One Stop Enneagram Spot

Basic Fear: Of being without identity, meaning, personal significance.

Basic Desire: To be oneself, to find themselves and their significance, to create an identity out of their experience.

Superego Message: "You are good or okay if you are true to yourself."

Wanting to be oneself; to find, know, and have a solid feeling of who you are; to find what makes you special, what makes you you, and what your personal purpose is is not a bad thing on its own. Not very many people are going to want to feel like they don't know themselves and that their existence has no meaning, personal or otherwise.

The problem with Fours, as with any other type, is that the personality compulsively pushes these wishes way too far.

Let's analyze the possible trains of thought this Fear/Desire pair gives rise to as they chug on through our brain stations.

Wanting to feel that you're true to yourself, that you've forged a personal identity from what you've gone through in life, that your life has its own personal purpose often lead to Fours feeling or being different, unique, or special when compared to others. After all, if your life has its own personal purpose or significance, then your reason for existence surely can't be the same as another person's, can it? If each life has a different, unique reason for being here, then it would be an insult for your meaning to be similar to another's...wouldn't it?

Fours often base their identity at least partially on their differences and, as a result, can often feel threatened when they feel as though someone else is encroaching upon their "special" status or territory. They may begin to avoid that person, or even silently resent them. They may also retreat into "rejection mode." Basing your identity on the ways that you are different from others often means rejecting certain things or feelings while holding on to others. ("No, that fleeting thought/feeling I just had is not me. I'm not X." or "Yeah, she's into X, but I'm into adifferent kind of X.")

The thoughts and feelings that are held on to can be used as the building blocks of a Four's sense of self, which can cause the Four great torment if the "building blocks" they choose to use are harmful to them. By incorporating these harmful elements into their very being, it can be that much harder for Fours to truly deal with them. Note here that "dealing with" and "facing" are two different things. Fours often face their pains and other feelings if incorporated into their identity, but they don't often actively try to work through and make peace with those things. After all, those feelings might disappear if their causes are dealt with, and then the Four's identity would be lacking one of its structural beams. Better to just hold on to what makes you you rather than losing yourself...right?

To that, I have to say that yes, your hurts are real, and yes, they are a part of you, but they're not all of you. Realize that you can deal with your hurts and work through them without losing them and what they meant to you.

Basic Fear: Of being worthless, without inherent value, without value apart from their achievements.

Basic Desire: To be valuable, to feel accepted, worthwhile, admired, and desirable.

Superego Message: "You are good or okay as long as you are successful and others think well of you."

Wanting to be valued and feel accepted by others, to be liked by them, to be "worth it" in their eyes (whatever "it" may be) is not a bad thing on its own. Not many people are going to want to feel like they valueless, like they're nothing, either.

The problem with Threes, as with any other type, is that the personality compulsively pushes these wishes way too far.

Let's analyze some of the pathways and trains of thought this Fear/Desire pair could take us down if it was compulsively pulling at us.

The desire to be valued by others, when combined with the fear of being worthless (read: "un-valued") leads to the creation of a person that is very dependent on the people in the world around them, specifically on their opinions. Now, for someone who craves the attention, admiration, and awe of others, what is the best possible thing you can be? Just by looking at the world, one can see that the famous people, the outstanding ones, the people that are talked about, looked up to, put on a pedestal, all of them excel in some way. Whether they've earned it or not, they are successful.

Now, while just meeting the requirements of a project can be considered a "success," only doing the bare minimum of anything probably won't turn very many heads in one's direction. No, if you want admiration and adoration, you can't be average. You need to stun them with your excellence and put on a good show doing it. Thus, many Threes strive for success to excess, often choosing "perfection" as their goal.

I should make another note here about typing based on traits (because repetition is fun!). While personality traits can be useful in helping narrow down one's type, remember that traits are just traits, not type. The Enneagram types all have reasons for their behavior, reasons why different traits manifest themselves at different times. Please, when typing,look for those reasons, not for "Oh, well they're happy so they must be Type X."

For example, both a One and a Three might describe themselves as being perfectionistic. They may talk about how being perfect is a very big deal to them. How startlingly similar they must seem at first glance! Then we look at the reason they both want to be perfect.

The One may want to be perfect because if they are not, then they might resent themselves for doing such a slack (read: not-good) job, which would undermine their need to be "good."

The Three may want to be perfect (or maybe just appear perfect to those around them) because hey, you can't do any better, you're number one, you're the best around no one's gonna ever bring you down. No one can dare to call you a nobody or not give you the attention you deserve if you're the very best, like no one ever was...Right?

So, what is success? Like almost every word in existence, "success" conjures up a different mental image within each of us. For some, success is acquiring massive amounts of material wealth. For others, success lies within the world of scholars and ideas. Regardless of who we are, all of us have some sort of image inside of us of what success is. This image is especially powerful to a Three, often becoming the Three's ultimate goal and the chains that bind them, as it takes much energy to sustain such an image. (Image is kind of a thing with Threes.)

Hey, all! It's been a while. Thanks for following and helping this little blog grow bit by bit. Something was up with the queue, so it's been dealt with. Enjoy the backlog of posts that will be popping up here in the next couple of days as they trickle in like sweet textual syrup on your brain pancakes. As always, I encourage you all to feel free to submit things, ask questions, SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS, and all that jazz.

Some things to be on the lookout for soon here:

The backlog of Fear/Desire posts.

The "vices" of each type.

Maybe a pretty picture or two. I'm feeling a little wild and crazy.

Basic Fear: Of being unloved, unworthy of being loved, unwanted for themselves alone.

Basic Desire: To be loved, to feel loved.

Superego Message: "You are good or okay if you are loved by others and are close to them."

Wanting to be loved, to be cared about, to matter and be a part of the lives of the people in your life is not a bad thing on its own. I'm guessing not many people would want to feel like they don't matter or like they don't deserve to be loved in any sense of the word by others.

The problem with Twos, as with any other type, is that the personality compulsively pushes these wishes way too far.

There are a few lines of thought that this Fear/Desire pair could take us down. Let's explore them. Briefly. Aww yeah, things are about to get all bold and orderly up in here.

When is being loved "enough?"

I suppose I could also phrase this as,"When do you know you're cared about enough?" The people in our lives all mean something to us in different ways and in different amounts. Some people matter more and are more important to us and our lives than others. These differing levels of importance, of closeness, are the difference between the people you like and the people you love (be it platonic, romantic, etc.). Twos want to be loved, they want to be near the top, if not at the top, of these "closeness lists," they want to matter to the people in their lives. How do you know when you've neared the top of someone's list? How do you know when someone loves you instead of likes you?

Surely the closer you are to someone, the more they care about you, right? So what's the closest you can be to someone? Since a symbiotic relationship isn't an option for most of us, Twos have to shoot a step or few lower and be needed. It's one thing to have someone want you around them, but having them need you sounds like so much more. To be so important to someone that they can't live without you, so close to them that it's almost like you're a part of them because they can't afford to lose you. That is being needed.

There's a problem with this line of thinking, though. If people survived and got along just fine without you before, then what changed for them to suddenly need you? If you were to distance yourself from someone who "needs" you for quite a while, would they still survive without you? Signs point to yes. If you can survive without something in your life, is it still a need? Are you actually "needed" or are you just deluding yourself into thinking that way?

Being "needed" does not always equal being "loved." Think about the basic things you need to survive. Food. Water. Yes, you need these things. Now think about the things in life you enjoy, your "wants." Hobbies. Interests. Friends. Which of these things do you "love" more?

What happens when you're unwanted for yourself alone?

Part of the Two's Basic Fear is of being unwanted just for who they are. Combine that with the Desire to feel loved and you've got a rather surly shoot-yourself-in the foot psychological cocktail. (Just like every other Fear/Desire pair! They should really just start calling these things nasty personality drink recipes. Or something more clever.) If you feel that the people around you don't want you for what you are naturally, but you compulsively need their love, then the logical jump to be made is to start trying to be what the people around you want to earn their love.

What type do I sound like?

Ahaha to be honest, I'm not entirely sure at the moment. I have and have had some ideas and moments where I was "sure" in the past, but you've caught me at a time where I'm severely and seriously going through and reconsidering everything. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm So/Sx.

Basic Fear: Of being bad, corrupt, evil, or defective.

Basic Desire: To be good, virtuous, to do what's right, to have integrity.

Superego Message: "You are good or okay if you do what is right."

Wanting to be a good person and do the right thing is not a bad thing on its own. I'm sure that not very many people actively want to be bad people either.

The problem with Ones, as with any other type, is that the personality compulsively pushes these wishes way too far.

Ones want more than anything to be "good," but how do they know when is good good enough? Surely objectively we can all agree that perfection, a state completely without fault or defect, is the "goodest" possible state anything can attain. Being as good as possible, being perfect, must be good enough then...right? It is lines of thinking like this one that cause Ones to become critical and perfectionistic.

Ones often see the world and everything in it as a place that can always be improved. ("Not good enough! Things can be better!") They can be very critical of themselves and others.

(At this point I'd like to mention that while someone's traits and behaviors can be useful for helping you type, it's also important to look at why they are behaving that way. Completely different types can share traits and look similar. For example, Ones tend to be very critical of themselves because of their need to be "good" or better than they are now ("There's always something to be done!"), while a Four may be critical for failing to match up to the idealized "fantasy self" that some Fours make up in their heads.

The problem with perfect is that the idea of perfect is clear to everyone, but the idea of what perfect is is subjective and varies from person to person. Debbie from down the block may think that a certain painting would be perfect with just a little more red in it, while Mark may think the painting needs more blue to be just right. Both of these "perfects" are "true" in that each person believes them to be true. A problem I've noticed with some Ones in daily life is that when they see themselves or their actions as being "right" about something, they can get very stubborn and angry and stick behind their belief in being right, regardless of whether or not they actually are.

Now that we've talked about Ones and their relation to being "good," what about things they see in themselves that are "bad?" What happens to those? Fleeting thoughts, "dirty" desires, "ugly" personality traits, and other "bad" things are all roped in and severely repressed by the One so that they can't interfere with the One's operating in the world and "corrupt" their actions. Ones can seem very stoic and uptight as a result of their repression, although they may not see themselves in this way.

Each type has a different Basic Fear, which can be seen as either a sort of worst case scenario for the type, or an underlying, powerful source of anxiety that tugs at each type. If you feel as though you relate to all of these fears, that's alright, you actually probably should. These fears are universal, all stemming from a basic fear of what is essentially annihilation, and so they should be recognizable within all of us to some extent. You will probably find, however, that one of these fears is backing your behavior and pushing you to a much greater extent than the others.

The Basic Desire is basically your personality type's compulsive, immediate defense against the dark arts awful, nagging energy of the basic fear. The Desires are, much like the Fears, universal. They're all legitimate human needs but again, like the fears, one of these desires will be pulling you along much more than the others. The Basic Desire is sort of like your personality type's ultimate goal, a point that, when "reached," is when your personality finally deems it okay to release you from its stranglehold and be present. Until your personality believes you to have attained its Basic Desire, it will continue to trap you within the array of ego defenses it has built up to keep you compulsively pursuing your type's Basic Desire.

The problem with these Basic Desires is that they are not easy states to attain and maintain, at least not when one is trapped within their personality. Remember, one of the most basic teachings of the Enneagram is that you are more than your personality. The Enneagram is here to help you recognize the patterns, traps, and pitfalls of your type in order to help you grow out of the trap of "Personality" and reawaken and reconnect to your basic "Essence." Realizing your type is only the first step. Using newfound knowledge and understanding of your type to help you grow, change, and ultimately break free from the shackles of personality is what this Enneagram jazz is all about.

TL;DR:

Hey all, thanks for following. We're still remodeling as you can see, but we've made some upgrades (namely turning on the ask box) and are now fully functional! Well, mostly functional.

Some things to be on the lookout for soon here:

A "links" section full of cool little web resources that we think don't completely suck.

The Basic Fears and Desires of each type, along with some rambling extrapolation on each one.

Information on each type's core "vice."

1: The Picky Critical One, The One Who Has Such High Standards That No One Could Ever Meet Them Like Woah There They're Higher Than Like The Sun That's Pretty High Come On Guy

2: The Needy Wench, The One Who Focuses On Others So Much That They Seriously Forget They Are A Person With Needs Too Like Come On You Are Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

3: The Lying Self-Promoter, The One Who Can't Stop Thinking About How They Can Look Better For Like Five Seconds Of The Day Seriously No One's Around Dude Stop Trying

4: The Melodramatic Diva, The Moody Sensitive One That No One Understands No Mom I'm In My Room For A Reason Gosh You Just Don't Understand Sniff Sniff

5: The Extreme Space Cadet Like Seriously They Are Not In The Same Galaxy Anymore, The Cold Emotionless One

6: The Shifty-eyed Sheep, The Guy Who Seriously Just Needs To Take A Chill Pill Like Come On Your Hyperventilating Is Making Me Hyperventilate And I'm Like Two Blocks Away

7: The Hyperactive Eternal Child, The One Who Needs To Slow Down Like I Get It Always On The Go But Come On Seriously Stop Running Away From Negativity Don't You Ever Get Tired

8: The Explosive Prick, That Bully From Like Third Grade That Had A Soft Gooey Interior And By Interior I Mean His Emotions And Stuff Like The Heart Of A Very Defensive Poet Or Something

1: The Reformer, The Perfectionist, The Judge

2: The Helper, The Giver, The Manipulator

3: The Achiever, The Performer, The Status Seeker

4: The Individualist, The Tragic Romantic, The Sensitive One

5: The Investigator, The Observer, The Thinker

6: The Loyalist, The Devil's Advocate, The Loyal Skeptic

7: The Enthusiast, The Epicure, The Escapist

8: The Challenger, The Boss, The Intimidator

9: The Peacemaker, The Mediator, The Abidcator