I am beginning to observe a subtle modus operandi in my interpersonal conduct.. That is, I abandon, before I am abandoned. It is intrinsic to type 4s I suppose. 4s withdraw, rather than allow themselves to be vulnerable. I should change. The enneagram is awesome. Let me explain the fundamental ideas.

When you were a baby, you were whole and complete. Your consciousness doesn’t differentiate the outer reality from your inner reality, so that, as siddarthaesque as this sound, you are one with the world – in fact you feel that you’re in the centre of the universe. This psychic state is formed because the world supplies your need in the form of a caregiver that magically appears to placate you whenever you cry/wet yourself etc. So think of it as a romantic bond with a world that nourishes you unconditionally. Frustration enters the picture, however, when these needs are not met immediately, in the event where the caregiver is absent for a relatively long duration. Subsequently your ego (the thinking, feeling, experiencing “i”. Or simply, the centre of your personality) is created as a means to compensate for this deficiency in feeling loved. Self-consciousness arises, and is split into 9 types (as featured on the enneagram) and implanted into each individual. Depending on your intrinsic energy (genes) coupled with your caregiver’s personality, your ego becomes anchored on a particular type, known as your primary orientation. The ego is the infant’s strategy to regain the unity and wholeness that has been reduced to an unconscious memory. It is also a lens through which we structure reality. Each type of the ego differ in their basic desire, basic fear, sin, virtue, and holy idea. Another link (click on your type at the top and click riso and hudson “Understanding E-gram at the sidebar)

Basically, your ego is delusory. It is an entrapment that forces you to view your identity myopically, and prevents you from tapping into the strengths of the nine types that are innately available within you. Rather than asking an individual to assert his/her type, the enneagram teaches him/her to overcome the fixations and sins of each type through specific steps tailored for the 9 orientations.

read about it in detail here (scroll to “The Centers and the Paths of Transformation”)

As you forgo your shadow (which should not be mistaken as forsaking your individuality, instead, you lay the ground for the expansion of your identity), you integrate, or become actualized. This is achieved when you adopt the strengths of your integration points (for 4s, they integrate by becoming more principled like 1s). When this happens, you move upward along the nine health levels of each type (google it yourself). You can disintegrate as well (4s disintegrate to become like needy 2s). These relationships are directed by the arrows on the enneagram. Eventually, as a type 4 integrate from 4 to 1 to 7 to 5 to 8 to 2, your personality becomes fluid, and you have acheived the human potential by drawing on strengths of the other types to confront different situations. You’ll basically become the avatar. BUT, no one, in a single lifetime has ever undergone the full circle integration, and most are more than contented with having reached their immediate stage of integration that promises a healthier worldview.

There are more specific classifications involved such as your wing (which immediate neighbouring type influences your personality the most) as well as your universal instinctual subtype (self-preservation, social, or sexual). These mesh with your primary orientation to give more combinations. (52 in total i think)

I wanted to share this because it really helped me. And rather than stop at understanding yourself; informing your friends about your type and understanding your friends’ types can ultimately foster symbiotic relationships where each individual is able to help another to grow.. instead of exasperating one another. So friends, go unlock your chakras.

Best type descriptor I found so far
And here’s the Wings descriptor.

phew,
Vbec.