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BUILDING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS © Belinda Gore, Ph.D., 2003 Within the Enneagram system there are several groupings that provide information that is helpful in dealing with relationship issues. The Instinctual Variants— Self Preservation, Social, and Sexual instincts--add further detail and dimension to each of the types, and because each of us has all three instincts in varying degrees of intensity, the teaching of the Instinctual Variants is often a good place to start in building healthy relationships. The Self-Preservation Instinct is the drive toward survival, security, safety, comfort, and well-being. It is Earth energy, well-grounded and solid. Sometimes people who have a lot of this energy are so grounded that they can seem somber and serious. When we are using our Self-Preservation instinct, we tend to be focused on getting our physical and material needs met, and on defending what we have. People with high Self-Preservation instinct establish and maintain their boundaries, drawing a circle around themselves to say “Inside this circle is ME and MINE; outside is NOT ME and doesn’t belong here.” A special person may be included inside the circle but only upon invitation. The driving force is the message, “I have to take care of myself.” Other people, who do not have strong a Self-Preservation instinct, may see them as selfish, aloof, or always surrounded by an invisible wall. There is a tendency to believe that people with high Social Instinct are extraverts, but this is not necessarily true, as the instinct is not toward being an “outgoing person” but rather toward caring about community and one’s place within the community. These people are identified by an energy that is fluid and adaptive like Water, always looking for response. In seminars when I invite Social Instinct types to come to the front of the room, they always start talking with each other right away. Their instinct is to be aware of other people and to develop a sense of how to interact within the group. In relationships they want a companion who understands and shares their values, someone they can play with and talk about what matters to them. They can become People-Pleasers, giving themselves away for the sake of relationship of any kind, and then often regretting it. The Sexual Instinct is not really about sex but rather about a search for intensity as well as intimacy, about passionately engaging the Other (whether a person, a project, a theory) in an effort to be more complete. People who have a strongly developed Sexual instinct are subconsciously saying, “I need who you are and what you have in order to be whole.” They seem to express a sense of hunger, a longing for completion rather than for companionship. They want intense contact, similar to what most people experience during sex, but in all their interactions. For this reason, other people may misinterpret their cues as always being sexually oriented. The primal energy is Fire, sometimes appearing only as glowing embers and sometimes an all-consuming flame. The Sexual intensity is always there in some form. Every person has a dominant instinct, the type of instinctual energy this is employed most easily and often unconsciously. Our dominant instinct indicates what we prioritize The secondary instinct is our fall-back position, the type of energy we use more consciously to support our sub-conscious priorities. Finally, there is the least developed instinct, the aspect of our lives that we overlook and tend to devalue. Identifying your dominant, secondary, and least developed instincts indicates your “stack.” It is important to remember that we need all three instinctual energies in order to function in a healthy way, ready to respond to the variety of circumstances life brings. In personal development work, we would focus on bringing the three instincts into balance. For instance, people for whom Self-Preservation is the least developed tend to have little instinct for how to take good care of themselves, perhaps putting themselves at risk for health problems or being financially inept. Their challenge is to learn good self-care and skills for managing their resources. If the Social instinct is the least developed, individuals have little instinct for how to be with other people, often feeling awkward and getting into problem situations because of misunderstandings. They need to learn how to value and respond to other people’s social needs. An underdeveloped Sexual instinct leaves a person uneasy in really close encounters, feeling naked and exposed in intimate situations. It is hard for these people to sustain passionate feelings, and they lose energy in the midst of what they are doing, whether it is sex, a project, even a conversation. Their challenge is to learn to take risks, to allow themselves to feel exposed, and to consciously invest themselves deeply in whatever they are doing. TOM AND DIANE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER Tom and Diane have been partnered for over ten years and continue to struggle with their relationship. Tom is a Social Seven; he loves to have a large network of friends and is well known in his community. With a type Seven personality, he is interested in being active and enjoys getting up early on the weekend to take an extended bike ride or to get together with a group of friends to go hiking. His secondary instinct is Self-Preservation and he wants to have a comfortable home and enough money to support the various activities that catch his interest. He is a hard worker, makes a good income, and likes to balance work and play. His Sexual instinct is the least developed. While he really enjoys sex, he is uncomfortable with too much emotional intimacy. He does not want to talk about their relationship problems with friends, saying that he feels too exposed in airing their dirty laundry in public. He has a reputation with their friends for having a dozen projects going all the time and has a hard time focusing on their relationship. Diane, on the other hand, is a Sexual Four so she thrives on intensity. She tends to have emotional meltdowns, storming and crying, wanting Tom to engage in a focused, passionate interaction with her. She wants to give herself totally to the relationship and have Tom respond similarly. Her secondary instinct is Social, so she enjoys Tom’s wide circle of friends but resents his wanting to always do things with a group rather than having romantic weekends alone. Her Social instinct helps her be aware of the dynamics of their relationship and she is interested in talking about what is going on and how they can improve. Self-Preservation is her least developed energy and she uses her personal money to pursue her passion of the moment in great depth, investing in expensive opportunities for self-development. They often argue about money; Tom thinks Diane is irresponsible and Diane says Tom is succumbing to “middle-class economic fears” that she disdains. Their first task is to understand that their individual priorities are not necessarily “right” and that it has not been very helpful to simply argue, trying to justify and defend their individual positions. Tom needs to face his difficulty with intimacy, asking Diane not to overwhelm him when he tries to stay present with her intense emotional outpouring. Diane is challenged to deal with her financial irresponsibility and to make an effort to value the importance of taking care of their house and other belongings. They are learning to compromise in planning their weekends, allowing time for activities with friends but also setting aside Sunday mornings to read the newspaper in bed and have quiet time alone with each other. Most importantly they are working on respecting their differences, naming them as variations in their instinctual energy rather than impossible problems that can never be fixed. EXERCISE As you read Tom and Diane’s story, try to identify your own “stack”: which instinct seems to be dominant for you, which is secondary, and which is the least developed. Ask your friends or spouse or coworkers what they think your stack might be, since sometimes we do not see ourselves as clearly as others see us. You might want to ask them questions to decide what their stacks are, too. What do you each want other people to respect or understand about you, and what are you willing to learn that will help you develop the instinct that you tend to neglect? In future Life Stories we will explore other sub-groupings within the Enneagram to further identify and understand what we really want in life, how we try to get it, and how we tend to cope when things are not working out the way we want them to. |
| ©2002 Enneagram Institute of Central Ohio | |
