Fixation 1 : “Ego-Resentment” / “Over-Perfectionist”

Within the 1 space, there is the domain of sentimentality, the consciousness concerning our sentiments. By sentiment, we mean impressions and feelings – physical sensations, tangible senses and the stimuli that comes from the natural world. Impacts of the material world upon us – all the intrusions, perceived hurts and personal offenses that life sends our way, but also the inclusions, joys, and satisfactions we are invited to receive; those are the sentiments. Temperament here is reactive, it is all about our reactions, how we meet the impact the world delivers. Fixation 1 represents the beginning of our living, what are we feeling in the immediate moment, what are our expectations etc. Here, someone is grounded in their being and reacts viscerally to all sorts of external stimuli. Even a stimulus that causes an emotional response is first felt in the body as a pain, a rush of feeling to the chest or a sudden sensation of heat. These processes are instantaneous, we don’t understand them by logic. Actions situated in our ambient, relationships we have, our ambitions or desires; “stimulation” is what creates our state of mind. One characteristic essence of 1 is “Jealousies”: comparisons. Resentment, frustration and anger is created by making comparisons between ourselves and an ideal of perfect person, comparing reality to what we expected or thought reality was. If we compare ourselves with someone else, and think, “Why that person can do things I can’t? I am prohibited of things that person is not prohibited”, a sentiment of injustice strikes and we feel the urge to make things fair. When a person calls out the mistakes someone else does, makes fun of their errors or has some unreasonable resentment or antipathy towards something (a strange, for example), that person is expressing 1 ’s domain. Things bombards us, therefore we need to be selective about what we attend to. We need to exercise discernment, categorization, rationality. The mechanism at 1 is a reaction to the initial reaction. Suppose someone says something you find hurtful. Rather than express anger, you present a face that is “better”. In reaction to this untruth, you form resentment toward your reaction, toward yourself, or toward anything or anyone that “caused” the reaction. There is hidden intensity and fiery wrath behind our “lies”. And this is probably absurdly unconscious. Our rationality and super-ego is what dictates what we express, not “ourselves”. Impulses and instincts, therefore, can be controlled. Administration and imperfections that needs to be addressed are one essence of the fixation. Nostalgia and attachment to ideals or traditions, criticism and rationalization, beliefs and arrogances, “inertia” plus “dignity”. These are the essences found on Enneatype 1.

Rationalization, when controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner in the absence of a true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable—or even admirable and superior—by plausible means; is one of the multiple core structures that represents the polarity of the domain of sentimentality. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). "I didn't get the job that I applied for, but I really didn't want it in the first place.", and the classic “I don’t even care to be honest”, answers we use to avoid sentiments. Isolation, when we recall and think about things without experiencing the emotion associated with them, a process that numbs ourselves and eliminates our “reptilian” behaviours, is another structure. Type 1 paints the world with colors of his dislike or like, and does everything using lens: things are always personal, but never understood as personal. Demonization of the side that opposes us and creation of justifications for our own acts are related to Type 1. Jealousy, “zealous vigilance”, feelings of protectiveness or possessiveness are more clear and expressive when it comes to relations (romance, teamwork, father and son, brother and sister, teacher and student etc), but still, these aspects and multiple forms of 1 are possible manifestations, not necessarily what the type is. For curiosity, a type 2 or 4 can express these manifestations of 1 in more concrete terms. Self-realization of this ego works by recalling oneself in self- observation permanently. The fixation is involved with awareness or intuition of directions and purposes, or “essences”, such as faith. Having a goal or set of rules to act accordingly, leading to the notion of perfection and obssession with it, resulting in compulsive behaviour. Compensation is manifested as addictions and hipocrisy. The polarities of the 1 space describe how we meet the impact of sensation upon us. Both polarities are ways of avoiding our experience. They are represented by two characters: the Heartless (or “thinker”) character at one end, the Enthusiastic (or “feeler”) character at the other. Inspiration is an effect from “over-sensitivity”, phlegmatic temperaments are effects from an attempt to armour ourselves against the external world’s problems. One character is sensitive, he has thin skin, the other, is unsentimental, he has thick skin. One kind of 1 holds himself and lives in silent humour, other kind of 1 frees himself of all chains he imposes on himself and expresses excessive righteousness, control, wrath. One is cute and lets tears come from his eyes, other is too closed and never smiles.

Enthusiasm is being zealous for a cause, for someone or something; not being affected is not letting the world enter your conscience. So, either we let sense-impressions and sense- feelings bounce off us or we push back on them, depending on which pole we have chosen to cling to. The heartless 1 can express self-control, stoicism and adulthood (a positive manifestation) or callousness, behaviour that is unkind, cruel, and without sympathy or feeling for other people (a negative manifestation). The sentimental 1 can express sensitivity and empathy for other people, courage and trust (a positive manifestation) or irritability and touchiness, antipathy, anger and fire (a negative manifestation). Observe that even if you become fixated within one extreme of the domain’s polarity, it is very probable that one moment or another you will switch to the other extreme. There will always be a swing, pretty like mood swings. I think I wrote too much, but, to expand in the addictions and hipocrisy of 1: Some 1 fixed people can have unknown coping mechanisms, such as lack of moderation in gaming, moral contradictions or violence in political movements. The inner motivations and reasons behind actions are always what matters most, but in the fixation of 1, the usual behaviour is that of unconsciousness. Someone with this fixation does not properly give attention to problems and easily resents. Anyway, these are assumptions, all I am doing is interpretation, trying to create explanations and bla bla bla. For curiosity, again, I associate this enneatype with parents. The 1 fixation resembles the idea of father or mother that I have, an archetype of someone that loves their children in two apparently opposite ways: In one manner, your parent loves you by expressing enthusiasm and faith in your self, this parent will be taking care of you and trying to guide you into perfection, into what he believes that is the best for you. In another manner, your parent also needs the rationality, severity and discernment to correct your behaviour, to limit your freedom, to impose rules and discipline into you. This process probably hurts and can create resentment, but it is necessary at times. You can learn to forgive them by comprehension of this. Society tries to make us civilized and normal, people at times can make us lose the right to express ourselves, and in the final distortion of the domain of sentimentality, there lies this sentiment of unfair and fair. What are our rights compared to people’s rights. This is one of the most common reasons that humanity creates social movements and revolutions, these rebellions come from our humanity: our weakness, “emotion”, and I understand emotion as instinct, something of the gut, the body, our being. You can not dominate emotion with reason, you need stronger emotions.

Fixation 2: “Ego-Flattery” / “Over-Independent”

Every person needs honour, dignity, and a sense of being valued; it is important that everyone lives with the sense that they are alive and important. At 2 , the alarm bell goes off around safety and security issues. Where can we find the security of knowing we are worthy of love? At 2 we attempt to secure everyone’s potential for a full life. Living to the full means experiencing all of life, not just the parts we like or call “good”. Living fully means being present to the joys and sorrows of life, living in the reality of what is. Within the 2 space, we find the domain of Life, Safety, Security, Health or Fulfillment. The 2 space is about taking care of ourselves and others and about the need to process our own feelings. Feeling impacts us at 1. It swells and expands in us at 2. When this goes too far, “expansion” becomes “puffed up”. We appear to ourselves to be bigger than we really are. Fullness, or abundance, of life calls for everything to be included, even those things that we would rather not have and that we want to fix. One characteristic essence is Fear - our fear that we won’t get what we need, not just to survive, but to thrive. Fears here are based on the mentality of scarcity, rather than abundance. There is a psychic poison of envy, mostly organized like the jealousies of 1, but with a distinction: We now feel that someone has more than us, or that we have less than them. Scarcity versus Abundance. This leads to possessiveness, rivalry or thoughts of having another person’s partner, for example. There is not a limit at times. This fixation gives and receives self- esteem, vanity, sense of belonging and a sentiment of authenticity or fakeness. We accumulate pride and narcissistic thoughts - we can think of ourselves as strong, having pride of our “I”, becoming independent, or we can think of ourselves as weak, having pride of others, becoming dependent. And then we defend ourselves by denial, a type of defense mechanism that involves ignoring the reality of a situation to avoid Fears and the conscience of our Pride. It is a refusal of recognisation that guides us distant from humility. Repression comes around, and is the unconscious blocking of “useless” needs (so we can give to the maximum), unpleasant emotions (so we do not get sad), an attempt to minimize the possibility or existence of guilt. The poison of this domain is lechery, na excessive or offensive sexuality; lustfulness and pride connected with our possessions.

The essential trap is the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or any of our necessities. We tend let our lives free and undecided. Liberty: the power or scope to act as one pleases, a right or privilegie (possession), the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions. The structure of this fixation deals with the construction of our lives; and the organization of our lives, the routine and limitation, is the way for self-realization of the traits within the fixation. Surface will doesn’t last; it expresses the likes and dislikes of the moment. It doesn’t have much persistence and, in the end, not much importance. Today I want jelly, tomorrow jam. Deep will that lasts and informs our life’s choices is not so easily available; we must seek it and deliberately cultivate it through self-observation, introspection. If we get hung up on our vulnerability and dependence, we fear that our needs won’t be met. At the pole of independence, we repress this fear by pretending to ourselves that we have everything we need. At this pole, we act out by working to fulfill our idea of someone else’s need and neglecting our own. Events that knock us off our feet

job loss, divorce, mental and physical illness, flunking out of college, death of a loved one – do not feel like “care”. And they’re not; they are not inflicted upon us “for our own good” or “to teach us a lesson”. They just happen, not “for a reason”, but because we are human. But in these events, we can receive care. Polarities here are represented by the character of someone hard to please and full of unnecessary detail or decoration; a person demanding attention, complaining a lot or worrying about nothing – someone paying great or excessive attention to personal tastes. And, the other character, one of someone messy, characterized by a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition, prone to excessive giving and full of needs, dependent, relying on others, very “out in the world”, living with groups or nurturing attachment to specific people (partners or friends). The former character can be called “strong”, “selfish” and “Independent”, the latter character can be called “weak”, “selfless” and “Dependent”. The former has goals and routine, the latter is flexible and ‘YOLO’. When I try to help while imposing my own agenda, not hearing people, I am actually falling into Pride. On the other hand, if I listen to people and truly receive it their needs, I can deliver what them need from me. I can take into account an accurate and clear-eyed assessment of my own abilities and limitations. This is Humility, the virtue of the 2 space. There is a clear difference: Pride is assumption of one’s needs, Humility is knowing you can’t give everything and that you also must listen to people and trade with them.

Fixation 3: “Ego-Go” / “Over-Efficient”

How do you want to be seen by others? How do you think others want to see you? How do you make the truth of your own being evident? How does it manifest in the world? These are some of the questions of the 3 space. I’d call this domain “Perception” and “Ambition”, names I find more useful than “Imagination” and “Creativity”. But all those names fit. Objects in the world are not perceived directly. In order to perceive a real object or phenomenon, we must create and interpret an image that translates raw sense impression into something that we can understand. Perhaps you have had an experience of looking at an unfamiliar painting or photograph where the intended image is not immediately apparent, especially if it is distorted, composed from an unexpected angle, or made with unusual colours. It takes your brain a few seconds to “snap into place” and “see” what you are “looking at”. Before that snap, it’s all just colour blobs and lines. After the snap, it is an “image”, something that represents an object in the world, or at least something in the artist’s mind. In the domain of 3, we find reflections of what is true or false, when we present ourselves to someone or when someone presentes himself to us; what are we seeing? Are they lying, are they telling us the truth? Who are these people? These questions are all about our personal visualization of reality. The common behaviour of using make-up is something very representative of this domain – When you wake up, your face seems dead and unattractive, extremely repulsive maybe. Then you wash it and put some make-up, accessories and clothing, you try to make your hair beautiful. There, now you are another person, a diferent version of you. How we see ourselves is the essence here; we may think of ourselves as big and brave, and we may see ourselves as empty and not so valuable. Our work is to see beyond the image to the underlying reality, in other words, to the truth of the matter. An image is a representation of a reality that reveals some quality to us when we interpret it. An image is a manifestation, an incarnation, a mirroring of the real thing behind the image. It is also an approximation; “the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.” We can use an image to address and interact with something real, but the image is not the reality. From this domain and space, we reach novelty, a dreaming of the brand new, something that comes into the world that has never been here before. The one thing we are all called to help create is ourselves. Mostly, we walk around projecting an image of ourselves to ourselves and the world. This limited image reveals, even to ourselves, only a small part of who we really are.

“What are we here to do?” We can create something that can exist in no other way because its creation requires lived experience in this world. Just what that is will be unique to each one of us. Otherwise, why has more than one of us been created? We must work for the further creation and the ongoing evolution of the cosmos. Hate and deceit are the primordial traits of the fixation. The personality here is one of hyperactivity, compulsion, workaholic tendencies. We may create a certain image or alter-ego, another “self” of us, and to deal with this we’ll use the mechanism of identification, an adoption and habitude of being something we aren’t. May also happen minor image-distorting defense whereby the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by attributing exaggerated positive qualities to the self or others. Depersonalization or derealization disorder comes from the 3’s domain. In the 3 space, there is the core structure of the image triad: The histrionic personality disorder. Self-esteem depends on the approval of others. Image triad types tend to have an overwhelming desire to be noticed, and often behave dramatically or inappropriately to get attention. The fixation can manifest as over- exertion and extreme volition, desire for wealth or material gain, efficiency and utility. Type 3 is often perfectionist, in a similar manner as 1, and its self-realization relies on being in touch with deep emotions, art and sincere sentimentality. Certitude in the objectivity and the total applicability of things is another essence. When we cling to either of the poles of this domain, the inhabitants that move in are called The Lies. Either we pretend to have a skill that we don’t or else we are able do something skillfully, but we do not allow for a dream or inspiration. This is the lie of the snake – a misappropriation of true knowing. Either “it looks like I know” (Fantasy without requisite Skill) or “I think I know” (Skilled, but without inspiration, and so without meaning). In one sense, a law is just a description of how things are. A law establishes a general principle out of particular observations and tells us the truth about something. All this type of law requires is acceptance. If it’s raining out, it’s raining out. All the rain asks us is to accept it. It’s not necessary to like or dislike it. But when the rain is flooding the house through a leaky roof, it does no good to pretend that it’s not raining. It needs to be seen for what it is in order to respond appropriately. The polarities are represented by a character that tells stories and another that is always striving for results and success. Any job or project requires that we have a dream or a vision, but also the skill or technique to execute it. Most of these pairs are variations on this basic theme.

Fixation 4: “Ego-Melancholy” / “Over-Reasoner”

Knowing, in the sense of personal knowledge or acquaintance, is something we feet in the heart. When we read or hear or experience something and let it drop into our heart in contemplative practice, we know it in a meditative or insightful sense, as “Mary pondered these things in her heart.” At 4 , we tend to constantly question and compare, never satisfied with the answers that may come. At 4 , we seek knowledge, not abstractly, but directly, by experience. We seek to understand, which comes from the Old English understandan, meaning to stand in the midst of. Sometimes, in order to find our way, we must spend some time lost in the wilderness. I can be so bewildered, that, for a time, I lose my common sense. Understanding can come and go. As soon I say, “I’ve got it”, I’ve lost it. Conversely, as soon as “I’ve lost it”, I’ve got it. Part of the engagement of the intellect is to be disoriented; we always understand incompletely and we can always gain new insight. When we feel the confusion and bewilderment of this space, and yet, we are on our way forward. We are invited to find a home in our otherness. In the 4 fixation, people are overly concerned with not being “dumb”, having understanding of things and authenticity. They separate and categorize people unconsciously, there is constant comparisons and jealousies in their head. Reality is too brutal, the world delivers too many impacts, and this makes us extremely sentimental. Society imposes ideals and patterns we can not fit in, therefore we develop a natural and perhaps permanent sense of inner deficit, a “lack”, emptyness, meaninglessness. This builds and accumulates, leading to melancholy and self-defeating thoughts. We are jealous and so jealous, and we may not accept this, so we immerse ourselves in reasoning and touchiness, being in touch with our sentimentality and perception of broken “self”s. We feel that we are not good enough, that things are not perfect, the immediate reality is not complete. So we wish for and seek perfection, reasons, purpose, we try to have more and we live in anxiety because of constant thinking about alternative worlds. Within comparisons, there is envy, because people have happyness and things we do not have, therefore we envy them, we want what they have and we want to have what they also want, to prove ourselves and to prove for people that we are real, meaningful, special, that we have a presence and some place within humanity.

Here, socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations (for example, romantic love towards yaoi lol) are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior (trying to fit in and seek groups that share our idealizations, or understanding and perceiving reality in images we wanted). Bipolar personality - melancholy and wet depressions are transformed into emotional drama and euphoria. Unstable relationships and social connections hurt us deeply, and we internalize all criticisms we gain from the world. We can react to these reactions with arrogance and severe antipathy. Insecurity becomes our fate, and we try to find self-esteem and worth in the acceptance and conscience of other people. We seek external validations because we do not trust ourselves, we attach and cling to people we may love because we depend of their opinions. We understand opinion as absolute truth in the 4 space. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) - a condition characterized by difficulties regulating emotion. Sentimentality and storms are the essence here. The 4 fixation is about feeling emotions intensely and for extended periods of time, and it is hard to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally triggering event. We become used to our sentiments, so they are one of the most known traits of our “self”. Authenticity, then, is attached to our sentiments and opinions, that maybe are caused by the external reality, impacts we receive and impacts we make. Consciousness is distorted by perceptions, so we cling to what we lack and the empty, the void. Some 4s are always striving for what they do not have in the current instant, and some 4s are always whining about what they think they can not do. “Everything is never enough”. In the 4 space, if we do not control our sentiments properly, we’ll may do crime and seek personal justice or revenge, things which will make us feel remorse and deception later. Sexuality can be quite increased here. Analysis and existentialism, philosophical research about our entity, is the trap that gets us stuck within this fixation. The way of pure clear analysis, when we do not associate our subjectivity with the objective reality, is what leads to self- realization.

Originality and authenticity, special character, is the image we may try to convey or suppress. If I dismiss my experiences, or reason them away, I cling to the pole of common sense or certainty and cannot enter deeply into the experience I am actually having. I skim over the surface of my life and do not fully live it. On the other hand, if I allow myself to be simply overwhelmed, that is not a true experience either. When we completely enter into an experience, we are able to say to ourselves, “I can bear it.” If we accept the unavoidable suffering of an experience, we avoid a great deal of suffering that is purely optional. “Why me?”, “What about him?”. Envy is one of the major barriers to having my own experience. I could react to the discomfort by feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I have to live with this ongoing issue. This might spiral into catastrophic thinking. Thoughts might lead to a mental and emotional paralysis where I can’t take even simple measures to deal with the present pain. Understanding will come with an accommodation and a suitability that is uniquely my own. I can recognize that my pain can disorient me and allow for that to be a signal to care for myself. I can choose some sensible actions to help with the pain. Discernment will tell me what I need to do in any given situation, while allowing for limitation. I may not always like the situation, but I can bear it. A living tradition allows us to interpret a present experience by comparing it to the way something was done before, integrating an old way and its wisdom with a new need. The dramatic arts, in that drama picks apart a human experience and makes it special; philosophy (repository of wisdom and insight); universities, schools, and libraries; and conferences (gathering to intellectualize and compare each other’s theories). All of those are representatives of 4. In conclusion, the polarities of 4 shall be represented by the paralyzed character and the analytic character. The former is lost within lack of reason and empty worlds, the latter is connected to the meaning of things and infinite information reality has, complete world.

Fixation 5: “Ego-Stinginess” / “Over-Observer”

The domain of the Social Interaction, at point 5 , is where we first meet the stranger, the one not from our own family, the unfamiliar. Here, we first realize that we are part of something bigger. This domain is about engaging the other. We will never reach our full potential unless we engage with others, particularly those who are not like us, yet our first reaction is to withdraw. As we move from 4 to 5 , the tendency is to hang back and assess whether it is safe to move forward to meet someone new. There is an inner knowledge of confusion within the world, here we observe how adaptation is broken. The 5 space represents how we relate to each other, how we interact, how we form groups and identity. What are the ideas and meanings representing our personality? The 5 fixation starts with avoidance and difficulty in creating bonds with new people. We get used to our friends and our home (and we maybe don’t even estabilish a specific home to live properly). We keep ourselves in security and safety, within our privacy and ability to maintain our identity. There may be a need to avoid vulnerability, unconsciously. Alienation and lack of space, lack of purpose and worldly ambitions. We don’t feel like living for the people and for love or praises. We fear losing what we may have in the immediate moment, we don’t want things to change and we get insecure, anxious, about the future. So we cling to the past and the present, we guard our possessions and things so we do not feel disoriented. Emotions and sentimentality are discarded, isolated, forgotten, they make us insecure and we do not like to deal with them. In the process of having no personal passions or issues, we may feel a subconscious depressive existence. We get introspective and we extract knowledge from external reality. The tendency here is to avoid making full contact with people and observe them, get to know them, but without proper socialization and formulation of human bonds. In our own solitude, we actively think and idealize what we may do if X thing would happen. There is a private world for us. Self- realization is involved with how we relate magically with the world. We won’t get into attachment and we won’t associate our essence with our sentimentality here. The main action is conscience and observation, understanding. We encounter a barrier when we move from the personal or private side of the Enneagram to the impersonal or public, which involves crossing through the “abyss”. In the domains of 1 through 4 , we work with the personal. They are all about my reactions to the sense world ( 1 ), my need to care and be cared for ( 2 ), creatively living the truth of my being ( 3 ), and my opinions ( 4 ).

As we come around the Enneagram, 5 is the first of the public spaces. This is where we come to terms with public versus private. At 5 , we need to learn to be with others. The impersonal, or communal, work that we do is further developed and embodied in the remaining spaces from 6 to 8. At 9 , we transcend to union with something different than ourselves or our communities. Between 4 and 5 is the place where we may feel like quitting because the journey has seemed too hard. In this domain, we can think of public in the sense of “all of us” or the “common good”, from the Latin publicus, “of the people.” Private is that which is not public, one’s own, not shared, from the Latin privatus, “set apart, personal”. These two words imply quite different world views. The underlying question is, “Do we take care of one another or do I take care of myself?”. Resources are shared in the public extremity, and resources are kept secret in the private extremity. The conflict comes when we choose one over the other, rather than valuing both. This choice usually derives from a distrust of the pole we have not chosen – not trusting government (the people) to provide societal benefit or not trusting the compassion of those individuals who are able to care for themselves. Within 5, there is an interest about everything, usually. To be enchanted, to be confused because of the unknown, to love the not yet understood is to be spellbound. It implies an intense curiosity about and delight in the other, the diferent, the abnormal. This leads us to magical thinking and mental connections. We develop an urge to know and understand, we want to keep to ourselves all the secrets and “inexistent” objects the world chose to hide from us. We socialize with people and then we feel happyness, we get to relate to new and distinct people, and this may cause us satisfaction or hatred. We distance ourselves from people and then all emotions are eliminated: we get back to the inexistent sentimentality. The world hits on our ego and we unconsciously do not react. There is a problem around expression. of one’s sentiments. We also do not care about our image or what people might think about ourselves, so we don’t try to lie, but we also don’t talk. All what rests is silence. Society has rules and protocols for these interactions. When we do not know someone well or in situations that do not call for displays of intimacy, we may act according to normal behaviours, which allows us to talk to each other, but not too much. We reserve an embrace for someone with whom we have more of a relationship. Society depends on these protocols and so do the dignity and integrity of the individuals involved. Engagement must be by the choice of all concerned; when it is not, it becomes a boundary violation and an abuse.

This enchantment is not only between two people. Groups who normally have very different goals, but have respect for one another, can work together and create something bigger than either side can alone. Progressives might say, “Love thy neighbour,” by which they mean, “We must share what we have for the common good.” Conservatives might say, “Count the cost,” which also says, “Let’s make sure we have enough to go around.” Together both can inform how a project or program can serve people, but also how it can be done affordably and responsibly. The personality “ 5 ” will come with distortions of this domain and the processes behind it. The structure of the personality is rooted on the hatred, misanthropia, anxiety and fear of people. When we refuse to engage with others, be it a person or a group, we begin to hate them, which is just a cover for our fear. This is the us/them division that is so prevalent in modern political discourse. We divide into bubbles or echo chambers and hate anyone who is not like us. In the end, we keep ourselves within our own identity and sense of normal. This sense of normal dictates who we might talk to and who we can relate to. Sometimes people who are very adamant that another group is causing all sorts of harm and grief don’t even know anyone from that group, so they revert to stereotypical descriptors. This is not particular to either side of the political spectrum. People on the right accuse progressives of over-policing language and thought (political correctness) and having no clue about how people actually live. People on the left accuse conservatives of being heartless and bigoted and not thinking about anyone but themselves and their own group. When you hear people being dismissed as “deplorables” or “snowflakes”, you know that there is no true engagement and maybe no actual contact between these two social groups.

Everyone talks about you or talks to you with stereotype-isms, symbols and new meanings to prejudice you perhaps, they end up alienating you and then you create hatred towards them. You don’t properly understand them, so you hate them. We hate the unknown and the “other”, as a means of protection of our own being. This type of division is not only political. We also divide along many other lines, such as nationality, regionality, gender, race, class, educational attainment, religion, and various sub-groups within these categories. For example, in the sphere of religion, we might divide between different religions (Christian/Muslim) or sub-groups within the same religion (Catholic/Protestant or even evangelical/mainline Protestant). If there are two people in a room, they have the choice to polarize or to engage. We need the other, particularly the different other, to grow. When we meet, we must understand the other as complex, not as a stereotype. It is not necessary to become like others to engage them. We meet, receive, and are received. When we withdraw and listen to our own hearts, we might hear anger and sadness, joy and connection, maybe all at once. This back and forth movement, held in good faith by both parties and repeated over many times can draw us in to a new appreciation of each other. 5 is a very challenging place. At 5 , we are looking for nothing less than the re-enchantment of society, where everyone can truly belong and participate. This is much larger than the compulsive desire at 5 to withdraw and be left alone. Since 5 is about welcoming the stranger, hospitality is a symbol of the 5 space. Hospitals, hospices, and hostels also hold this idea. Society and government are also symbols of the 5 space. Ideally, government promotes the common good. It cannot function without some secrecy and some openness. Other symbols include the media (no privacy; everything must be known) and science (knowledge must be shared for the benefit of all).

Fixation 6: “Ego-Cowardice” / “Over-Adventurer”

The 6 space is the domain of Work and Activities. Work is what validates us in the world. The first question we ask after meeting someone for the first time is often, “What do you do?”, typically meaning, “What work do you do?” or even “What work do you get paid to do?” Work allows us to develop our talents, contribute meaningfully to society, and build community by joining others in a common task. Work resonates in our three centres: this is what I know, this is what I love, this is what I do. On the other hand, if we are not happy at work, the underlying current is fear. If I leave my job, how will I sustain myself? What will happen to me? If I do not work, who am I? How will I continue to be part of the community? This is true even if your work has been unpaid, but of real importance, and for whatever reason you cannot or will not continue to do that work. In the 6 space, there is na intense concern about useless and useful, skills and outcomes. 6 is about the struggle, but also about the conscious release of the struggle. When we succumb to anxiety, we tend to hold our breath, bracing ourselves for an impact. Anxiety is all push, no surrender, or in terms of the Law of Three, all Initiating Force, no Receiving Force. For balance, we must push, then surrender, move forward, fall back, breathe in, then breathe out in a continual rhythm. It is possible to hold our breath, but not for long. Eventually, the body will force us to breathe. One way or another, the rhythm of breath continues from the beginning of our bodily life to its end. When we are out of balance between effort and rest, the inhabitants that show up are The Worries. These can manifest when we work compulsively out of necessity, duty, or fear and end up exhausted. In this case, there is no real rest from our labour, only collapse. We might feel that the resources we need for us to keep working are beyond us and we fall into endless anxiety or worry. On the other hand, if we feel exhausted and cannot focus on work, we might put it off, but worry constantly that our delinquency is going to catch up with us. Worry can freeze us up so that it becomes almost impossible to act, even when acting might alleviate the worry. Fear, as opposed to worry, is a response to the unknown; it is necessary to keep us from harm. Real fear – felt in the body – won’t let us harm ourselves. When we are about to cross a busy street, a healthy fear of the unknown makes us look for traffic before we cross. Without that fear, we would assume that we were safe, because it would not have occurred to us that there was any other possibility. This fear is necessary for our survival.

Worry is a waste of energy. It gives us the illusion of doing something, when there is nothing to be done. We focus on imaginary perils that will never come or real perils that we can have no effect on. Try carrying around a notebook and pen to keep track of how many of your worries do not come to pass or are beyond your control. Chances are it’s almost 100%. The biggest unknown, and also the greatest certainty, is death. We can choose to worry about death or we can take a conscious walk with our fear of death. If you believe in an afterlife, death is not the end, merely a threshold. Even if you do not believe that some part of you survives after death, life on earth goes on “within you and without you”. The Military is a symbol of the 6 space. The military is, at core, about preserving the safety of the tribe, the nation, our people. This relies on a large force of people willing to show up and do their duty. We either have an attraction to this totem, as a symbol of security, or a repulsion from it, as a symbol of fear and terror. Other totems of the 6 space include industry associations, factories, hobbies (something you love that requires work and focus), cooperatives, sports (teamwork), parks and recreation (leisure), tool stores, and kitchen stores. The poison of the 6 space and the poison that representes the social instinct overall is deceit. Deceit is a cognitive bias, error or “opinion”; subjectivity. It is the perception we have – of superiority or inferiority etc. Insecurity persists within this personality and the most obvious mechanism is projection. All doubts, worries and biases are projected, “externalized”. The 6 tends to believe people are out there to kill him, or that people won’t like him and many other beliefs. There is a suspiciousness and essential doubt. A skeptical, logical and theoretical approach is linked with the 6 space. Fear makes us rely on things, and 6 relies on logic and scientific methods. Methodology and academic mannerisms. The logic the 6 seeks may be from external authority, clinging to people he deems to be knowledgeable, or a subjective logic, personal conclusions. Devotion, fanaticism and related structures of personality are situated in the 6 space. Schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder. A 6 may reduce acute anxiety by transforming (converting) psychological suffering into physical symptoms. The characters representing the polarities shall be the worker and the adventurer. The former is responsible, dutiful, tends to panic and complicate things. The latter is delinquent, playful, tends to simplify things and remain in skepticism and ignorance.

Fixation 7: “Ego-Planning” / “Over-Idealist”

Where do I fit in? Where is my place? On the 7 space is the domain of Hierarchy, Position and Authority, which has to do with finding your place in an ever-shifting relationship with the world. Mythomania and mythology strikes this fixation, the 7 usually immerses himself on dreaming (Unreal), manipulation and deceiving or putting a front of altruistic and selfless person, without imperfections or mistakes. Coming out of 6 , where the authority is the one who knows and who leads out, we arrive at 7 , where the leadership keeps shifting, as in a dance. A fixed hierarchy is dead; one that is alive is always moving. One person leads, then cedes that place to another, as befits the abilities most needed in a given situation. The Taoist symbol of Yin and Yang (dark and light) symbolizes this ongoing flow of energy between two sides. The symbol is not meant as a static representation. The two dots of opposite colour show that there is always some Yang within Yin and vice-versa. Energy is always exchanging between the two sides. Yin becomes Yang; Yang becomes Yin. This symbol is always in motion, one side leading, then the other. This domain is the place of honest differences – in the present moment, where is my place? The words superior and inferior have an emotional and judgmental weight to them, especially in the context of hierarchy. In this case all they mean is higher or lower. What is my position right here, right now? Who is ahead and who is behind? We must also recognize that each person in a relationship will have multiple roles. Each person leads and follows simultaneously, but in different parts of the relationship. A parent carries responsibilities and makes decisions that a young child is not able to and so leads in that aspect of the relationship. The same child might ask questions that would not be permissible from an adult and can disrupt the peace by doing so. In this way, the child breaks things open and allows for creation of a new understanding. The child leads into territory where an adult would never go.

When we cling to the polarity of superior or inferior, the inhabitants that invade this domain are called The Arrogances. The familiar form of The Arrogances is when someone clings to the pole of superiority and forces a lower hierarchical position on someone else. This is the dynamic of king and peasant, master and slave. It can exist in a friendship, marriage, or family, when one person is nagging or bullying another, getting them to fall in line by guilt or coercion. There is also an arrogance of inferiority. It is just as arrogant to say, “I have no ability” if it’s not true, as to say, “I am the greatest”. If you have written a poem, but don’t want to read it publicly because it’s “not good enough”, you are denying your place if it is good. We must assess our true place and not try to get out of the work by claiming to be less than we are. Gluttony in this fixation means an urge to run from what is real, common, ordinary. To seek and work for big plans, big ideas and sentiments. There is an interest and curiosity in the different, in the magical. The 7 develops a excessive and sentimental idealization that resembles sexual lust, but different from lust and lechery, it is situated within the mind and connections between people, emotions and situations. It is like a body and its dynamic system, always in organization.The mechanism here is displacement - a psychological defense in which a person redirects a negative emotion from its original source to a less threatening recipient.The fixation is about changing present, changing situations, external harmony being modified, achieving potential pleasures and happyness. The 7 tries to escape from negative emotions, from sentiments that he can not control. So he instead of feeling, orientes himself to thinking; thoughts are like painkillers. Dissociation, as a concept that has been developed over time, is any of a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis (6). The characters representing the polarities are the Pretentious 7, “Great Pretender”, deceitful and self-respectful, viewing himself as a leader. And the Loser 7, modest and selfless but holding sentiments of inferiority and viewing himself as a follower. Rivalries are situated in the 7 domain, linked with 5. Having a rival or enemy-friend.

Fixation 8: “Ego-Vengeance” / “Over-Justicemaker”

The 8 space is the domain of Laws and Morals, Culture and Behaviour. It is a move from thought to action. At 7 , we discern our place in an ever-shifting hierarchy. In the 8 space, this hierarchy is embodied in culture. When we know our place, we know how we should act. We call this code of spoken and unspoken expectations of behaviour ethics, from the Greek word ethos, meaning “the spirit of a people”. Spirit of Will and intention arises and operates in the 8 space. “Will” is not “willfulness”. Will is the freedom to choose and the power to do or to act. It is about being, choosing to be who I am. When I ask myself, “What do I want?”, I am operating in the 8 space. How do I behave to get what I want? We use ethics to determine our behaviour within the context of a culture or subculture. A code of ethics is an explicit expectation of behaviour in an organization or profession. Ethics is also the unspoken code of conduct in a society. Will allows us to choose these behaviours freely. Volition allows us to empower others to make a choice. When we support others in their free-will choices, even when these are not the choices we would make, we make something true in the world and do it with compassion. There is a connection between 8 , where we find ethics and codes of conduct, and 5 , where we interact with others. 8 holds the tension between expected conduct and individual desire. The collaboration with others at 5 ensures that we hold this tension with compassion for ourselves and others. In contrast, at 1 , we find the place of morality, which is about behaviour that arises from our individual attempts at goodness. At a very low level of engagement, this is about good versus evil. If we are able to work at a higher level by connecting to our personal integrity at 4 , it goes beyond good and evil and becomes about full acceptance of ourselves, the obviously good and the not-so-good within us. Morality, at 1 , is on the personal polarity dictated by 5, and is therefore directed inward, building internal strength. Ethics, at 8 , looks outward to societal norms of behaviour. The characters representing the polarities within 8 are the Immoral and Libertine character, and the Ethical and Self-Righteous character. In the ethical extreme, puritanism and overjudging are negative manifestations, while convention and rules are positive manifestations. The ethical 8 follows rules and rewards with goods, gets stuck in expectations and standards, guides. In the libertine extreme, hedonism and breaking rules are negative manifestations, while tolerance, no evaluation and punishing the bad are positive manifestations. The libertine 8 follows desires and tendencies, he does what he pleases.

In the 8 space, there is violence, exploitation, intrusion, versus supporting, rewarding, protection. When we become attached to rules or tendencies, the Inhabitants that show up are called The Obligations or The Shoulds. These manifest as an over-investment in behavioural codes and customs. We might adhere strictly to the rules or impose them on others. We might flout the rules and follow our personal desires. When we give in to the tyranny of The Obligations, we punish ourselves or others for violating these externally- imposed rules or define our actions by our opposition to the rules. Giving in to these inhabitants robs us of the experiences we actually desire. Our actions are the opposite of free. There is an “internal rape” and “self-demanding” nature, when someone gets fixated within 8, their desires and sexual urges, possibilities of exploitation and intrusion, power and capacity to do as they please, all of these become “obligations”, certain inevitable attitudes without control. Or, expectations, the rules and judgements, those become “obligations” and control the ego. There is a merging, a fusion. One 8 fuses with its own sensorial experience and lust, the other 8 fuses with ethical behaviour and proper exchanges, interaction and conventions. We can be very hypocritical in our approach to the rules. I might find it useful to impose rules on you, but feel no need to follow them myself. It might be convenient for me to appear morally upright. However, if my actions are not founded on true conviction, there is no life in them. My behaviour can turn on a dime when it is no longer convenient for me to act as before. There can also be a tyranny of non-conformity. An expectation to oppose existing systems of power can itself be an imposition of power, as when I expect you to use certain language to show that you are on the right (or left) side of the political spectrum. Greed and excess are poisons within conscience here. Vengeance is about punishing people and doing as you please, while making justice is being fair and rewarding the good as well. The center of the fixation is passionate craving towards satisfaction of desires and the desire to desire more, or, passionate adjustment according to social expectations, rules of conduct and negotiation, laws we have to interact and trade. Worsening of the fixation leads to diffuse pattern of negative attitudes and passive/active resistance to demands for adequate performance. Psychological resistance and opposition, stubborn behaviour, cruelty and mythomania are the compensatory mechanisms. Self-realization comes with redemption of the past and concordance, harmony. A sense of lack of preconceptions about what should be happening is characteristic.

Fixation 9 : “Ego-Indolence”

work in progress

this work was written by jaaj