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EnneaMatch: We Predict Compatibility

The Three Centers

 


> The Body Center: 8,9,1
> The Heart Center: 2,3,4
> The Head Center: 5,6,7

Being, Anger, Self-forgetting, Will (Instinctual, Gut, Belly)

Everyone knows what it means to have a gut feeling about something. This is the intuition of the body-based types. They don't necessarily know in their heads how they know that a certain decision is the right one, but a feeling in their bodies—their guts—lets them know.

The emotion driving the three body-centered types is anger. Eights, Nines, and Ones each have issues around anger: Eights have ready access to it and direct it out toward others, Nines are unaware of their anger, and Ones deny that they are angry and mostly aim it at themselves.

Body-based types say to the world, "Here I am. Deal with me." They ask, "How am I?" "Whose will is more powerful, yours or mine?"

These three types sense their relationships to people and their environment physically. They focus on being in control—Eights by aggressively taking control, Nines by deliberately relinquishing control and going with the flow. Ones take control of themselves by trying to make everything the way it should be.

These three types also have issues around self-forgetting. This unconscious self-forgetting mechanism can be understood as a neglect of the priorities they really value and as amnesia about what is really in their best interests. What's important to them is what's going on around them and they resist or forget what's going on inside of them. They get so caught up in action and detail that they have a hard time remembering what they really wanted in the first place. They are resistant to an inner life. Anger, which for Ones and Nines only occasionally surfaces in direct experience, fuels their actions in the world.

Body centered types are instinctively concerned about their ability to survive and (often unconsciously) with power and justice. They have to know who is in charge. When things go wrong for them, they usually blame themselves. "I'm bad." They are consciously or unconsciously ruled by aggression and have little access to their anxiety or fear. Their true selves are protected behind a facade of self-assertion.

They think they know best what should be done and have many expectations and demands of others as well of themselves. They expect others to focus on them. It's as if by the power of just being there in any situation, they can control it.

All these types somehow forget their own deepest desires in their busyness to deal with the anger consciously or unconsciously. Eights are so busy acting out their anger that they forget that what they really want, and wanted from the beginning, is to be loved and have affection. Nines are so busy denying their anger and going along with others' points of view that they have forgotten that what they always wanted was to be an important and effective person in their own right. Ones are so busy channeling their anger into making themselves and the world around them perfect that they forget they just want to have fun in the beautiful perfect world that already exists.

On the one hand they are careful to take care of their needs related to safety, shelter and nourishment; on the other hand, they can disdain and dismiss these needs, neglecting themselves.

The power issues of Eights, Nines and Ones can be seen in the instinct to hold ground by adapting their environment to themselves. Eights have a tendency to do this by dominating conversations and decisions. Nines hold ground passively by stubbornly digging in their heels and not letting anyone invade or make off with their turf. Ones work on their surroundings to make them stronger and more perfect in their eyes.

Eights, Nines and Ones all want respect for their power and strength. They look to all the world like they are happy to go it alone as rugged independents, but this masks the feelings of fears of their own vulnerability and of losing themselves in others, i.e. fears of co-dependency.

Feelings of bodily sensations are very strong for these types and are usually present even before they are aware of them. These instinctual feelings are the focus for Eight, Nine and One, either because they struggle to control or properly express them, or because they think these feelings have to be gotten rid of or beaten out of them. These feelings, gut reactions, take the form of endless either/or questioning which leads to constant inner struggle: "Do I like something or not like it?" They can have an uncanny accuracy about the feelings of others and the world around them. The feelings can be so overpowering they forget to think things through while in their grasp.

For Eights, Nines and Ones their "theme music" feelings are like big brass bands that play so loudly they cannot hear the soft strings playing in the background.

 

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