A reader asked me to talk about 6’s experience with their stress and growth lines, which are 3 and 9. Today we’ll talk about 9, the number 6s need to grow toward to be at peace with ourselves. You don’t just go to one or the other, but use both on a daily basis to self-soothe or self-motivate. This means 9 and 3 can show up in positive and negative ways, but they are always under the influence of the super-ego.

Our goal as 6s is to move to “the high side of 9.” That means avoiding 9’s problems with boundaries, being unable to assert themselves, and being easily distracted, and focusing on the best qualities a 9 has to offer: being nonjudgmental and accepting, not needing to fit everything into a category, assuming everything is going to work out, and being confident we can solve our own problems without needing to rely on anyone else for advice or an external authority to shape our thinking. (“What would Jesus do?” is a helpful reminder to treat others with compassion, but also an example of 6ishly abdicating our thinking to an “authority.”)

What 6s Can Learn from Healthy 9s

How 6s benefit from 9 is to learn to self-monitor and catch themselves in their own type patterns. At first, you need to do so without self-judgment. Just notice what you are doing when you are doing it. Stuff like projecting your fears onto someone else (“They think I’m wrong!”), or expecting the worst instead of the best.

Once you see these patterns and how they play out in you, you can retrain yourself into positivity and self-trust, which will help you stop overthinking. Do you really need to call your mom for help to hang that picture, or can you put a hole in the wall? Do you need to consult a book, or can you make up an argument yourself?

How I Handled My Cat’s Illness Like a 9

Here’s an example of choosing a 9 response on my part. I have a cat with ongoing medical issues. Allergies cause his sinuses to swell up regularly—painful for him and me, since I must administer a foul-tasting oral medicine to him for ten days every time it happens.

For the first year, this was a source of great anxiety. I didn’t know specifically what he was allergic to (the vet I took him to told me no allergen test exists for cats; she was wrong) and was trying elimination diets to no avail.

I constantly wondered if I was causing this, or if I had triggered it by doing something wrong. I couldn’t decide whether to take him to another vet or not (it’s a traumatic process for him every time, since he gets carsick; I didn’t want to put him through that if we would learn nothing new). Eventually, I did, and we ran all the tests. Now he’s on an ongoing rehabilitation program where we try to fix his immune system. It didn’t work for four months, but I stuck with it, and then we had ten weeks without a flare-up. I felt so relieved.

This week, his face started swelling. My heart sank. I could feel the old, familiar anxiety creeping in. The idea of getting anxious again made me tired. So, I chose to be a 9. I didn’t let myself get upset; I let myself feel calm. No fear, no anxiety, nothing.

This has happened before. It may happen again. It’s not worth inconveniencing myself with angst. I chose not to start analyzing what might have triggered this flare-up (Did I do something wrong? Did I not check his food? Did I trigger this by being careless?). A 9 would calmly handle this. I don’t have to react to it; I can do what needs to be done while continuing the other treatment, which “can take up to a year to be fully effective.”

It hasn’t been a year yet, so there’s no need for concern.

Gut Feelings vs. Mind Spirals

This is huge for me, because normally I would start trying to think about what might have caused it, instead of just relying on what the label says—this can take a year to work. Give it time. Trust in it.

I would start worrying about the future instead of telling myself, “If it doesn’t work, there are other things to try, and you can think about them if that day comes.”

I’ve had many instances in the last few weeks where I wanted to procrastinate on something out of fear of getting it wrong. In answer to that, I have been telling myself, “Do it yourself.” 9s have self-confidence in their decisions because they feel them in the gut, so I’m also learning to shut my brain off and pay attention to my bodily responses when making decisions.

How does this feel to me? I am learning that “inner knowing” 9s possess, but it’s a slow process, and half the time, since it’s not my default, I forget to consult it. To slow down and shut off my thinking and trust that things are going to work out (most of the time, they do).

Sloth, Loyalty, and the Struggle to Let Go

Accessing 9 for the most part is good, but there are also negative ways it shows up, and a tendency to be hard on myself if I fall too much into “sloth.” Richard Rohr said inside every 6 is a 9 who doesn’t want to be affected by life. It’s true. That’s what I want: to be unaffected.

I believe our inability as 6s to determine who deserves our loyalty and who doesn’t also comes from a 9-ish unwillingness to inconvenience ourselves by being assertive. 6s “stay” longer than any other number. Why?

I think it’s fear of conflict and avoiding life and refusing to assert ourselves, much like an unhealthy 9. We may complain more than a 9 would in our position, but they would also decide it’s not worth the stress on their bodies and leave.

So as 6s, we need to pay more attention to the mental and physical impact a bad situation or relationship is having on us, and consider that as important enough to give us “permission” to quit.

Stand Firm, Even When Others Doubt You

9s can ignore what others think in order to pursue their agenda. For a 6w7, others’ skepticism causes me to second-guess myself. (I thought this decision was a good one, but they disagree… do I need to reconsider?)

A lesson the 6 could learn from 9s is to stand firm and get stubborn about it, instead of rethinking it or allowing others to influence how we feel about it.

Peace Isn’t Weakness: It’s Strength

Leaning into 9 won’t be an automatic cure to all your problems, but it will put a stop to many of them.

Learn more about the high side of 9 and strive toward it. Remind yourself that you are smart and competent with no need to worry about things in advance, because you can handle them if they even happen (and they most likely won’t).