Ian Morgan Cron - The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self

For Cail, Madeleine, and Aidan

Thank you for blessing my story.

Contents

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

Muriel Rukeyser

W hen I dragged myself into my first twelve-step meeting for people battling substance addiction, I felt more self-conscious than a bastard at a family reunion. Like most shame-riddled newcomers who fear rejection, I was sheepish about asking anyone to be my sponsor.

But there was this one guy.

Jack, a seventy-five-year-old retired Episcopal priest and therapist, was a recovery superhero. Whenever he spoke at meetings, his wry sense of humor and hard-won wisdom were apparent to everyone. He was a beacon of hope to those of us who had earned our seats in the rooms. One night after a meeting, I mustered up the courage to introduce myself to him and ask if hed consider taking me under his wing.

Jacks face softened, a smile appearing behind his eyes. How long since you last drank or drugged? he asked.

Two weeks, I said, looking down at my shoes.

Congratulations! he said, throwing his arms around me and hugging me so enthusiastically I thought he might break one of my ribs. Ill take you on!

Under Jacks mentorship, my two weeks of sobriety stretched into one month, then two, and before I knew it, I received my anniversary chip marking three continuous months. My life was humming along swimmingly until Jack dropped a bomb on me at one of our weekly Sunday morning check-in meetings at the Colonial Diner.

I signed you up to share your story at next weeks Sunday night speakers meeting, he said, stirring two packets of sugar into his coffee.

Recovery groups offer different meeting formats. In a speakers meeting, one person shares their storywhat their life was like before and while they were using, and the experience, strength, and hope theyre finding through the program and working the steps. Its kind of like a personal testimony you might hear at a Baptist church, only boozier.

Jack, youd tell me if youd had a stroke, right? I said, only half-kidding.

No, why do you ask? Jack said, arching one eyebrow.

Because Ive only been sober for three months. Im not ready!

You dont have to deliver the Gettysburg Address, he said, chuckling.

For the next thirty minutes I came up with one lame excuse after another to get out of speaking, but Jack wouldnt budge. Resigned to my fate, I stood up and lay down a five on the Formica-topped table.

See you on Sunday, I muttered, picking up my windbreaker and walking to the door.

Get yourself to five meetings this week, Jack called after me.

Without turning around, I waved goodbye. Yeah, yeah, I know.

Over the next seven days, I wrote and trashed at least a dozen drafts of my life story. During my last pharmaceutical jag, I had suffered a series of panic attacks and was still terrified of losing control in public. But I slaved away until I had an acceptable draft of my chemical misadventures and rehearsed it, ignoring the movies in my head featuring projectile vomiting and images from Edvard Munchs The Scream.

That Sunday night I stood before two hundred people and told the story of me, at least as I understood it at the time. I described how Id always felt like a troubled guest on the dark earth. I was sure I lacked something inside that everyone else seemed to haveI felt like a college freshman whod missed orientation week and didnt know his way around campus like everyone else. I enumerated the long list of reasons for my tattered self-worth, including my fathers death from alcoholism and how Id still give anything to believe I wasnt somehow responsible for his inability to love me. Then I described how I felt when I took my first drinkfinally, at home in my own skin, fitting in, at ease in the world. Except that back then my life was sort of like The Glass Castle meets The Prince of Tidesonly less hopeful.

But when the meeting ended, I felt like a celebrity. Person after person came up to tell me the parts of my story they identified with and to thank me for my willingness to share it. When the last one left, I helped fold and stack the chairs, wash the coffee urns, and left with Jack riding shotgun in my Toyota Corolla.

You did a good job tonight, he said, rolling down the passenger-side window to release the smoke from his signature Cuban cigar.

Thanks, I said, relieved to be over my first attempt at sharing my lifes journey.

Its interesting, Jack mused. While you were speaking, I found myself thinking about the crazy story each of us comes up with to make sense of our lives. He gazed at the smoke wafting up and out the car window, seemingly lost in his own thought.

When I pulled up at the end of Jacks driveway, he offered his congratulations one last time and got out of the car, hobbling on his creaky knees. I was about to put the car in drive and pull away when he turned back around.

One more thing, he said, bending over to speak to me through the open passenger window. Do you ever wonder if youre living in the wrong story?

Uh, no, I said, trying not to frown.

You might, Jack said, double-tapping the roof of my car with his hand. Then he turned on his heels and began trudging up the driveway, disappearing into the nights inky darkness.

The Power of the Enneagram

I was twenty-seven years old when Jack asked me that question. At the time, I dismissed it as the kind of oddball question only a septuagenarian therapist might pose when hes stayed up past his bedtime.

Today, I see Jacks question to me as a major turning point in changing the false story I told myself about who I was, a story that had helped me make sense of a painful childhood but became an obstacle to my growth as an adult.

My old story is captured in a snapshot I still have of me back when I was a little boy at the beach with my family. In the picture Im sitting in a beached lifeguard boat waving and laughing at the camera. I remember it was a beautiful, sunny day. Im squinting at the camera and everyone in the background is sporting Ray-Bans, baking in the sun, their bronze skin glistening with Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Oil. It strikes me as ironic that Im sitting in a lifeboat. My family was lost at sea in those days and though I was a child I remember sensing that my siblings and I were living under a low ceiling of gray clouds. Our troubled father was taking our ship down.

Fifteen years later, I was a hard-drinking partier being chased down by my friends in Young Life who viewed me as a prized evangelism project. But I wanted nothing to do with God. In childhood Id loved him with all my heart, but I grew to believe that hed abandoned me to my crazy family. Stretched out in front of me was a lifetime of feeling ashamed, weighted down with a longing to be seen and loved that I feared would never be fulfilled.

When I began working on my issues in my twenties, the green shoots of a new story began to emerge from the soil. It took years of hard work and prayer to craft a new narrative, but today when I look in the mirror, I see a sober husband and father, an Episcopal priest, therapist, and author.

Where there was old me, now theres a new me.

Where there was fear and shame, now theres dignity.

Where there was an unnamable missing piece everyone else had but I didnt, now theres the certain belief that Im not missing anything inside.

Where there was loneliness and abandonment, I now have a kind and encouraging community that affirms my gifts.

Where there was grim resignation, now theres a serene acceptance that life is simultaneously hard and brimming with beauty and grace.

And where there was meaninglessness, now theres the knowledge that I continue to take everything Ive experienced and use it to advance Gods love into our riven world.