Meet Renee, The Performer

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I met Renee and his brother, Johnny, in Protective Custody. They lived just a few cells apart in the county jail, where I was teaching the Enneagram back in 2016. By then, they’d begun to appreciate how trauma bonded them as siblings. “But, when I was little,” Renee admits, “I’d pray that Johnny would die.” Renee’s a Type Three, called the Performer.

Threes come to teach the rest of us about honesty.

Renee and his brother had been doing time since they were little, in a childhood prison neither of them would have picked; we don’t get to choose. “We grew up poor,” Renee remembers (another thing no one picks). His father was never in his life. Renee’s mom was born with spina bifida and required hands-on care. She was scrappy and resourceful, working graveyard shifts to provide for them, but there was never enough. So, she moved with the boys into her parents’ home in South San Jose, California, where they lived together on a compound with Renee’s godfather, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins.

The little Type Three child arrives in this world deeply connected to their essence, which is radiant. Little Threes come in ready to let their light shine, like Renee did. He was ready to go, ready to be valued for the precious little guy he was. It’s easy to see the light in Renee. To hear him tell it, Renee had all the freedom he wanted, but the thing he wanted most was someone who could recognize these gifts in him. His home life was complicated.

“The men in my family were raging alcoholics,” Renee remembers bitterly. They began drinking as soon as they got home from work, and only stopped when they passed out. The next day, it started all over again. Getting drunk was a precursor to violence, which the kids learned to avoid by staying out of the way. Renee’s life was chaotic and dangerous. He was physically and mentally violated by the people a child expects to protect him. When he wasn’t being seen, as boys yearn to be seen by their fathers, he sought out approval from men 20 to 30 years older, who groomed, and manipulated him, and then sexually abused him.

Guess who Renee told?

No one.

Threes come to teach the rest of us about honesty.

It’s not that Renee didn’t have people who loved him, he did, but in the absence of someone who makes us feel safe, little Threes automatically rely on their assertive temperament to solve their own problems. Personality is a survival strategy; its basic building blocks come from childhood. His brother, Johnny, is a Type Eight, called the Protector. He offered Renee nothing like protection, even though he was bigger and stronger. In truth, Johnny needed someone to protect him from the same violations Renee endured. Without the words to protest, Johnny did what little Eights do to reclaim control when he had none; he raged against the world. Johnny took out his anger on the person who most reflected his own vulnerability, his little brother.

Personality comes from an innocent place.

Renee couldn’t avoid Johnny’s beatings or those of the men. These things never happened in front of their mom because she was sleeping off her night shift. Parenting was left to those who had no business being in charge of little kids. When Renee got upset, his uncles demanded that he “be a man,” and showed him how: they beat him and called him a punk. Pretty soon, Renee didn’t have to be told to quit crying. Threes learn to suspend their feelings and play along, like a chameleon, changing their stripes based on whoever’s around. They figure out how to become whoever they need to be. If his performance was good enough, Renee could keep people from seeing how deeply insecure and shameful he felt inside.

From a very young age, Threes learn to take on roles and set goals. Personality is our first drug of choice. Every time someone approves or applauds, they get a dopamine hit until their brain’s reward pathway is set. Renee was a good boy for his mom and aunts, and acted tough to keep the men off his back. At first, they all bought the act. As any Type Three will tell you, it’s exhausting to keep up the performance, and Renee carried a lot of anxiety. He started drinking when he was only nine; it took the edge off. Pretty soon, he was doing crystal meth. By the time he was 15, Renee was doing cocaine, acid, and PCP almost daily. As he attempted to escape the pain he was in by doing drugs, he started dealing to fund his habit. He learned to be sneaky, using the images he’d curated to stay under the radar.

Personality is our first drug of choice. Every time someone approves or applauds, they get a dopamine hit until their brain’s reward pathway is set.

Type Three’s personal prison is believing they must create their value. In this case, Renee had hustle, he had to be the best, to look the part. Eventually, personality becomes who we take ourselves to be. When he was at his lowest, Renee was completely identified with his grandiose persona—the invincible high roller who could get out of anything. He remembers the first time he was arrested, getting pulled over with drugs in his vehicle. “The cop said to me, ‘Shut the f-up, you’re going to go where all the other junkies go.’ I was shocked,” Renee remembers thinking to himself, “I’m not a tweaker, who does he think I am?”

When I started programming in the dorm where Renee lived, there was no classroom, just a make-shift circle we formed around the metal stools bolted to the day-room floor. He stood on the tier above watching me set up, wondering who I was, and what the Enneagram Prison Project was about. By then, Renee had spent 20 years in and out of the system. As the author, Henry Cloud, has said, “We begin to change when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.” Renee signed up for every program available to him.

Pretty quickly, we both realized that there was a lot more going on inside of Renee than he let on. One of the things that impressed me was his willingness to look at what happened to him—things that never should have happened to a little boy, but they did. Also, there were things that should have happened, but didn’t. “This wasn’t your fault,” I told Renee. As he continued to look inside himself, he realized where the shameful parts of his identity came from.

For most of us, it’s easy to have compassion for a child who gets in trouble; we need to remember that adults were once children, too. Our judicial system is designed to make people pay for their crimes, often with a lot of time. I’m all for people taking responsibility for what they’ve done, but the truth is, before Renee was violating the law, he was being violated in unthinkable ways, without ever being shown the meaning of justice.

At EPP, when we introduce the Enneagram, we lead with what’s right about us because that’s what this psycho-spiritual system points us to—our inherent goodness, our lovability, our value, our beauty, our wisdom, our devotion, our joy, our strength, and our belonging. Not many so-called “free people” are willing to open their hearts wide enough to find these things within themselves.

I am so glad that Renee did.

The Key To Freedom for Renee was daring to see that our worth isn’t determined by anyone or anything outside of us. As he talked about things with shocking candor, I could feel him leveling up the other people in the class and uncovering deeper insights by the week. Then, abruptly one morning, I was surprised to literally catch Renee on his way out the door as he was about to be released. We just had a few minutes together.

We’ve taught over seven thousand people the Enneagram inside jails and prisons since then. Today, Renee is one of twelve EPP Ambassadors who go back to jail as free citizens, empowering folks on the inside to find their own freedom before they’re released. He co-facilitates alongside his husband, an EPP guide. Today, Renee knows that it’s his precious being that makes him valuable. From this place, he can share his lived experience, his insights, and feelings. His purpose radiates out to the rest of the world. I love being around Threes with this kind of energy. I feel I am at my best just by being in Renee’s presence.

Also, Renee and his husband have invested in a home with Johnny and his partner. Together, the four of them provide full-time care for their mother; it’s a labor of love that Renee takes up with humility. He no longer feels a need to hide behind a mask. The habit is still there, but he’s onto himself, and the personality has loosened its grip on him. When Threes do their work, they become the keepers of truth, the ones most likely to bring the kind of authenticity and presence that deepens everything. Renee can feel his own capacity to connect with his heart, and from there, he shines a light of hope from the inside out.

If you would like to experience our compassionate approach to the Enneagram, you can! For the first time, The Human Potentialists (THP) has just released a self-guided course: Nine Faces of Potential! This 3.5-hour offering includes our foundational introduction to the Enneagram and teachings from EPP Ambassador exemplars, like Renee, who help us to remember what’s right about us.

Check it out!

Nine Faces of Potential