different things that happen because we are so wedded to what we want to be true. We are so wedded to our foregone conclusions that we're living in different reasons. realms of reality. I think that really weakens this as a country and that does, that does scare me. However, I just haven't lost hope. I have not lost hope for the country. I haven't lost hope that

things are going to get better, that things are going to swing back in the other direction. As far as morality goes, as far as narratives go, I just haven't lost hope for that. I still believe that people have power. I believe that voices have power. I believe that knowledge is power. I believe that truth has power. And obviously, like I said, I believe that God is totally sovereign. He can do whatever the heck that he wants. And I believe prayer. The Bible says a prayer of a righteous person has great power. You are made righteous by Christ. If you are a Christian, your prayers have great power. So it would be, I think, ungodly for me to give up hope. And so I guess that's what keeps my optimism. And plus, like, just remembering that there are, things that matter more. Like, I just love my family so much. I love the things that I do outside of this job, even though I am thinking about the news and politics a lot. And it seems like everyone else is too. And so I can't really escape it. But also, I love when I go somewhere and I'm talking to someone and they're completely oblivious of what's going on on Twitter. Like, I

love to be reminded that the people who are on Twitter and even on social media are a minority of people in the country. Most people actually are completely detached from politics and the things that are going on. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I actually think that we all need to be really paying attention right now. But it is nice to have a conversation to someone who aren't, they're not cut up in the daily drama of whatever is going on in the media headline. So being reminded that that whole world exists too and that really if you go out in public, most people that you talk to are very kind and don't really care about your politics or aren't going to ask you about your politics and are willing to have a respectful conversation with you about whatever.

Like that's also a nice reminder. Someone asked me a lot of food questions. Go to Chick-fil-A order. Well, actually, it changes a lot. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a grilled chicken sandwich. Sometimes in the mood for a grilled chicken cool wrap. That has probably been like my love. longest running order, probably literally since like seventh grade, grilled chicken cool wrap with

creamy salsa. And so I still, that's still good. I hardly ever get a fried chicken sandwich. I don't know why. That's probably like the rarest thing for me to get. I really like their Southwest salad too. Not healthy the way I do it because I put creamy salsa on it. Like their tortilla soup. Let's see. And sometimes also very rarely, like I just don't actually usually get their fried chicken, but very rarely I will also get chicken strips. Very rarely I will get like a chicken biscuit in the morning,

although I love their chicken biscuits, although they don't fill you up. They put something in there that's like, I need 17 more of these in order to be even remotely satisfied. But I don't eat 18 chicken biscuits, I promise. I probably could. but I don't. So go to Chick-fil-A order. Hard to say. Hard to say. And I'm not really a lemonade gal either, but I don't, we also don't really drink like soft drinks in our house. And so that part is also

difficult, but you want a little bit of carbonation if you're eating fries and things like that. And so I typically do if I'm going to get a drink, which a lot of times I just don't, I'll get like a Coke zero. Let's see. Someone asked me, Santa Easter Bunny Truth Fairy, et cetera. or asked me to talk about that. So I talked about Santa at Christmas time. I have a highlight bubble, I think still on my Instagram page about Santa, how I think it's much better to tell your kids about the real gift giver, like the real omnipot, omniscient, omnipresent one who actually can see you when you're sleeping and who actually does know when you're awake. The Bible says, like, God sees you're lying down and you're waking up. He can hear.

He knows your thoughts. He can search you out, and he actually is present everywhere, and he actually does know everything that we think, say, and do. And so to replace who God actually is with some cheap version of God, Santa Claus, I just think, why would we theological confuse our kids that way? And I understand the reasoning. It's fun. It is magic.

I was raised. you know, I was raised, believing in Santa, although I will say I found out pretty early that Santa wasn't real, because I figured out the tooth fairy. It's what happens when you have older siblings. And I knew, and so I figured out duct of reasoning that that must mean that Santa's not real. And I was like five or six. And I was upset. I remember being upset with my parents about it and thinking that they lied to me. Not every kid is going to feel that way. Some kids are going to be totally fine with the idea that their parents kind of perpetuated this fantasy just in order to be fun and in order to like, you know, what parents call magic and things like that.

So I understand. I'm not judging you if you make a decision that is right for your family. But when I actually think about it and I peel back the layers, I mean, Santa really is like this very legalistic version of God, that he puts you on a naughty or nice list and apparently allocates your gifts based on the things that you have done throughout the year. And God, the truly good and all powerful gift. giver. He doesn't do that. He gives you gifts according to his grace and his goodness,

not according to the things that he sees and the tallies that he makes based on the things that you did or didn't do. I also think it can be very manipulative to try to incentivize kids' behavior based on whether or not Santa Claus can see them again. I just think that you're setting yourself up for difficult conversations about God. Now, again, I know there are a lot of you who have handled it perfectly and seamlessly, the transition was no big deal at all. And so, and I'm not pretending to be like some super experienced mom who has like 10 grown kids who can tell you everything that worked. I'm just saying when I think about it from a theological perspective, do I think, if my question is always, how do I make my kids love God more? Like, how do I show them who God is, how good he is,

how big he is, how real he is, and who they are according to him, does Santa Canta Clause, Easter, Tooth Fairy, help or hurt that. Now, maybe you think it's neutral. I think in particular when it comes to Santa, it can be, not always, but it can actually be counterproductive. It can actually be very confusing spiritually for them. Easter Bunny, you know, I grew up believing in that too. We got Easter baskets as I've kind of thought about it more as being a mom myself. I'm like, hang on, why do we even do Easter baskets? Like, why do? Why do? do we make something like the resurrection of Christ about getting presents? And I guess you could ask the same thing about Christmas too, although I do think that there's a little bit of more of an

alignment there with the Christmas story than the Easter story. And again, I'm not saying that if you do Easter baskets for your kids, that that's like, you know, terrible or anything like that. Honestly, I mean, our child was too young last year to even know what was going on. I'm just saying that this is something that I've thought about. It's like, why do we do Easter baskets? I'd be curious to hear from some of you guys why you chose to do that with your family and kind of how you balance, okay, the fun, so-called secular parts of Easter, like Easter icons, which is all super fun, decorating Easter eggs, all super fun, Easter egg baskets,

things like that. Not against that. I'm curious to know as like a Christian parent, how do you kind of. do that and then also say, okay, but this is what Easter is about. It's not about bunnies. It's not just about spring. It's not about Easter icons. These all things are, these things are all well and good, but like here is the power of Easter. Here's why we celebrate resurrection Sunday. Do you find that hard to balance between those two things? Are you a parent who just decided to nix all of the, you know, what they, what some people would call pagan parts of Easter? Or have you, have you

found a balance. I would love to hear from you guys actually on that because I'm curious, because it hasn't really been something that we've had to think about, but I have been thinking about, again, that question of like, if my goal is to point my kids toward Christ, what is going to best do that? And I don't want to be a fuddy daddy either, because I really like fun. And I really like, you know, the joy of Easter egg hunts and all that kind of stuff. I think it's great. But, you know, my goal is kids who love the Lord and know that the Lord loves them, how do I do that in the best way and most productive way possible when it comes to Easter? I'd love to hear from more experienced moms when it comes to that kind of thing.

Tooth Fairy, I don't, tooth fairy doesn't bother me as much because you're not talking about like trying to superimpose like a secular character on what's supposed to be a religious holiday. that I don't remember getting too upset when I learned that the tooth fairy wasn't real. It was Santa. That was the really difficult one. Tooth fairy, I mean, it just depends. I guess if you want to give your kids money every time their tooth falls out and your explanation when you accidentally sleep through the night and you don't put that money

under their pillow or when they wake up, what do you do about that? I don't know. I don't remember that. But I do remember a few times when I think the tooth fairy forgot. But again, I also figured it out really early. So I guess my parents didn't really have to do that for very long. I know people also who give their kids like $20 for a tooth. That I can tell you we will not be doing.

That sets too high of a standard. Are you kidding me? Like a quarter is great. What are they going to spit it on? But anyway, y'all do you? Okay, let's see. Is there anything else? Favorite? Okay, I'll end on this one. Favorite Blue Bell ice cream flavor.

Ooh, someone asked me of this the other day. Cookies and cream, probably like my all-time favorite. Again, one of those, like the chicken cool wrap from Chick-fil-A, one of those that has been in my life for a very long time. One of the constants in my life. a couple years ago, when you remember when people were licking the tops of ice cream because they're ghouls who I guess weren't raised correctly and they were putting it back in the freezer and they were being caught. And thankfully, they went to jail because of that because

that's disgusting. That was happening to Bluebell. And that was really traveling for me because I really love Bluebell. Like I said, big part of my life. So I would say that. Is Cookie Two-step one of them? I think it is. But cookies and cream, definitely. But honestly, just like Bluebell vanilla is good. There is no better vanilla ice cream than Bluebell vanilla ice cream. But cookies and cream, to me, it's the way to go. Chocolate chip cookie dough, it's good. It'd be better, I think, if there were Oreos in there, too. Yeah, you can't go wrong. You cannot go wrong with Bluebell. We've talked about ice cream twice on this podcast today. So if you can't tell I really like it.

Okay. I think that's all I got for today. I don't think we even really talked to politics. But those are fun questions. Thank you guys so much for sending them. I will see you guys back here soon.