I registered on the poll here that I am E4, after reading more and more on it, and being more sure that I really did hit my tritype. The tritype quiz I took was short, but I found I was particularly strong and sure on all the answers. And the more I read the more I am sure.

That there are more 4's here than other types makes a lot of sense, because E-4 is searching for identity, so a personality typing forum is right up our alley.

My Tritype: 4w3 7w8 9w1

Being an artist is a consistent thing about me throughout my life and many 4w3s are artists. Being a heart center makes the most sense for me. This is an good explanation of heart, head body types: https://www.theenneagramsingapore.co...-intelligence/ When I read the positives and negatives of those types it confirms my primary type and my tritype. I think that deciding that I am a 2 was because of suddenly having all these new people in life to love and a main form of loving for me is to help (as well as to understand)... When I realized I do not have those faults of 2 at all - and confirmed 2's I know I have seen those faults in, and it always surprised me when it popped up because it was foreign to me - I went back to the "1" that I originally first typed myself as long ago when I learned Enneagram. Because at that time I identified strongly with the Achiever/Perfectionist. I thought that the E-1s anger was for me "depression turned inward" because though anger is uncommon for me, depression is something I have dealt with.

Also this link makes it clear to me that I am heart center: http://www.lessons4living.com/centers.htm

I never thought I was a 4 because their problem is envy and I think that I am not an envious person; I do not seem to have issues with jealousy. But it does pop up occasionally, and its always my endeavor to rid myself of it asap, which is not too hard to do. When I read that 4's don't always recognize their envy and think they don't have it (in one of the articles i read recently) that could explain it. Also that E4s are optimists - that is sure true of me. I have been a blind optimist a lot of my life, and hopefully reality-knocks in my life have me being more of a realistic optimist these days.

E4's [or maybe just 4w3's? can't remember.] crave beauty. That's true of me all my life.

The w8 of 7w8 was a surprise to me because I did think I related to 8. However, I think its the realist part of me, and also contributes to the "perfectionism/achiever" which is a definite part of me, just not the primary part. Matters of the heart always have taken precedence with me, there is no question about that.

Identity and truth are important and have been a key part of my spiritual journey. If something is true, I want to believe it, and be a part of it, because that is me. I want to be me, whatever that is, and whatever it is,it has to do with truth. I did not want to relate to the Christianity that I experienced growing up because during my adolescent years it didn't "feel" true or real enough. I wrote poems about how I was looking for something, did not know what, but when I found it, I would know. Those poems reflected the deepest part of me, the deepest truth.

One day in college during a snowstorm I was alone in our apartment and a guy came to see a roommate who was out. I invited him in since he was snow-covered, and we had tea since that is what he did with my roommate. I did not know what to talk to him about but I knew he and she talked about Jesus so I asked him what is the big deal about Jesus. Well he told me and in a moment of that conversation I became a believer. My life changed forever at that moment. It was an instant love affair, an instant new identity, and while I have many changing intersts and enthusiasms I knew at this moment that this was a forever one. And I was right.

I grew in my faith over the years with Evangelical Christianity faith tradition at the core of my being and my identity. Wherever I went I could meet other Christians - Evangelical ones - and instantly I identified with them - however different we were we were the same because we shared the deepest thing about my identity. And I was accepted immediately as a fellow believer.

Then, when my son was young, unexpectly my faith took a new turn when I read a book Rome Sweet Home that put the most shocking suggestion in my mind - the possibility that the Catholic Church was as it so outrageously claimed: the true church founded by Jesus. The book shook me up particularly because it upset the foundations of my faith: Sole Fide and Sola Scriptura, or, "Faith Alone" and "Scripture Alone", by making it pretty clear that those core beliefs of my Christian tradition were not supported in the Bible. And it pointed to the Catholic Church as the complete and whole Church that Jesus wants for us.

Well I never had any desire or any attraction to the Catholic Church (only a pull against Catholic), so the idea that this could possibly be true was extremely unsettling. I needed to disprove it, so I began to research. I also began to watch Journey Home program on EWTN-TV, where, week after week, year after year, Protestant Pastors - who faced loss for conversion greater than mine - tell why they converted to Catholic. Also atheists, Jews and more. Although, Marcus Grodi (host of Journey Home) points out that "conversion" is not the right word - we see it as a growing into the Catholic faith, not a converting out of Protestant. Because we are not rejecting our Protestant past. Its still very much a great part of who we are. Its an extension of our faith, not an instead-of.

I also began an intensive year-long correspondence with two convert/authors as I explored the Catholic faith and read many, many books and researched the many questions. [I had to now know more deeply than ever the theology of my past as well as this new Catholic theology, in order to compare - so, @Subteigh, you see why I always bring up the Cath./Prot. distinctions when we talk. Because they are clear to me.] All the answers kept coming up Catholic. And I fought these truths for a long time because it was particularly hard for me because of identity issues. I grew up Protestant, and later was a Protestant born-again, and even all my ancestors were Protestant! [Well before Luther, they had to be Catholic!]. And all of my family, my community, my friends! And for the most part, the Catholics I knew in my life were not anything to emulate. And I had a lot of negative stereotyped views of Catholics, seemingly confirmed by people I sort of knew. [And I sang in a terrific Baptist choir, and was horrified at the thought of singing in our town's scrawny sorry Catholic choir].

In the end I converted, because I had to. I could not fence-sit for long once I believed. And I could not tell the Holy Spirit, Whom I had asked to show me the truth, "No, thanks. This particular truth is just not convenient for me!" I could not do that. So I became Catholic. It was not and still is not an easy transition, but my heart was all-in and has never wavered.

Well I tell it here because it is a Type 4 Identity-Seeking story. I want my Identity to be based on truth, and when I saw the truth, even though it was not convenient for me, I had to align my identity with it. Even though it caused my old community to informally but surely reject and exclude me, even though when I now met Christians they no they no longer gave me instant acceptance - sometimes a sort of instant rejection because when I had to say "I'm Catholic" their faces fell, and shut, and the openness that was, was no longer. I felt that loss deeply, and I still feel it now. But I had to ask my self, is my faith based on what i believe to be true, or the acceptance of others? I know the answer to that.

Well, there you go, an example of Type 4 Identity seeking...