Type 4: Romantics, Individualists, Artists

“You’re definitely a 4,” Raycita typed to me one night on yahoo messenger.

“What is that?”

“We’re studying it in school. It’s the Enneagram. The 9 personality types and you are a 4. The Artist.”

“What are you?”

“I’m an 8. A Challenger.”

“So what is the chief characteristic of a 4?”

“Umm..Doesn’t believe rules apply to them. Withdrawal into Fantasy Self.”

“Damn! That sounds like me!”

Once I got to Cali I begged Raycita to let me borrow her book on the subject but I wish I hadn’t.

Here I am thinking that I am so unique and special and mysterious and gifted that no one could possibly understand my mission on this earth and that is exactly why I have not found love yet because no man can handle me and no man can understand who I am or where I am going.

And then I read this:

Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings and consequently that no one can understand them or love them adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, posessing special, one of a kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or flawed. Fours are acutely aware of and focused on their personal differences and deficiencies.

Healthy fours are honest with themselves; they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover but they do not try to rationalize their states nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others.

Healthy fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience- so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history.

Relationship problems arise because fours are often romantically involved with people who have qualities that fours admire and or want in themselves, but then end up envying or resenting the loved one for having the quality.

Idealizing the other can quickly shift to rejecting them for their slightest flaws. At the same time, fours are often attracted to people who are, for some reason or another, unavailable.

They spend a great amount of time longing to have the desirable other to themselves and destesting anyone who has the other’s attention.

Fours feel that the rules of ordinary life do not apply to them. “I do what I want to do when and how I want to do it.” Thus they can be privately grandiose, imagining that, becaue of their great, undiscovered talent, they deserve to be treated better than ordinary people. They feel exempt from the laws of society, dismissive of rules and regulations and contemptuous of any constraints, particularly regarding their feelings.

Ex: My sense of entitlement comes from thinking of myself as superior and unusually sensitive, so I shouldn’t be expected to do what mere mortals have to do, especially when it’s aesthetically distasteful. But my sense of entitlement also has to do with feeling just the opposite about myself- that I am inferior and incapacitated in some way, totally unable to be successful at everyday abilities that most people take for granted like holding down a regular job or having a steady, satisfying relationship.

As adults, fours seem to see everyone as stable and normal while feeling that they are flawed or at best, unfinished.

When fours become deeply identified with their Fantasy Self, they tend to repel any kind of interference with their lifestyle choices., interpreting suggestions from others as unwelcome or intrusiveness or heavy handed pressure.

I could go on but I’m blowed…

Who is this man who wrote this book called The Wisdom Of the Enneagram?

While a lot of this personality type blew the lid off the mystery of me, a lot of it was untrue as well, like the negative brooding and envious nature of the four.

Well…I’m rarely envious because I believe everyone is special so there’s no reason for me to be mad that someone else has displayed special qualities. But I used to be brooding and negative and compared myself unfavorable to everyone around me. Yes, I used to be that way until I read THE GAME OF LIFE.

Grasping onto the teachings in that book single handedly took me from a fearful state, anxious, allowing other people’s fears to sway me- and transformed me into a living, breathing SHINING STAR.

I am fearless. I love everyone. I love myself and I only expect wonderful beautiful things to happen to me since I make a habit of blessing others and praising their strengths. I always receive it in return.

I thank God for showing me who I am so that I can finally rest in my quest to understand myself.

Reading this book from Raycita brought me peace. Now I know that I am not such an enigma after all. I am not alone.

It’s okay to examine myself, believe for the best and be confused sometimes about everything. I’m human. I may be a Mom but I’m entitled to have emotions too. I’m entitled to BE ME.

Now I feel like I can relax a little but more.

Thanks God for showing me this book and thanks for giving me THE GAME OF LIFE.

It changed my life!