The enneagram : understanding yourself and the others in your life by Palmer Helen

Author:Palmer, Helen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Enneagram
ISBN: 0062122959
Publisher: [San Francisco] : HarperSanFrancisco
Published: 1991-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

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tarl I k ; wn on a friend.re them for being stupid, or IOnce the idea takes hold that1 up, I want to leave the room,and they seem so predictablesmall-minded, how lacking

in breadth. Or I'll bury their objection with two or three argumentsfrom an opposite point of view.

When they seem particularly stupid and hopeless, I know enoughto take another look. How could a good friend suddenly look that bad?How could I be contemptuous of someone who only yesterday seemedso smart? What comes up is that if I'm not totally right, then I mustbe totally off; and then I'm left with seeing them as reallv superior andmyself as nothing in my own eves.

Self-worth can be inflated by chronic indulgence in "the bestthings to do/' It is diagnostic of a Seven in trouble that the mindbegins to race. When Sevens line up activities back to back,leaving no time in between "the components of an interestinglife." When attention flits compulsively between several inter-esting options, a Seven is on the run.

I could never figure out how people fell into a career. How did theyknow what they wanted to be? The closest I could get was the proto-type Renaissance man. Excellence in every way. Everything I tried sug-gested another great possibility, an untried approach, a brilliant idea.

I worked myself from religion to Middle Eastern studies as a majorand finally graduated with over fifty more units than I could use. Thedissertation spanned three disciplines and would have spread out in-definitely if my committee hadn't narrowed the topic down.

I almost dropped out when I had to submit the manuscript. Thetyped pages looked so insignificant in comparison to what I thoughtthey'd be. It didn't matter one bit that I got an honors grade: the secretwas out that I had needed the committee's help, that my paper hadn'trocked the academic world, and that I was a doctor of obscura, ratherthan the genius I believed myself to be.

Relationship to Authority

Sevens want to equalize authority, preferring an arrangementwhere there is no one above them and no one below them. Atthe outset authorities are just people, to whom the Seven feelsinnately superior and who often respond to the Seven's well-articulated views. But the reality is that Epicures are fear types

who move forward into pleasant contact as a way of disarmingauthority's control. They will usually become fiercely antiau-thoritarian if their freedoms are curtailed in any way. The powerof a petty authority is automatically minimized. Sevens will as-sume that they can talk their way around anybody who hap-pens to get in the way.

On the high side of an authority interaction, Sevens are greatat raising the mood of a group. They have pleasant disposi-tions, know enough about everything to pretend that theyknow more, and speak well. They will stay with positive

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