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WING 5
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From Are You My Type, Am I Yours? ,
by Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele
The Observer (number 5)
Fives are motivated by the need to know and understand, to be self-sufficient, and to avoid feeling engulfed or invaded.
Fives, Sixes, and Sevens constitute the head center of the Enneagram. Fives are fearful, hypersensitive to people, accumulate information, and like being alone with their own thoughts or interests.
(Three subtypes of 5Õs: Self-Preservation Fives, Relational Fives, and Social Fives)
Fives cope with their anxiety in the following ways, depending on their subtype. As they move beyind these limitations, they will feel less smothered and controlled and interact more easily.
Self-Preservation Fives: ÒMy Home is my CastleÓ
¥ I need to live in a private place where I can concentrate; I want no expectations, intrusions, demands, questions, coercion, or noise.
¥ I try to keep my life simple.
¥ The more time I spend with people, the more drained I become.
¥ It would bog me down to have a lot of belongings; I need easy access to books and other information though.
¥ I have a tendency to save; I protect both my time and my money.
¥ I am self-reliant; it rarely occurs to me to seek help or advice.
¥ I dislike owing or being owed anything.
Some of the most introverted of all the nine types are of this subtype.
Wings
Wings are the types on each side of your number. Fives with a strong Four wing tend to be relatively people-oriented. Fives with a strong Six wing vary a lot but tend to have scientific or intellectual interests.
Fives with a strong Four Wing tend to be artistic, imaginative, self-absorbed, personal, sensitive to feelings, moody, melencholy, and interested in aesthetics.
Fives with a strong Six Wing tend to be logical, analytical, intellectual, hardworking, anxious, afraid of intimacy, socially awkward, and skeptical.
Occasionally, people present the persona of one of their wings--rather than their actual type--to the outside world.
Arrows
Your personality is also influenced by the tow types that are connected to yours by lines, the arrows of Seven and Eight.
We have a natural connection to our wings and arrows. They often come into play without our knowing it; their positive aspects when weÕre feeling tranquil and integrated, and their unhealthy aspects during times of stress. When we want to change something about ourselves, we can try consciously to incorporate their favorable and to avid their negative traits. You may want to read the chapters on Fours, Sixes, Sevens, and Eights to learn more about them.
Fives are in the head center and can feel somewhat backward as far as people and relationships go. Your Four wing can provide empathy, warmth, and insight. Watch out that you don't become self-absorbed or hypersensitive, however. Emulate your Six wing for developing loyalty, idealism, and intellectual playfulness. But be aware of being argumentative, paranoid, or afraid of intimacy.
Your Eight arrow is a source of energy and action. It can give you the initiative you need to speak up and to make that phone call for a date or appointment that youÕve been putting off! [Ref. to OCTOGLOW]* Some fives like the anger they experience at Eight and the feeling of being truely present in the moment; for other Fives, anger is frightening. The Eight personality is a good model for moving through life naturally, without being afraid of doing what needs to be done. The negative side of this arrow can influence you to ignore othersÕ feelings or to be punitive and controlling.
Most Fives want to be less self-conscious and less inhibited. Your Seven arrow is a fine model for this. You can also become more enthusiastic, irresistibly lovable, witty, and whimsical when you bring out your Seven arrow. Be aware of becoming distracted easily or hurting relationships by spending too much time with your projects. At their most developed, Fives have interesting, sometimes brilliant minds, are kind, perceptive, and trustworthy, and have a deep sense of integrity.
From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life , by Helen Palmer
The Observer (number 5)
The Dilemma
The ObserverÕs ego is like a castle, a high, impenetrable structure with tiny windows at the top. The occupant rarely leaves its walls, watching who comes to the door in secret, while avoiding being seen. Observers are very private people. They like to live in secluded places, away from emotional strain. They are often at home with the phone unplugged, and they watch the action from the edge of a crowd, making tentative effort to join.
Fives felt intruded upon as children; the castle walls were breached and their privacy stolen. Their strategic defense is withdrawal, to minimize contact, to simplify their needs, to do whatever they can to protect the private space. Fives say that they invent elaborate ways to create safe distance, because once someone gets too close, they have lost their primary defense. Consequently, Observers take what little comes their way, rather than risk taking leave of the safe walls of home.
They can be hermits, leading a reclusive, and usually mental life, within the confines of a small house, venturing out only as far as the library or store. They can also be quite public, but from a position of remote control, where front line interactions are handled by others, who will probably make reports by phone. When Fives appear in public, they are likely to be hiding in a pose, which means that they have minimized their feelings while blending into a scene.
Fives prefer to not get involved. Financial interactions feel dangerous. Obligations are coercive. Anger and competition are to be controlled, and emotional attachments are felt to be a drain. Fives can also feel coerced by peopleÕs positive expectations. Safe distance means not getting involved, and unless intimacy and affection are approached with guarantees of continued independence, Fives will find ways to hide, or to isolate the intimate contact into one regularized sector of their total life.
Fives are particularly sensitive to interactions that make them visible to others. Self-promotion, competition, and demonstration of love or hate all make Fives feel as if they are playing into other peopleÕs hands. Fives remain aloof from interactions in which they could be judged; a self-protective habit that is often masked by feelings of superiority over those who crave recognition and success. They believe that desires and intense emotionality indicate lack of control, and when feelings are painful they should be let go. There is a sense of accomplishment in being able to so easily detach from the needs that dominate other peopleÕs lives.
It is quite true that Fives are independent people. They can live happily alone, have very modest needs, take great delight in their own fantasy life, and donÕt get sidetracked into spending time and energy on trivial concerns. Their independence, however, is based on their ability to detach attention from their emotional and instinctual life, which has the expensive secondary effect of forcing them to live in their minds.
The love of privacy turns into loneliness when a Five becomes isolate and unable to reach out. When the hunger for contact is aroused, Fives realize how difficult it is for them to move toward people, and how often they stand watching as their own life goes by. They live in an atmosphere of scarcity, preferring ÒindependenceÓ to satisfaction, wary that their own desires might cause them to become attached to others. Inwardly empty and unable to ask for more, they become extremely attached to the little that they have: a few mementos to fill the empty space, and a few incalculably precious ideas to feed the hungry mind. ÒWhen I want to reach out, itÕs like starving at a feast. I crave the feelings that I see others have. I canÕt reach out, I canÕt pull back. My hand feels frozen between the table and my lap.Ó Detached from emotion and desperate for connection, Fives will spend endless time and effort on finding a mental link back to their own humanity. Having centered their existence in the mind, Fives seek connection through special knowledge.
Observers are strongly attracted to models and systems that explain universal principles of interaction, particularly human behavior. By mastering a system, such as mathematics, or psychoanalysis, or the Enneagram, they can form a mental concept of the way that interaction takes place, and they can locate themselves within the system in an emotionally detached way. Their interest is rarely attracted to wealth or material things. Money is good only for the privacy it buys and for the independence of having free time to study and pursue their other interests. Fives will not spend their limited energy in acquiring quantities of worldly things. If they inherit money, they will be likely to hoard it for the independence that it guarantees but will continue to live in modest luxury. If they are born without money, they will not work for others in order to accumulate it. They will, however, put endless time and effort toward study and other mental pursuits.
Fives say that their feelings are more available when no one is around to see. They say that itÕs hard to let the real stuff out with other people in the room, that solitude is their staging ground for a private fantasy life. They say that they are detached from their feelings during much of their day, that they need the time alone to Òsort things out, and find out what I really feel.Ó They say that they feel more connected to people when the are alone, remembering what was said, than they are during a real life talk. Their enjoyment of life comes most easily when they are alone and free to retroactively savor what was left unfelt during the course of the day.
A short meeting can mean a lot to a Five, who is going to enjoy the interaction later, in privacy of his or her own home. Fives get attached to sharing a special interest or a special bond of understanding with each of their different friends. The friends may never be introduced to one another, or be informed about what else is happening in the ObserverÕs life, but their presence will be treasured within the limits of the special bond of trust. Fives can feel closely connected in a nonverbal way, needing only minimal contact to keep a relationship alive. Small rituals of friendship are honored, and if the friends are wise, they will make a Five their observer-advisor, rather than expecting demonstrations of emotion or hoping the Five will be the initiator of the relationship.
FiveÕs habitual preoccupations include:
¥ Privacy
¥ Maintaining noninvolvement; withdraw and tighten the belt as a first line of defense.
¥ Fear point. Afraid to feel.
¥ Overvaluing of self-control. Detaching attention from feelings. ÒDrama is for lesser beings.Ó
¥ Delayed emotions. Feelings withheld while others are present. Emotion comes later, when safely alone.
¥ Compartmentalizing. Commitments in life are kept separate from one another. One box per commitment. Time limit for each box.
¥ Wanting predictability. Wanting to know what will happen ahead of time.
¥ An interest in special knowledge and analytic systems that can explain the way that people work. Want a map to explain emotions. Psychoanalysis. The Enneagram.
¥ A confusion between spiritual non-attatchemnt and a premature emotional shutdown to keep out pain. The unenlightened Buddha.
¥ An attentional style of focusing on life and oneself from the point of view of an outside observer, which can lead to
¥ Isolation from the feelings and events of oneÕs own life.
¥ The ability to maintain a point of view that is detached from emotional bias.
Family History
There are two family patterns that commonly make children want to withdraw. The first is described by those who felt so utterly abandoned that they accepted their fate, but learned to detach from feelings in order to survive. The second, and the more common reported childhood, is one in which the family was so physically intrusive that the child closed down emotionally in order to get away.
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Many Fives report that they are far more extroverted, and reach out easily to others, when they are traveling. The situation is ideal for them to reach out, because there is a sense of being an observer of a different culture, and they can control how long they're going to stay. Consequently, they can enjoy a unique situation fully, wanting to condense as much experience as possible into a small amount of time and store up memories for later enjoyment.
The Joys of Privacy
Fives come alive when they are alone. They often need to get away from people in order to recharge their batteries and to let out the feelings that were suspended while they were in the presence of others. A FiveÕs private time is filled with reverie and interesting things to think about. They love the company of their own minds and unless privacy deepens into feelings of isolation, they are rarely depressed or bored because they have nothing to do.
Although Observers can appear to be lonely and socially isolated from the point of view of the more extroverted types, Fives themselves prefer to be alone. They are, in fact, remarkable independent. They do not look to others for approval, they prefer to be economically self-sufficient, they insist upon being able to come and go as they please, and they want to remain free of the emotional drains of dependency relationships. Because Fives do not seek recognition, an entirely autonomous life can be built within the home, in which Observers can live happily with the companionship of their own projects and fantasies.
Intimate Relationships
The central issue for Fives is the fear of feeling. Intimacy is a strain on the basic defense of detaching attention from powerful emotions; which means that an Observer in love is caught between being affected by strong positive feelings and the habit of not wanting to feel at all.
Fives struggle with the fact that they are more emotional about people when they are alone and recreating an encounter than when those same people are physically present. They say that they are often frozen during a face-to-face meeting and that they need to be alone to figure out what they feel. The fact that Fives can feel more in retrospect, when they are safe from intrusion, is particularly obvious when they retreat into isolation directly after a deeply intimate encounter. Easily drained by powerful or continuous contact, Observers will withdraw in order to figure out where they stand. The immediate withdrawal from intimacy is bound to affect the partner, who may not have the same capacities for detachment. Because Fives rarely talk about it, their friends are generally not aware how much they focus on the significant people in their lives during their time alone, or how much time is spent in previewing or reviewing their meetings with people who are important in their lives. A powerful mental connection can be formed on the FiveÕs side without the other party involved being aware of how central he or she has become in the FiveÕs interior life.
When a relationship is mentalized, it can be enjoyed a little bit at a time, in an abstract way. Observers try to match up their feelings with their thoughts when they are alone, so that they can eventually be reunited with what they really feel. Because they detach attention from intense emotions, and because they mentalize their affections, Fives are often seen by partners as permanently withdrawn, and therefore emotionally cold.
On the high side of intimate contact, Fives do appreciate people on many abstract levels of connections. Commitment is made first mentally, and then emotionally. Once made, the commitment can be enduring, although always with clear limits of time an energy.
On the low side, the split between wanting to feel and wanting to detach becomes extreme in intimacy. There will be a strong avoidance of situations that bring up spontaneous feelings, especially confrontation. Eventually any partner will feel that he or she is the role of active agent: the one who has to initiate, the one who has to move toward the Five.
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Relationship to Authority
Fives have an aversion to having their time and energy put at the disposal of other people. They live with a sense of having limited resources of energy and of being easily exhausted by personal interactions. They feel especially drained if they are unclear about what others are going to expect from them, or if their duties at work are subject to change on short notice.
Motivated by the reluctance to have their limited supply of energy used by others, Observers resist by withdrawing from authoritative control. They prefer minimal supervision, and especially dislike supervision by a boss who shows up unexpectedly or who wants to be constantly informed. Contact with strangers feels intrusive, unless the limits of what is going to be discussed can be made clear in advance. They commonly view rewards like titles and salary as entrapments that authority uses to seduce workers into allowing their time and energy to be drained away. Fives prefer to do without such recognition, if it means being able to set the conditions under which they work.
Fives, will, however, be willing to work hard under an authoritarian system that allows them to set their own time schedule and gives them freedom to choose the conditions under which they interact with people. They can be outgoing and friendly if informed in advance about what will be expected of them. For example, Observers usually want to know something about the people who are going to attend a gathering and what the likely topics of discussion will be, so as to be prepared.
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The underlying reason for avoiding contact is that Fives have practically no defenses against confrontation. Once an authority can main a letter directly to them or, worse yet, request a face-to-face meeting, Fives feel themselves hard pressed to negotiate against whatever the authority might demand. The preferred line of defense is to withdraw from an authorityÕs sphere of influence and to forgo those luxuries that lead to entanglements with societyÕs system of payments, mortgages, and debts.
On the high side of authority relationships, Fives are often able to focus clearly on difficult decisions, because they can detach their attention from interfering fears and desires. They are often the brain behind the scene who stays cool while others are distressed. They have a natural bent toward detached planning and long-range projects that demand a broad-based theoretical overview. They are willing to initiate important but obscure projects and to work behind the scenes on projects that will never lead to public recognition. They are far more effective if protected from confrontation and used as a mind, rather than being made responsible for follow-through or picking up the pieces.
On the low side of authority relationships, they can be evasive when feeling overwhelmed, and will become physically unavailable. They can suddenly announce a vacation just when the project heats up, or schedule barriers of time and people between themselves and the heat.
How Fives Pay Attention
A FiveÕs isolation does not depend solely on withdrawal into privacy, or even on putting up emotional walls. The psychic isolation of the type can be seen as the habit of disengaging from feelings in order to observe. This habit of attention can become particularly obvious in stress, intimacy, or unpredictable situations that demand a spontaneous response. In extreme cases of detachment, a Five can attempt to disappear by freezing attention at a spot located just outside of the physical body.
Besides providing a buffer to the immediate experience of a strong emotion, the habit of detaching from feelings in order to watch can produce a dramatic experience of what mediators recognize as the separation between the object of attention and the inner observer.
Intuitive Style
When Fives are drawn to meditation, they almost invariably find a natural inclination toward detachment practice. Vipassana and Zen are examples of such practice, and they both emphasize cultivating the power of inner observation by letting go of thoughts and other intrusions upon an empty mind. The attraction for a Five can, unfortunately, be the desire to become a master of noninvolvement and to become protected from ever having to feel the fears and desires of ordinary life. Because of this desire for premature mental detachment, Five has been called the unenlightened Buddha.
Consider the difference between the premature detachment of a Five who meditates in order to become more immune to feelings and a Five who has always used the detached state of mind as a way to become more aware of what he feels.
Avarice
During hard times an Observer would rather make do with less than risk reaching out to others in order to get more. The preferred reaction is to withdraw, to institute an economy move, to reduce personal needs to bare necessities, and to minimize dependency on other people. There is a feeling of independence in mentally noting, ÒI donÕt need that; I can do without.Ó
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. . . The situation becomes impossible when a Five gets hooked on something he or she cannot do without. When something becomes so valuable that it pervades a FiveÕs private space, when a Five is caught by the wish to possess a person or a thing, then [his] inner poverty is intensified by the invasion of desire.
Because Fives rely so much on foreknowledge for protection, their chief attachment is to knowledge rather than to people or to things. They report that their inner sense of isolation is relieved when they feel close to knowing how the universe works or understanding human behavior. It is as if they can be included in the world machinery without having to be emotionally involved, and that by obtaining the keys to the machine, they can watch other get caught by the perils of love and hate without feeling left out. [HesseÕs, The Glass Bead Game]
The Virtue of Non-attatchement
Non-attatchemnt is obviously the opposite of attachment, and attachment stems from a sense of frustrated desire. When we can get as much as we need of something, we can let it go, knowing that, if necessary we can have it back again. A FiveÕs false detachment is based on an aversion to the possibility of feeling desires, rather than a sense of fullness at having enough. Fives will quite correctly point out that most of us are addicted to having far more than we need to survive comfortably and that we expend enormous energy in the pursuit of status and material wealth, because we have become enmeshed in our own cravings and desires.
But the compulsive need toot get involved, toot feel connected, ad toot be coerced can lead Fives to believe in their own superiority because they can do without, but not to a feeling of satisfaction in getting what they want. Real detachment, of course, requires that you have a full range of feelings available to you, and that you are able to accept any impressions that need to surface into awareness before you let them go. The Buddha himself [a Five] lived through many different life experiences before he sat and had his realization about the natural emptiness of mind. He began to teach the practice of detachment only after having a bellyful of joy and suffering and his fill of some marvelous desires.
The Omniscient Quality of Higher Mind
What would pacify the fear of one who is afraid to feel? What would satisfy the need to be forewarned, to save oneself from a potentially invading world? For a personality type that has retreated from the body into the mind, the best defense is knowledge.
Like all the higher abilities indicated by the EnneagramÕs teaching, access to omniscience is gained through a nonthinking state of mind. It is not a question of knowing all the facts about a given subject, or developing a brilliant conceptual framework within which to arrange he facts, It is more like being able to engage the inner observer in such a way as to merge oneÕs own awareness with impressions of the past, present, and future of all possible events. [***]
Assets
Observers can carry on personal interests without the support of others. Their ability to reduce contact with feeling to a mere thread allows them to assist others in times of stress. The same capacity for emotional detachment makes them good decision makers, because they can think clearly under pressure. Fives make lifelong friends if the conditions of the friendship allow them complete independence and the freedom to retire when necessary. They can express a great deal of affection nonverbally and appreciate others on many abstract and nonverbal levels of connection. [***]
Attractive Environments
Fives are often scholars of obscure but important fields of study; the inner circle of the ones who know. The psychologistÕs psychologist. The shamanÕs shaman. A slim book of data, that took a lifetime to complete.
The definitive dictionary of remote tribal language. Academic cubicles, the library stacks. Computer programmers who prefer to work the night shift. Those who run the stock room at the back of the store.
Unattractive Environments
Unattractive environments are any job that requires open competition or direct confrontation: salesperson, public debater, smiling political candidate.
Subtypes
The subtypes describe preoccupations that develop from the need to protect personal privacy from outside influence.
Confidence in the One-to-One Relationship
Fives experience private bonding in the one-to-one relationship through the exchange of confidentiality. The sexual subtype experiences more confidence in nonverbal sexual communication than in more public ways of relating. He or she feels the intensity of a secret bond.
Totems in the Social Arena
Fives feel a need to align with the source people of the tribe, to give advice to, and get advice from, the inner circle. Totems can also extend to seeking the knowledge contained in governing symbols, such as scientific formulas or esoteric paradigms.
Castle (Home) in the Area of Self-preservation
Fives see home as the secure refuge from an invading world. There is a preoccupation with the control of private, personal space. ÒA womb with a view.Ó
What Helps Fives Thrive
Fives often enter therapy or begin a meditation practice because they begin to feel isolated and lonely. Cut off from feelings, yet aware that others can feel, Observers will place themselves in situations where they can be drawn out. Typical presentations include difficulties with social relations, the loss of a person or an object to which a Five has become attached, and phobias that limit freedom and movement. Fives need to learn how to tolerate their own feelings without detaching. Fives can help themselves by:
¥ Noting the desire to withhold when others expect a response. Giving up the control of withdrawal and strategic giving as manipulation. ÒIÕll come through when I want to, but not when you expect it.Ó
¥ Noting when emotions are replaced by analysis or when mental constructs become substitutes for experience.
¥ Realizing that access to feelings does not equal always being hurt.
¥ Noting the desire to be recognized without exerting effort.
¥ Noting how easy it is to give up. ÒI tried once and it didnÕt work.Ó
¥ Working with the three Ss: secrecy, superiority, and separateness.
¥ Learning to tolerate spontaneous happenings. To risk, to reach out, to activate private dreams.
¥ Seeing the discrepancy between how much can be felt when others are present, and what can be felt when safely alone.
¥ Recognizing the intense needs for control of personal space and control of time spent with intimates.
¥ Learning to finish important projects and to let them go public. To let oneself be seen.
¥ Realizing that feelings and self-disclosure might actually effect a change.
¥ Realizing how little one is willing to settle for.
¥ Questioning the minimalist way of life.
¥ Seeing the ways in which others are made to be the active agents. The ways in which nonactions forces others to move first.
¥ Learning to capitalize on the search for special knowledge and symbolic thinking. [***]
¥ Learning to tolerate other peopleÕs needs and emotions.
¥ Being willing to bring emotions into the present moment with methods such as Gestalt,bodywork and artwork. But at the same time not seeking out a premature cathartic release. Allow time for delayed emotional reactions to connect with insight.
What Fives Should Be Aware of
Fives should be aware of the following during times of change:
¥ Leaving the body and retreating into the mind.
¥ Wanting to hoard time and energy. Saving rather than putting out.
¥ Trouble with self-disclosure. Censoring conversations that reveal the self. Withholding information.
¥ Not giving; feeling imposed upon by other peopleÕs needs.
¥ Intensification of need for self-sufficiency. ÒI can do without you,Ó directed at therapist, friends, family.
¥ Feeling drained by commitment. Letting others have only a little bit.
¥ Withdrawal by mentalizing experiences. Increase of lonerÕs stance. Bringing people into fantasy life, rather than dealing with real life.
¥ Fantasy of being specially selected, of being recognized without putting oneself forward. ÒIf God wants me, he will come to me.Ó
¥ Hiding in a pose. Manners suitable to therapistÕs office as mask to avoid placing attention on immediate feelings.
¥ Believing oneself to be above having to feel. ÒAnger is for lesser beings.Ó ÒWhy canÕt they control themselves?Ó
¥ Paralysis of action concomitant with emergence of desires. CanÕt reach out, canÕt pull back.
¥ Partitioning off of emotional life. Secrecy. Nobody gets it all.
¥ Confusion between spiritual attachment and the need to withdraw from emotional pain.
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