Enneagram: TWO
If you are TWO, you are gifted in many ways. In particular, you are:
☺ Caring ☺ Considerate ☺ Generous
☺ Sympathetic ☺ Supportive ☺ Self-Sacrificing
☺ Helpful ☺ Adaptable ☺ Loving
However, like everyone else, you have your flaws. For example, you can be:
S Dependent S Needy S Possessive
S Flattering S Interfering S Manipulative
S Hysterical S Seductive S Self-Important
As a Helper you strive so hard to attend to other people's needs that you neglect your own and even pride yourself in having none. But you are so oblivious to your pride that you deny how controlling and destructive it is.
A. SELF-PRESERVATION: Focus on Privilege
You take pride in helping people and think of yourself as independent. You are frequently ashamed to ask for help. Your pride prevents you from doing so, unless it is a life-or-death issue. You feel insecure when left out. Selfless feelings cover up or suppress your own need for approval and protection.
Your desire for privilege is unmasked when others don't respond in kind. You indirectly work for yourself through working for others. This minimizes the pressures of personal competition and avoids possible failure or humiliation in public. When you help others succeed, you succeed and expect at least some preferential treatment (e.g. recognition for services rendered, introductions to dignitaries, or the best seats at the theatre). Effectively you are saying, "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."
B. SEXUAL: Focus tin Seduction
You tend to seduce others by supporting and adopting their interests, tastes, and concerns. This makes you very attractive as a partner. You take pride in making others feel they are friends or lovers. This you do by turning on the charm, hanging on people's every word, and dressing the part.
You are a pleaser, confidant, trusted companion, and "best friend" who makes others feel good and special. You are not afraid to pursue loved ones or business associates, and readily deal with hitches and problems in relationships. You choose who to go after, and keep going until you have snared him or her. This seduction and pursuit applies equally whether you are a man or a woman. Interestingly, you frequently choose those who are unavailable so as not to have to face your own hidden fear of intimacy. It's all in the chase!
C. SOCIAL: Focus on Ambition
Because you are socially ambitious, what counts is who you know and where you're seen. You take pride in your accomplishments, reputation, professional qualifications, public image, and social standing. You like to back winners and are attracted to high achievers. Wanting to be part of the inner circle, you attach yourself to prominent figures (e.g. a financial guru, business leader, or local dignitary), and achieve your ambitions on their coattails by being the indispensable power behind the throne.
You quickly learn to play the system and cut your cloth to the prevailing wind. You are sensitive to the slightest changes in mood and adapt accordingly to keep your rightful place. You lap up compliments, especially when these involve your indispensability. But you resent it when you are taken for granted.
As you grew up
you began to realize that your general unwillingness to receive, as well as
your ability to make others feel guilty, and your martyr complex were a turnoff.
After all, most people prefer to give and take, and to be permitted to help
occasionally instead of having to receive all the time. So you began to rely on
the personality style nearest to you to give your own style some balance. You
may, for example, have spotted that flatters/
is among the list of your characteristic flaws. But honesty is one of the strengths of your One Wing. When you learn to
incorporate your wing‑strength into your own personality style, you begin
to soar.
One Wing: When you access the strengths of your One Wing you have a heart/gut
combination. The One influence allows you to give compliments honestly and not
to be afraid to voice your reservations. It also ensures that you will stand up
for your own rights more. Additionally, you will be more inclined to say and do
things because they are right, rather than because they are helpful or the kind
thing to do. There is a danger, though, that you will become overly critical of
yourself and others, and over-responsible to the point of breakdown.
Three Wing: When you access the strengths of your Three Wing you have a heart
combination. This will help you in a different way. With it you become more
self‑assured and independent. This means you will be more successful in
handling intimate personal relationships and better able to facilitate groups.
A whole social dimension is added to your normal perspective. You will,
however, need to be careful of becoming more task‑oriented and image
conscious, especially to please a boss or significant other.
Proper balance
is achieved by accessing the strengths of both
your wings and taking care to avoid their characteristic weaknesses. When
you do so, you learn to let go of your obsessive Helper viewpoint and begin to
experience the advantages of other points of view.
IV) ARROWS 8 & 4
The Arrow
Theory of the Enneagram can be very helpful when you are feeling either
stressed or secure.
As a Helper you
are motivated by your need to be needed and loved. You become stressed by your
difficulty in saying "no," and by having to reveal your own needs and
let others take care of you.
Almost as soon
as the pressure begins to build up, you gradually tend to slide to the lower
end of your own personality style. When this happens your natural tendency is
to invest even more heavily in helping others to the point where you become a
martyr to their cause. This
can make you
feel that others don't appreciate what you are doing for them and that they are
victimizing you in some way. You can then become resentful, aggrieved,
reproachful, and empty. If this continues you will eventually become depressed
and even reach breakdown.
As your stress
increases you find yourself all too easily adopting the negative characteristics of your Eight-stress point. However, this
need not be an inevitable progression. You can, instead, get in touch with the positive side.
Eight: (Stress
Point)
-
-You
attempt to bully and control people.
-
-You
become irascible, impatient, and demanding.
-
-You
target others for blame or criticism.
-
-You
mistrust people's motives and become callous.
-
+ You
are more assertive in getting personal needs met.
-
+ You
are more confident, minimizing the need for approval.
When you are secure you are generally more in touch with the higher side of your personality style. As a Two this allows you to get in touch with your own needs and to take care of yourself. If this involves saying "no" to the requests or demands of others, you can do so without disguise. If it means letting others take care of your needs, you welcome it. The result is that, when you give, there will be no strings attached, because you are free of the compulsion to justify your worth by being the continual helper.
All of this
feeds into the positive strengths of
your Four security point. But, here too there can be some negatives. Dealing with the pluses and minuses helps us grow.
Four: (Security Point)
-
+ You are
willing to explore your inner emotional world.
-
+ You
accept loneliness, hurt, and other painful feelings.
-
+ Your
creative side reveals another source of self‑worth.
-
+ Yon
begin to say "no" and search for personal space.
-
-You
overplay the "martyr" to the point of depression.
-
-You envy
others and become self‑absorbed.
V) HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS
1)
I am loved
for myself, not for my service.
2)
I have a
right to say "No."
3)
I need to
take care of myself first.
4)
I don't
have to justify my feelings.
5)
Love lets
go; possessiveness clings on.
6)
Love your
neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31)
VI) THE TWO PORTRAIT OF
JESUS: AFFECTION
This second
portrait of Jesus is characterised by the love of affection. His affection is non‑possessive
in that he leaves us free to receive it or not, to respond to it or not. It is
a humble affection in that he is willing to perform the humblest of tasks to
meet our needs. Jesus' affection is sensitive to our gifts, our needs and our
aspirations. The affection of Jesus has a female and a male form of expression.
Its female expression is seen in the compassion and generosity of Jesus. Its
male expression is seen in the way Jesus challenges us to accept the full
extent and
depth of his
affection and to get our 'whole heart and soul and mind and strength' involved
in receiving and returning it.
In our lives we
have a lot of experience of the love of affection which is a love shown
primarily within a family and especially between parents and their children.
Affection as the appreciation and concern we receive within a family is the
most basic love.
The three
qualities of affection are: (a) one of the finest qualities of affection is
that it leaves us free to be ourselves. There are no strings
attached to its giving. Genuine affection has not got to be earned but is there
for us whether we respond to it or not. (b) Affection is the humblest of
loves. We see this in the way that parents provide the most menial
services for their new‑born child. (c) Parents and especially mothers are
sensitive to the needs, feelings and aspirations of their
children. Affection has the capacity to merge or identify with the object of
its affection, with his or her joys and sorrows.
There are
female and male characteristics of affection. Among the female ones are compassion
and a self‑sacrificing generosity. The compassionate aspect
of affection is seen especially in the deep concern that inclines mothers to
meet the needs and share the pain of their children. There is also a self‑sacrificing
generosity which we associate with the affection of mothers and this goes to
endless rounds to cater for their children's needs and to realise their dreams.
There are also
qualities associated with male affection. The first of these challenges
us to extend the boundaries of our affection by constantly broadening the
circle of those we receive it from and share it with. We are challenged to let
go of the comfortable confines to which we tend to limit our affection. This
male quality of affection also challenges its to get our whole person
involved in receiving and returning affection, our whole heart and soul,
mind and strength.
A) Holy
Freedom leaves us free to
be ourselves, to follow our dream, to attend to our own gifts, needs and
feelings as well as to those of others.
Humility is the virtue through which we live with the
truth that we have great potential and strengths as well as being immersed in
poverty and weaknesses. Love, which gives us our worth apart from what we do,
is not earned.
Sensitivity means that we are tuned in to the gifts of
others and can identify with them in their needs and feelings.
C) Two female features of affection are:
Compassion which is a concern that tunes in to and seeks
to help, in a warmhearted way, those in need or who face difficulty.
Generosity responds to the needs of others in an
altruistic way even when this demands self‑sacrifice. It gives the right
amount of help with no strings attached.
D) TWO male
features of affection are:
... challenge
us to broaden our horizons, to live in the wider world of affection, to
develop wings as well as roots and to stand back and be objective .
... challenge us to
get our whole person involved in receiving and giving affection.