At first, when learning about the Enneagram, there is the “eek” when we see so clearly how we have limited ourselves. Then there is the fabulous realisation too that we have natural strengths which we only have to allow to shine.
The four, who at low levels of self mastery is the emotionally tormented person “depressed and alientated from themselves and others,” at high levels becomes the inspired creator.
What type do you resonate with? What is the highest mastery that is so within your grasp? The “high level” of self mastery for the four is described in Riso and Hudson’s “Personality Types.”
First they write that: “Creativity can be maintained only in the act itself, by continuing to transcend self-consicousness. It requires a constant renewing of the self with each moment.” Fours at high self mastery:
– are like oysters, transforming all their experiences, even painful ones, into something beautiful
– draw inspiration from the widest varitey of sources, filtering the raw material of experience through the unconsious
– conduits through which the sublime passes into the world
– express the personal universally in something that has resonance and meaning beyond what they intend when they create
– create and discover themselves in what they bring into the world
– sensitive to themselves and others because they are inituitive.
“Intuition is not some sort of useless sideshow telepathy but a means of perceiving reality by way of the unconscious. It is like receiving a message in a bottle which has washed up on the shore of consiousness.”
“I note the echo that each thing produces as it strikes my soul” -Stendhal.