Growing as an Enneagram Eight: The Challengerনমুনা

Your Tenderness Reflects God

Many Eights revolve their entire lives around the areas that bring out the most tenderness in them. They are foster parents, pastors, nurses, caretakers for the elderly, and teachers. I think this is because the people who you feel the most tenderness toward give you the biggest sense of purpose. After all, who is a guardian without someone to guard? Or a soldier without something to fight for? 

As an Eight, you wear thick armor, and that’s what most people see: hard, strong, in control. But this armor is only necessary because underneath it is the softest heart. This is a heart that you save for those who need it most. I’ve heard an Eight say, “I need to save my softness for my kids because I don’t have much to give, and I can’t waste it here.” 

Eights have this ability to sense when someone is weaker than they are, and they are purposefully careful with them, as if they are dealing with someone’s wound. Usually the weakness they sense is an obvious one; for instance, perhaps the person is a child or elderly. Yet sometimes, Eights can sense more subtle weaknesses, like mental weariness, immaturity, the lack of a vital relationship, or the need for guidance.

In Matthew 9:36, we see an example of Jesus’s tender heart toward the people He encountered daily. He had compassion for the crowds of people who were listening to His words and seeking healing because He saw their need, their weakness, and how greatly they needed a Savior. He viewed them as sheep without a shepherd because that’s how we are without our life tethered to God through Christ. 

You reflect the tenderness of God when you are tender toward the people in your life. In this way, you get to be the hands and feet of our tender God for those who are helpless, lost, and broken.

Eights are built to hold with tenderness the people who need it the most. You have an energy that few can match, your protective instincts are sharp, and your tenderness is an unexpected but much-needed surprise to many.

Whether it’s with a child, an animal, someone who is lost, or someone who is about to take their last breath, you reflect God’s tenderness to His people and the special place in His heart for the hurting.