Type
1
THE REFORMER
Enneagram Type One
Personality
Profile -
Personal
Growth Recommendations
The Rational, Idealistic Type:
Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
Basic Fear: Of being corrupt/evil, defective
Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced
Enneagram One with a Nine-Wing: "The Idealist"
Enneagram One with a Two-Wing: "The Advocate"
People with Type
One personalities can be the role models for the rest of us when it
comes to social responsibility and appreciating the value of moral and
ethical living. They tend to have a deep sense of what is right and wrong,
and an inherent self-discipline to adhere to the rules they believe in.
Ones
appreciate order and are offended when others call them rigid or
perfectionists. They have a vision of how things could be if only everything
were done the right way. This turns out to be both a gift and a curse, since
people, organizations, and Life itself always fall short of that perfect
vision, leaving Ones feeling irritable and angry. They try to manage that
anger, not wanting to lose control or be judged for their judgmental
tendencies, but sometimes it breaks through in self-righteous fury and they
suffer. No matter how critical a One may seem, they are never more strict
than with themselves.
Ones are great reformers
because they really do see how to improve almost anything that matters to
them. The problem is that while they may be very bright, they often have
trouble thinking objectively but rather tend to be emotionally biased
without realizing it.
Early in their lives, little Ones needed a
sense of guidance and protection that their families did not adequately
provide. Not understanding how to identify and manager their instincts,
their basic hungers, they devised rules to keep themselves controlled.
Inside every One is a child that still longs to play and have a good time,
to indulge themselves without having to worry about doing something wrong
and being judged. True freedom comes when that child feels safe to allow its
joyful enthusiasm for life to overflow.
FAMOUS ONES:
Mary Poppins (and Julie Andrews), Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Kenneth
Starr, Miss Manners.
Top
Personal
Growth Recommendations
for Enneagram Type Ones
- Learn to relax. Take some time for yourself, without feeling that
everything is up to you or that what you do not accomplish will result
in chaos and disaster. Mercifully, the salvation of the world does not
depend on you alone, even though you may sometimes feel it does.
- You have a lot to teach others and are probably a good teacher, but do
not expect others to change immediately. What is obvious to you may not
be as obvious to them, especially if they are not used to being as
self-disciplined and objective about themselves as you are about
yourself. Many people may also want to do what is right and may agree
with you in principle but for various reasons simply cannot change right
away. The fact that others do not change immediately according to your
prescriptions does not mean that they will not change sometime in the
future. Your words and above all, your example may do more good than you
realize, although they may take longer than you expect. So have
patience.
- It is easy for you to work yourself up into a lather about the
wrongdoings of others. And it may sometimes be true that they are wrong.
But what is it to you? Your irritation with them will do nothing to help
them see another way of being. Similarly, beware of your constant
irritation with your own "shortcomings." Does your own harsh
self-criticism really help you to improve? Or does it simply make you
tense, nervous, and self-doubting? Learn to recognize the attacks of
your superego and how they undermine you rather than helping you.
- It is important for you to get in touch with your feelings,
particularly your unconscious impulses. You may find that you are uneasy
with your emotions and your sexual and aggressive impulses—in short,
with the messy human things that make us human. It might be beneficial
to keep a journal or to get into some kind of group therapy or other
group work both to develop your emotions and to see that others will not
condemn you for having human needs and limitations.
- Your Achilles' heel is your self-righteous anger. You get angry easily
and are offended by what seems to you to be the perverse refusal of
others to do the right thing—as you have defined it. Try to step back
and see that your anger alienates people so that they cannot hear many
of the good things you have to say. Further, your own repressed anger
may well be giving you an ulcer or high blood pressure and is a
harbinger of worse things to come.
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