How Enneagram Type 4 Informs The False Core Pattern

In the Unique Self Coaching Process we use the Enneagram particularly because the “cognitive-emotional habit” of each type helps in the discovery of one’s False Core Belief. Each week we are exploring one of the Enneagram types in order to give you a sense of each type’s particular beliefs and mini practices to help you become more aware of your own pattern with the intent of beginning to unloosen the grip of your False Self Pattern.

In the last two weeks we’ve explored the Feeling Center Triad with Enneatype 2 and 3 Today, we’ll continue the journey around the Enneagram wheel with Enneatype 4, also from the Feeling Center. Enneatype Fours adopt a strategy that allows them to feel special or different as a way of defensively compensating for a deeper belief in their own deficiency and inadequacy. This identification with a negative sense of self along with a tendency to focus on what’s missing and to idealize what they want as perfect and perpetually distant, cuts them off from getting the deep sense of connection they long for in life.

False Self Contraction in Fours is revealed in their tendency to close themselves off from others in the anticipation of rejection or abandonment.

Here are the False Core Sentences/Beliefs followed by descriptions of patterns that are common to Fours.If one of these sentences, and/or pattern feels familiar to you, you might want to explore the practices that accompany the pattern. Each of these practices is geared towards creating more awareness of the ways into which you contract. Creating awareness is the first step towards dismantling your False Core Pattern. Practices are most effectively when used daily.

Common False Core Sentences:

I’m unworthy

I’m unlovable

I’m not enough

I am in pain

I am too much

Common Patterns:

Engaging in intense self-criticism and even self-loathing and dismissing compliments and positive feedback

Observation Practice: During the day, note all the ways in which you perpetuate negative beliefs about yourself by focusing on your flaws.

Daily journaling:

• What kinds of thoughts and beliefs do you have about yourself on a regular basis?
• What external evidence do you actually have on what you perceive as your flaws and deficiencies?

 Viewing yourself as special or superior as a way of defensively compensating for a deeper belief in your inadequacy

 Observation Practice: Observe during the day the ways in which you distance yourself or avoid potential connections by focusing on others’ flaws and how different you are from others.

Daily journaling:

• What beliefs do you behold about how you don’t fit in your world?
• What evidence do you have that this is true?

 Distracting yourself in various ways from your deepest longings for love, growth and expansion through holding yourself in a familiar emotional space

Observation Practice: Notice when you dwell in hopelessness and melancholy as           a way to distract yourself from taking action on your situation and confronting a         deeper experience of pain at not getting the love you long for.

            Daily journaling:

• What are the ways you create drama as a way to avoid feeling deeper emotions?
• Where in your body do you feel these deeper emotions?

 Focusing on what’s missing such that you blind yourself to all that is there 

Observation Practice: During the day, observe the way your attention habitually goes to what is missing in any given situation. Note how you judge people and            situations by focusing on what is lacking such that you don’t take in the good parts        of a situation or a relationship

Daily journaling:

• What are you avoiding in the present by devaluing it as boring or deficient in some way?  
• How does focusing on what isn’t good enough prevent you from appreciating the value and goodness inherent in yourself and in others?

Next week, we’ll explore Enneatype Five, the first of the Head Center. In the meantime, and if you do not personally resonate with Type Four, we invite you to ask yourself who in your close surroundings might be a Four, and how does this description of their way of functioning in the world, might help you understand them better? And if you think it’s appropriate, you might want to share this post with them.

If you are uncertain about your type and would like to take a free inventory we recommend either the Enneagram Institute or Enneagram Dimensions.

 We are offering a Unique Self Coaching Process online called: Loosening the Grip Of Your False Core Pattern, which begins April 4^th. This six-session course will meet every other week so you’ll have time to engage fully in each practice. Visit our website at www.uniqueselfcoaching.com for more information and to register.