Leslie Hershberger

Leslie Hershberger Mentor, facilitator, guide: 2nd half of life, embodied transformation, Enneagram, 3 Centered knowing

The Enneagram, cancel culture and black-and-white thinking. Are some types more vulnerable to psychological splitting? F...
07/07/2025

The Enneagram, cancel culture and black-and-white thinking. Are some types more vulnerable to psychological splitting?

Feel free to weigh in, but here are some initial thoughts:

Splitting is a psychological defense mechanism in which a person views people, situations, or even parts of themselves as all good or all bad, with no middle ground. It’s a way the mind tries to protect itself from the anxiety of ambivalence or contradiction.

Patterns of splitting for self observation:

• Black-and-white thinking: Someone is either idealized or devalued.

• Lack of integration: Positive and negative qualities can’t coexist in the same person or experience.

• Emotional whiplash: Feelings about someone or something can flip suddenly and dramatically.

Examples:

• A friend is perfect one day and completely untrustworthy the next based on a small disagreement.

• A person on another person as loving and the other as cruel, unable to hold both realities in tension.

• A person sees themselves as a total failure after making one mistake, forgetting past successes.

Common Contexts:

• Seen in early development (young children naturally split  and don't yet have the capacity to hold complexity  inside themselves or others ).

• Prominent in certain personality structures, especially Borderline Personality Disorder, where it helps manage intense emotional experiences.

• Can appear under stress or in a state of fear in otherwise well-integrated adults.

I'm writing about it now because it is so common in these times and social media does not lend itself to holding complexity and paradox.

A contemplative practice and self-awareness can help us grow in wisdom and inject something different into the collective.

What is the purpose of splitting?

Splitting protects our psyche from the discomfort of conflicting emotions or uncertainty by simplifying reality.

But it also prevents maturity, integration, and nuanced understanding.

All Enneagram types can split under stress or when emotionally regressed, but certain types are more prone to splitting as a default psychological defense, particularly due to their defense mechanism: with idealization/ devaluation, projection, repression, denial, introjection

Here’s a breakdown of the types most vulnerable to splitting, and why:

Heart Center:

Type 4

Why: Fours often idealize the unattainable and devalue what is present.

They can split between seeing themselves as uniquely special vs. utterly flawed or defective.

Likewise, they may adore someone or a group one day and feel deeply disappointed the next.

They can also introject. Introjection is unconsciously taking in someone else’s beliefs, values, rules, or feelings and treating them as our own without questioning them.

It’s like swallowing someone else’s voice whole. It can be a parent, teacher, religion, or culture—without chewing to see if it really fits your own values.

• Form of splitting: “You either deeply understand me—or you don’t belong in my world.”

•"You hurt me and you must be punished." (4s feel fragile on the inside. One 4 said, "I can write a compelling novel on my victim story.")

If an idealized person or group offers a belief system or a way of being in the world, and I don't question it. This can lead to splitting.

Type 2

Why: 2s can idealize those they give to (especially those they want love from) and then flip to resentment when they feel unappreciated and the other does not reciprocate with doing things the way they do it.

They may see themselves as all-loving or all mean and selfish.

• Form of splitting: “I give everything—or I shut down and withhold.”

"_____(the person I idealize) is wonderful and worthy and the people who hurt them are mean and cruel."

Inner splitting: "I'm totally giving or totally selfish and unworthy."

Head center (5/6/7):

Type 6

Why: 6s are the core fear type in the mental triad (Types 5/6/7). Besides projection, splitting is one of the core defense mechanisms for this fear type.

When in a state of fear, paranoia, and suspicion, 6s may idealize authority figures or communities until trust is broken, at which point they may completely demonize, devalue or distrust them.

They may project their worst fears onto other people or groups.

They also struggle with inner splitting: “Am I safe or in danger?” “Is this person for me or against me?” "Am I deviant according to the codes of respected authorities or my loyalty groups?"

• Form of splitting: Oscillating between loyalty and doubt; trust and betrayal. Authorities are either all bad or all good.

Body Center (8/9/1)

Type 8

Why: 8s tend to divide the world into strong vs. weak, loyal vs. disloyal.

Vulnerability can be seen as dangerous, so they split between protector and enemy, especially under threat. A small betrayal feels like a big betrayal and the other person needs to be cut off and cut out .

 (When doing typing interviews, one of my question for 8s is "How do you feel if someone betrayed you?" a less self-aware 8 will say,
"They are dead to me.")

• Form of splitting: “You’re either with me or you’re against me.”

"You're either with the people in my loyalty groups or you're against them and you must be punished."

Type 1

Why: With their black-and-white moral compass, Ones may split between right and wrong, good and bad, perfect and flawed. This can apply to themselves, others, or even institutions.

• Form of splitting: “This is either the right way or it’s wrong.”

 "Your behavior is not in compliance with my morality codes of good and bad and that means you are all bad."

 Are there types less prone to splitting?

Yes, some types are less prone, but not immune to splitting (especially in these times):

• Type 9 tends to merge rather than split, diffusing differences instead of polarizing them. (That being said, 9s can merge with someone who splits in order to avoid conflict or the discomfort of complexity,).

• Type 5 detaches and analyzes rather than emotionally idealizing or devaluing. That being said, they can become coldhearted, utilitarian and unfeeling. 

• Type 7 avoids painful ambivalence and contradictions in people through reframing rather than splitting. Yet they may unconsciously dismiss others or parts of themselves that aren't positive, inspiring, or impressive, if it evokes internal pain and suffering. 7s tend to err in not taking a stand we're taking a stand and abandoning it if it means too much pain or hard work.

• Type 3 can be chameleon-like and toggle based on who appears to be a winner.

For example, if someone they admire tends to split, they may split while in front of that person, but change when they're with someone else. 

Integration path:

To challenge psychological splitting, we can work to hold complexity, tolerate ambivalence, and integrate the light and shadow in self and others.

For each type vulnerable to splitting,
Inner work means reclaiming the parts of themselves and others they’ve pushed away or idealized—and grounding in wholeness rather than perfection or protection.

Type 4

Core split: Between special and deficient, idealized other and disappointing reality.

Integration Path:

• Learn to stay present to what is, even when it’s ordinary or emotionally flat.

• Practice reverence for the everyday allowing beauty and meaning in imperfection.

• Integrate the “boring” or “average” parts of life as worthy of love too.

• Let love be real rather than imagined or dramatic.

• Soften your idealizations and embrace your own inner beauty despite imperfections.

Mantra: “I am whole, even in the ordinary. I can love and be loved, even when it’s not special/extraordinary.”

Type 2:

Core split: Between the selfless giver and the rejected child, between idealized others and self-neglect.

Integration Path:

• Practice honest reciprocity—giving and receiving with inner boundaries. My boundaries are internal like a tall oak tree with deep roots and fluid branches where the breeze can blow. I know where I am and I'm aware when my giving is unconsciously or consciously manipulative.

• Allow feelings of resentment and unmet needs to come into awareness with compassion.

• Embrace that your worth is not dependent on being needed or adored.

• Reclaim self-care as sacred, not selfish.

Mantra: “I am loved for who I am, not just for what I give. There is a natural flow of giving and receiving, and I am part of it. There is nothing to do in this moment, but breathe in and breathe out and feel my own inner ground."

Type 6

Core split: Between trust and fear, loyalty and suspicion, dependence and rebellion.

Integration Path:

• Develop inner authority to discern between real danger and projected fear and assumptions.

• Tolerate ambiguity without needing immediate answers

• Learn to trust gradually, even amidst uncertainty or inconsistency.

• Reclaim the capacity to trust yourself without outsourcing safety/security.

Mantra: “I can hold both doubt and trust. Courage grows in my developing capacity to hold paradox inside of myself and others”

Body center:

Type 8

Core split: Between strong vs. weak, protector vs. betrayer, control vs. vulnerability.

Integration Path:

• Reclaim innocence and tenderness as strengths, not threats.

• Let down the armor when safety and trust are available.

• Make room for grief, tenderness, and even fear without shame.

• Move from force to influence, from reactivity to grounded presence.

•Soften. Make amends to yourself and others  without your brutal inner critic online

Mantra: “I can be powerful and tender. My strength includes my vulnerability.”

Type 1

Core split: Between right vs. wrong, perfection vs. failure, worthy vs. flawed.

Integration Path:

• Embrace grace over relentless self-improvement.

• Recognize that growth doesn’t require constant critique. Rather self compassion goes a long way.

• Soften the inner critic and welcome the full spectrum of being human.

• Let go of “either/or” moralism for the both/and of reality.

Mantra: “Wholeness is greater than perfection. I can rest in what is."

------

An Integration Practice for All:

When you notice yourself splitting, pause and ask:

• “What part of the picture am I not seeing?”

• “Can I hold both beauty and flaw in this person or moment?”

• “What do I gain by keeping this black-and-white story intact? What would I gain by letting it go?”

• Pay attention to your family of origin and chosen groups. Did they have a tendency to split? If they didn't and you have a tendency to split, what anxiety arises in you when you are trying to hold paradox or complicity?

• Shift your internal state. Notice how that feels in your body.  Feel your own internal paradoxes and welcome them with compassion. Welcome yourself to the human race.

If with others, with curiosity, ask someone else about their experience and truly listen. When you notice your patterns and you begin to split, pause, breathe and return to that inner space a few fingers below your belly and breathe into the wholeness of your own being.

Offer it as a gift to the larger collective that is both Whole and in pain

Pause your morning scroll and come home to yourself in service of the planet. Join us this morning for a 30 minute free ...
06/25/2025

Pause your morning scroll and come home to yourself in service of the planet. Join us this morning for a 30 minute free 3 centered contemplative pause: check in with your thoughts (head), emotional state (heart), connection to your senses (body). Then we read a reflection and drop into the great Silence for 20 minutes and close with the same reflection which we hear from a different place inside.

All are welcome! If you're a newbie, I guide you gently. 8-8:30 AM ET. Camera on or off. See you soon.
Link:
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=17328399&action=zoom&uniqueID=e8863cd9c42742e5ff5686b96f812e2c&ownerID=17328399

The Enneagram Summit begins today and my interview with Michele Joy is up! Michelle, a Narrative Tradition-certified cl...
05/19/2025

The Enneagram Summit begins today and my interview with Michele Joy is up! 

Michelle, a Narrative Tradition-certified clinician and the convener of the summit, asked me to talk about how narcissism shows up in each Enneagram type based on an article I wrote in 2017 that ended up on the IEA website.

I wanted to expand the topic as it felt limited.

8 years later, I am noticing that narcissism is less an individual phenomena given that the actual diagnosis is rare (6.2% of general population) and more as a collective phenomena/energy that is alive in our culture in which we swim and which we are a part.

Increasingly, it is a psychic armor in an uncertain world.

We talked about:

• the difference between clinical narcissism and selfishness,

• the how and why of this collective phenomena,

• how it manifests in each type and generation,

• how the power of Contemplative Practice is an antidote to our self-protective armoring and a doorway to wholeness.

This summit brings together 25 leading Enneagram experts who will share innovative insights and strategies to enhance your practice and support those you serve.

https://www.enneagramsummits.com/register/?sa=sa010292061511e0c74fda6f10fdf40e9703607efb RT

Hi all, I received a message that this page may be "deleted permanently" and I have no idea why. I filed a complaint but...
03/17/2025

Hi all, I received a message that this page may be "deleted permanently" and I have no idea why. I filed a complaint but who knows? If that happens, I'm OK with it as I've been thinking of going off Facebook. You can find me on Substack.

My Page is called Thresholds.

Meaning and aliveness in 2nd half of life thresholds. Click to read Thresholds, by Leslie Hershberger, a Substack publication. Launched 10 months ago.

I am thrilled to announce a partnership with iiAwake Technologies We combined the Enneagram and meditation and innovativ...
02/26/2025

I am thrilled to announce a partnership with iiAwake Technologies We combined the Enneagram and meditation and innovative brainwave entrainment technology to develop an immersive, 9-part Enneagram program with an explanation and 9 guided meditations led by me with brainwave entrainment music to help deepen the transformative guided meditation experience.

It isa beautiful combination of technological wizardry, psychological knowledge, and spiritual wisdom, infused with compassion and inspiration.

A meditator who has never worked with the Enneagram wrote:
“I was delightfully surprised. It is the first time the Enneagram made sense to me. The meditations were well thought out, conveniently short yet powerful." THAT'S what we hoped people would experience!

Any path of awakening includes: Self-observation (of your Enneagram habits) and self remembering (because we all fall asleep and continue doing the same thing).

In these turbulent times, our inner practices both ground us and open us to something larger when we feel internally disheartened, divided and destabilized.

Every time I notice my reactivity kicks up, I know it is an invitation to deepen my inner practice.

These meditations were designed for these times to work specifically with your type.

iAwake has an outstanding mobile app, an easy interface and great support.

Full package includes:
19 tracks (for a total of 3 hours 13 minutes)
Leslie's Enneagram Guide: The Centers Approach
Tracks accessible on the free iAwake® Technologies app for iOS and Android
Downloadable audio files available in MP3, WAV, FLAC, and ALAC formats
User Guide (downloadable PDF)
Additional links/resources for identifying your type
Ongoing support (responsive email, active Facebook forum, FAQs, videos, audios)

iAwake® Technologies has partnered with renowned Enneagram teacher and practitioner, Leslie Hershberger to bring a fresh take on the Enneagram, a combination of guided meditation and iAwake’s signature brainwave entrainment to deliver a powerful experience that allows us to understand ourselves a...

I love when class participants forward emails that deepen what we're learning. One of our practices in learning how to s...
02/17/2025

I love when class participants forward emails that deepen what we're learning. One of our practices in learning how to spot our shadow is seeing who we judge and scapegoat.

For example, the proverbial black sheep of a family tends to hold the family shadow while those on the margins of a society or workplace see the shadow more clearly than those on the inside.

I received this email from a participant in our Embodied Shadow Work Using Enneagram class.

It's an email from Richard Rohr, Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. He writes:

"MY STORY isn’t big enough or true enough to create large or meaningful patterns by itself, but many people live their whole lives at this level of anecdote and nurtured self-image, without ever connecting with the larger domes of meaning.

They are what they have done and what has been done to them—nothing more. This self becomes fragile and unprotected, and therefore constantly striving, easily offended, and fearful.

The second dome of meaning is OUR STORY. This is the dome of our group, our community, our country, our church—perhaps our nationality or ethnic group. We seem to need this to contain our identity and security as social beings.

It’s the good and necessary training ground for belonging, attaching, trusting, and loving. If we don’t have a supportive family, group or community with which we can bond, we create people who struggle to bond. Fortunately, most of us have multiple memberships: family, neighborhood, religious affiliation, country. These are schools for relationship, connection, and almost all virtue as we know it.

This second dome of meaning gives us myth, cultural heroes, group symbols, flags, special foods, ethnicity, and patriotism. These tell us that we’re not alone; we’re also connected to a larger story. We might understand that it’s fanciful, but it is shared meaning and that is important.

Regrettably, a lot of people stop at the level of this shared meaning because it gives more consolation and security to the small self. In fact, loyalties at this level have driven most of human history up to now

The third dome of meaning is what I call OTHER STORIES. The term “other stories” illustrates the significant but sometimes painful recognition that our story is not the only frame, not likely the most important frame, and maybe even a frame with a lot of shadow and bias. This is the great advantage of studying history, literature beyond our own language, anthropology, world cultures and religions, and experiencing some world travel, whether by opportunity or necessity.

As we encounter more and more of the world’s other stories, many people are broadening their wisdom, while others are broadening their fear.

There is only one thing more dangerous than the individual ego or my story and that’s the group ego that insists that our story is the measure of all things and so seeks to label other stories as ignorant, dangerous, or inferior.

It looks like it will take us some time, perhaps centuries, to resolve the human drive to exclude, to scapegoat, to judge, and to dismiss other peoples’ stories. Only nondual thinkers, mystics, and some saints seem capable of such universal capacity.

The fourth dome of meaning, which encloses and regulates the three smaller ones, is called THE STORY. By this, I mean the patterns that are always true. This is much larger and more shared than any one religion or denomination." Richard Rohr

Our work isn't to beat ourselves or others up as we progress through this cosmic egg. Nor is it to feel superior or inferior from our fellow human beings with whom we share so many tendencies.

It's to develop self awareness about the shadow that lives in all our stories. We know so little.

Light and darkness lie in every human heart. How we wish that we could cancel the distasteful parts of ourselves by assu...
01/22/2025

Light and darkness lie in every human heart.

How we wish that we could cancel the distasteful parts of ourselves by assuming they live only out there in others. The more siloed we are in our personal identifications (Lee and I will explain that in class) or tightly held group worldview, the more unconscious we are of our shadow which everyone can see but us.

We empower the shadow by cutting it off or pretending it doesn’t exist inside of ourselves.

The Enneagram is helpful in shadow work. It helps us identify our core defense strategies, avoidances and what we project onto other people.

You can't be reduced to a type...you're a whole human with all sorts of attributes shaped by your family, culture, chosen groups, friends, belief systems. Yet, your Enneagram patterns are pretty tenacious!

Shadow work is a gift to ourselves as a practice for wholeness, creativity, self honesty and authenticity.

It is a gift to our community as it reduces projection and conflict as we become less likely to blame or judge others for traits we have not yet owned in ourselves.

With this in mind, Enneagram teachers Leslie Hershberger and Lee Fields introduce:

Enneagram Winter Sessions 2025:
Embodied Shadow Work

Using Enneagram Wisdom to Awaken to Shadow in
Self and the Collective

living-from-the-inside-out.teachable.com/p/exploring-the-depths

****This is not a beginner course. You need to have a working knowledge of your Enneagram type and the courage to self observe.

Whether you're person with the tendency to blame yourself or a tendency to blame others, this course will offer something different:

Compassionate self observation and compassion for others.

If Wednesday nights don't work for you, we offer a self-paced option. With that said, we recommend LIVE group learning because we learn from each other.

Invite a friend...I always like doing this kind of work with friends as they help me see what I can't see in myself.

If you'd like to learn more about the Enneagram, my colleague, Niki Pappas does typing interviews after you take our online assessment. More on typings: https://lesliehershberger.com/enneagram-typing-interview/

Once you know your type, we offer a self-directed, mini-workshop about your type that can be found here: https://lesliehershberger.com/enneagram-shop/

How we wish that we could cancel the distasteful parts of ourselves by assuming they live only out there in others. The more siloed we are in our tightly held worldview, the more unconscious our shadow.

Join us for tomorrow morning’s contemplative practice group. We begin at 8 AM with a reflection, do a guided inner pract...
01/22/2025

Join us for tomorrow morning’s contemplative practice group. We begin at 8 AM with a reflection, do a guided inner practice and end at 8:30 and check out. Come as you are onscreen or off.

Tomorrow’s Zoom link:

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=17328399&action=zoom&uniqueID=0cbc8e1b97404a00f671d05511abbb10&ownerID=17328399

https://lesliehershberger.com/weekly-practice/

Sit down with Enneagram expert, Leslie Hershberger to learn your Enneagram type and learn how it powerfully influences how you think, feel and behave. We all need a Pause to ground ourselves in challenging times. Join us for any part of the Wednesday weekly practice, coming and going as you need acc...

Thank you to those who joined us this morning. We shared a John O'Donohue poem, Love in a Time of Conflict. It began thi...
01/15/2025

Thank you to those who joined us this morning. We shared a John O'Donohue poem, Love in a Time of Conflict. It began this way:

When the gentleness between
you hardens
And you fall out of your belonging
with each other,
May the depths you have reached
hold you still.

I thought of a woman who shared that she and her partner have fallen into that place of hardening "When even the silence has become raw and torn" and held her in the Silence.

On our call, we also reflected on how we fall into conflict with our personality selves and Higher selves or as Donohue called, it "an echo of our first music"....who we were before our personality began to harden into an identity and we lost connection with our wholeness.

If you'd like to join us next week, click the link below. There is no cost. The Pause is an offering to all of us.

Information and registration about our weekly, complimentary Contemplative Pause:

https://lesliehershberger.com/weekly-practice/

If you live in Cincinnati, there will be an Enneagram Panel Day on February 22 at Knox Presbyterian Church in Hyde Park. It is only an in-person offering:

https://www.cincyhive.org/upcoming-events/practicing-compassionate-presence-an-enneagram-panel-day

Given our type, we have different ways where we fall out of compassion for self and others. We'll be listening to type exemplars share, from the perspective of their type patterns, how their pattern shows up in their lives.

Led by Leslie Hershberger Saturday, Feb. 22nd 9:00am-3:00pm

Tomorrow’s reflection for our Wednesday Contemplative Pause is on love in a time of conflict. Feel free to join us on ca...
01/15/2025

Tomorrow’s reflection for our Wednesday Contemplative Pause is on love in a time of conflict. Feel free to join us on camera or off. It’s a lovely midweek Pause and a way to enter your day with mindful awareness.

Here’s the link:

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=17328399&action=zoom&uniqueID=0d0f2ee08852df6f35770f701c70bb6e&ownerID=17328399

To register for next week:

https://lesliehershberger.com/weekly-practice/

Sit down with Enneagram expert, Leslie Hershberger to learn your Enneagram type and learn how it powerfully influences how you think, feel and behave. We all need a Pause to ground ourselves in challenging times. Join us for any part of the Wednesday weekly practice, coming and going as you need acc...

Join us tomorrow morning at 8 AM for our Wednesday Contemplative Practice. We begin with a reflection and then a guided ...
11/06/2024

Join us tomorrow morning at 8 AM for our Wednesday Contemplative Practice. We begin with a reflection and then a guided inner practice. It ends at 8:30 AM.
Click the link below so I know you'll be joining us!

https://lesliehershberger.com/weekly-practice/

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