Decoding Your Hidden Life Blueprint: Enjoying Emotional Balance
The Enneagram (pronounced ‘any-ah-gram) is known most widely for describing nine wildly different personality styles, each with its own internal blueprint that shapes one’s inner commentary, motivational drives, belief system, sense of self and of the external world, and which keep an individual operating on automatic. What is so helpful about this system is that, for each type, it explicitly describes recurring behavioral, thought, or emotional patterns which are usually invisible to the individual, and are a source of personal dissatisfaction. Each style also has incredible higher, shining qualities that are essential to a sense of wholeness, fulfillment and internal freedom. These qualities become more available as you identify and begin to release patterns associated with your blueprint and which no longer support you.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ENNEAGRAM TYPE FOUR
Do you find yourself riding an emotional roller-coaster? Perhaps you have spent a lot of your time and effort wanting other people to see who you are, to understand the depth of your experience, and to appreciate your uniqueness. At the end of the day, if you haven't been understood by others who are important in your life, you feel disappointed in yourself and them.
This is a part of the inner world of the Enneagram Type Four. Let's start with the Higher Aspects, the True Self, of this type.
The Higher Aspects of Type Four: Emotional Equanimity
People accessing the higher qualities of Type Four naturally experience emotional depth and balance. If this is your dominant type, you are probably drawn to creating and enjoying beauty. You have the capacity to tap into universal life themes and expressing them in a creative form. While you possess sensitivity to the emotional depths of the human experience, you have learned to balance that with an objective, rationale perspective. You find joy in bringing forth your gifts in a tangible way. And you feel good about yourself. (If this sounds almost impossible or brings up an emotional response, this can be a signal that you have at least some dimensions of this type within you.)
The Movement into the Personality of the Type Four
Early in life, each of us becomes disconnected or feels separate from the Higher Aspects of our type and elements of the the personality begins to gain prominence.
The Type Four Personality has been called The Individualist, The Romantic, The Connoisseur and The Special One. If this is your type, you may see yourself as emotionally honest. An area where individuals who are dominant in Type Four energy will put a lot of attention is in wanting to be acknowledged as unique and different. You might consider "being different" as positive, because being "average" or "ordinary" feels simply unacceptable. However, you may see being different as a way of feeling that something is missing in your life. I sometimes hear Type Four clients say, "I have always felt like I am missing a gene that everyone else got." You may feel that other people can't possibly understand you.
In this mode, you become less effective by: over-relying on your emotions as the basis of "truth" or reality. When your feelings "take over," it is easy for you to become absorbed by them and the quality of your life is greatly affected. This easily can turn into a state of inaction.
The Contribution of the Four Patterns to Imbalance and Stress
No wonder individuals who have an active Type Four personality pattern can feel depressed or exhausted. Fully experiencing and expressing all the possible feelings that show up in a day can take one out of the experience of realizing important life goals and leave one feeling isolated and unfulfilled.
The Path to Health and Balance
At some point, we must begin the journey back to the Higher Aspects of our type if we are to be healthy, whole and fulfilled. These Higher Aspects are always available to us whenever we release no-longer-useful thought, emotional and behavioral patterns. This 'letting go' begins to occur when it is no longer possible to sustain yourself using these patterns. This 'turning point' may occur as a natural part of a life transition (such as midlife transformation) or during a health crisis. It can also happen when you begin to notice that how you are approaching life is not working as well as you would like and decide that Now is the perfect time to try a new approach.
Using the Enneagram as a Tool for Increasing Emotional Balance
Below are some practices to help release patterns that do not support you and experience more lightness and balance.
Strengthen your relationship to your body
People who are dominant in Type Four patterns are normally disengaged or disconnected from their bodies. Therefore, it is useful to have a regular practice of mindful body movement, such as yoga or other forms of conscious physical activity.
Horseback riding, dance, aikido, pilates, and other forms of conscious exercise can also support you in getting back into your body. Here you can learn how to become grounded and centered, find balance and strengthen your relationship to others from a place of physicality.
Acknowledge your actual gifts and talents
Do you tend to forget about or minimize your assets, focusing on what you think is "missing?"
Notice that negative self-talk diminishes what you already have. You will find yourself feeling more powerful when you actually take meaningful action to use your talents in the world. How liberating it is to recognize that there really is nothing "missing" in you. You are more than sufficient.
Find the extraordinary in the ordinary
Fours tend to be attracted to the exotic. Notice if you overlook the amazing nature of what you may have thought of as ordinary. When we acknowledge what is already available and present in our lives, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, life changes.
Become interested in and engaged with others
Look for ways that you can learn about the lives of others. You may find yourself drawn to reach out to others.
This helps to shift your attention from yourself to a balanced and positive way of interacting.
Take on just one of these steps as a regular practice, and see what begins to shift in your life.
Roxanne Howe-Murphy, Ed.D., founder and principal of LifeWise Learning Institute, is an executive and (mid)life coach, teacher, retreat leader and author. She is the Director of the Enneagram Institute of the San Francisco Bay Area, and is on the faculty of the Core Strengths Coaching Program at San Francisco State University. She specializes in working with women in transition.Contact info:
www.lifewisecoaching.com and www.enneagramcalifornia.com
Roxanne@lifewisecoaching.com