Enneagram: In Relationship With Type 4

hey what's up guys thank you for joining me today my name is dr tom lehu i want to welcome you to my channel where we talk about everything to do with the enneagram and we're going to be looking at type 4 being in a relationship with a type 4 doing a study on relationships right now as you get ready to uh prepare for the certificate program i'm offering in enneagram coaching for relationships you can learn more about both of the coaching programs offered on my website at tomlehue.com also you can schedule coaching appointments if you want to talk to me about knowing more about your type or how to be a healthier version of you or how to relate better to the people in your life i'd love to hear from you okay thanks to my patrons i really appreciate your help and support for the channel as well it's cool that people like this stuff and like this content glad to help okay so we're going to talk about type 4 today and we're going to talk about type 4s in relationship and i want you to see that this isn't just oh tom was sitting in his office one day thinking of stuff okay i've been researching reading books about the enneagram and relationships enneagram and love and work enneagram in relationships and of course all the old standards as well that sit on my desk and periodically i pick up on relationships and enneagram as well as all the shelf shelves filled with books on relationships and marriage and all that stuff that i hid from time to time type for want in a relationship i think you could answer it in one word soul mate soul mate or is that two words it's one word two words made into one word soul mate um fours are longing for a deep emotional connection in their relationships they want to be seen and i'm looking at my notes my notes come from my reading okay and so some of this is notes and some of it is is me thinking about those notes okay so fours of course long to be seen for who they are they long to be understood they long to be accepted they want to belong and realize guys that we tend in our health to bring the very things we're looking for in our unhealth so in fours when they say they want to be understood they want to be valued they want to belong they want to feel like they can be themselves they want to be honest what do fours bring force bring that for the whole world fours provide that for the rest of us when i need somebody to listen to me and i can be completely honest with them and they'll empathize with me and understand me if i need that in my life go to a four because four is bringing that into the world they they'll they'll saddle up next to you and and help you stand up and help you through whatever challenge or crisis or hardship or or just sort things out in your life fours are looking for that kind of a companion they're looking for somebody that'll let them be themselves somebody that will let them be true to themselves and let them be quirky uh but also let them be deep okay and force can be quite quirky and deep before you get offended remember this is a seven talking the king of quirky all right so they long to be understood and appreciated for the unique contributions they make fours don't want to bring a casserole fours want to show up in some way that's more special than that to make a unique contribution into the world they spend a great deal of time considering their life what it all means where it's all going they you could say i know we say they live in their feelings but they also live in their heads they live in their dreams trying to understand themselves understand their identity understand the world around them they long to in a sense escape from this mundane existence of nine to five work days and fall into something be swept away into something that's grand and big and important and meaningful and so that's a lot of stress if you're you know expected to be that person if you're in a relationship with a four and you're expected to be the person who comes in and sweeps them off away from this mundane existence and gives them you know a better existence a deeper a more meaningful a richer that's a lot of stress on the average relationship and just that sound of average relationship probably sounds unappealing to a four they resist the ordinary they you might say resist even feeling ordinary they appreciate depth and intimacy looking for a soulmate with which they can share all of their positive and negative emotions their negative energy their positive energy their dark things their light things the ups and downs joys highs and lows again that could be a lot of stress on the average relationship and i say average because in a sense you know um a lot of us are okay with average relationships i mean we just want a companion we just want somebody that we can love that loves us that we can do things with and we may not be seeking to have a lot of depth you know or to know ourselves and to know this other person passionately and i think a four could get very disenfranchised with an ordinary feeling relationship which realized force might be the goal of the person that you're with to just have an ordinary relationship they might be thinking why can't we just go do fun things together why do we always have to talk about deep heavy feelings i don't want to know myself i don't want to know you know how i feel about things i want to just watch television and go for a walk and eat pizza and walk the dog and play board games and sing karaoke and let's just why does it have to be meaningful why do things have to be deep why do they have to be rich you know there's a richness in the ordinary there's a richness in things being simple okay so they're looking for a true soul mate with which they can share their positive and negative emotions they are committed to fully feeling and fully expressing their emotions okay that's good but you know again not every person may be prepared for you to fully express your emotions they may not may not want to attend to volatile emotions or turmoil sometimes they need to withdraw um let's see withdraw and to a private space let's say that to process their inner thoughts and feelings remember fours are withdrawn type i always think about cinderella you know at midnight what happens everything turns into a pumpkin and fours can be a little bit like that you know they can put on the facade they can they can play nice they can they can be engaging they can be you know everything that they need to be that everybody wants them to be but then there's a certain point where they kind of feel themselves kind of turning into a pumpkin and so they got to get away from this you know like elsa this concealed don't feel but i got to let it go i gotta i gotta eventually i gotta let it out i can't i can't pretend i can't play the charade i can't play this masquerade any longer and so at some point you're gonna see them you know you could say cub up for air or you might say descend into the basement they're gonna go back and withdraw and process what they're feeling and why they're feeling what they're feeling and what it all means okay their inner thoughts and feelings they may find it hard to connect with people being so unique and different it's great to be unique and different okay but being unique and different can make it hard for you to connect i remember walking in a while back into a store and there was a young lady there who was dressed very differently okay very differently all in black lots of piercings lots of chains and stuff hanging off of her and you know brightly colored shaved head with you know i mean everything on the surface was like pay attention to me pay attention i mean that's what it's screaming and in my head i'm it's screaming notice me pay attention i don't know if she was a four i'm just using it as an analogy maybe she was probably she was but i don't know um she might have been you know sevens can look odd or different but it's more like look at this joke watch me be funny okay and i don't think fours are saying look at me being funny look at me being humorous this this young lady was it was like everything about her was screaming to the world notice me i'm different i'm set apart i'm unique yet what i noticed is my own inclination to like dart my head away and not notice her and i noticed as i watched people they were doing the same thing it's like everybody nobody wants to like make her feel like she's an object to be you know looked at or observed or strange you know nobody wants to like everybody's cautious i think like they don't want to come across like oh my goodness you know oh my goodness lorraine look at her nobody wants to come across like that so what i noticed is my own inclination and the inclination of others to kind of just dart your attention away and you know other you know little children are pointing look mommy look and the moms are like so it this this this could backfire for some force you know wanting to stand out wanting to be unique and special and different you may others may find it hard to connect to that others may find it hard to relate to that and so the very thing that in a sense i would think that that girl is seeking attention or i know she's probably not seeking attention she's seeking whatever it is she's seeking i don't think that the response that she's hoping for is that everyone will just kind of dart their attention away from her that is something worth thinking about if you are a four if you're raising a four if you're in a relationship with a four that's just an interesting something i've observed and noticed about myself and others who were relating in a very superficial way mind you in a in a whatever a store or mall setting their world view of the four you might say is something is missing others have it i've been abandoned i've been rejected something is missing other people have it i've been abandoned i've been rejected now you can hear if you're listening right you can hear in there is going to be some envy other people have it and envy when it's turned up full volume might be and i need to remove it from them everyone needs to see them suffer like i suffer that's maybe envy turned up all the way to its highest intense level is i need to knock them off of this position and usurp them like i think of scar you know on on the lion king um fours can emotionally attach to others quickly sometimes they may struggle with that but i think maybe the tendency would be to attach to people quickly at their best they can be empathetic warm friendly very creative but you know force can easily become disenfranchised with the relationship as it is remember they don't like the mundane they don't feel comfortable around the ordinary and when a relationship is elusive then it's something to pursue it's something they're missing and so their attention is going to be on what it is they're missing and how this other person almost like a highly idealized highly uh standard idealized version of this person is going to come and sweep me off my feet and rescue me and fill the empty places within me and and sort of you know complete my experience and so you start dating this person or maybe even marry this person and then one day you look across the table and you realize this is just old ned you know this is just boring old ned i'm married boring old ned you know what do i do now and a four might find themselves getting disenfranchised once the relationship starts to feel old comfortable worn tired boring you know like this should be more intense and maybe they'll feel more comfortable in their past like you know we need to recapture recapture the way things felt at the beginning when there was this when there was this uh when there was this chase that was on we need to recapture that intensity or maybe they'll get focused on the future on what it could be and and why is it why is this relationship not all that it could be you know kind of like what are you doing wrong why are you not opening up to make this relationship as intense as it could be and as good as it could be and what are they missing of course it's obvious how good the relationship just is all right now on its own in its ordinary average way how good the relationship is because their focus of their attention is on the way it used to be or the way it could be if only these things were different something's missing something's missing something's missing but you know when you look for something missing what are you going to find you're going to find that something's missing but rather than just appreciating and being present to what is the focus of the attention is on what is missing and believe me as a seven i get that i get that that in my own way okay so they may look for their partner to rescue them i didn't write it okay i read it they may look for their partner to rescue them or provide them with what they feel they are lacking you know okay interesting their tendency toward general unhappiness and melancholy can create tension in the relationship you know if let's say just i'm a seven if i was with the four i'm sure the four would stretch me i'm sure the four would make me want to make me deal with things that sevens don't naturally want to deal with like intense emotions and sadness and and those kinds of things and that would be a very rewarding you know aspect of that kind of a relationship but think about how a seven might relate to all of that melancholy dark cloud gray cloud kind of you know sentiment if if in my house i walked home and i saw on my wife's face this melancholy sadness i would immediately feel like i need to push that cloud out of the way i need to do something to make this rainbow and sunshine again well you can see how that could irritate the four and how the four could irritate the seven and that's just one relationship um you could go around the dial and you might see you know the ones who just want to get their stuff done and just want to be responsible and just want to get the house painted and just want to get the room cleaned up and why are you laying on the bed depressed and sad and crying and you're just being lazy you need to get over it you man talk about feeling misunderstood right or what about the two is going to help you overcome all of these feelings you might feel misunderstood or the three who looks at you and says are you ready for your best life now you might feel misunderstood or uncared for um there's a sense in which to fix a four is to diminish the four okay that's not original with me okay that came right out of this book helen palmer to fix a four is to diminish them in other words maybe the four doesn't want to be fixed they want to be understood and so when they're telling you about their pain and their loss and their heartache and their sadness and how things are off if you're a one or an eight and you just want to fix things like okay tell me what the problem is all right well here's what you need to do here's what you need to do to afford you that's going to come across like you don't really want to sit with me you don't really want to engage with me you just want to brush me off fix my problems a nine a relationship with a nine might might feel very similar because nines they sort of have that attitude like just tell me what you want me to do tell me what you want me to do and so the four is unloading these deep heavy weighty sad difficult challenging thoughts and the nines kind of looking at you like i mean what do you want me to do i'll do whatever you want me to do you want me to you want me to you want me to sing in the choir i'll sing in the choir do you want me to you want to turn the tv off i'll turn tv off and maybe the four isn't really wanting you to do anything they maybe just want to connect and be understood and for you to empathize with them hold their hand walk with them on the journey and say man i can't imagine how difficult that's got to be and you know we're going to get through this together maybe there's more i don't know but i think that relating to other types this could be a problem because i know it would be a problem with me if every time i came home there was this melancholy blue set i would feel like i have a bag of i feel like i have a bag of medicine and that is to bring joy into the world but it's not working every time i try to bring joy into the world i'm i'm met with sad depressive melancholy which to me feels awful but for the four that might just kind of be kind of sweet like i've even read that sweet melancholy a sweet sadness which okay doesn't make sense to me but i'm not a four so i might feel like i can't win or i i don't have the remedy for this problem and there you go again the four is a problem right and so the four is going to think okay i've been told all my life i'm too much for people i've been told all my life that i'm a problem i've been told all my life you know how dramatic i am i've been told all my life and so they're going to further spiral down probably and the person relating to them might feel very frustrated like i can't win i don't know what to do i don't know how to make them better i don't know how to relieve them i don't know how to why are we in relationship problems right all of us i mean we're all trying to relate to each other and that's really the goal of this channel in many ways is just let's understand as much as we can about each other so that we can relate to each other so that we can we can enter into each other's frame of reference a little bit and love each other and be more compassionate with each other okay so where am i now um the tendency toward general unhappiness and melancholy can create attention in the relationship when stressed they can become moody moody you know we're often very unaware of our own moods and how much they play into the way we're relating to life and to people but fours of course you know could become very moody they could become stubborn they could become self-absorbed you know self-focused like this is about me they don't want me at their party because they don't like me they they're not talking to me because they don't like and it's like self-absorbed like there's something wrong with me and that's why everybody's treating me the way they are attention seeking and have sort of a woe is me kind of attitude toward life they can take little things personally often with fours you're dropping pebbles but they're landing on fours like like boulders okay fours have this unique ability to take in everything negative about themselves and to brush away anything positive about themselves so if you complement a four and you say hey you did a great job on your art today or your project or your presentation you know you meant it as something positive but the inclination of a for the natural inclination is to hear something about your comment that puts them down in some way like oh yeah you're telling me that now but you know the last four times i did reports you never said anything positive and and you can feel a little bit if you're not aware you might feel a little bit like i can't i don't know how to relate to this person like i try to tell them something good and they're upset with me i try to tell them something positive and now they want to confront me over what did i mean by what i said and you can just feel like i i don't know i don't know what i meant what do i need to do i'm not trying to be a problem okay all right and i don't know maybe the four themselves doesn't really know how they feel about it and they're trying to sort it out they're trying to figure out you know what what how do i feel about this okay so now where am i i'm a seven i'm easily distracted good time for my old brown cup of water and i've actually got some hot tea today look at me i'm drinking hot tea if you wonder if i'm a seven i'm a seven okay ah hot hay spotted tape okay focus all right go to five seven go to five right focus all right um they can uh they fear abandonment okay fear abandonment they tend to pull others in close with their love affection and emotional connection and they're just interesting people so if you you know are looking for somebody that's interesting or somebody that's you know going to bring some quirky pizzazz into your life and your life is pretty ho-hum and monotone and monochrome and now this person comes in who is just so alive and so interested in life and vibrant and eccentric and okay so that may suck a person in they may be attracted to that um but then the four when they start feeling like this is becoming an ordinary kind of uh pedestrian relationship they might push away from that remember this push-pull effect of force they pull in and then they push away if they feel like this is becoming ordinary or or too predictable they're not interested in it anymore they're interested in what is missing well this relationship isn't missing it's here so they might push away from it or if they feel like they're losing their sense of themself to this other person and they're becoming one and they need to remain separate and unique and different and they're just becoming mrs johnson and they don't want to just be mrs johnson they might push away from this relationship of course the person relating to them could feel like they don't know where they stand it's like i you you want to be you want you don't want me you want me to call you don't want me to call i don't know what you want me to do okay this could feel exhausting to both parties in the relationship the four may just need to push away to go back and withdraw and process what they're feeling and process what they're thinking but all i know is maybe you got up and walked out in tears i don't know what to do i don't know what to say maybe i don't need to do or say anything but i might feel like i need to do or say something i might feel like i hurt you or upset you i don't even know what i did all right they may go to great lengths to expand their relationships oh wait let me say it this way to expand the existing relationship they may go to great lengths to sort of like make this relationship better think of it as like a gardener that like over gardens okay sixes can do the same thing like you're supposed to plant a garden walk away right let the sun let the rain do its work it needs time you walk away yeah you come back once every couple days and you pull a few weeds but you leave it alone and what happens the garden flourishes well there are some types like eights that walk away from the garden and they don't aren't eight i mean sorry nines who might walk away from the garden and not come back until it's time to harvest it and be like oh wow there's weeds everywhere what happened i guess i should have been paying attention think of fours and maybe some sixes and maybe some twos you know maybe some other types that could over tend the garden and you know when you over tend the garden you start looking for weeds and you can if you're not careful you can pull up the good crops with the weeds right you can pull up the good ears of grain with with the weeds so you might you might need to kind of relax a little bit like you're over interested in how can we improve this relationship you can kill the golden goose by dissecting them right you can kill the relationship by constantly prodding at it constantly poking at it constantly trying to make it better or make it something that it's not or wishing it was something that it's not if they don't feel that they're part i'm getting a lot of text messages isn't that the way it goes when you don't want to talk to anybody or you're busy when you want to talk to somebody nobody's there okay they may go to great lengths to deepen and expand and you know get connected to the person in their relationship if they don't feel like their partner wants to reciprocate that or they don't feel like their partner understands how they feel what are the chances they're probably going to feel very deeply unloved and uncared for in their relationship as a result they have the unique ability to sit with others and empathize with others and so they might expect that the other person is going to do that for them and when they don't that could be a very low moment they could provide a huge support for other people and i would imagine that the floor is going to expect that you're going to want to connect to me on that deep level and you're going to be available to me and you're going to care about me and let me be open and honest you know i i i can't imagine a forever if i were to unload even like the deepest darkest craziest feelings in the world if i were to say let me just go really simple if i were to say something like you know i don't think my marriage is working out i i'm thinking about separating i'm thinking about getting a divorce i just can't imagine a four saying oh oh we got to stop this conversation oh this is too much i can't process a divorce oh i i can't no i don't make me go there i can't imagine a four doing that no a four is going to just lean in and and and let you say whatever you need to say and let it come out and they're just going to join you in that journey so how do you think a four might respond if when they're opening up somebody treats them that way oh oh oh i what oh you're gonna get another ear piercing oh oh what you like marilyn manson oh oh my goodness i can't i can't take it i can't tolerate it i can't i don't make me hear anymore is it any wonder a four might feel misunderstood imagine trying to search for what is uniquely you well you're going to go into some pretty strange areas of life right you're going to you're going to open some doors to some closets and some pantries and some alleys that most people don't ever go down you're looking for what it is that makes you uniquely you and special and different and so you're going to maybe experiment and touch into some places in life that a lot of types are never even going to consider and then when you share that hey i i found this thing that helps me maybe think about maybe that's relates to me in some way and you get you get the response of oh yeah bring garlic dracula vampire you know when you get that kind of response i would think that a floor might feel very misunderstood or not loved or like they're bad or they're wrong or they're creepy or or that they're they really are different and it just further solidifies the narrative that there's something wrong with me there's something missing something wrong other people have it and i've been rejected because look at him rejecting you oh oh oh okay all right melancholy let's talk about melancholy for a minute i do get into melancholy states every once in a while even as a seven um when i think about my kids growing up isn't that funny when you think about it the seven's worst nightmare growing up uh right growing up when i think about growing up when i think about the kids growing up you know i can get kind of melancholy i wouldn't say it's sweet you know um but i i i don't grasp true melancholy but this is what i read very interesting melancholy is the reminder that something is missing it is a sweet sadness based on the perception of loss fours are now longing to recover that abandoned relationship remember the childhood wound of the four is that mother's love was withdrawn from you for no apparent reason that you didn't do anything and so you're left wondering what is it about me that makes me unlovable what is it about me that causes this abandonment that causes this neglect that causes this rejection there must be something inherently flawed in me that causes mother's withdrawn love now that's not saying that that your mom did that to you it's the childhood wound every type has a childhood one it's kind of like a metaphor for you know the sort of the message we we told ourselves you might say it that way envy is a reminder that others seem to enjoy happiness that the four has been denied so when you see everybody else relating to one another and seem to be okay with their average lives with their average careers and their average relationships and and i'm not able to be happy in that it does spark a sense of envy i wish that i could just be like one of them i'll never be one of them but i wish i could be happy like they are happy the search is motivated motivated by the conviction that there there has got to be more than just this ordinary life there must be more than this provincial life i don't know belle is she a five is she a four i don't know i guess i can kind of see it both ways she seems kind of five-ish but maybe she's a four her the books that she's interested in you know are kind of the romance right sweeped off her feet and she ends up i'm different i'm in love with the beast i don't know you could make a case i think for must be more than this provincial life um contrast that with ariel the seven uh part of their world i wanna i wanna over there is i have all of this stuff look at this place it's filled with my gluttony but it's not enough i need more i'm missing out on something there's the fundamental difference force i'm missing something i am missing something everybody else has i'm missing it sevens i'm missing out on something so this could be more better more fun more exciting more enthusiastic i just need to be over there where the grass is greener but i don't think sevens are feeling like i'm there's no something inherently flawed in me no of course not all right so their search is motivated by the conviction that there is more than just this ordinary life uh the thinking you might say it like this we would not be seeking more in life if we were already complete okay attracted to what is missing to what is distant to what is unavailable to what is hard to get envy is the belief that others possess this missing element look at them they're loved they're satisfied while i'm deprived mood manners mood if i change my mood my my sophisticated style and manners losing myself in luxury and in good and good taste refinement or all in a sense external life supports to bolster internal self-esteem questions and issues now that is a profound statement and it came from palmer's book okay so if if you want to be beat in the face if you're a four you want to be punched in the face she'll do it okay um because it was painful when i was reading it and i'm not a forward let me say that again okay mood manners luxury good taste and you probably add a lot more things refinement sophistication knowledge um all of those things are external life supports to bolster the internal self-esteem questions and issues in other words i have a unique image to cover my inner sense of shame now that's a that's a very deep thought and maybe a very frightening thought um my suffering sets me apart i am an outsider longs for the missing ingredient for happiness the absent lover a distant friend deeper communion with god a deeper sense of self a deeper sense of community i'm gonna put that in my notes too a deeper sense of community okay if only i could spell all right they may feel sad in the face of happiness and this is one of those things that you'll see with fours that really leaves the newbie kind of scratching their head everybody's at the family reunion everybody's laughing everybody's relating wonderfully to each other and where's the four running off to the bathroom running off to their bedroom you know is it so people will miss them and go after them and say hey where did you go we want you at the party you know it's got to feel good to be wanted maybe i feel unwanted all the time and so now they're coming after me and telling me they want me okay maybe maybe that's a part of it for some maybe like in their junior high years i don't know where you're trying to really understand life and coming to terms with who you are and what you love and what you care about but when surrounded by happiness happiness external to you may just be a reminder of your own inner unhappiness and so when you see happiness it reminds you of your own inner unhappiness when you see people relating and connecting it reminds you of how fragmented you are and how rejected or distant or disconnected or all of the okay it might just remind you of that and bring about sadness what would bring about happiness for most people could bring about sadness for a four fours could repeat a cycle in relationships of desiring the relationship acquiring the relationship becoming disappointed and disenfranchised with it rejecting it and then the cycle starts over again once it's no longer once you're no longer together then it becomes attractive again now realize that cycle could get exhausted exhausting for the people that are relating to you i mean you have to see that right that you love me you're tired of me you don't love me you don't call me and then three days later you love me again okay how many times do we go through this cycle before i start to think this isn't going forward this is not what i want to sign up for it's got to be confusing to both people the four and the person they're in relationship with so try to have a little compassion you know for each other um immediate relationships the ones i have pale in comparison of the promise of the uh idealized what could be remember that fours are idealist it could be better let's tinker with it let's poke at it and let's make it better well you might poke at it and kill it you know how many pokes does it take before it just dies you know something that you may want to consider relationships should be permanently vibrant relationships should be permanently all-consuming consuming relationships should be permanently passionate and permanently alive okay that's a lot of expectation that's pretty high expectations every meal should be you know a gourmet dinner every relationship should be a gourmet relationship you know there's great comfort in mashed taters and roast beef and gravy and peas that's a pretty average meal but it sustains doesn't it every once in a while it is nice to have a gourmet meal but by and large most meals are just pretty average and average can be great once it is once it is accepted but what about them what do they have they over there they have a gourmet meal and i have just this average meatloaf and meatloaf beet loaf i hate meatloaf envy what do they have comparing you know is comparing yourself and your state with others making you happier well maybe you don't need to be happy maybe you like melancholy okay let me say it this way is comparing yourself with others constantly comparing yourself with others in your relationship with others or idealize standards in your head of what it could be is that really improving your life maybe it is in some ways but i would at least challenge you to consider that maybe it's not always improving your life maybe maybe it's not making things better always uh floors find it difficult to maintain interest in what they already have i get that i'm a seven i understand that the real thing is not as compelling as the one that is on the other side of the fence the real thing that i have is not as interesting as what is obscured and what is removed and what is distant from me um well that could keep you from experiencing the real thing in life your quest for the highly stylized could keep you away from the actual can you imagine back in the old days if you had a black and white tv and everywhere you went you know people were selling color televisions well you might go home and think i'm not even going to watch television i can't stand to watch this black and white tv this is ridiculous everybody else has a colored tv except me i have to watch black and white tv i'll fine i just won't even watch it okay who are you really punishing you know if you can just shrug your shoulders and say one day you know maybe we'll find a color tv but right now for the next six months we're not able to afford it i'm just gonna have to accept the it the way it is once you accept that it's a black and white tv guess what you can get lost in the programs lost in the stories and enjoy the episodes just as much perhaps as if they were a color tv but if you won't let yourself accept the tv because it's black and white i guess you can just sit in your room alone and sad um the rest of the family's out there saying why don't you watch tv with us no it's not color tv i don't want to watch black and white okay it's your choice it's your choice a lot of things in life we can't we can't make them the way we want them to be so what do we do well we do everything we can do and then at some point we just have to accept things the way they are or we can just we can just fight against life strive against life wrestle with life but usually life wins all right so where are we at the feelings of the four are reality they might over identify a little bit with their feelings five wing could be very good for you here because fives register feelings as thoughts yes it's information but it's not the only information i like objective data and that could be good to balance out the force over identifying with feelings and being so emotionally connected they might benefit a little bit from the five's emotional detachment and just keep things in balance a little bit the wings are there to balance us folks okay all right um we already talked about let's say it's talking about conflict communication we talked about fixing a four okay um it's important to listen and understand a floor without judgment critique or pressure fours may need time to process what they're thinking and feeling they're honest uh when they present what they're thinking and feeling and they might appreciate that in responding in the same way force fear rejection from others and so for is may preemptively strike with rejection themselves so before you reject them they might just reject you and so that four might come across as kind of got like a chip on their shoulder or that they're aloof aloof this is aloof i'm not interested in anything you guys have to say i'm not interested in i don't need you as friends see there's a fear that you're going to reject me if i were to actually open myself up to you and you were to then reject me that would make me feel those terrible feelings that there's something flawed in me so i'm just going to preemptively strike by i don't need anybody i'm above everyone there's the aristocrat you wondered where it was there it is or the bohemian i do my own thing in my own way i'm above it all well why are you above it all because in your heart you feel like you're beneath it all so you come across as above it all it's it's a realize that it is a self defensive strategy and you may paint yourself into a corner because maybe we do want to connect with you maybe we're not going to reject you maybe when we're making fun of you we don't really mean to make fun of you we're just trying to connect with you we're just trying to be witty and to have a relationship but you took it personal and you felt rejected and maybe maybe you're just a four feeling four stuff and the enneagram helps us see that that sometimes i'm just a seven feeling seven stuff there's no real problem here except that i'm a seven feeling seven stuff i need to return back to life and not put so much so much importance on my impulses and compulsions and sometimes it's helpful for a floor to maybe just realize hey what i'm feeling right now is all the stuff that these books say that force feel maybe that's all this is maybe i'm just feeling the stuff that fours feel maybe there's not really anything that needs to be done maybe my girlfriend or my boyfriend are just fine the way they are and they don't need to grow and change and develop and stress maybe the relationship is just fine the way it is maybe i can accept life and prove it sure but accept it the way it is okay um force fear rejection from others and they preemptively strike by rejecting people first this protects them from the fear and the threat of further abandonment which is what they're afraid of right trying to find balance between being not too far away you'll miss the other person and not so close that you can't live without the other person so fours they want to be connected but they don't lose themselves in the connection and if they feel like they're starting to lose themselves in the connection then you might see them disconnect connection is very important to force long conversations verbal expressions of love uh complete oneness and physical closeness all build the intimacy they desire realize that sometimes like eights they and fives they may have a hard time with that kind of vulnerability and openness fours need to truly feel this emotional connection with their partner in order to open up force feel both positive and negative emotions very strongly like an electric current like an electric current running through them emotional intimacy and attachment is based on how comfortable they feel sharing their deep feelings their true feelings their authentic feelings with others if their attempt at connection is dismissed or unreciprocated what are they going to feel hurt isolated rejected not cared for like they can't show up fully to this relationship like what's the point this isn't going anywhere i can't i can't you're not really available to me if their attempt at connection okay in relationships fours kind of have like an eight a what you see is what you get kind of attitude they they may actually lead with their negatives about themselves what they fear about themselves like bring out the negatives and sort of display the the worst parts of themselves to see if you're going to reject me so think of it like testing people if you were to know this deep dark thing about me if you were to see this side of me if you were to know that i think about this you probably reject me and a lot of people might so will you pass the test and not reject them and stay with them and say oh well you know i mean okay tell me more all right um you won't have to wonder where you stand in a relationship with a four they want to be fully truthful and honest with you fours don't like trying to be someone that they're not in a relationship with a four you might remember to stay calm through the push and pull and the intense emotional moody melancholy departures and push-pull reconnections stay steady and be a rock of strength fours have a profound fear of rejection if if people get too close they may discover my fatal flaw uh if they see beneath the the plumage feathers if they see beneath my top hat if they see beneath my um my my upper crust my class they may discover that i'm only a little brown mouse underneath all of these feathers underneath all of this plumage it's just me a little brown mouse if they discover that they'll reject me image is often heightened as a protective measure elite memberships aristocrat a unique social presentation looking attractive and somewhat aloof above the common crowd above the common man above the vulgarians envy you see can vanish in luxurious and elegant surroundings a graceful manner original conversation and candlelight all keep the commonplace at bay that came straight out of this book by the way if you want to go that's painful isn't it isn't it ooh ow people always say dr lahu you you're so negative on all your videos well i don't know i'm not trying to be negative i just think if you can see the dragon for what it is then maybe we can start winning a little bit against the dragon a graceful manner original conversation candlelight all keep commonplace at bay attracted to the depth of things they resonate with antiquity that means ancient stuff you know let's go on an archaeological dig to a remote part of the world where we're going to discover these ancient scrolls rituals ceremonies they're attracted to those things why those things move them and their attention off of the shame of the mundane ordinary existence of life that most of us live so what are some realistic steps that you could take in a relationship to a four in a relationship with the four it's important that you take them seriously fours can be witty and fun and yet they can feel misunderstood or uh or hurt if they're teased or if they're called out for being too sensitive remember sensitivity that's their superpower so they don't want to be humiliated because they're able to completely empathize with other people because they're so sensitive sensitivity is their strength show up for them be present with them let them know you care about them with intentional listening and show empathy yourself engaging in conversations with them express how you feel you might have to use grand gestures you know you might have to kind of sweep them off their feet a little bit with something surprising hey you're getting kidnapped and we're picking you up for the day and i'm going to take you out to this beautiful restaurant this this idyllic scenic lake setting a picnic that it's going to mean a lot it's going to mean a lot to them grand gestures thoughtful planning and intimate conversation their expectation in a relationship could be a little bit unrealistic it's good for them to know that that maybe they're wanting the sort of the harlequin dime store romance uh image of a relationship and images of of things never really are as accurate you know as the real thing don't settle for an image when you've got the real thing right in front of you just how can we make the real thing better you know stronger um their insistence on intensity can make relating to them feel kind of stormy at times so you know you need to figure out what what your umbrella is for dealing with stormy maybe you just get more quiet and more passive maybe you just get more inquisitive and ask more questions but you might be careful um in the way you respond to all of this stormy electric intense emotional energy in other words you might need to balance it by becoming more grounded yourself after all what dissipates electricity is is something being well grounded spam risk don't you love it almost done okay um fours want to be moved swept away taken somewhere higher than this ordinary existence the closeness we used to experience or what the relationship could become if only you'd show up fully away from the things the way things are now be prepared to be pushed beneath the surface if you're in relationship with a four challenge to identify your own convictions your own authentic truth and realize you know some of us we we may not really want to spend a lot of time on those kinds of things but the four is going to push for that and it can be a i'm sure a rich rewarding experience to to have that kind of a partner in your life fun exciting thrilling creative quirky witty deep heavy weighted it all goes together for forest and all right so the present to life thank you guys i hope this video was helpful thank you for joining me for this one and i'll see you next time

Channel: Dr. Tom LaHue

Views: 14,751

Rating: 4.89644 out of 5

Keywords: enneagram, type 4, type four, family, parenting, marriage, relationships, personalities

Id: MAn3qTFv29k

Length: 55min 57sec (3357 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021