MBTI Type: ESFJ

Shelagh has a warm and generous heart that desires to make everyone feel comfortable. She looks for ways to take care of, and provide for, other people, from her fellow sisters to later her husband and stepchild. Sometimes, she can be a little smothering in her wish to protect Timothy from harm. Because she so freely expresses her feelings and needs to talk them through, she doesn’t always understand her husband’s reluctance to talk about his. Shelagh believes in fairness and finds it easy to communicate with, encourage, and befriend others. When fearful of what others might think about her behavior, she goes into hiding—but is only truly happy with reconciliation. When faced with a romantic attraction to Dr. Turner, Shelagh enters an intense period of introspection, in which she re-evaluates and analyzes every aspect of her life until she reaches the conclusion that she isn’t meant for this life. She desperately wants to do things properly, and struggles when faced with emotional detachment from others (inferior Ti). Her ability to keep track of things, be attentive to all the details of nursing and home life, and extensive experience in midwifery all make her an effective administrator, able to take care of everything when Sister Julienne is away. She’s an excellent secretary and mother. Her prior experience with various birthing techniques and everything she learned during her training is both remembered and useful when out and about. Shelagh delights in participating in local and traditional activities; she loves the sense of community that gives her. She is open to new medical advancements, and comfortable embracing new and exciting ideas—including the belief that her calling may not be as a nun after all. Shelagh can be playful with her ideas, but sometimes they overwhelm her and she fears the many ways something could go wrong. She is curious about the things she doesn’t know—the lives of the nurses outside the convent, new medical information, and her husband’s traumatic war experience.

Enneagram: 2w3 so/sp

Shelagh wants more than anything to be seen as useful, and feels the most fulfilled when she is helping out her husband at his clinic. As a nun, she was busy and industrious, often showing newcomers how the system works, heading up public functions, and helping new mothers adjust to the difficulties of infant-hood. As a wife and mother, Shelagh continues to introduce the ladies of Popular to new methods, practices, medicines, and expertise found in her search for the truth; she can sometimes become too promoting of new advancements, in a way that other mothers find invasive (such as the quibble over baby formula). Her 3 wing is busy and motivated; Shelagh feels the best about herself when she dons a nurse’s uniform and is taken seriously by her husband’s patients (she is hurt when the infer that they’ll wait for a “real nurse” if she’s in plainclothes).