Enneagram Book

A seven (7) personality is an interesting personality in that it will avoid hitting a wall at all costs. Some types like fours (4’s) and eights (8’s) enjoy hitting psychological and physical walls because it is their only way of releasing pent up energy. Sevens, however, often experience a mild frustration and irritation about the details of life in general, other people, and emotions. The cause of this irritated sensation is a great fear of not having the capacity to confront the depth of what is really present. Sevens, as a result skate around in a busy way on the surface of things, often presenting a more cheerful self that, although secretly frustrated, never has to confront this in relationships with others as long as things are kept “light.” (Or so the personlity believes). As life will have it, and as any seven worth their weight in salt has realized, life cannot be lived from the surface of things, and it is very painful and isolating to feel that one is not able to fully transmute the energies that lie beneath the surface.

So when you are around a seven whose house of cards has crumbled, be sensitive. if you care about this person at all do not say, “I told you so.” this is a person who desperately wants to trust that they are loved and nurtured by source energy but cannot grasp that experience in their being because their mind secretly mistrusts the fact that source is always there. Their mind is constantly keeping thier needs to a minimum so that in the event that source does not deliver, the mind will be able to skate off into the the distance, to survive. Young sevens often felt insufficielty able to rely on nurturance with any consistency and therefore were not given the support they needed as young innocent beings to hold depth within themselves. The truth of their experience may be labeled as painful and pushed back into the depths of their psyche. This explains why their attention span is so short, because they have not sufficitly harnessed and freed all the energies that and held inside them with their serious doubts about the goodness and generousity of life. So, in short, be easy on them, they’ve been carrying a lot around with them.

So this irritation builds and builds and they feel less and less like “themselves.” they become frustrated, self-sabotaging, and critical of others. Suddenly the perky and cheerful person you know has become an insensitive twat. What is one to do?

First recognize that here is a place where you can show them that frustation is okay, an acceptable feeling. If they can accept their own grouchiness and have the courage to peer beneath the surface of this murky water, this will be the key to their truth. This in and of itself will immediatley call into question their story of isolation and surface-skating. If a person is willing to be with them despite their unattractiveness, they may in fact be allowed to question the need to surface-skate. After all, as any evolved seven will tell you surface-skating, although fun for while, is damn tiring and sometimes scary.

The most important thing is that you are calm and collected and soothing to their frustration, and that you don’t take their critical nature at this time personally.

What will being to happen to them is they will start to disassociate from their mind leaping away with their idenity and that is the palce where spirit can leak in. They will feel the tiny whisper of support and the mind, feeling more threatened will lash out harder. But at this point its no matter, the person has already begun to know that they are more than a fearful, flighty being, and that with their depth comes infinite wells of support that they never knew existed. If you can manage to let the seven know that their “ugly” self is just as appreciated as their cheerful self, they will gain a feeling of security and maybe will even have the confidence to confront the issue head on, defenseless, without any fear.

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