According to Jung's personality theory, the psyche is constantly flowing between two extremes, and your primary task is to successfully balance the two polarities. To achieve individuation, each personality has to acknowledge and work through the limitations of its idealized self and shadow, its strengths and weaknesses, and its motivations and fixations (what keeps it stuck). These primary polarities that a Nine has to navigate are explored in the following sections.

Shadow and Idealized Self

Every personality forms an inner world that reflects how it feels about itself and an outer world that projects what it wants others to know about it. Jung would also refer to these worlds as the shadow, or hidden, traits that your psyche squelches and does not want the outer world to see, and the idealized self, what your psyche creates and wants the outer world to see.

A Nine's shadow hides a nasty stubborn streak that manifests in resistance to anyone else's ideas, even when those ideas are both necessary and appropriate. Nines typically hide their intractability — their outright refusal to change — even when maintaining the status quo is harming them. They can be lazy, indecisive, tedious, detached, and unresponsive in a very passive-aggressive, irritating way. Despite their laid-back disposition, Nines are fully capable of displaying an explosive rage that could easily, if unexpectedly, decimate those around them.

A Nine's idealized self is virtually angelic. Blissful peace almost literally streams out of their lavender scented pores, and their unwavering allegiance uplifts anyone lucky enough to be its recipient. Self-actualized Nines have earned the right to be proud of being extremely dedicated, loyal, and steadfast. They are also receptive, patient, accepting, and easygoing in general. Any expectations they have in terms of relationships are well within reach, and they are genuinely grateful for whatever you do for them. Integrated, whole, actualized Nines bring an essential vision of diplomacy, peace, and harmony to their families and to the planet. They, more than any other type, believe idealized coexistence is possible, easily achieved, and virtually inevitable.

Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs

According to Jung, libido is not connected to your sex drive alone, but instead refers to your overall psychic energy or what gives your personality juice. The opposite of what turns you on would be what turns you off. To individuate, Nines need to seek balance between these two polarities.

Nines are turned on by harmony and outward displays of cohesiveness and congruity. Nines want smiles on everyone's faces and peacefulness all around. They love so cleverly fulfilling your needs that you don't even notice their hand in it. They like helping someone else go for the gold so that they don't have to. Nines love having time to putter and seek variable, entertaining, or amusing distractions that will keep them so busy that they simply don't have time to contemplate their own lives and whether they are truly happy or not.

Nines are turned off by pressure to perform. They don't want the limelight and cower when given responsibility to lead. Since they strongly prefer moving at a slower pace and allowing things to unfold naturally, they recoil when anyone attempts to control them. Nines hate dissension, particularly when someone comes forward bracing for a fight. Nines prefer to stay in the background, but if you neglect them or their needs, the anger they seek to hide may surface in an abrupt, sharp, and unexpected way.

Fear and Security

These basic and very essential characteristics determine how Nines approach, live in, and eventually conquer their worlds. Fears (for Nines it's a sense of hopelessness) stop people short and often cause them to regress, and they rarely progress unless they feel a certain sense of security about themselves or their circumstances.

Deep down inside their emotional core, Nines remain convinced that they were neglected or abused because they were somehow unlovable or simply not compelling enough to be important to their parents. This leaves Nines so discouraged about their dreams and aspirations that they decided they would borrow and assimilate those of others. They decided to go for the minimum: seeking comfort and little else. They live their lives afraid that any discord will ultimately lead to emotional or physical abandonment. Thus most Nines withdraw from verbal confrontations. They also refuse to take risks, avoid decisions, and do whatever they can to keep everything in their lives unchanged.

Nines feel secure when they know everyone's place in a family or business and when everything is proceeding according to known expectations. They prefer having their lives follow an orderly pattern that rarely fluctuates, and they strongly prefer a natural unfolding rather than an unnatural rushing of events. If they are permitted to proceed at their own pace — in relationships or in business — they function efficiently; if they feel pushed, cajoled, manipulated, or controlled in any way, they push back in their passive-aggressive way by dropping an emotional oar deep into their private ocean, by claming up, or by dragging their feet in one of their clever and annoying ways.

Motivations and Fixations

This relates to how Nines use or ignore their psychic energy. Knowing their primary motivations and what Nines cling to within their own personalities that either helps them progress toward individuation or keeps them stuck in fixations helps you understand how their personality functions.

Nines are motivated by the desire to bring everyone together as one. They are all about peaceful coexistence and cooperative compromise. Like Rodney King during the Los Angeles riots, they want everyone to “just get along.” Nines like flying under the radar, doing their job well enough to be appreciated without feeling pressured or forced to ramp up the pace. Nines want a peaceful, happy, easygoing life with enough pleasant diversions to keep them unaware of nagging feelings of unhappiness or any lack of fulfillment. Nines want to help the people they love — spouses, children, siblings, coworkers — excel at what they do so they can live vicariously through them.

Nines get stuck when they sell themselves short for the sake of a quiet, orderly existence. They are so afraid to narrow down choices and make controversial, or even singular, decisions that they may spin their wheels in the rut they themselves created. They could spend years doing things that had no real relevance to their life as they might have envisioned it had they given themselves the option to put themselves first occasionally. Nines are so desperate to maintain the status quo that they may fail to make potent, positive changes. Often they will stay in dysfunctional relationships long after any of their needs have been met or even voiced.

Coping and Failing

This coping-failing dichotomy has to do with the behaviors Nines adopt to cope with their lives, or maintain the status quo, and how those same behaviors can lead to a failure to grow into their full potential.

Nines cope by surrendering huge chunks of themselves, and often unconsciously erasing their sense of self, for what they believe is necessary to maintain maximum comfort — at work, at home, at church, or in the community. They project their best qualities onto others, sublimating their ambitions by being supportive and nurturing to people they feel have an actual chance to succeed. Unfortunately, this means that they negate themselves and often lose any sense of their own potential. They may cope by keeping their focus on inconsequential things and by distracting themselves and others from what they see as their personal weaknesses. They use diversionary tactics to prevent family members or coworkers from escalating disagreements into open conflict.

Nines fail themselves by never fully exploring their true interests. If they don't acknowledge their needs or desires, they don't have a fighting chance to realize that they are fully capable of fulfilling them. They deny themselves opportunities to reinforce their own self-esteem or opportunities to grow beyond their own limited expectations. They fail themselves every time they deny the importance of their anger as an emotion that signals an important need not being met. In other words, they don't learn to value themselves enough to give credence to their needs, wants, desires, or emotions, which ultimately means they evade their own very distinct destiny. They also deny their family the true benefits of healthy love.

Falling Apart and Transcending

Each enneatype has a unique way of falling apart. The types each have specific needs they need fulfilled, or mental concepts they can embrace, before they can successfully transcend their ego limitations and become fully integrated and whole.

Nines fall apart in a passive way — by almost literally falling asleep. They often use drugs, sex, or inconsequential activity to purposefully dull their minds. Like couch potatoes, they will sit on the sidelines and passively watch their own lives go by. Their foot-dragging, eventually-I'll-get-around-to-it approach turns into complete and blatant avoidance, leading very quickly into serious disarray in all aspects of their lives. They swing from becoming so needy they beg others for help to becoming openly obstinate and intractable — even to the point of raising their voices or uncharacteristically lashing out at loved ones. Their normal resignation goes from low-level functioning to sleepwalking through life. Some Nines become so depressed they take to their beds and refuse to participate in life.

Nines transcend by waking up and claiming their deepest selves and their long dormant passions. Nines transcend their ego limitations when they love themselves as much as they love everyone else and allow themselves the right and privilege of having their own thoughts, opinions, desires, and destiny. When Nines can keep the focus on their own being long enough to set some defining boundaries, recognize meaningful desires, and establish their own priorities, they have a far better chance of unveiling their soul's purpose and have a real shot at achieving self-actualization. They have to realize that they are as important as everyone else and that it is not beneath them to have real desires or competing ideas. Instead of surrendering self for the sake of peace, they have to be willing to surrender peace for the sake of self.