The Enneagram - Type 6 (The Loyalist)
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Sixth of a 9 part series highlighting the Enneagram. Others in the series are:
The Enneagram - Type 9 (The Mediator) (GC2E134)
The Enneagram - Type 8 (The Boss)(GC2DBY6)
The Enneagram - Type 7 (The Enthusiast)(GC2DBXC)
The Enneagram - Type 5 (The Observer) (GC2DA49)
The Enneagram - Type 4 (The Tragic Romantic) (GC2DA10)
The Enneagram - Type 3 (The Performer) (GC2D9N3)
The Enneagram - Type 2 (The Giver) (GC2D8RM)
The Enneagram - Type 1 (The Perfectionist) (GC2CZKJ)
The Enneagram ("ennea" means "nine") has roots going back to ancient Sufi mysticism, & describes 9 different personality types & their interrelationships. It helps us understand our own type & how to cope with our issues; understand our work associates, family & friends; and to appreciate the predisposition that each type has for higher human capacities such as empathy, omniscience & love.
The Enneagram was popularized by the Jesuit order in the 20th century. It is a personality typing system (similar to, but quite different from, the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators). Each person is one of nine different and distinctive types, though all of us have characteristics found in each of the types. I am a 9, for example. Discovering this, and working with it, has been very informative and helpful to me.
While it's uncertain whether one's type is genetically determined, many believe it is already in place at birth. Enneagram authors have attached their own individual names to these numbers. Helen Palmer for example names them: 1. The Perfectionist; 2. The Giver; 3. The Performer; 4. The Tragic Romantic; 5. The Observer; 6. The Devil's Advocate; 7. The Epicure; 8. The Boss; 9. The Mediator. People of a particular type have numerous characteristics in common, but they can be quite different. It depends, among other things, on each person's level of mental and emotional health. Unhealthy (neurotic) people from a particular type can appear to be quite different from healthy ones of the same type.
For more in-depth information go to my now archived cache "The Enneagram (overview) GC8A196
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Type 6 - THE LOYALIST
The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
Type Six in Brief Sixes are reliable, hard-working, responsible & trustworthy. Excellent "troubleshooters," they foresee problems and foster cooperation, but can also become defensive, evasive, and anxious—running on stress while complaining about it. They can be cautious and indecisive, but also reactive, defiant and rebellious. They typically have problems with self-doubt and suspicion. At their Best: internally stable and self-reliant, courageously championing themselves and others.
Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance Basic Desire: To have security and support Key Motivations: Want to have security, to feel supported by others, to have certitude and reassurance, to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity.
Examples: Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Princess Diana, George H. W. Bush, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Candice Bergen, Meg Ryan, Helen Hunt, Mel Gibson, Patrick Swayze, Julia Roberts, Phil Donahue, Jay Leno, John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Woody Allen, David Letterman, Andy Rooney, Jessica Lange, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, and "George Costanza" (Seinfeld).
Type Six Overview
Sixes are the most loyal to their friends and to their beliefs. They will “go down with the ship” and hang on to relationships of all kinds far longer than most other types. Sixes are also loyal to ideas, systems, and beliefs—even to the belief that all ideas or authorities should be questioned or defied. Indeed, not all Sixes go along with the “status quo”: their beliefs may be rebellious and anti-authoritarian, even revolutionary. In any case, they will typically fight for their beliefs more fiercely than they will fight for themselves, and they will defend their community or family more tenaciously than they will defend themselves.
The reason Sixes are so loyal to others is that they do not want to be abandoned and left without support—their Basic Fear. Thus, the central issue for type Six is a failure of self-confidence. Sixes come to believe that they do not possess the internal resources to handle life’s challenges and vagaries alone, and so increasingly rely on structures, allies, beliefs, and supports outside themselves for guidance to survive. If suitable structures do not exist, they will help create and maintain them. Sixes do not have confidence in their own minds and judgments. This does not mean that they do not think. On the contrary, they think—and worry—a lot! They also tend to fear making important decisions, although at the same time, they resist having anyone else make decisions for them. They want to avoid being controlled, but are also afraid of taking responsibility in a way that might put them “in the line of fire.”
Sixes are always aware of their anxieties and are always looking for ways to construct “social security” bulwarks against them. If Sixes feel that they have sufficient back up, they can move forward with some degree of confidence. But if that crumbles, they become anxious and self-doubting. Without Essential inner guidance and the deep sense of support that it brings, Sixes are constantly struggling to find firm ground. Sixes attempt to build a network of trust over a background of unsteadiness and fear. They are often filled with a nameless anxiety and then try to find or create reasons why. Wanting to feel that there is something solid and clear-cut in their lives, they can become attached to explanations or positions that seem to explain their situation. Because “belief” (trust, faith, convictions, positions) is difficult for Sixes to achieve, and because it is so important to their sense of stability, once they establish a trustworthy belief, they do not easily question it, nor do they want others to do so.
The same is true for individuals in a Six’s life: once Sixes feel they can trust someone, they go to great lengths to maintain connections with the person who acts as a sounding board, a mentor, or a regulator for the Six’s emotional reactions and behavior. They therefore do everything in their power to keep their affiliations going. Until they can get in touch with their own inner guidance, Sixes are like a ping-pong ball that is constantly shuttling back and forth between whatever influence is hitting the hardest in any given moment. Because of this reactivity, no matter what we say about Sixes, the opposite is often also as true. They are both strong and weak, fearful and courageous, trusting and distrusting, defenders and provokers, sweet and sour, aggressive and passive, bullies and weaklings, on the defensive and on the offensive, thinkers and doers, group people and soloists, believers and doubters, cooperative and obstructionistic, tender and mean, generous and petty—and on and on. It is the contradictory picture that is the characteristic “fingerprint” of Sixes, the fact that they are a bundle of opposites.
The biggest problem for Sixes is that they try to build safety in the environment without resolving their own emotional insecurities. When they learn to face their anxieties, however, Sixes understand that although the world is always changing and is, by nature uncertain, they can be serene and courageous in any circumstance. And they can attain the greatest gift of all, a sense of peace with themselves despite the uncertainties of life.
(from The Wisdom of the Enneagram, p. 235-236) To take a short test to discern your Enneagram type click here: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/dis_sample_36.asp
Congratulations to NozyRN and MiniMartin Warriors for being First to Find
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