What's Your Number? Understanding the Enneagram System of Personality by D. Patrick Miller

Author:D. Patrick Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: relationships, family, meditation, personality, enneagram, selfknowledge, awareness, coworkers
Publisher: D. Patrick Miller

Type 4: Tragic Romantic / Individualist

General Characteristics: Self-absorbed, creative, and dreamy, Fours often cut a distinctive and artistic figure in the world. They are perhaps the most readily identifiable type by their highly personalized, often romantic or flamboyant style of dress. Female Fours may favor long hair, colorful scarves, and romantic, floor-length dresses; male Fours may sport a cape, an old-fashioned vest, a long beard. New students of the Enneagram often gravitate to the Four as the type they’d most like to be, failing to appreciate that the distinctive style of this type usually veils an inner negativity about self-worth.

The inner world of Fours is vital to them, and so interesting that they often have trouble connecting to the outer world. Melancholia is a frequent mood, constituting what Palmer calls “an atmosphere of sweet regret. Like depression, it stems from a perception of loss, but here sadness is transformed into a mood of mistiness along bleak shores. Fours feel intensely alive in the shifting emotional mists; nothing is permanent because one’s mood may shift tomorrow.”

Riso, who is a Four, admits “they just can’t get things done sometimes. They have a hard time with deadlines, and they can be unreliable. The more Fours are ruled by their feelings, the more other people around them will see them as rather strange and unpredictable.” Riso adds that his predominant image of the Four is that of “a gardener in a beautiful, secret walled garden. Other people can see in only if they look through tiny peepholes in the walls. It’s the rare stranger who takes the time to peer in and appreciate the unique beauty of the garden who wins the Four’s heart.”

When highly developed, Fours are inspired and creative, using their instinctive desire to connect with their deep inner self to fashion compelling works of personal expression. Their well-developed intimacy also helps them connect with the inner lives and concerns of others. At their worst, Fours are self-absorbed, moody, elitist in attitude, and prone to depression.

Examples: The evocative and often melancholy music of the contemporary Irish musician Enya is a classic example of Four artistic expression. Other probable exemplars include Martha Graham, Virginia Woolf, Marlon Brando, Rudolf Nureyev, and the singer Lorde.

Problems in Relationship: Riso says that Fours tend to display “dreaminess to the point of distraction. They prefer to keep you at arm’s length because it enhances their own unavailable, mysterious quality. They like to be a little unattainable.” At the same time, suggests Palmer, Fours may make other people feel defective “because you’re never enough for them, at least close up. At a distance, they’ll praise and value you; as their praise draws you closer, they’ll see more defects in you and become petulant or dissatisfied. The real person is never as good as their fantasy.”

How to Relate to a Four: If you feel distanced or judged unworthy by a Four, remember what Palmer says the Four feels internally: “I was abandoned early in life because I wasn’t good enough; how sad.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.