Re: Enneatype: Defense Mechanism?

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: : You're making the erroneous assumption that it's possible for one's true : : motivations to change so drastically. It's not. Example: Freddy tests : : highest in Two (basic fear: being unloved), second-highest in Six (basic : : fear: being abandoned). Gradually he overcomes his fear of being unloved. : : Does that mean he has become a Six? No, it means he has become a healthy : : Two. Or it means that he was really a Six all along, because it was so : : easy for him to overcome the one fear (perhaps not really his most basic : : fear) but not the other. : : You aren't going to suffer from one fear, overcome it, then start : : suffering from a completely different one. If it seems like you have, they : : are probably just different aspects of the SAME fear. : : : : : In my own case, by all accounts I used to BE a 5. I felt like a 5, acted like : : : a 5, and everyone else could instantly identify me as a 5. Now I test as a 4, : : : and it feels right--it describes me, the way I am now, much better than 5 does. : : : And all my friends can see how much I've changed and moved towards 4. Has my : : : type not changed, even though my personality and motivations have? Have I : : : spent my life as a 4 in 5's cloting? : : That is actually the most likely explanation. Try this scenario on for : : size: You grow up with an amount of uncertainty about your true identity, : : groping for a sense of self. You have intellectual leanings, and in a : : society that likes to categorize anyone with such leanings as a "brain," : : that's the image that people seize on, because the "real you" is rather : : more impenetrable. To get along in the world, you take on that role : : yourself, but you're never completely comfortable in it; it represents a : : side of your personality but not your personality as a whole. Nevertheless : : you stick with it because everyone has to be SOMETHING -- the idea that : : there might be a whole "something" of people who aren't any other : : "something," who just don't fit into the simple scheme, isn't common : : currency -- and this "something" seems more true for you than any other : : "something" you're aware of. Then you get involved with the enneagram, : : start addressing some of the issues you have around this personality : : (which you now know to call "Five"), find them relatively easy to deal : : with -- and then, lo and behold, discover that your true "something" wasn't : : Five at all but Four, a "something" that goes almost completely : : unacknowledged in society at large. : : Has your type changed? No. Has your PERSONALITY changed? No. Only your : : conception of what it's possible for you to be has changed. : Now it makes a whole lot of sense. I can certainly see how I was "pushed" towards : 5 as a child: my father was a very technical, unemotional computer consultant; : I did very well in school to the point of being bored by the mind-numbing : repetition in my classes. : I've read some type descriptions of what 5's are like as children and they were : eerily accurate, so I guess I had assumed this meant I was a 5. Apparently : just because I grew up in that role, doesn't mean I really belonged there. I : can certainly see how I grabbed on to technical things, and became someone : who tried desperately to understand the outside world. And it's painfully : obvious how I shut off my emotional side to avoid being hurt more than I was, : and regressed deeper into that 5 role. : Of course, now I'm working as a Computer Engineer, surrounded by 1's and 5's, : wondering what I'm doing sitting in front of this workstation all day. The more : I think about it, the less it seems to fit. : Thank you everyone for your input. : - Hal -

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