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Thread: How Enneagram Types Pay Attention

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  1. #1
    Creepy-female

    Default How Enneagram Types Pay Attention

    Excerpts from Helen Palmer's book "The Enneagram" that I'm sharing here for you. I plan to create another thread which contains descriptions of various enneagram relationships.

    Note: It has been brought to my attention that posting these excerpts might in the worst case induce a copyright claim. I posted this material for individual learning purposes only. I am ready to remove them should posting them prove violating some sort of law.



    How Ones Pay Attention

    Perfectionism is supported by the habit of making mental comparisons. It is a way of paying attention in which thoughts and actions are automatically judged against an ideal standard of how perfect the situation could be. The internal terrain of a One's decision-making process carries the image of a courtroom scene. An opinion is mentally brought into court, where it is then attacked, defended, and finally judged for correctness.

    I am sitting in meditation, and become immediately aware of the loudness of the critic in my head. A small space of deep quiet, and I hear, "Not deep enough" or "Was better last time you sat." Then the argument starts: "Sit up straighter." "You're not trying." "Yes I am." My mind gets caught between attack and defense, as if I have no say in the situation and can only listen to the voices in my head until one side or the other wins out. Each quiet space in the meditation is interrupted by mental comments, until, happily, I can disengage from my thoughts.


    Ones also suffer from the habit of comparing their own levels of achievement against each other. Was this meditation productive? Am I improving or am I slipping back? There is a painful need to check out progress in order to feel assured of a continuous march toward self-improvement, which can also produce the feeling of never measuring up to the mark.
    In meditation practice this way of paying attention is called judging mind. To some extent we all judge our progress against standards of excellence, but Ones live with an internal measuring rod that also extends to chronically comparing themselves to other people. It is like an internal seesaw in a children's park: one child goes up, the other goes down. She goes up because she makes more money, but she goes down because I have status. I'm up on this point, but I'm down on that point. His face is handsome, but my body's better. The making of mental comparisons by Ones is often an automatic and unrecognized factor in their perception of daily life events and is a major cause of suffering. Ones automatically notice what is right and what is wrong in any given situation, and because they are attached to a one-right-way point of view, another person's win makes the One feel like a loser.
    When Ones begin a self-observation practice, they realize, perhaps for the first time, how pervasive the mental habit of making comparisons can be. Because judging mind is clearly a source of suffering, Ones can become highly motivated to learn to meditate so that judging thoughts recede.
    Ones can begin to change the Perfectionist style of attention by noticing when the mental chalkboard goes up. Each time attention shifts into a detailed account of someone else's pluses and minuses, and the feeling that when that person is one up that the Perfectionist is one down, there is an opportunity for learning to shift attention to a neutral ground.
    Last edited by female; 09-02-2010 at 06:46 PM.

  2. #2
    Creepy-female

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    How Twos Pay Attention

    Attention is by habit focused upon the emotional fluctuations of significant others, guided by the wish to become the object of their love. On the level of physical cues, this would mean some
    thing like watching to see who the partner pays attention to, or watching to see whether he or she smiles or frowns when a particular topic of conversation is brought up, and then trying to join with those interests in a pleasing way.
    On another level of perception, Twos say that they find themselves altering to become what others want without being aware of any facial or behavioral cues that have caused them to modify their presentation. They say that when their attention is attracted to someone that they find themselves adapting to what they imagine that person's innermost desires to be and that their habit of falling in with another's wishes means that they can become the prototype of what the other believes to be desirable.

    It starts out with hating to be rejected. What you do to not ever get rejected is learn how to be the same as someone else. You learn to look at a stranger, sense how the two of you are the same, and then slide into that feeling. It can happen on the street, where I find myself going out to someone and fitting into how we're the same.
    At the level of intimacy, it's far more intense. It feels like whatever you want, I also want. Whatever you desire, I feel that same desire. Whatever you wish for sexually can be acted out through me. When the chemistry is working, it's the most wonderful form of intimacy. But when I feel like I'm standing on the street corner, tilting into someone else's life just because I feel insecure that day, the whole idea of merging is a burden to me.


    Because attention is outwardly focused upon what others want, there is a systematic lack of attention to personal needs. From a psychological point of view, these repressed needs get satisfied through helping others live out a life in which the Two would like to share. A Two can be helped in therapy by learning to recognize personal needs and by learning to stabilize a consistent sense of self that does not alter in order to meet others' needs.
    From the point of view of attention practice, Twos can learn to intervene in their habit of sensing signs of approval from others by learning to shift attention away from others and refocus attention at a reference point within their own body. With practice, Twos can recognize the difference between staying present to their own feelings and allowing their focus of attention to go out to others.


  3. #3
    Creepy-female

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    How Threes Pay Attention

    To an observer, a Three looks like a highly focused achiever; Threes report, however, that they are only trying to keep up. If someone else is good, the Three has to be better, because a Three's self-esteem is riding on a win. Activity is a form of control, and personal value and
    security depend on how much you can get done. A Three habitually does several things at once, a way of paying attention that is called polyphasic thinking.

    I'm in the car and slightly late. At the same time that I'm driving, I'm conversing with the back seat rider, scanning mirrors for cops, moving back and forth over the speed limit, eating a sandwich, and checking in and out of the radio. There's a sense of well-being with it all going on at once; like being on top of things.

    Polyphasic activity has its counterpart in an internal habit of attention that is largely focused on tasks. Attention rarely stays with the project at hand, but moves rapidly on to the next thing to do. There is practically no space between thoughts for reflection, for reconsideration of priorities, for paying attention to personal feelings about the job.

    You've got to be best, because otherwise you don't exist. The sense is that you're perpetually number 2, trying to be number 1. There are always three or four projects under way, and you're running through the physical motions of one, with your mind on the mechanics of the next. By the time I'm near the end of the first project, I'm so involved in the next that I hardly realize the first one is over. It's like the present doesn't exist, because I'm always ahead onto what to do next.

    As a way of understanding this stance of attention, you might imagine yourself established at permanent high speed, gravitating toward stress and competition as a preferred way of life. You are sensitive to anything in the environment that iwill contribute to your current goal, and you see people in terms of what they possess or what they can do to help the project materialize.
    As goals become more focused, your interest increases and so does the speed at which you want to work. Attention narrows to those cues in the environment that will support forward motion toward the goal, and people start to look like automatons who are either blocking forward motion or who have something that will serve the work. If they are automatons who are in the way, you either ignore them or walk around them. If they are automatons who can serve the project, you seek them out for what they can give.
    Obstacles only serve to increase your focus of attention. Focus increases under pressure because if you fail to achieve the goal, or somebody else gets there first, you will feel anxious about being an unlovable failure. Runners-up are unlovable. You either take first place or have no place at all.
    If obstacles continue, then you go inside yourself and brainstorm every similar situation that you can remember, ferreting out every relevant past solution that has any bearing on the current case. This narrowing of attention to all the bits and pieces of environmental cues, old memories, and past solutions that relate to a current goal is called convergent thinking. It is a state of mind that Threes are particularly suited to and that helps them find creative solutions when routine solutions have failed.

    I've turned several businesses around to where they've become extremely profitable. Some of my best saves have been when I've geared up for a deadline by pulling out every half-feasible idea from all the other projects I've been on. My saves have been through a bizarre combination of ideas that worked successfully in other contexts.

    Identification Exercise

    This is an exercise that can help you understand the shift of attention that Threes undergo when their attention merges with an image.
    Sit facing a partner. Designate one of you to be teh observer, and the other to be the Three. If you are the Three, you are the active partner in the exercise, so close your eyes so as to be undistracted by the observer's reactions. Keeping your eyes closed, choose a quality with which to identify. Choose a quality that you don't believe you actually embody. For example, you could choose to identify with the quality of beauty, or handsomeness, or intelligence, or compassion, or joy; but try to pick one that feels alien to you.
    Imagine feeling that quality within yourself. It will help you recognize the quality's feeling if you remember a time when you actually did feel that way. Notice the shifts of attention that you go through while you "make up the quality." Notice the fact that the quality comes and goes. When the quality is present, you are feeling like a Three who is becoming identified with that quality, and when you have to exert effort to keep the quality present, you are feeling like a Three who is holding up an image.
    With your eyes till shut, focus fully on the imagined quality and let it permeate your body. When you can stabilize your attention on the sensations or feeling that the quality stimulates in your body, open your attention to include the observing partner, and pretend that she or he is an important person in your life; someone such as a boss or a spouse, who has the power to affect you, and who you are going to pretend is susceptible to the quality that you are embodying.
    Now open your eyes, and while keeping your attention focused inwardly on the presence of the quality, simultaneously carry on a simple conversation with the observer. Notice the shifts of attention that happen as you attempt to identify internally with the quality to which your partner is susceptible. Threes would recognize these internal fluctuations of attention as the difference between times when they are faking an impressive image and times when they have become so immersed in an image that they are the quality that the partner values. Threes habitually shift their attention to identify with culturally valued images and begin to project these images as themselves without remembering to question the difference between an adopted image and their own internal feelings.
    When a Three can successfully personify an image, she or he will become acutely aware of other people's reactions. If the image is effective, the Three will remain identified with it. If the public does not approve, then self-presentation will tend to be unconsciously modified.


  4. #4
    Creepy-female

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    How Fours Pay Attention

    Fours rarely live in the present. Their focus of attention travels away: to the past, to the future, to the absent, to the hard-to-get. There is a background preoccupation with whatever seems to be missing: the absent friend at the dinner party, the missed connections in an intimate talk.
    The preoccupation with absent things is flavored by a highly selective remembrance of the positive aspects of whatever is missing. "The evening would have been complete if only John had been there." John's better aspects are remembered when he is at a distance, and a tenuous connection of yearning is set up that acts to draw a Four's attention away from what is actually going on in the present. If John were present and accounted for, his less-than-interesting aspects would begin to surface, and the Four's attention would tend to drift away to one of the other pieces that seem to be missing from life.
    Romantics say that they feel an intimate connection with absent friends, that, in fact, their feelings of affection can get stronger with enforced separation. They say that in any relationship, there must be time away in order to reawaken the true feeling of connection that occurs only with distance and separation.
    When a Four is forced to focus on the actual events happening in present time, there is a feeling of being let down, of seeing the negatives of the situation, perhaps for the very first time. It can feel like a blow in the face, because there are so many disappointments, and they all come at once. It's as if the light goes out of a lover's face, and all that is left is a set of mismatched features.
    Fours unwittingly engage their imagination in such a way that the missing positives become devastatingly desirable and, by using the same shift of attention, they imaginatively amplify the present negatives so that they look far less appealing than they actually are.
    This shift of attention can be illustrated by way of the false self-image that people can create of their own face, depending on how they feel about themselves when they look into a mirror. The same face can look quite different, depending on the way in which we selectively pay attention to the strength and weaknesses of the features and how we imagine the strengths to be more or less than what is actually there. An ordinary face can become positively radiant if we imaginatively heighten the colors of the eyes and soften the textures of the skin; and that same face can appear to be grotesque if we focus on, and imaginatively amplify, its plainer aspects.
    An unfortunate example of negative amplification can be drawn from the reports of Fours who are predisposed toward anorexia nervosa. It is striking to note that a high percentage of Fours report that they have what could be called an anorexic self-image, where, when they look into a mirror, teir bodies appear to be shapeless and fat when, in fact, they are quit thin. Some Fours report having developed a distaste for their own bodies, such that their own objectively attractive physiques have become mentally preoccupying and repulsive.
    The same unconscious attentional shift that serves to imaginatively alter physical appearances can also act to amplify emotional reactions. This shift of attention serves to exaggerate a Four's authentic emotional responses in the same way that visual imagination can overlay and enhance a reflection in a mirror.
    For example, the thought of a distant friend can quickly summon wonderful feelings, an emotional counterpart for the thought of being together again. If attention then shifts from the authentic response that develops from thinking about the friend into imagining the greatest possible warmth that humans are capable of, the authentic reaction has been lost in an imaginative and unrealistic overlay of false feelings. Likewise, a small oversight by that same friend could stimulate powerful feelings of rejection and hatred, which would quickly overlay the authentic, small reaction that the oversight actually warranted.
    In order for real feelings to emerge, it is first necessary to stabilize attention at a neutral reference point and learn to pay attention to real physical sensations being experienced in the present moment.

  5. #5
    Creepy-female

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    How Fives Pay Attention

    A Five's isolation does not depend solely on withdrawal into privacy, or even on putting up emotional walls. The psychic isolation of the type can be seen as the habit of disengaging from feelings in order to observe. This habit of attention can become particularly obvious in stress, intimacy, or unpredictable situations that demand a spontaneous response. In extreme cases of detachment, a Five can attempt to disappear by freezing attention at a spot located just outside of the physical body.

    I was a literal hermit for most of my twenties. No phone, few friends, and a long drive down a bad country road. By the time that I decided that I wanted to study photography, I couldn't remember how to hold up one end of a conversation. The first year of school I got into therapy. They recommended bodywork. I shut down so completely during the breathing exercises that I couldn't feel my body at all.
    One session I went through a full body convulsion and found that I had detached and was watching myself go through it without any feeling in my body. I am periodically aware of being outside and watching ever since. It comes up when I have to "go onstage." Even if I'm rehearsed, I can suddenly find myself separated, watching my body going through the motions of what I'm supposed to do.

    Besides providing a buffer to the immediate experience of a strong emotion, the habit of detaching from feelings in order to watch can produce a dramatic experience of what meditators recognize as the separation between the object of attention and the inner observer.

    I sometimes feel like I'm one of my old paper dolls, with a nice dress that's hung on my front, with little laps over the shoulder. Nobody sees me, just the front of the dress and my paper-doll face. Meanwhile, I'm standing behind myself, like a third party to my conversations, watching the face of whom I'm talking to and myself, standing there in the dress.
    When I was seventeen, and first started having sex, my mind would flip, and I'd be outside watching myself. Making love is the clearest example of where I go when I'm under pressure. Basically, I want to avoid pressure, but when I have to face up to it, I will find myself detaching from the feeling. The harder my own life gets, the more fascinated I become with watching myself. I keep wondering what I'll do next. I got married because I wanted to see what I would do, and I've let the wolf get really close to the door, because I want to see how I'm going to get out of it.


    Attention Practice

    This practice can give non-Fives a taste of what it's like to detach and observe an object of inner attention. This is the placement of attention that Fives learned in childhood as a way to feel safe in threatening situations. There are differences between a Five's habit of separating attention from objects that frighten him or her, like intruding people or strong sexual feelings, and a meditator's awareness of the separation between the observing self and the object that is contemplated. One significant difference is that a Five gets frozen in the detached stance, compelled by habit to watch as a frightening event transpires, and constrained to keep attention separated from the feelings connected to what he or she sees. If the Observer merged with the feelings generated by the frightening event, Fives would lose the defense of keeping mind and emotions separate. The Five would then be vunerable to being affected by others and to feeling his or her own desires.
    In constrast to the frozen watching of a Five, who is avoiding feeling, a meditator's inner observer is able to merge, and become one with, inner objects of attention, such as body sensations, the resonance of chants, images, and pure emotions.
    Imagine yourself standing in front of someone who tried to intrude into your life. It might be the mother who checked your dresser drawers when you weren't home, or the brother who broke into your diary and read it for months before you became aware of it. Get the feeling in your body of how you felt about being violated in a way you couldn't control, and also imagine what it would be like to have to live with this person in your house day after day.
    Now find a way to isolate yourself from being affected by what the person has done. The emphasis in this exercise is on protecting yourself from having to feel by isolating yourself from the intruder, rather than clamping down to hold back the emotion. Fives report a sense of control and even pleasure in being able to detach from being affected by outside influence.
    Some Fives say that they move deep inside themselves to where there is no emotion. Others say that they separate themselves from an intruder by moving behind a wall or a one-way mirror, or they shift attention to a safe place just outside of the interaction. From that vantage point they can observe what is going on without becoming emotionally involved.


  6. #6
    Creepy-female

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    How Sixes Pay Attention

    If you are not a Six, this exercise will help you understand the unconscious shifts of attention that underlie the Six's worldview. You will need a book to read as part of the exercise. When you have found a book, sit down and keep it closed on your lap.
    Now remember someone who made you feel afraid when you were young. Visualize this person standing before you, the face, the body stance, the clothing, and particularly remember the way that he or she looked at you when you felt intimidated.
    Now believe that you have been living with this person on a day-by-day basis for a long time in a very small house. Your intimidator has access to anything in the house and could show up at any time.
    Now open the book and start to read, while at the same time remembering to stay aware of the person in the house. Split your attention between reading the lines and checking out the potential intruder's movements. You will either be able to pay attention to both tasks simultaneously, or your attention will shuttle back and forth between reading and being aware of the other's whereabouts. In either case, you have adopted the state of mind of a person who has been made to be afraid.
    The next practice should be done facing a friend who is gracious enough to let you stare at his or her face while you practice shifting your attention.
    Now form an idea of something that this friend might be thinking about you that he or she has never expressed. It can be either a positive or a negative opinion, but you should believe that your friend is very likely to be holding this opinion, and you are going to look for confirming signs.
    Now, hold an ordinary out-loud conversation with your friend, while at the same time scanning the face for signs of the hidden point of view. All of the elements of the paranoid style are now present: an inner hypothesis (in this case fabricated), and a split of attention between the talk going on between the two of you and the need to look for confirming signs of the hidden opinion. For the true paranoid, the inner hypothesis is really a conviction. He or she knows that the painful opinion is true and is looking for corroborating evidence in the mannerisms and facial cues that the partner is bound to produce in the course of an ordinary chat.

  7. #7
    :popcorn: Capitalist Pig's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dolphin View Post
    How Fives Pay Attention

  8. #8
    Let's fly now Gilly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dolphin View Post
    I'm in the car and slightly late. At the same time that I'm driving, I'm conversing with the back seat rider, scanning mirrors for cops, moving back and forth over the speed limit, eating a sandwich, and checking in and out of the radio. There's a sense of well-being with it all going on at once; like being on top of things.


    These are actually really good, potentially the most useful resource on the enneagram I have encountered to date.
    But, for a certainty, back then,
    We loved so many, yet hated so much,
    We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...

    Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
    Whilst our laughter echoed,
    Under cerulean skies...

  9. #9
    Creepy-male

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    this is great, a real service lol

  10. #10
    C-ESI-Se 6w7 sx/sp ashlesha's Avatar
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    thanks dolphin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by dolphin View Post
    I plan to create another thread which contains descriptions of various enneagram relationships.
    I have always wondered if someone may have come up with an inter-type system like the one in Socionics, or something similar that defines/predicts relationships between e-types.

    From experience, I'd say I am the least compatible with 2s. I have been pretty close with some 3s but those relationships eventually fall apart and bring a lot of dissatisfaction, too. The E-type I am the most attracted to and usually get along the best with is 7. I call them my enneagram duals.
    “Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.”

    Quote Originally Posted by Gilly
    You've done yourself a huge favor developmentally by mustering the balls to do something really fucking scary... in about the most vulnerable situation possible.

  12. #12

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    I relate to 5, 6, and 4. Im probably 5w6....... actually nevermind. I relate to 5, 6, and 4 equally. I hate the enneagram.
    Last edited by Sumer1an; 10-02-2011 at 11:57 PM.

  13. #13
    Let's fly now Gilly's Avatar
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    3, 4, 8 fit the best. Definitely 3>all though; I identify more readily with the traits ascribed to 4 and 8, but the 3 thinking traits are more ingrained in me/beneath the surface. Reading the 8 thing about fake meditation was good though, that's what I used to do before I learned how to actually meditate.
    But, for a certainty, back then,
    We loved so many, yet hated so much,
    We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...

    Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
    Whilst our laughter echoed,
    Under cerulean skies...

  14. #14
    Darn Socks DirectorAbbie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dolphin View Post
    thoughts and actions are automatically judged against an ideal standard of how perfect the situation could be. The internal terrain of a One's decision-making process carries the image of a courtroom scene. An opinion is mentally brought into court, where it is then attacked, defended, and finally judged for correctness.
    Yes. But I don't judge myself against others. I judge everyone including myself "against an ideal standard of how perfect the situation could be" and we're a bunch of losers.

    LSE
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    Johari Nohari

    Quote Originally Posted by Ritella View Post
    Over here, we'll put up with (almost) all of your crap. You just have to use the secret phrase: "I don't value it. It's related to <insert random element here>, which is not in my quadra."
    Quote Originally Posted by Aquagraph View Post
    Abbie is so boring and rigid it's awesome instead of boring and rigid. She seems so practical and down-to-the-ground.

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    This is very useful, thanks for posting this up @dolphin. I will have to give this a closer read when I am not as tired.

  16. #16
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    This was awesome. I identify with a combination of 5 and 6 from this pov. I could add some aspects of e1 and e8 (tho I've never thought I have anything in common with 1).

  17. #17
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    9 fits best for me, closely after follows 7. I had expectated 6 to fit more but my fears are less attention demanding and more "generalized".
    5 did fit somewhat but much less than either 9 or 7 did.

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