The INFP Enneagram Type Nine
“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.” – Dalai Lama
Do you know you’re an INFP, but you feel like certain facets of your type description aren’t quite relatable? If you’re an INFP Nine, you may be more focused on peacemaking and getting along with others than probing internal analysis. You may be less willing to dig in your heels publicly than other INFPs, and you may be more laid-back than some. Today we’re going to explore some of the things that make the INFP Nine unique. Let’s get started!
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The INFP Nine – When Myers-Briggs® and Enneagram Combine
In the enneagram system, each number, or type, has a core fear and desire. As a Nine, your core fear is fragmentation, loss, or separation. You crave harmony in the inner world and outer world. As a result, you often suppress your anger in hopes that you will avoid fragmentation. You see anger as “bad” and “dangerous,” something that could ruin your relationships and your sense of inner peace. You try to see things from other people’s perspectives so that you can get along with them and not make any waves.
Laid back and open-minded, you have a whimsical imagination and are drawn to all the beauty and experiences of life. When times get hard, you can escape into your imaginative world and find a respite from the chaos of the outside. You’re also deeply in touch with your intuition, seeing positive ways to reframe situations and looking for the silver lining during any tough time.
One of your struggles as a Nine is that you tend to be relatively out of touch with their own desires and needs. You may go with the flow in order to keep the peace, only to resent it later. This could mean saying yes to something you don’t want to do, or not asserting your wishes when someone asks you a question, like, “Are you comfortable with this?” or even “Where would you like to eat?”
In the midst of tense situations, you may “numb out” in order to keep a sense of inner calm and stability. As an example, you might have experienced something traumatic in your childhood only to disassociate with what was happening and think of something more mentally calming. Maybe you turned on a song you loved, watched a movie, or escaped into your imaginary world.
In childhood, Nines learned to cope with pain by dissociating from threatening and traumatic events in their environment. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily had a traumatic childhood (although you might have), but regardless of what happened, you internalized the belief that if you were undemanding and low-maintenance you would be safe and keep everything calm and harmonious. You worried that if you asserted yourself and made your inner feelings visible that you would only create more problems. You believed that by staying in the background and repressing your anger and desires you were evading conflict and inner turmoil.
If you’re a Nine, you are in the Gut/Anger triad of the Enneagram. This means that you have underlying issues with your instincts – primarily anger. You repress your anger, as we’ve discussed. Anger, and other instinctual urges, feel dangerous. You might have adopted proverbs, platitudes, and happy thoughts and fantasies to distract you when you start to feel mad. If you’re stressed, you might manage it by downplaying your own will and choices, opting many times to do what other people want in order to maintain peace. However, underneath your pleasant demeanor, you may have a storm brewing – anger that has been suppressed and suffocated for days, weeks, or even years.
As an INFP, you are introverted. You enjoy the inner world and gather many of your observations internally before looking to the outside world for inspiration.
You’re also an intuitive. The world outside you inspires a plethora of possibilities inside your mind. You want to chase after these possibilities, and may have many half-finished projects scattered around your room. You read between the lines, see random connections, and are drawn to abstract ideas and philosophies.
You’re a feeling type. The inner world of your values, ethics, and feelings is pivotal to your decisions. You analyze the nuances of your emotions and try to stay true to yourself.
You’re a perceiver. You prefer your life relaxed and flexible. Having a tight structure makes you feel stifled and drained. You enjoy taking life as it comes rather than mapping it all out.
As a Nine, you are in tune with the spiritual world and can be deeply intuitive and insightful. The goal for you is to learn to get in touch with yourself and your instincts rather than repressing them. Your core fear is fragmentation and your core desire is inner peace.
I made this infographic below to help you identify some of the characteristic INFP Nine traits:
Unhealthy Nines Can Be: Withdrawn, Unrealistic, Dissociated, Disoriented, Numb, Helpless, Repressed, Neglectful, Lazy, Ineffectual, Depressed, and/or Listless.
Average Nines Can Be: Agreeable, Kind, Routine-Oriented, Amicable, Deflecting, Resigned, Appeasing, Complacent, Disengaged, Compassionate, Dismissive of Pain.
Healthy Nines Can Be: Patient, Level-Headed, Imaginative, Inspiring, Self-Possessed, Serene, Present, Dynamic, Easy-Going, Kind, Patient, Peaceful, Comforting, and/or Spiritual.
5 Tips for Growing to Maturity and Emotional Health as an INFP Nine:
- When something isn’t right in your relationship, take initiative to change it. Don’t ignore it, repress your fears, or hope that change will happen organically.
- Practice expressing your feelings, desires, and even your anger. Learn through experience that “rocking the boat” can be a good thing and catalyze you towards growth and an improved life.
- Learn to become aware of your anger. When you start to feel mad, don’t hurriedly try to bury the feeling. When you ignore it, it tends to seep out anyway through passive-aggressive means. Write down your feelings or confront the issue (or instigator) in a healthy way.
- Set goals with definite deadlines. Reward yourself when you complete a task.
- Exercise! Staying in touch with your body and being healthy helps you to be happier and more in tune with your feelings. Practice Tai chi, go jogging, ride your bicycle, dance!
Want to find out more about Nines? Check out our in-depth profile here.
Want to find out more about INFPs? Check out your INFP profile here.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Do you identify with this enneagram and personality type? Do you have any insight or experience to share with other readers? Let us know in the comments!
Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type, The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic, and The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!
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This was all spot on for me! I’m an Enneagram 9, and an INFP. I’ll definitely be saving this article for future reference. It’s always so comforting to me when I feel understood. This article did a great job with that, thank you!
Thank you!! I’m so glad that you enjoyed it!
Thank you for the extremely accurate article and helpful tips! I was wondering, are their enneagram types that lead to common MBTI mistypes? And does your enneagram type strengthen MBTI functions? For example, would an INFP 9 be perceived to have strong Fe, and possibly mistype as an INFJ or other Fe type? Does being a 9 mean you have a further developed Fe than other INFP’s?
I never thought of most of this as being unique to my personality traits. The looking at others perspectives for example, i always thought i had learned that great habbit from my father and tend to encourage it in my kids. It occurs to me after reading this how much easier it comes to me and my daughter than my son or even my sister.
Do you have an article about 4w5 INFPs?
Not yet, but it will come eventually!
I don’t know what to say… I’M AMAZED. I feel so understood so happy. Now i can understand why i could’nt decide if i’m infp or infj cus i have a high Fe and Fi together!
Hum.. I’m an INFP and had quite some struggles to figure out if I’m a 4 or 9 which seems to be a common thing for INFPs… but keeping the peace is way more important than being unique. 9 is quite me. I was an easy child, not really spoke up when something bothered me and I find it really difficult to name how I feel (although there are lots of feelings i feel). I need to feel helpful to be happy and when someone feels unhappy I just want to wipe it off and get rid of it otherwise it’s pure stress for me. Most people would describe me as ‘zen’ or ‘ohm’ although I myself can feel highly tense and stressed inside.
The only thing that doesn’t quite work somehow, I get angry quite quickly and am quite impatient and explode easily. I can be a bit aggressive at times and lash out when my levels of anxiety are high. Like an unhealthy ESTJ.
I really don’t like it at all and work hard on it 🙁 Not very INFP-y or how 9s are described.
Wonder if that’s me being an Aries shining through in unhealthy ways sometimes.
Wow I had the same struggle of whether or not I’m a 4 or 9! I’m not as independent and I don’t really find myself caught in the comparison trap; yet I’m not as out of tune with my emotions as a lot of people describe 9’s. If it has to do with my moral values then I won’t be as passive, but if it’s something that isn’t a matter of morality or life and death, then I usually suppress my opinion or find that I don’t even have an opinion on it. One of my biggest fears is separation which is the 9’s fears, but I journal and am more reflective like a 4. It’s so confusing lol and I keep wanting others to have an opinion so I can know what I am lol. I think 9’s struggle with anger, and INFP’s can definitely lash out too when they’re really triggered (coming from an INFP who relates at least with my family when I’ve suppressed anger for too long) Have you struggled in the past with being taken advantage of or having to suppress negative or even positive feelings often? Cause that could explain the need to lash out. Sorry this comment is super long 😅
I just sent this to a friend, who is also an INFP, but a 4, saying that I have never read something so accurate. I feel like this article is a mirror; all the way down to the helpful hints! Saving for later. Thanks you so much!!
Thanks for the reminders. Every time I read one of your blogs I feel like I am unpeeling another layer of my beingness. Talk about feeling misunderstood, When I was young I experienced it from both my family and my peers. I did finally express some of my anger to my father one evening. After that, he literally turned out every light in the house. After that, he said, “Have a nice life.” I never saw him alive again. I have come a long way since then and tears are slow a-comin’
Wow I’m left completely speechless after reading this. This is absolutely 100% me. I laughed reading others with the 4 vs. 9 struggle (same!!! But I’m a 9) and also INFP/INFJ struggle (I will type as either but I am pretty confident I am an INFP). The suppressing anger bit hit really hard (I also had a difficult childhood which amplified this tendency) — I almost never feel completely understood but this really — wow.