Hollywoodland

“I am unique”

Romantics have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me. (Please and thank you!)
• (Your mission, should you choose to accept it…) Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision. (Because they’re many and varied. And modesty is chief among them. )
• Though I don’t always want to be cheered up when I’m feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little. (And I don’t mean by a spotlight, thankyouverymuch. )
• Don’t tell me I’m too sensitive or that I’m overreacting! (Or I’ll be forced to smack you! )

What I Like About Being a Four

• my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level (All I’m feeling at the moment is a lot of pain. )
• my ability to establish warm connections with people (Because everyone loves me!)
• admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• my creativity (Which has gone walkabout…), intuition, and sense of humor
• being unique and being seen as unique by others (Is that another way of saying I’m weird?)
• having aesthetic sensibilities (To quote Temperance Brennan on BONES, I don’t know what that means…)
• being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me (Because I am psychic, you know. )

What’s Hard About Being a Four

• experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don’t deserve to be loved
• feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• expecting too much from myself and life
• fearing being abandoned (Please don’t leave me!!!!!)
• obsessing over resentments (So don’t piss me off, ‘kay? I have enough to obsess over as it is, thanks.)
• longing for what I don’t have (Books on the best seller lists, lots of money, a hunky chauffeur to drive me around in my collection of classic cars… The list could go on and on. But since I’m a kind and wonderful friend, I’ll spare you. )

Fours as Children Often

• have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games (I had an invisible collie named Lassie when I was four. But I don’t understand why everyone thinks she was imaginary…)
• are very sensitive (Am not!)
• feel that they don’t fit in (Boy, howdy! Talk about an understatement!)
• believe they are missing something that other people have (Books on the best seller lists, lots of money, a hunky chauffeur to drive me around in my collection of classic cars… )
• attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc. (Geez. Makes me sound like a stalker.)
• become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood (Yep! I talk an amazing good fight. )
• feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents’ divorce)

Fours as Parents (Well, I’m not a parent, so this doesn’t really apply, but I’m sure if I was it would all be true…)

• help their children become who they really are
• support their children’s creativity and originality
• are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele

The Enneagram Made Easy
Discover the 9 Types of People
HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages