Holiday Support for Enneagram Type Three
- The Broken & Beautiful
- Dec 14, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 12
with Patria Rector & Ro Elliott
Welcome back to Echoes and Edges, the Broken & Beautiful podcast. I’m Patria Rector—story coach, Enneagram practitioner, and founder of Broken & Beautiful. Around here, we care about tending the inner world with gentleness and skill, and one of the most valuable tools in that process is the Enneagram.
The Enneagram doesn’t just describe patterns—it offers pathways of transformation. It helps us recognize the reactions that rise up in us, when they show up, and why they feel so consuming.
This post is part of our series exploring all nine Enneagram types in a short, simple, practical way. Today, we’re looking at Type Three.
Type Three: The Achiever, the Performer, the Succeeder
Type Threes are known for their ability to adapt, excel, and accomplish. They are often seen as successful—but success for a Three takes on the shape of their environment.
A Three raised around Wall Street will embody achievement in one form. A Three raised in a conservative or fundamentalist religious home may embody success in a completely different form.
But the theme remains the same: Threes become whatever the role requires.
This is their superpower…and their greatest vulnerability.
Threes shape-shift so well, so fully, that they often lose touch with their own identity. They become the part they are cast in, to the point that the role overshadows the self.
The Defense of Type Three: Performing Instead of Being
Where Type Twos overgive, Type Threes overperform.
A Three’s defense mechanism is to present an image, maintain a role, and achieve in ways that outrun the possibility of failure or inadequacy. Productivity becomes armor. Outcomes become safety.
Many Threes will say, quite honestly: “I don’t do anything I can’t win at.”
Their adapting isn’t random—it’s strategic. Threes mold themselves so seamlessly that the world rarely sees the gap between their polished image and the tender, vulnerable heart beneath it.
And when life speeds up—especially during the holidays—this defense often intensifies.
Holiday Pressure: When Performance Takes the Wheel
Ro Elliott, my guest for this conversation, names a dynamic that many Threes know intimately:
Threes want perfection too—but not for the same reasons as Type Ones. For Threes, perfection isn’t about order.It’s about image.
The tablescape, the food, the curated experience—it’s not just a celebration. It’s a reflection of them. And so Threes can get swept into crafting the perfect moment, rather than inhabiting it.
This looks like:
hosting at a sprint
making everything beautiful
ensuring everyone enjoys themselves
managing the vibe of the room
tightening into performance mode
And, like Twos, they can lose presence because they’re so busy making things happen.
Another common Three pattern shows up in family gatherings: the entertainer role. If a Three grew up entertaining, storytelling, filling the room with charm, or smoothing tension with humor, they may slip back into that old role the moment they walk through the door.
Even if they’ve done years of work to lay that mask down.
Holiday nostalgia has a way of resurrecting old scripts.
The Heart of the Three: “Will I Be Loved If I Stop Performing?”
Threes, like Twos and Fours, live in the heart center. Their reactivity, their drive, their longing—it all begins in the emotional realm.
When Threes slow down enough to be seen for who they really are—not the role, not the image, not the projection—they often meet a terrifying question: “If people see the real me, will they still love me?”
For a Type Three, taking off the mask feels risky. Vulnerability feels like standing unguarded on a stage with the lights fully up. But beneath the performing is one of the most deeply beautiful gifts a Three brings:
Healthy Threes lift others with them.
They become truly collaborative. They draw from the courage of the Six. They stop running ahead and begin walking with. Their leadership becomes invitational instead of polished. Their presence becomes encouraging rather than curated.
A healthy Three doesn’t outshine the room—they brighten it.
Losing Identity: When the Image Becomes the Only Self They Know
For many Threes—especially those with trauma histories—the sense of identity is not just blurry; it’s nearly absent. They become fluent in mirrors, fluent in roles, fluent in expectations.
But the internal question eventually surfaces: “Is this really who I am?”
This may not emerge in the middle of the holiday rush.It might show up weeks later:
a heaviness
a strange sense of disconnection
an inner wobble
a feeling of “offness”
Those moments are invitations, not failures. They are signs the true self is knocking.
If that happens, don’t push through it. Talk to your coach. Ask for help. Get support. Rediscovering identity is part of the journey for every Three, and you don’t have to navigate it alone.
The Path Forward: From Image to Essence
For Threes, transformation doesn’t come from stopping all performance—performance is wired into their gifting.
Transformation comes from slowing down enough to let their being catch up to their doing. It comes from remembering: “My worth is not earned.My identity is not a role. My value is not a performance.”
That shift is tender and awkward and slow. But it’s also sacred.
If This Resonated…
If this glimpse into Type Three felt familiar or stirred something meaningful, share it with someone who might appreciate a gentle invitation toward deeper self-understanding.
And if you’d like to hear the full conversation, you can listen to the episode of Echoes and Edges on your favorite podcast platform. (Apple Podcasts / Spotify) While you’re there, follow or subscribe, leave a five-star review, and help more people find this work.
Echoes and Edges is produced and edited by Stephen R. Sanders, music by Envato, and is part of the Vivid Livid Podcast Network—where bruises speak and healing finds its voice.
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