"...and add to this, that I taste a false sweetness in everything I suffer from. This sad state of soul is for me an abundance of pains, misery, and terror, an open path to despair....And the crowning point of all woes is that I feed with a certain silent lustfulness on my tears and pains and only against my will do I tear myself away from them."
-Petrarch
-Petrarch
The Enneagram was used in the Middle East as early as 800BCE as a spiritual practice. It was later refined by Christian and Sufi (mystic sect of Islam) ascetics. It's a 9-pointed personality "guide" - although the Sufis referred to it as the "9 Faces of God" or the "9 Faces of the Soul."
I'd give you a link to a test of some sort, but they fall short. In the true spiritual nature of the Enneagram, one is supposed to read and reflect on each of the 9 types before self-identifying with one of them. I shall leave you, dear readers, to discover the nine types on your own!
Anyway, I love that quote. It perfectly and beautifully describes the vice (or sin, if you will) of my 'type' - number Four. "Melancholy is the joy of being sad."
As I read more about the Enneagram, it allows me to develop a certain patience and temperance for others. The key to compassionate empathy (at least to me) is acknowledging how damaged we all are. Then we begin to learn how to heal and break old patterns of responses to our core personalities. I don't think you can change your core, but I do think you can change how you respond to it.
5 comments:
ah eric. this is *precisely* what i needed reminded of tonight, oh dear fellow four. thank you, comrade. thank you.
I worked for a priest once, who was a 4. I'm a 2. A friend brought us a book once on working relationships between the various positions on the Enneagram. I was to remember that he always expected to be abandoned. And he was to remember that I believed everything was always my fault.
Mmm....yes. I have a thing for Twos - we just seem to "get" each other. My mom is a Two.
Thanks Tamie :)
Hey Eric, thanks for introducing me to enneagrams. It has been interesting to see how my relationships with friends have been and how they relate the enneagrams as well.
I've been thinking about it, and what I was supposed to remember about the 4 was that, "He is moody". And I would look at that and know it was all my fault. Ugh. It did get better when we started paying attention to those things.
I know that 2's, in trouble, tend to move towards 4-ness. I forget which direction we move in when we're well. Thanks, Eric.
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