07-24-2010, 06:54 PM
Thanks Lorna.
Type 2: The Helper
Enneagram type 2 is the energy of REALLY wanting to know that one is loved, as the ultimate concern of life. Obviously every type can appreciate love, but type 2 discusses love as a big deal, and is driven by search for love, more than any other.
A great healthy way to be loved is to first be loving. Understand what is important to other people, help them feel cared about, understood, and practically helped (on their own terms), and one will then be confident that one is lovable and loved because one is loving. If one is connected inside one's own heart, mind, and soul to God's unconditional love and positive regard, then one can share loving support and helpfulness where one can, and then enjoy being at peace in a loving environment (whether or not other people are around) when there's no more one can give right now.
When a healthy positive type 2 works hard to be of service in love, they have every good reason to be proud of how hard they are working to serve their family, relationships, friends, company, co-workers, society and the planet. A person like this can be unbelievably charming, a wonderful addition to one's life, and everyone actually IS "very happy to meet you, my dear."
The positive sides of this loving generosity should be obvious for everyone involved. So I'll take a bit more time to focus on the negatives. How can it be a detriment to be too loving? And how can being loving and helpful actually be a strategy for expressing one's power over the world?
An unhealthy way to be loved is to try to get people obligated to thank you for your meddling, while totally burning yourself out to total depletion. Afraid of being unloved, an unhealthy type 2 can be resentful that other people are loved more. Too wrapped up in their own fear to be present and empathetic with other people, the type 2 then is busy, full of unasked for favors that in their own imagination should compel the other person to have to love them.
This strategy winds up pushing the resentment outside, others resent being manipulated, and the 2 spirals down with even more anger about being unloved. Strangely enough, no collection of manipulative masks adds up to a whole and healthy personality.
When stuck in this negativity, type 2 can talk themselves into assuming that sex, flirtation, and love, are all the same thing, and become anxious and enraged if they don't get enough of any of these experiences. Yet the increased physical attention does not make up for the emotional estrangement from those that don't reciprocate as expected in a way that makes the type 2 FEEL loved inside their own heart.
That's because no surplus of human activity from outside can substitute for a connection with God's love from inside.
At work, this can result in a positive person who is truly caring and helpful to others because it brings inner joy, whether or not it's acknowledged. Or it can result in a negative person who tries to butter up the right people, whisper directives into their ears but hide from any recognition of who is the power behind the throne.
The childhood fear, that can unconsciously lived out in adult life is, is that maybe Daddy doesn't really love me, so I'd better be more sweet and good, even if I don't feel like it, just to be sure. Type 2 drives could also be related to times in childhood, or any time we were helpless and dependent, and felt we had to be and do something greater in order to win loving help and support.
For type 2, "I love you" might actually mean, "I delight that when I do things for you, I get back your attention in a way that I interpret as making me feel special." Therefore, love is conditional on the performance of the beloved. Any shortfall in praise, gifts, cards, compliments and so forth can be taken as proof that there's no more love within the other person's heart.
And any criticism, even realistic, valid suggestions of how to do better, can be taken by an insecure, poorly developed type 2 as an attack on their very worthiness as a human being.
This all makes it a very complicated dance to try to negotiate anything. It's even harder when the beloved doesn't know they're the target of a fixer-upper project in which their flaws that don't bother them will be removed, whether they like it or not, so that the Extreme Makeover: Type 2 Grandiosity Edition can prove how deep the love of the type 2 is: powerful enough to change "even that bad person," whatever poor rogue is chosen. Fairy tales in which unsuitable partners magically transform into just what is needed, through the power of love, can have great appeal here.
Although I don't care much for Dr. Laura Schlessinger's point of view, she makes an excellent point here. If you want a pet that fits in your room, wags its tail and barks, then trying to train an elephant to do all these things doesn't show loving devotion, just poor judgment! Yet the type 2 dog lover can pick one elephant after another, and seek praise and pity for how hard they suffered to try to turn the elephant into a good enough dog!
It's obvious that type 2 is working hard to be charming, a gracious host, a diligent worker who does the right thing, very respectful to those in charge, loving and kind. It's not at all obvious how much comes from a genuine abundance of love in their own hearts to share, starting with their own self-love, and how much is to try to get others to to give enough love to fill the endless hole of uncertainty and neediness.
Although some of these qualities are socially associated with insecure women, they can just as well apply to an insecure man; and the proliferation of unsolicited advice can be more like the way an unbalanced society expects men to behave badly.
When there is even a simple task without a chance of interpersonal payoff, it is excessively complex, infuriating and STUPID to an immature type 2. Why go count the inventory in the back room if there's nobody else back there to appreciate how much you're knocking yourself out to be loving?
Some examples:
Poetic expressions and theories about "LUUV" come from Barry Manilow, Lionel Richie, and Leo Buscaglia.
A central role as the key person within a community who shows LUUV for all, whether or not this is spoken out loud, is shown by Bill Cosby, Alan Alda, and Dr McCoy. I really feel that when Hawkeye Pierce journaled, "I really love you all," that didn't require any stretch of acting.
People who used a position of power or trusted leadership to guide others with LUUV include Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ann Landers.
At best, unconditional love, empathetic caring, help in terms the other person can appreciate.
On average, a mixture of delightful glimpses of the best, plus contradictory glimpses of the worst of selfishly intrusive seduction and unhealthy games with one undeclared rule: make me feel special!
At worst, undermine self and others, cutting people down so that they'll need this exclusive source of condescencion to bring them back up, coercively rationalizing, mired in the depths of impulsive, explosive borderline personality disorder.
The most promising BPD treatment, by the way, is Marsha Linehan's education in mindfulness... which happens to sound a whole lot like Ra's exercises of seeing the love in each moment, the Creator in other selves and in the mirror, and loving peace within whether or not other people are behaving peacefully or lovingly. This results in faith in a God big enough to provide a lifetime's worth of love from within, whether or not other people are stereotypically loving in their behavior from outside.
It might seem at first that being so loving is a Yin activity. Actually, the desire to push hard to change other people's lives may be the most Yang of all the points of the Enneagram. At best, the push is an internal drive to do what is truly, objectively helpful for others, and thereby create the inner satisfaction of being loving and helpful. At worst, the push is an outside manipulation to try to get people to enact whatever roles are imagined to fulfill one's own inner demands.
After next divider post, type 5. I'm working on the type 8 essay. Then will be the series about what God can mean to this next batch of three types. As always, questions and comments are more than welcome!
Type 2: The Helper
Enneagram type 2 is the energy of REALLY wanting to know that one is loved, as the ultimate concern of life. Obviously every type can appreciate love, but type 2 discusses love as a big deal, and is driven by search for love, more than any other.
A great healthy way to be loved is to first be loving. Understand what is important to other people, help them feel cared about, understood, and practically helped (on their own terms), and one will then be confident that one is lovable and loved because one is loving. If one is connected inside one's own heart, mind, and soul to God's unconditional love and positive regard, then one can share loving support and helpfulness where one can, and then enjoy being at peace in a loving environment (whether or not other people are around) when there's no more one can give right now.
When a healthy positive type 2 works hard to be of service in love, they have every good reason to be proud of how hard they are working to serve their family, relationships, friends, company, co-workers, society and the planet. A person like this can be unbelievably charming, a wonderful addition to one's life, and everyone actually IS "very happy to meet you, my dear."
The positive sides of this loving generosity should be obvious for everyone involved. So I'll take a bit more time to focus on the negatives. How can it be a detriment to be too loving? And how can being loving and helpful actually be a strategy for expressing one's power over the world?
An unhealthy way to be loved is to try to get people obligated to thank you for your meddling, while totally burning yourself out to total depletion. Afraid of being unloved, an unhealthy type 2 can be resentful that other people are loved more. Too wrapped up in their own fear to be present and empathetic with other people, the type 2 then is busy, full of unasked for favors that in their own imagination should compel the other person to have to love them.
This strategy winds up pushing the resentment outside, others resent being manipulated, and the 2 spirals down with even more anger about being unloved. Strangely enough, no collection of manipulative masks adds up to a whole and healthy personality.
When stuck in this negativity, type 2 can talk themselves into assuming that sex, flirtation, and love, are all the same thing, and become anxious and enraged if they don't get enough of any of these experiences. Yet the increased physical attention does not make up for the emotional estrangement from those that don't reciprocate as expected in a way that makes the type 2 FEEL loved inside their own heart.
That's because no surplus of human activity from outside can substitute for a connection with God's love from inside.
At work, this can result in a positive person who is truly caring and helpful to others because it brings inner joy, whether or not it's acknowledged. Or it can result in a negative person who tries to butter up the right people, whisper directives into their ears but hide from any recognition of who is the power behind the throne.
The childhood fear, that can unconsciously lived out in adult life is, is that maybe Daddy doesn't really love me, so I'd better be more sweet and good, even if I don't feel like it, just to be sure. Type 2 drives could also be related to times in childhood, or any time we were helpless and dependent, and felt we had to be and do something greater in order to win loving help and support.
For type 2, "I love you" might actually mean, "I delight that when I do things for you, I get back your attention in a way that I interpret as making me feel special." Therefore, love is conditional on the performance of the beloved. Any shortfall in praise, gifts, cards, compliments and so forth can be taken as proof that there's no more love within the other person's heart.
And any criticism, even realistic, valid suggestions of how to do better, can be taken by an insecure, poorly developed type 2 as an attack on their very worthiness as a human being.
This all makes it a very complicated dance to try to negotiate anything. It's even harder when the beloved doesn't know they're the target of a fixer-upper project in which their flaws that don't bother them will be removed, whether they like it or not, so that the Extreme Makeover: Type 2 Grandiosity Edition can prove how deep the love of the type 2 is: powerful enough to change "even that bad person," whatever poor rogue is chosen. Fairy tales in which unsuitable partners magically transform into just what is needed, through the power of love, can have great appeal here.
Although I don't care much for Dr. Laura Schlessinger's point of view, she makes an excellent point here. If you want a pet that fits in your room, wags its tail and barks, then trying to train an elephant to do all these things doesn't show loving devotion, just poor judgment! Yet the type 2 dog lover can pick one elephant after another, and seek praise and pity for how hard they suffered to try to turn the elephant into a good enough dog!
It's obvious that type 2 is working hard to be charming, a gracious host, a diligent worker who does the right thing, very respectful to those in charge, loving and kind. It's not at all obvious how much comes from a genuine abundance of love in their own hearts to share, starting with their own self-love, and how much is to try to get others to to give enough love to fill the endless hole of uncertainty and neediness.
Although some of these qualities are socially associated with insecure women, they can just as well apply to an insecure man; and the proliferation of unsolicited advice can be more like the way an unbalanced society expects men to behave badly.
When there is even a simple task without a chance of interpersonal payoff, it is excessively complex, infuriating and STUPID to an immature type 2. Why go count the inventory in the back room if there's nobody else back there to appreciate how much you're knocking yourself out to be loving?
Some examples:
Poetic expressions and theories about "LUUV" come from Barry Manilow, Lionel Richie, and Leo Buscaglia.
A central role as the key person within a community who shows LUUV for all, whether or not this is spoken out loud, is shown by Bill Cosby, Alan Alda, and Dr McCoy. I really feel that when Hawkeye Pierce journaled, "I really love you all," that didn't require any stretch of acting.
People who used a position of power or trusted leadership to guide others with LUUV include Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ann Landers.
At best, unconditional love, empathetic caring, help in terms the other person can appreciate.
On average, a mixture of delightful glimpses of the best, plus contradictory glimpses of the worst of selfishly intrusive seduction and unhealthy games with one undeclared rule: make me feel special!
At worst, undermine self and others, cutting people down so that they'll need this exclusive source of condescencion to bring them back up, coercively rationalizing, mired in the depths of impulsive, explosive borderline personality disorder.
The most promising BPD treatment, by the way, is Marsha Linehan's education in mindfulness... which happens to sound a whole lot like Ra's exercises of seeing the love in each moment, the Creator in other selves and in the mirror, and loving peace within whether or not other people are behaving peacefully or lovingly. This results in faith in a God big enough to provide a lifetime's worth of love from within, whether or not other people are stereotypically loving in their behavior from outside.
It might seem at first that being so loving is a Yin activity. Actually, the desire to push hard to change other people's lives may be the most Yang of all the points of the Enneagram. At best, the push is an internal drive to do what is truly, objectively helpful for others, and thereby create the inner satisfaction of being loving and helpful. At worst, the push is an outside manipulation to try to get people to enact whatever roles are imagined to fulfill one's own inner demands.
After next divider post, type 5. I'm working on the type 8 essay. Then will be the series about what God can mean to this next batch of three types. As always, questions and comments are more than welcome!