We call 8s The Aliveness Seeker because their primary motivations are to feel fully alive; to be powerful, independent, and in control of their situation; and to avoid being in power down positions where they can be violated or taken advantage of.

When 8s are connected to Essential Aliveness, they feel the primal vitality of reality surging through them, making all aspects of their experience vibrant, immediate, and vivacious. They feel charged with unshakeable life force, believe in themselves utterly, and experience a deep inner strength that does not need to prove itself. In this grounded place, 8s are vigorous, galvanizing, forbearing, big hearted, magnanimous, and innocent. 

Healthy 8s have mojo, dynamism, and charisma that comes from direct contact with their gut. To Healthy 8s, the world is like a playground that is meant for them. They are passionate people who enjoy challenging themselves by taking on projects and standing for things they believe in—similar to 1s. But while 1s are (more) motivated by a sense of duty to uphold moral rightness, Healthy 8s are (more) motivated by a protective instinct, a constructive spirit, and a zest for aliveness.

No other type is as comfortable with the use of power as is type 8, and Healthy 8s aren’t afraid to throw their weight around for the greater good. Actually, they rather enjoy it. But Healthy 8s do not need to willfully overpower others. They attune to their environments and use precisely the amount of force required to get the job done. 

Because Healthy 8s trust their own strength, they are willing to let down their guard and be affected by their environment. When 8s embrace their sensitivity, they realize how touched they are by life, and their huge, tender hearts beam. From this place, Healthy 8s are truly generous and have a powerful inclination to protect the vulnerable, champion underdogs, and positively impact the world. They use their strength to galvanize others, and they often awaken capacities in others that they didn’t see in themselves. 

When 8s lose touch with Essential Aliveness, it can feel to them as if their will and life-force is being constrained or thwarted in some profound way by an unnamable force making them weak and vulnerable. It feels as if they could be violated or taken advantage of at any moment, so fixated 8s resolve to keep their guard up and to be strong and tough to survive. 

8s view the world through a lens of power dynamics. There are those with power and those without, those who can protect themselves and whose who can and will be taken advantage of. To ensure that nothing can get to them, and to make sure they can live life on their own terms, Fixated 8s become preoccupied with being someone with power and leverage over others, or at least someone independent enough for no one to have power over them. The classic framing is that 8s work to set up their lives so that they can influence their environment without being influenced by it. Fixated 8s want to stay in 

control of their own life and destiny, so they harden and push their way through the world, “making it happen” themselves. They begin to think of themselves as doers and straight talkers who tell it like it is and expect others to do the same. They have no patience for coddling or fluff, and the “tougher” Fixated 8s become, the more it repulses them when they see weakness in others. (“If you can’t stand on your own two feet, you’re not worth my time.”)

Fixated 8s are comfortable expressing their anger and often feel that it is justified.  Fixated 8s rarely feel the need to justify themselves because the very notion of needing to justify oneself is an affront to their primary value — their right to exist as themselves. As a result, they can be unapologetic and sincerely guiltless when they hurt others.

The more Fixated 8s fear being hurt by others, they more they feel the need to hunker down, barricade themselves emotionally, and remain in control of their environment. They may attempt to amass wealth, resources, status, social capital, or other means of leverage to ensure that they can remain independent, have influence over others, and keep threats at arms’ length. This could mean starting a business or simply cultivating a demeanor that effectively communicates “don’t mess with me.” Because of their forcefulness and resourcefulness, Fixated 8s are often successful in these pursuits, and they can develop a grandiose self-image: kings and queens of their domain who have the right to force their agenda, boss people around, or if push comes to shove, deliver direct blows. 8s deep in fixation dominate others by intimidating them, demanding loyalty, and punishing those who step out of line. Secretly, Fixated 8s are scared of betrayal, but unfortunately the more inexorable they become, the more they provoke it. 

Fixated 8s can cause a lot of ruckus, and it is important to remember that their hardness masks their grief at the loss of Essential Aliveness. To Fixated 8s, it is as if the carefree innocence of their childhood was taken from them too soon. Their forceful nature arises from the urge to claim their right to be here fully. But instead of calmly trusting their own strength, Fixated 8s use it to intensify their experience to “make themselves” feel alive; it also helps them stay in control and prevent being taken advantage of.

What 8s really want is to feel solid and fully alive, and to take up their proper space in the world. The trouble for Fixated 8s is that in order to protect their aliveness, they have buried the very thing that connects them to it — their sensitivity. 8s’ ability to tackle life’s challenges with confidence and gusto is an inspiring superpower, but the more they harden, repress their vulnerability, and push against the world, the more numb they become.

As 8s deepen themselves through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Aliveness, which grounds them in the awareness that the same inextinguishable life-force infuses everything, from caterpillars and blades of grass to themselves. From this place, Healthy 8s drop the need to protect their aliveness by staying in control and keeping the world at arm’s length, and they recover their virtue of Innocence — radical openness and willingness to be affected by life. Healthy 8s get that to be alive is to be vulnerable, and they are humbled to learn that their sensitivity is not a liability but a gift that allows them to be touched by the world they care about. 

We call 9s The Harmony Seeker because their primary motivations are to feel peaceful, to "just be" without interference, and to abide in pleasant harmony with their "world."

When 9s are connected to Essential Harmony, they experience the gestalt of all things as a harmonious unity. Importantly, they include themselves as part of this gestalt, and they rest in the peaceful awareness that they belong here, that their full participation in life is wanted and needed. In this grounded place, Healthy 9s are self-possessed, empathetic, kind, unifying, steady, and engaged.

Healthy 9s are incredibly easy to be around because they abide in a steady, contagious tranquility and embody a simple human decency that dissolves all pretense. They are self-confident without fanfare and empathetic in the true sense of the word — they “feel with” others. Others “land” in the presence of Healthy 9s in a way that often surprises them, as if they are remembering themselves after waking up from a dream. This is a profound gift in a world that often pulls us into tornadoes of activity that make us forget who we are. 

Healthy 9s’ defining quality is their self-possession. What this means practically is that Healthy 9s actually live the lives they want to, even if it ruffles some feathers or goes against the flow. If they want to hang out, they hang out. If they have a project in mind, they go for it. If they get angry, they express themselves. Their approach to life is simply to “take it all in,” speak their truth, and act in congruence with their felt sense. Because of this, Healthy 9s are both receptive to the world and active in it, and they achieve a Healthy balance between input and output, give and take, sense and response.  

In a word, Healthy 9s exemplify presence itself — the ability to “be with” anything arising in the moment and to respond from the wisdom of one’s fully integrated personhood. This may seem like a generic description of health and not type specific, but it is especially noteworthy for 9s because, as we will see in their fixation, type 9 most directly exemplifies the universal human tendency to disengage from life and from oneself.

When 9s lose touch with Essential Harmony, it can feel to them as if the world is discordant, uncomfortable, and overwhelming, and they simply do not have the energy to deal with it. The thought of facing such a world is unbearable and exhausting, so 9s attempt to restore harmony by “checking out” and maintaining their inner peace. This manifests as a pattern of tuning out problems, overly accommodating others, and retreating into reveries in their imagination.

9s want to stay connected to their “world” in the Heideggerian sense — the gestalt of things and relationships that define their reality. Fixated 9s make the mistake of thinking that in order to do this, they must accommodate themselves to their world instead of assert themselves in it. 

The (usually unconscious) thinking goes: if I assert myself, I will disturb the peace, make others upset, and risk abandonment. So, Fixated 9s adopt a go-with-the-flow attitude and resist getting worked up. It is safer to merge with others’ agendas and be swept along by the tides of life than to “show up” fully as themselves. Unfortunately, in so doing, Fixated 9s blur the line between where they end and others begin. What started as a natural gift for empathy distorts into a substitution of others’ worlds for their own, and Fixated 9s lose track of what they really want, yield the right of way to others, and fade into a fog of passivity. 

What prevents 9s from self-assertion is their resistance to anger. 9s are perhaps the most sensitive of all Enneagram types to the general boisterousness of the world. It’s all so much to deal with already, and they feel that getting worked up would just make matters worse. It is as if their inner world is a strangely placid lake whose waves resist growing beyond small amplitudes despite rumblings from beneath and winds from above. Fixated 9s often report that if someone has crossed a boundary with them, they do not realize that they are angry until hours later, at which point they either dismiss it or stew on it without taking strong action. So instead of expressing their anger outright, Fixated 9s become passive aggressive, indirect, and grumpy at no one in particular. A low hum of melancholy sets into their lives, and their state of being becomes equivalent to an existential sigh. 

Ironically, Fixated 9s use so much psychological energy to remain tranquil that they exhaust themselves. Fixated 9s often report being tired, and they experience a preemptive exhaustion at the thought of taking important actions on their own behalf. They may have no problem galvanizing themselves in service of others, but that business they want to start, that class they want to take, or that conflict they need to resolve… they never seem to get around to it. Instead, they operate on autopilot, piddle about, and daydream about realities that they never act to manifest. Over time, 9s get annoyed about this. It is not fair that other people got better “life permission slips” than they did. “Why can’t I live my life too?” Unfortunately, Fixated 9s usually suppress this exasperation, dissociate, and ignore problems that fester from neglect.

What 9s really want is to live in harmony with their world and to feel held by life. The trouble for 9s is that by over accommodating others, they disappear altogether. But just like how in a musical choir, harmony requires the participation of all voices, so it is in life. Fixated 9s must learn that their full participation is welcome and wanted, and that it is not necessary to subdue their own life force to be a part of the world. 

As 9s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Harmony, with which they experience the harmonious coziness of reality as a living truth. Nothing could ever be separate from the ever-present, benevolent unity of all things, not even themselves. From this place, 9s drop the need to recreate harmony through lack of self-assertion, and they recover their virtue of Engagement. Healthy 9s fully inhabit themselves, bring forth the substance of their own personhood, and participate in the world with vitality, solidity, and a simple kindness that gives hope to others who see the world as mad and uncivil. Beautifully, Healthy 9s now truly can connect to their worlds because they have enough of a personhood to be connected to. It is pure joy for Healthy 9s to live from this grounded, embodied, and harmonious place. 

We call 1s The Goodness Seeker because their primary motivation is to seek alignment with “goodness” and rightness (as in good/evil, right/wrong).

When 1s are connected to Essential Goodness, they experience the untarnished goodness of all things as a living truth. Importantly, they include themselves as part of this goodness, and they abide in the calm awareness that all things are good simply as they are. In this grounded place, Healthy 1s are principled, noble, fair, softhearted, wise, and serene. 

Healthy 1s feel connected to a gut sense of right and wrong. They are excellent ambassadors of moral aspiration because they put principle before personal bias and walk their talk. By example, they invite others to leave childish ways behind and become the dignified adults that they were always meant to be. 

1s are idealists at heart, and they can’t help but see how our world can be improved. But because Healthy 1s have compassion for our imperfect nature, they are able to stand peacefully in the gap between reality and ideals. Healthy 1s get that we are all always trying our best, so they go easy on themselves and others. Others often find that in the presence of a Healthy 1, they are simultaneously inspired to accept themselves as they are and to live more rightly — a paradox that Healthy 1s embody themselves. 

The serenity prayer — May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference — captures the sage spirit of Healthy 1s. They are willing to speak their minds and put themselves on the line for what they believe is right. But they truly do accept the things that they cannot change, which allows them to unwind and enjoy life. They also get that there are valid perspectives other than their own, and they are curious, open, and receptive to those whose opinions differ from theirs. So even as they advocate for causes and call others into more upright ways of being, Healthy 1s remain calm, accepting, and nonjudgemental. 

When 1s lose touch with Essential Goodness, it can feel to them as if “goodness” itself is an endangered thing being overrun by “badness” (e.g. evil, chaos, wrongdoing), and they must intervene before it disappears completely. Gripped by this fear, their serenity wanes, and Fixated 1s become rigidly attached to personal distinctions between right and wrong. The idealism of Healthy 1s devolves into displeased moralism, and Fixated 1s become opinionated, disapproving, and chronically annoyed.

Fixated 1s are heartbroken that the world isn’t the way it should be, and they feel personally obligated to set it right. This means that they must fix what's wrong, control themselves to make sure they don’t act wrongly, they must help others see when they have transgressed. Fixated 1s begin to relate to others from a moral high ground, as though they are arbiters of truth and justice, right and wrong, good and bad. They are quick to correct others’ behavior, and they get frustrated that other people don’t seem to care about upholding their values and that there aren’t better consequences in place to keep people in line. It’s as if they believe, “I’m the only adult around here. Everyone else just hasn’t grown up.” On the outside, Fixated 1s may come across self-confident, as people of high moral conviction. But on the inside, Fixated 1s are often ruthless with themselves, administering merciless inner lashings and repressing their “bad” impulses, lest they run wild. 

The more uncompromising 1s get with themselves, the more critical they become of others. People close to Fixated 1s may experience them as harsh, teacherly, and perpetually disappointed, like a nun with a ruler always ready to slap a wrist. The more positional Fixated 1s become, the more they simmer with indignation that the world just isn’t up to snuff and that others just don’t care to do the right thing. It is as if very Fixated ones are about to boil over with outrage and are using pure will to contain themselves. Whether or not they blow their tops, they do become testy, nit-picky, self-righteous, and narrow-minded. From this place, Fixated 1s fail to distinguish between lofty ideals and realistic possibilities, attempt to hold themselves and others to impossibly high standards of perfection, and close to feedback that they are being unreasonable.

What 1s really want is to know that goodness itself is safe, and they despair it would be lost without their advocacy. 1s’ ability to see what could be better about the current state of things is an admirable superpower, but the trouble for Fixated 1s is that they focus so much on what is “wrong” (according to their definition) that they fail to see what goodness is present. Moreover, their rigid criticality alienates others and makes them ineffective advocates for the change they wish to see.

As 1s deepen themselves through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Goodness, which grounds them in the awareness that reality is fundamentally good, even if there is room for improvement. This awareness transcends the objections of the mind and allows 1s to recover their virtue of Serenity. Healthy 1s learn that having integrity does not mean being perfect or pure, but is instead an ongoing process of integrating of all parts of oneself — shadow and light, humor and sternness, id and superego. This allows 1s to be both moral and forgiving. Healthy 1s find peace in living from this wise and relaxed place.

We call 2s The Love Seeker because their primary motivation is to seek the warmth and affirmation of loving and caring connection, and to be a source of it for others.

When 2s are connected to Essential Love, they experience the idea that “all is love'' as a living truth. It is as if all things and all people, including themselves, are inseparable from a loving warmth that permeates everything. In this grounded place, Healthy 2s are people-oriented, affectionate, warm, thoughtful, well-boundaried, and humble. 

For 2s, connection with others is what makes life worth living, and of all the Enneagram types, Healthy 2s most clearly embody “unconditional” love. They are natural nurturers and caretakers, and they enjoy expressing their fondness for others directly. Healthy 2s do not express affection as a means to an end or because someone has “earned” it, but rather for its own sake, simply because it is a joy to do so. Because of this, Healthy 2s are powerful connectors whose radiant heart-forwardness can melt even the toughest exteriors. 

Healthy 2s love supporting others and are highly emotionally attuned, but they are also well-boundaried. Because they appreciate themselves, Healthy 2s attend to their own needs without guilt. They get that self-care is an essential part of life, and they do not overextend themselves to be in others’ lives. Indeed, Healthy 2s are excellent at discerning when it is appropriate to help others and when it is best to give others space to figure things out on their own. Ironically, because Healthy 2s do not grasp for love, the love they receive from others actually reaches them. They delight in the interpersonal sweetness of life. 

When 2s lose touch with Essential Love, it can feel to them as if love itself is drying up, that interpersonal connection is an endangered thing that must be nurtured lest it fade away altogether. Like Fixated 1s who fear that without them, the world would descend into evil and wrongdoing, Fixated 2s worry that without them, no one would experience the warmth of love and connection — especially themselves.  

Fixated 2s want to feel the warmth and affirmation of caring connection with other, but they fear that no one will love them for who they truly are. So they attempt to enhance their lovability by being giving and “selfless.” The unconscious thinking goes, “People won’t want me around unless I’m being useful to them.” In this state, Fixated 2s think constantly about how they can help others and take action to do so. They begin to see themselves as “bringers of love,” and it becomes important to them that others appreciate them for everything they do— although this is something they wouldn’t publicly admit, since they might come across as selfish. They can be very sensitive and feel rejected easily.

Despite striving tirelessly to meet the needs of others, Fixated 2s are insecure that others wouldn’t want them around if they had needs of their own. So, in the name of selflessness, they suppress their own needs. But of course, all humans need love, support, and appreciation, and Fixated 2s eventually attempt to fulfill these needs indirectly. For instance, they may hover and pry into others’ personal lives to amplify closeness. Or, they flatter or serve others in the hopes that others will affirm their connectedness. Unfortunately for 2s, this may have the opposite effect, since others may be repelled by 2s’ neediness and insincerity. 

Prideful thoughts such as, “I do so much for her” and “He would be totally lost without me” buoy Fixated 2s’ self-image and keep them from the depths of love-starved despair. But the more attached 2s get to being needed by others, the more sensitive they become to rejection, the more willfully blind they become to whether people actually need their help, and the more resentful they become of those who do not appreciate them for all they do.

What 2s really want is to experience the warmth and sweetness of love and connection. While their genuine desire to support others is a beautiful gift in this world, the trouble for 2s is that by supporting others compulsively, 2s abandon themselves, create relational inequalities, and perpetuate their  fear of their own unlovability. Moreover, they deny others the chance of connecting to them by hiding and suppressing the very needs that others could help fulfill. 

As 2s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Love, which grounds them in the awareness that is not possible to be disconnected from others and that love is in everything, always flowing, even when it appears lost. From this place, Healthy 2s drop the need to justify their lovability by being angelically selfless, and they recover their virtue of Humility. This allows them to acknowledge their own needs, to see that others will be fine without them, and to be truly touched by others' love. From this place, they can fully experience the warmth of true connection that have always wanted. 

We call 3s The Value Seeker because their primary motivation is to feel valuable, outstanding, and worthy of admiration.

When 3s are connected to Essential Value, they are blown away by the ineffable magnificence of all things, including themselves. It is as if their hearts know and celebrate the preciousness of all things and all people. In this grounded place, Healthy 3s are confident, charming, admiring, adaptable, gracious, and authentic. 

Healthy 3s live comfortably in the paradox of self-acceptance and self-development. They work hard to be the best they can be, and they delight in challenging themselves to make the most of their potential. To Healthy 3s, life is a playground where they get to experience the full range of their competencies, and it is a joy to become excellent at what they love to do. However, even as they develop themselves with ardor and dedication, Healthy 3s also fully accept themselves “warts and all.” They are honest about their talents and limitations, and they present themselves congruently with their personhood. 

That Healthy 3s are both authentic and adaptable deserves some exploration. As we will see, in order to succeed in any situation, Fixated 3s compulsively shape-shift and “forget” themselves. But Healthy 3s adapt intelligently to situations without abandoning who they are. This may seem like splitting hairs, but not so — the former is a frantic bid for validation, while the latter is an attuned calibration to one’s environment grounded in a “know your audience” sensibility. For instance, a Fixated 3 at a job interview might reference a book he hasn’t read it if he thinks it will impress his interviewer. By contrast, while a Healthy 3 would not engage in such conversational sleight of hand, he would still comport himself in a way that the other person is likely to receive well.

Because Healthy 3s value themselves, they do what they love whether or not it will earn them praise, and they shine with a radiant charm that inspires others without conscious effort. By example, they inspire others not just to grow their competencies, but to listen more deeply to their hearts. Valuing themselves also makes it possible for Healthy 3s to delight in seeing others succeed. They admire others genuinely and without competitiveness, and they naturally inspire others to see their inherent worth and live up to their potential. 

When 3s lose touch with Essential Value, it can feel to them as if there is no such thing as inherent worth. All worth—specifically their own—must be proven, and it is only measurable in relation to other things that have more or less of it. This distorted outlook applies most of all to themselves, and Fixated 3s begin to feel that it is not enough simply to be who they are. They must be, and be perceived as, outstanding or else be doomed to the oblivion of worthlessness. 

Because Fixated 3s feel that their worth depends on their success, they become ambitious, compulsive self-developers determined to “be somebody.” Fixated 3s notice what is valued in their environments, and based on this, they form a notion of success and set themselves single-mindedly towards achieving it. Accolades, prestige, and symbols of status loom large in their inner worlds, and constant striving becomes a way of life. Something is only worth doing if it helps them get “further ahead,” and values like efficiency and high performance rule their worlds.

Because Fixated 3s evaluate themselves relative to others, they are highly competitive. But because they are image conscious, some 3s conceal their competitiveness lest others think of them as obnoxious or try-hard. Either way, all Fixated 3s want to be perceived as extraordinary, so they will usually flaunt their successes or present themselves favorably, and they may sometimes “adjust” the truth to paint themselves in a better light. 

The more scared 3s are of failure, the more they turn into presentational workaholics who strive relentlessly to be, and be perceived as, successful. On the outside, others may perceive Fixated 3s as confident, driven, competent, and perhaps strangely glossy or perfect, since they are in fact attempting to be perceived that way. But on the inside, Fixated 3s often feel empty, sensitive, and fearful of judgment. Although they would not readily admit it, they do not want others to see through their polished demeanor and impressive resume to the scared, imperfect person they “really are.”  

What 3s really want is to know that they are valuable. The trouble for Fixated 3s is that they try to prove that they are valuable by achieving a notion of success that is not their own and will not ultimately fulfill them. Their constant striving, calibrating, and validation-seeking of is a symptom of their underlying lack of self-love, not a viable solution to it. Instead of striving to become more valuable, 3s must instead learn how to love themselves as they are right now.

As 3s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Value, which grounds them in the truth that they (and others) are already valuable precisely as they are. From this place, 3s drop the need to prove their value by becoming more successful, and they recover their virtue of Authenticity. Healthy 3s are exactly as they seem because they do not need to be, or to be perceived as, “better” than who they really are. From this place, they truly do shine and become the admirable people they have always strived to be.

We call 4s The Depth Seeker because their primary motivation is to contact and express the aspects of their identity that are untouched by external influence. For this reason, they try to stay "true to themselves" (their own depths) and to be saturated in personal meaning.

When 4s are connected to Essential Depth, they get that life is an ongoing process of depth, beauty, and meaning surfacing from Source. All things are processes of moment-to-moment unfoldment, not static entities that can be framed and labeled, including themselves. They also experience a profound intimacy with the mystery of existence, as if the exquisite and infinitely-layered beauty of the world, of others, and of themselves touches them at a cellular level. In this grounded place, Healthy 4s are expressive, humane, poetic, emotionally honest, self-generating, and equanimous.

Fundamentally 4s want to clarify and be, “What is truly me?” without being contaminated by exogenous impurities that would contaminate who they really are. Healthy 4s get that who they are an ever-unfolding mystery that cannot be captured in words, concepts, or images. But still their life-long project is to avoid “identity contamination” and immerse and saturate themselves in personal meaning. No other type is as fascinated by the subject of their own identity, tastes, and preferences — what is meaningful to me — as is type 4, and even in health, 4s’ attention is often directed toward their inner experience. 

4s are intimately familiar with their own preferences, and they tend not to be shy about expressing their distaste for this or that thing. But while Healthy 4s are emotionally “real” and honest, they express themselves in a way that invites others to discover their own deeper emotional truth. 4s are particularly attuned to and comfortable with the shadow—the dark parts of our inner worlds that most people avoid—and they love to explore our human foibles, our suffering, and the imperfections that make us unique. Because Healthy 4s are aware of, but not subsumed in, their own inner darkness, they can explore others’ with an ease that is unique among Enneagram types. This is a profound superpower, much needed in our modern world, which tends to distract us from exploring difficult or culturally unsanctioned feelings, the very thing we must do to heal, integrate, and deepen through stages of ego development.

When 4s lose touch with Essential Depth, it can feel to them as if they have been abandoned in a madhouse of superficial meaninglessness. Pain, suffering, and just plain bad taste are all around, yet everyone seems to just be carrying on about their day, willfully blind to the depths that for 4s are so tragically neglected. As with all Enneagram types, the loss of contact with Essence is a heartbreaking, existential catastrophe. But no type leans as directly into this heartbreak as does type 4. This requires some explanation because the type 4 structure, and 4s themselves, are often misunderstood.

While Fixated 4s do sometimes get outright depressed, normally they just experience an ever-present dissatisfaction — an “attitude of disdain.”. The truth is that everyone experiences this dissatisfaction at some level, but many types try to soothe it or block it from awareness. By contrast, 4s try to recapture Essential Depth by experiencing their dissatisfaction with the superficiality of the world and constructing an identity out of their likes and dislikes. 

4s are driven above all to discover and express that which is uniquely theirs, that which rises from their depths and no one else’s. What is paradoxically true is that the deeper we plunge into our own selves, the more we contact that which is universally human. Fixated 4s, however, confuse ordinariness with superficiality and react emotionally against perceived superficiality wherever they find it. The thinking goes: something cannot have depth or its “own” identity if it is ordinary, common, or replicable, and this thinking extends to both humans and their creations, such as artworks or companies. For example, to a Fixated 4, a Hallmark card may seem like a mockery of depth and individuality, since it is a mass produced, cookie cutter form of sentimentality and not “real” emotional truth. 4s disdain such ordinariness and superficiality wherever they find it, most of all in themselves. Lest they become human Hallmark cards — an unthinkable prospect — Fixated 4s obsess over expressing their distinct, “authentic” selves.

On a macroscopic level, 4s’ drive to express their distinctness often manifests in a unique lifestyle, autobiographical narratives that reinforce how they are different from others, strong preferences for the kinds of people, art, and experiences that they believe have depth, and contempt for things that do not fit their sensibility. On a moment-to-moment level, 4s’ frustration functions as a kind of emotional guard against infiltration by superficiality. “I’m annoyed. There’s no way in hell I’m gonna watch that ridiculous happy movie right now.” Unfortunately, because Fixated 4s identify so much with their frustration, they tend not to want to feel anything else, since other emotions “don’t feel like me!" Not to mention, being frustrated all the time causes Fixated 4s to focus only what is missing, which reinforces their frustration in a vicious loop. This causes 4s a great deal of trouble because Fixated 4s want to “stay in” their current mood, no matter how toxic, alienating, or self-defeating it may be, and doing something to change one’s mood is the very definition of emotional incongruence.

Because they must define themselves as different from others, Fixated 4s often feel frustrated that others do not “get them” or see through superficial veneers enough to value what they value. In order to be “true to themselves,” 4s attune to the depth in themselves and others that only they sense, yet feel frustrated and alienated because no one else seems to notice or care. Unfortunately, these feelings become the way in which 4s stay in contact with depth. Giving that up feels like abandoning the only thing that they know to be precious to them. This causes 4s to feel that they suffer uniquely, which further bolsters their differentiated sense of self. In this state, 4s become preoccupied with their woundedness and insufficiency and wallow in emotional storminess. 4s’ inward orientation usually makes them aware of their storminess, which usually stirs up more self-pity and reactivity. From here, Fixated 4s alternate between feelings of haughty superiority and abject inferiority as they judge both the shallow masses for their unrefined tastes and themselves for not being able to “get it together.”

What 4s really want is to be and express what is uniquely theirs and to have their hearts touched by beauty. The trouble for 4s is that they artificially narrow the range of what they can “authentically” feel, do, or be touched by, closing themselves off to the depths in themselves and the world that they truly long for.

As 4s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Depth, with which they experience the immaculate, multi-dimensional, and infinitely-layered beauty of all things—including themselves. From this place, Healthy 4s drop the need to react against what “seems” superficial through frustration and individuation, and they recover their virtue of Equanimity. This allows them to have emotions instead of be their emotions, and while they still attune to the shadow side of life, they have the steadiness not to get “caught” in the undertow of feelings and identifications that once defined their world.

We call 5s The Insight Seeker because their primary motivations are to see beyond what has been seen, to discover insights, and to arrive by their own means at "complete" intellectual mastery over their domains of interest.

When 5s are connected to Essential Insight, they luxuriate in the mental spaciousness that is the source of all insight. They simply trust that whatever insight they need will arise in the moment it is needed. In this grounded place, Healthy 5s are amiable, curious, exploratory, perceptive, whimsical, and non-attached.

Healthy 5s experience the world as a wonderland of endless fascination. They are enthralled by all there is to learn, and they explore their interests with a focus that is unique among Enneagram types. No other type is as fundamentally driven by the desire to understand the world as type 5. 5s’ intellectual pursuits need not have any practical application; to 5s, things are worth investigating simply if they are interesting, and they often explore intellectual territory that others find trivial or uncomfortable. For instance, many 5s report having contemplated their own mortality at length, which bolsters their intellectual courage — if we’re all going to die, what’s the point of avoiding uncomfortable truths? 

Healthy 5s love the thrill of discovery, and they have the patience to follow their curiosity as far down the rabbit hole as it takes to get clarity and generate new insights. Because of this, they often notice oddities that elude most people. Their observations may range from amusing to revolutionary, and they enjoy sharing what they’ve noticed and inviting others into the thrill of exploration. 

Healthy 5s have come to peace with the truth that it is impossible to know all that there is to know, and ironically, it is because of this that they are so insightful. Healthy 5s approach the world without the delusion that they already have things figured out. Because they are so comfortable with not knowing, they are willing to wait for real insight rather than impose ideas on reality. To Healthy 5s, no mental model is precious (even the Enneagram!) because there are always hidden things to be discovered that could change everything.

Healthy 5s most clearly demonstrate the inner spaciousness required to grok the paradoxes at the core of things. One especially pertinent to type 5 is that the more you know about something, the more you see how little you know. A consequence of embracing this is that Healthy 5s delight in the endlessness of inquiry and at the same time allow themselves participate fully in the world without over-analysis. 

When 5s lose touch with Essential Insight, they get overwhelmed with the vastness of possible knowledge and begin to feel hopelessly lost in complexity. It can feel to them as if they do not know enough to participate in life safely or with any semblance of sanity. They have no choice but to retreat into their minds, observe life from the sidelines, and hope that they can re-enter the world once they’ve sorted everything out.

Early on in life, 5s notice that other people often don’t know what they’re talking about. Here’s a classic example: at a funeral, an adult may say, “Your Grandma is in heaven now.” This may appear harmless and even soothing, but to a young 5, it may seem like an egregious, baldfaced lie. “Didn’t we all just watch her go into the ground?” It is easy to see how Fixated 5s can begin to feel as if they can trust no one but themselves to determine what is true. 

Feeling profoundly separate and alone, Fixated 5s get anxious that they lack the inner resources to handle the world’s complexity by themselves. It takes tremendous mental energy to constantly process incoming data, and they feel that they only have so much. Fixated 5s fear that interacting directly with their environments would deplete them, so before they do anything, they feel that they must first achieve complete mental clarity about how things are. Unfortunately, this is an impossibly tall order that dooms Fixated 5s to constant overwhelm and compulsive investigation. 

Since Fixated 5s get overwhelmed by having too much to process at once, they try to reduce the amount they have to deal with at any moment through various strategies. For example, they may reduce relational demands by only hanging out with one or a few people at a time and not “mixing worlds.” They may also specialize in niche topics that capture their interest—for instance chess, spectroscopy, or Norwegian fungi. The point of specializing is to narrow their focus, so they can achieve true understanding of some aspect of reality. But as they discover, even a “narrow” topic like chess is a whole intellectual universe that can consume their life. Fixated 5s become so subsumed in their investigations that they get frustrated by any interruption. In this state, they bid for more time by withdrawing into isolation, avoiding situations where things will be asked of them, and eschewing basic life needs like love and affection. 

Similar to how Fixated 4s disdain emotional superficiality, Fixated 5s scorn anything that they determine has no intellectual merit. They see through flimsy arguments and weak theories, and they often develop contempt for the “dumb masses” that blindly accept the status quo and move like lemmings through the “pointless” rituals of our species: e.g. wearing formal attire, attending holiday gatherings, or American football (AKA chasing balls while wearing pads and running into each other at high speeds). Fixated 5s can become cynical and nihilistic and develop a compulsion to open people’s eyes to how things really are. While they may have penetrating and original insights that illuminate reality in new ways, unfortunately the subtext is usually, “You’re an idiot for not seeing it this way already,” which people tend not to appreciate. This further isolates Fixated 5s and reinforces their belief that the world is chaotic, impersonal, and mad.  

What 5s really want is to discover the truths at the core of reality. Their ability to follow inquiries “to the end” is an admirable superpower, but the trouble for Fixated 5s is that their isolation makes them lose touch with the very reality they seek to understand. Moreover, by activating so much cerebral intensity, they whip themselves into an investigative frenzy that disrupts the inner spaciousness from which their deepest insights arise. 

As 5s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Insight, with which they trust their minds to generate insights as they need them. From this place, Healthy 5s drop the need to force understanding by observing from the sidelines of life, and they recover their virtue of Non-Attachment — the embracing of the ephemerality of everything. Healthy 5s do not cling to familiar intellectual orientations to feel safe in the world or feel that they must withdraw from the world until they understand things enough. They simply participate in life with an untroubled lightness of being, learning as they go.

We call 6s The Truth Seeker because their primary motivations are to be "on the lookout" for what is true and false, to be loyal to what is "true" (proven, valid, verified, "real," reliable), and to know what to do with certainty.

When 6s are connected to Essential Truth, they feel safe, internally supported, and guided by a strong inner compass that they know they can rely on. They simply trust that they will know what to do in any situation when it arises. In this grounded place, Healthy 6s are self-assured, alert, clear-headed, collaborative, responsible, and courageous.

Truth is a loaded word, but I am using it here in a particular way. Essential Truth is not conceptual — it is not an idea, an orientation, or a distinction between “true” and “false.” It is a living experience of “knowing” and self-trusting that transcends the endless doubts of the mind. Type 6 is often painted as the “Security-oriented” type, and to a degree, this is fair. 6s, more than any other type, do find that their minds naturally think of what could go wrong, which makes them anxious, and they can cling to relationships, teams, organizations, or ideologies because of the “sense of security” they provide. But their core drive is not so much to stay “secure,” since even in fixation 6s can take risks that compromise their security (especially counter-phobic 6s). Rather, 6s are primarily concerned with knowing how to navigate a complex and unpredictable world without misstepping or doing something that might end in catastrophe because they missed something or didn’t “think it all the way through.” Of course, having certainty about what to do is of course related to feeling “secure,” so the words “truth” and “security” are deeply linked, as we shall explore. 

To 6s, life is a sequence of decisions that must be made: What should I eat? What should I wear? Whom should I date? What should I stand for? There are many possible answers at every decision point, and the core question of type 6 is “How do I know what to do?” How do I know the “truest” path, the right way to think about this, the most unbiased or “not-wrong” way of doing something? (Not quite like the 1, which is concerned with “right and wrong” in terms of moral principle, but more from the place of wanting to know the “best” way, the way that “makes the most sense.” This may overlap with “principle” or even be couched in the language of principle, but whereas fixated 1s “overly” trust their inner authority and are terrified of acting out of alignment with it, fixated 6s struggle to know what their inner authority says, so they piece together the way forward by consulting, evaluating, and internalizing external sources.) 

Healthy 6s enjoy determining courses of action with clear and methodical thinking, and they are comfortable relying on their intuition as well as their analysis. They understand that many decisions in life are still unclear even after they’ve listed all the pros and cons, and they trust their inner guidance to lead the way. 

The most defining quality of Healthy 6s is their calm alertness. They are “awake” to their environments and take everything in heedfully. Healthy 6s get that there is no such thing as the an objectively right or “true” way to proceed that will guarantee that nothing goes wrong, and it is because of this that they are so calm. Indeed, what Healthy 6s get most of all is that their quality of life depends not on their vigilance or accounting for all the what-ifs, but on their state of presence, which allows them to sense and respond intelligently to what arises in the moment.  

Because Healthy 6s have inner guidance, they enjoy navigating ambiguity and assembling order out of chaos to help others orient to “what’s going on around here.” They are consummate team players who can lead or follow — it doesn’t really matter as long as the greater good gets done. They are humble, friendly, and truly able to trust others, which often helps others feel self-assured themselves. Fundamentally, Healthy 6s get that we’re in this together, and they approach the world with a cooperative, egalitarian spirit.

Healthy 6s stand strongly for what they believe in and enjoy contributing to causes, movements, and organizations to which they feel like they belong (and which they feel are “true”). They love to build mutually fulfilling relationships and structures in which people feel safe and supported, and their sharp minds naturally see potential hazards, which they help everyone avoid. And because they pay such high quality attention to their environments, they bring meticulous, detail-oriented craftsmanship to whatever they do. 

When 6s lose touch with Essential Truth, it can feel to them as if there is no way to be fully sure about anything. There are always contingencies that haven’t been thought of, so how can you ever really know that nothing will go wrong or that you’re doing the right thing? Fixated 6s try to reassure themselves by finding others who can help navigate their path, predicting what ifs, and safeguarding against all possible misfortunes, but nothing seems to alleviate their underlying angst.

Fixated 6s second guess themselves chronically. Feeling shaky about surviving on their own in the world, they seek guidance from outside themselves. But where to turn? It’s as if they begin asking, “Who can I trust? What can I count on?” Fixated 6s vet their environments for trustworthy advisors and dependable friends. Such people are like shelter in a storm to Fixated 6s, who frequently go to them for counsel and are quite loyal to them. But because people often say one thing and do another, it is hard to know where anyone “truly” stands. So while loyal to their loved ones, Fixated 6s may also harbor suspicions about them and test them to see if they really can be counted on. Unfortunately, the more anxious 6s become, the more their testing may alienate others, confirming their suspicions.  

The more suspicious 6s get, the more they notice “lies” and “dangers,” and the more imperative it becomes for them to find a way to ensure that they are “secure” and seeing clearly. Fixated 6s are often drawn to established organizations that are unlikely to crumble or lines of work with “proven” records of success, which provide respite in an extremely unpredictable world. They like to join teams in which everyone is “in it together” for the same reason. But whereas Healthy 6s delight in contributing to things bigger than themselves from a place of service and devotion, Fixated 6s cling to systems, teams, and relationships for security and reassurance. They make sure to “pull their weight,” lest they be cast out or cause what they depend on to fall apart due to neglect. Unfortunately, Fixated 6s may overcommit themselves out of a sense of duty, making them more stressed and more anxious.

In a word, Fixated 6s are angsty. They try to soothe themselves by being vigilant, cautious, and skeptical, but what-ifs and worst-case-scenario thinking only generate more anxiety, causing Fixated 6s to attempt to reassure themselves seeking reassurance from others or by rebelling against their need for reassurance.

This gives rise to an unpredictable and contradictory nature. Fixated 6s can be alternately sweet and sharp, measured and impulsive, docile and defiant, passive and aggressive. This can be very confusing and frustrating to others, and Fixated 6s may worry that their erratic behavior is undermining their own security and making it harder to know what is “true.” They are right, but this awareness usually causes more stress, more erraticism, and more mental exhaustion. 6s deep in fixation may feel oppressed by a world in which they just can’t seem to catch a break, and they may be prone to tuning out complexity altogether and accepting simplistic ideas as approximations of “Truth” that reassure them that they finally have things figured out (e.g. scapegoats, “us vs them,” “obvious” conspiracy theories, etc). 

What 6s really want is the confidence to be independent and to navigate the world in a safe and fulfilling way. Their ability to form alliances, build support systems, and plan for contingencies are admirable superpowers, but the trouble for Fixated 6s is that by hedging against what-ifs, they live their lives in fear, stress, and indecisiveness. Moreover, by clinging to external sources of stability instead of learning to trust themselves, they undermine their efforts at self-assurance and discovering what is true for them. 

As 6s deepen through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Truth, from which place they feel supported by an unshakeable “inner ground” that stabilizes and reassure them from the inside. From this place, Healthy 6s drop the need to seek guidance from outside themselves, and they recover their virtue of Courage — the self-trust to navigate the world without complete intellectual certainty. Healthy 6s do not cling to anyone or anything to feel “oriented” in the world, drop the need to account for all of the what-ifs, and rest in the sharp clarity of alertness to their environments. They delight in the way life surprises them and simply trust themselves to choose what to do, and to choose well, as life unfolds moment to moment. 

We call 7s The Freedom Seeker because their primary motivations are to feel a sense of limitlessness and possibility, to experience all that life has to offer, and to engage freely with what brings them joy, vibrance, and fulfillment.

When 7s are connected to Essential Freedom, all things from the mundane to the extraordinary delight and nourish them. Because this moment provides everything, Healthy 7s experience a simple, causeless joy and bear witness to the wondrousness of reality with gratitude and awe. This is true freedom — the inner boundlessness to savor this moment fully without needing to optimize it. In this grounded place, Healthy 7s are ecstatic, visionary, manifesting, resilient, patient, and savoring. 

The buoyant, celebratory spirit of Healthy 7s is contagious. It is hard to be sad for too long in the presence of such sincerely joyful people who see the world as bursting with creative possibility. Because their minds are so open, Healthy 7s see synergies among all things in their awareness. Their quick, visionary minds naturally generate many creative ideas, and Healthy 7s are powerful manifesters because they have the magnetic optimism to attract people to projects and the focus to see projects through. 

Healthy 7s get that that they will not be able to experience everything they want to experience in the world, and ironically, it is because of this that they are able to fully surrender to the present moment. Indeed, what Healthy 7s get most of all is that their satisfaction depends not on the content of their experience, but on the depth of their presence. This is a profound awareness that allows 7s to “stay with” any experience without needing to escape it, whether it be pleasant or painful, invigorating or tedious, exciting or banal. While Healthy 7s do not especially love the darkness (unlike 4s), they do not attempt to bypass or dismiss it when it arises. Healthy 7s are able to see the silver lining in almost any situation, and they trust that they have the resilience to move through difficulty. Consequently, their delight in life is genuine and all-encompassing, since it embraces the totality of their inner experience, not just the good parts. 

When 7s lose touch with Essential Freedom, it can feel to them as if there is a nameless emptiness in them that they must fill with something — but what? It’s as if they are asking, “What will really make me happy?” Not knowing, 7s begin feeling that they must scan their environments and imaginations for greatest source of fulfillment, sample promising ideas, and keep their options open. It’s easy to see how this can spin out of control into scattershot consumption, stimulation junky-ism, outright hedonism.

Fixated 7s are anxious that if they let themselves feel their inner pain for too long, it would trap them indefinitely. So their strategy is simply to avoid it by not focusing on it and exploring exciting things in the external world. “What’s the point of stewing in negative feelings?” Boredom is the first sign that 7s are close to the danger zone, so they rev their engines, put their hands in lots of cookie jars, and stay in motion to keep boredom at bay, lest they be subsumed by whatever lies beyond it.

Because Fixated 7s are attempting to avoid inner pain, they are often successful at stuffing it beneath conscious awareness, so long as they have enough stimulation to keep it from bubbling up. Many 7s wouldn’t relate to this framing however, since they are more focused on simply enjoying life. Consciously or unconsciously, Fixated 7s set their minds on scanning their environment for promising experiences, generating exciting ideas, and doing whatever they think will optimize their enjoyment of life.

The more anxious 7s become, the more they steer their experience towards optimal enjoyment, avoid activities and conversation topics that bring them down, and require instant gratification. Packed schedules, half-read books (which they talk about as if they are experts), and unfinished projects are common for Fixated 7s, and while some may experience 7s as fun and enlivening, others may be exhausted by their incessant energy. cavalier attitude, and childish self centeredness. Very anxious 7s can be glib, thrill-seeking, provocative, and demanding of others to help them get what they want. In this state, Fixated 7s can dismiss their own and others problems, “bright side” to make everything seem alright, and force a kind of cognitive positivity that does not incorporate their heart.

What 7s really want is to enjoy life to the fullest. 7s’ abilities to see what is possible, to generate exciting ideas, and to appreciate a wide variety of experiences are wonderful superpowers. But the trouble for 7s is that their consumptiveness and enjoyment-optimization projects desensitize them to the point of insatiability, increase their anxiety, and cause them to misbehave in juvenile ways. 

As 7s deepen themselves through inner work, they can cultivate enough stillness to recontact Essential Freedom, which grounds them in the awareness that all experiences are here for us to savor, not just the ones we choose. Healthy 7s discover that they have the strength to face darkness, and when they do, they rejoice in learning that negative states do in fact have a lifespan, just like positive states. Awareness of the transience of it all makes Healthy 7s even more appreciative of life and awakens in them their virtue of Sobriety — the inner spaciousness from which they see that no moment is the same as any before it, that reality is always fresh, always fulfilling, and need not be any different than it is. The fact that they get to be here and witness the shimmering wonder of it all overwhelms Healthy 7s with gratitude. From this place, the amount of joy, vibrance, and positive energy that Healthy 7s bring into the world is truly a marvel to behold.

Note: Counter-phobic 7s may deceive themselves that they are confronting their inner emptiness head on by, for instance, meditating for hours or charging into flavor-of-the-week modalities of inner work. While these efforts are sometimes sincere, often the counter-phobic 7 is  “getting a rush” from the way these experiences bring them to their edge. This is a form of spiritualized thrill-seeking that must be sustained like any other form of gluttony, lest the effects wear off and the 7 has to confront the emptiness again.