The Power of Fear
The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli. 1781.
Suzanne Stabile March 25, 2025
I’m mindful that when I gather with my colleagues at an event that includes several keynote speakers, each of whom are speaking from their expertise, that I’m likely to be well received. While others talk about topics such as scripture, prayer, theology or perhaps cultural challenges that we face, I am talking to people about their preferred topic: themselves. We all like to know more about ourselves, to understand why we do the very things we seem to not want to do, and to change ourselves for the better; we just don’t know how to make the necessary adjustments.
In this series of articles, I’m exploring the emotions of shame, fear and anger as they are related to Enneagram wisdom. Each of us experience all three, and so we must have a healthy respect for each and use it for its value, acknowledge how each can be helpful and harmful. In addition, we need to be mindful of their power without allowing them unnecessary and unwanted influence in our lives.
Shame or fear or anger are respectively the default emotions for each personality type. For Enneagram Fives, Sixes and Sevens - the numbers that make up the Head or Thinking Triad - fear informs how they see themselves, others and the world. If your Enneagram Number is within this Triad, it will be helpful for you to know what fear looks like and how you can manage the ways it shows up in your life.
I have often found that the stories we tell about ourselves and those we love help us become more of who we want to be and less of who we struggle to defend. My husband Joe is a truly gifted pastor, but he is also quite good looking and attracts attention from other women. I usually handle it well but at one point when I was struggling with some professional choices in my work, I found myself over-focused on one woman’s behavior and her desire for Joe’s attention.
We both believe and teach that every person can benefit from having a therapist and a spiritual director and so I took the question as to why I was struggling to my therapist. I guess I must have gotten a little whipped up because after a while he said, “Are you about finished with your need to talk about her?”
Annoyed, I replied, “I might be. Why?”
“Well, I wonder if we might want to explore why you are hanging all of your anxiety on that poor woman’s bones.”
Anxiety in all nine Enneagram Numbers is transformed into either anger, fear or shame. In thinking about and learning from fear, it is helpful for all three numbers in the triad to remember this:
A Seven’s fear is usually focused inward. They are afraid of what they might discover within themselves. Fives are fearful of the outside world and their ability to navigate safely. Sixes are fearful of both, moving back and forth between the two. Regardless of your Enneagram number, we need to be willing to observe our resistance to reality, our attachment to self-image, and our fear. All three apply to everyone but Fear is especially problematic for Fives, Sixes and Sevens.
Sandra Maitri described the fear of a Five in one sentence, “Fives are afraid of engulfment.” They maintain a private inner world, observing rather than actively participating in what goes on around them, perhaps as a means of protection. This is driven by an inner sense of scarcity and emptiness. Afraid that nothing will be coming to them from the outside, they “act” like they don’t want anything and don’t care. They can begin to believe their own performance and thus limit their expressions of wishes and desires.
Fear causes fives to become observers of life rather than active participants. They are run from too much engagement and too much involvement. Part of the reason for this is that they have a limited amount of energy and every encounter of any kind uses the resource that they fear will be depleted before they get back to the safety of what is usually known and predictable.
Sixes, on the other hand, are coping with anxiety instead of fear, though the two often get conflated. Anxiety is about possible futures and that is where most of the mental energy of a Six is invested. They tend to deal with their anxious feelings by finding someone or something to connect with that offers a bedrock of safety.
This can regrettably cause Sixes to trust neither themselves or anyone else. Those not trusting themselves are referred to as Phobic Sixes. They are overly fearful and as a result they often give their allegiance to structures and belief systems. Those not trusting others are known as Counter-phobic, meaning they are intent on proving they are not afraid by conquering the fears that hold the most power over them.
Sevens manage their fear with a smokescreen of activity. They are the Number on the Enneagram that can reframe any negative into a positive almost instantly. To experience anything as other than it should be threatens to bring up buried pain and unresolved grief. Sevens live in the magical world of their imaginations where all is, or shall be, well.
“A quiet mind is a place of knowing and guidance that gives us confidence to act in the world. And when these qualities are unreachable, we feel fear.”
The Thinking triad is about finding a sense of inner guidance and support. And it is a very challenging proposition because these personality types have lost touch with what we refer to in the spiritual tradition as the quiet mind. These are the people who trust what is in their heads over feelings or doing. When they are in their Personality, the mind is not naturally quiet nor is it naturally “knowing.” Instead, it is looking for a strategy that will make it feel, at the very least, okay enough to function in the world.
Our minds have the potential to help us settle down, help us feel supported and safely aware. A quiet mind is a place of knowing and guidance that gives us confidence to act in the world. And when these qualities are unreachable, we feel fear. The three numbers in this Triad each react to fear in different ways.
Fives respond by reducing their personal needs and retreating from life. They have a sense that they are too frail and insubstantial to safely survive in the world. It feels to them as if the only safe place is in their minds, so they use their energy to gather and stockpile information. It’s hard for them to believe they have what is required to meet the daily demands of life, so they move, somewhat seamlessly, between home and the world, and back again, hoping that they will have a new insight or understanding to give them the security to emerge.
Sevens, by contrast, move toward life appearing to be afraid of nothing. They are outwardly so adventurous and entertaining it can be hard to understand why they are in the Fear Triad. They are full of fear but not of the outside world, instead they are afraid of being trapped in emotional pain, grief and especially feelings of anxiety. Their escape route is to plunge into activity or the anticipation of the next thing they have planned. It takes a lot of energy to hold at bay the hurts and anxieties of life. For Sixes, attention and energy are directed both inward and outward in a rhythm that is calming and feels somewhat safe. When they feel anxious on the inside, they greet the world like a Seven would with action, anticipating a favorable outcome. However, if their expectations are not met, they begin to fear they will be overwhelmed by demands from others and incapable of performing proficiently. So, predictably, they jump back inside of themselves like Fives. Sixes look for an authority figure who is trustworthy, strong and authoritative whom they can follow. They lose their inner guidance by seeking guidance from others. While they are looking for enough support to become independent, they find themselves dependent on the very people and systems they were using in their quest to trust themselves and their own ways of seeing the world.
Fives are convinced that support is either not available or it is unreliable. As a result, they try to figure out everything on their own. The problem is that “going it alone” means they must reduce their need for anyone. Independence with no path to interdependence is no solution at all.
Sevens try to break away from fear by pursuing substitutes for the nurturing they think they lack. They go after whatever they believe will make them feel secure and long for satisfaction. They respond to the lack of guidance by trying everything as if by a process of elimination they could discover the nurturing and care they are looking for.
Living in a culture where many institutions capitalize on pedaling fear and encouraging anxiety, is very difficult for those who are in the Thinking triad. Contemplative practices can help calm the fear. Responding from a quiet mind will always be helpful. And for these numbers it is essential that you trust yourself.
Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.
