The Heart of Type 4

Demystifying Four Lore

“2s are always ready to help.” “All 6s are followers.” “Self-preservation last types can’t take care of themselves or keep a steady job.” “If you like cats, you must be a 9.”

Anyone who has spent time in online Enneagram communities has heard bizarre and questionable statements like the ones above. Though the modern Enneagram grew out of psychospiritual groups doing in-person workshops, the escalation of interest in psychological and spiritual growth practices in the early 21^st century has led to an absolute explosion of different “takes” on the Enneagram. These different takes are currently competing for airspace and explanatory power.  

In such an environment, some concept drift is perhaps inevitable.

While all the types have experienced distortions, some of the most ruthless and extreme battles have been fought over the clear delineation of type 4. Some modern Enneagram teachings have softened the edges of the type, blunting its specificity in ways that make it more easily mistaken for other types. This has led to substantial confusion and issues with mistyping. However, the backlash against this problem has generated its own serious distortions. For example, do you believe that “real” 4s:

A)       are uninterested in connecting or relating to others?

B)       are cold-hearted and unempathetic?

C)      are inherently selfish and happy to be seen as such?

D)      have a concrete, eternal sense of self ?

If so, congratulations! You have fallen for the ego games of the fixated type 4.

Some attempts to clarify the 4 ego structure have reframed the type in ways that align only with average to lower-level type expressions. While these descriptions do represent a version of the type, they don’t capture how the type might show up when a person is healthier or in a state of growth. I have even seen people argue that some healthier 4 traits must belong to other types because they’re impossible for a “real” 4. In many of these online descriptions and discussions, you’re either a snotty emo teenager or you’re #nota4. In trying to clarify the bath water, more than a little bit of the baby has been thrown away.

One of the biggest problems with this discourse is that it ignores the fact that 4 is a Heart type, and as such that 4s carry some important lessons to teach us about the intelligence of the human heart. In this piece, I want to discuss how some key type aspects – the Heart center focus on mirroring and attention, the 4’s connection to the idea of Holy Origin, and the virtue of Equanimity –  illustrate that, contrary to some representations, a healthy type 4 can be expansive, empathetic, and open to life in a way that helps lead other types to a better understanding and acceptance of the complexities of the human heart.  

The Heart Center and the Fixated 4:

The Heart Center is also known as the Image Center. The heart is concerned with value, worth, identity, and who we believe we need to be in order to be loved. The Heart Center also focuses on how we give and receive attention, which is one of the truest expressions of love. Heart types are intimately aware that humans live in and through their connections. Because the heart is the seat of the image, all Heart types are attuned to how they are seen. “Image” can’t exist without the mirror of another set of eyes, without the echoing reaction in another heart. This core truth about the Heart types has been derided in many online discussions about 4, where the idea proliferates that 4s “don’t care how they are perceived.” But this argument ignores both that 4 is a Heart type and a fundamental truth about human identity formation, which is that our sense of connection with an “other” is what allows us to develop a sense of self in the first place.

Photo by Meg Jenson on Unsplash

As Heart types, 4s are just as dependent on seeing their own value reflected back to them as 2s and 3s. For 4, the mental fixation of melancholy and the passion of envy create an ego structure that internalizes the Heart center qualities, underplaying emotional expression and overplaying a need to differentiate and create distinction. 4s have incorporated the gaze of others as an internal “watcher,” objectifying themselves in a never-ending quest to match their outer image with their idealized self-image. This generates a constant tension between wanting to reveal the self and feeling dissatisfied and frustrated when the mirroring of that self is marred by misperceptions.

The 4 heart is sometimes referred to as the “stabbed” or “bleeding” heart, an image that represents the  longing, dissatisfaction, and perpetual quest for meaning and insight that forms the suffering at the core of the 4. The 4 deals with the Heart center need for mirroring by rejecting aspects of the outside world as “not me.” At the same time, the 4 is identified with their feelings, so the inner world can become preoccupied with perpetuating specific emotional states as a way to maintain a sense of self. 4s cling to and play up these states because emotional intensity feels like a connection to the self. This leads to the 4 tendency to amplify some emotions while rejecting other, usually “happier” emotional states, as shallow and unacceptable. For a fixated 4, the love affair with pain can feel like the only truth of life, the only “reality” the heart can accept.

A 4 who is fully “in personality” is also prone to behaviors associated with lower levels of health, like sophistry and narcissism. This 4 sees themself as entirely set apart from the rest of the world, so specific that even finding an entryway into the “real” self is challenging. A 4 in this state has wholly identified with their particular, highly cultivated and considered tastes, insights, and aesthetic preferences and expressions, using them as tokens to assure themselves and others of their originality and distinction. This 4 is also shamed by the mere suggestion that they are like anyone else or have anything in common with the rest of humanity. As a result, this type of 4 can become increasingly distanced from reality, substituting  labyrinthine insights into their narrow slice of experience for active engagement with life in a way that will help them grow.

Given that online communities are full of armchair experts, many of whom are at average to lower levels of health themselves, it shouldn’t be surprising that this fixated version 4 has become something of a standard. The problem is not that this version of 4 is false, but that over-valuing this description plays into the ego game that keeps 4s fixated. More importantly, it’s a version that ignores how a 4 in growth might manifest and the spiritual wholeness that can be attained as the ego is relaxed.

Holy Origin and the “Authentic” 4:

Part of what makes the Enneagram such a profound system for personal growth is that it offers specific concepts and strategies for moving beyond ego fixations. One such concept for 4 is the Holy Idea of Holy Origin. The Holy Idea is a particular perspective or angle on the nature of reality. Each Enneagram point is connected to a Holy Idea that represents a spiritually elevated perspective for that ego structure. For 4, that idea is Holy Origin. Holy Origin implies that this entity we call “self” is a mere mask, a facade designed to help us function in the world by obscuring the truth that we all come from the same source, from an essence we might call Being. Holy Origin shows that our natural state is one of wholeness and connection, where nothing of importance is missing because our essence is unified with the whole of creation. When we develop an ego, our sense of wholeness is displaced by a sense of autonomy and separation. Though necessary, this separation nevertheless represents a rupture, a wounding at the core of the human ego structure, that is experienced as painful and grieved as a loss. While all people struggle with the façade of the ego, type 4 is the most intimately connected to this aspect of human experience. It might also be reasonable to say that 4s therefore feel the most keenly disturbed by the necessary deceptions of human identity performance.

The experience of separation from Being  gives 4s a sense of loss and lack, the feeling that something is “missing” in their core and that they have been abandoned by the Universe.  As a result, 4s tend to reject their inner self as insufficient, inadequate, unlovable. When the 4 looks out into the world, they see that others don’t seem to struggle with this lack, having instead developed a “selfhood” that appears satisfying and stable. Thus, the 4 attempts to locate the self through identification with novel or elevated preferences, tastes, and emotional states. In a bid to be valued and loved for the very “self” they have rejected, they create an “authentic self” that is really just a façade. Shame can be experienced at the prospect of having this façade challenged and being exposed as ordinary. The perspective offered by Holy Origin is out of touch for the fixated 4 because they are attached to the need to be made out of finer things than the rest of humanity in order to feel valuable. Understanding Holy Origin is only possible when a 4 can see that they are worthy of love because they are ordinary, connected to others through the very Being we all share, and not because of their distinctions.

Equanimity and the Higher Side of the Heart Center:

One of the key avenues for accessing the higher side of 4 is the virtue of Equanimity. Equanimity is a state of emotional equilibrium. In this state, one could feel or experience any emotion without being thrown off-balance – emotions of all types move through you while the core self remains calm and centered. In higher levels of health, 4s have more access to equanimity. They become less identified with their turbulent emotional nature and more able to hold and honor all emotions, including the “lighter” emotions they usually avoid. Equanimity also allows 4s to create this kind of space and understanding for others. A 4 in touch with equanimity is a person with deep compassion for human suffering and the ability to handle the kinds of dark emotions and experiences that make other types head for the hills. All 4s have a desire to appear insightful about the complexity of the human condition. But it is equanimity that allows a 4 to grow beyond their own identification with darker emotional and psychological states in favor of a more broad and all-encompassing connection to the totality of the human experience.

Advice for how to access Equanimity generally includes things like practicing gratitude and appreciating small, commonplace things. While these ideas are valuable, I don’t believe they really get at the heart of the 4’s struggle. For that, I want to turn to Buddhist philosophy. In Buddhism, Equanimity is one of the four Brahma-viharas, or divine states of mind. The emotional balance offered by equanimity is also linked to impermanence – an equanimous mind is one that recognizes that everything in life is transitory, including our own sense of self. Accepting impermanence allows Buddhists to develop a balanced perspective and opens them up to greater appreciation for the beauty all around them.

Perhaps most crucially, Buddhists see the opposite of Equanimity as Attraction/Aversion, or Preference. Through dwelling on our personal preferences, we reaffirm our attachments to things that are by nature ephemeral and increase our suffering by denying  the inevitability of loss. I think this dichotomy perfectly explains how the 4 ego structure creates its own prison. As the 4’s sense of self is built on shifting emotional states, preferences become a way of maintaining and heightening those emotional states. Releasing the grip on preferences and attachment to a crafted state of emotional intensity can feel like a kind of death to a 4. As a 4 myself, I have experienced “emotional evenness” as feeling like being anesthetized. When I can’t “find” my emotional state, I feel panic and a horrifying sense of inner deadness that seems to strip me of my sense of self.

And yet.

It’s only through releasing an over-identification with preferences that a 4 can truly grow. Recognizing the limitations of preferences allows the 4 to develop more looseness in and about themselves. Equanimity also allows a 4 to better access Holy Origin, since the drive to prove one’s originality pales in comparison to the perspective afforded by experiencing the interconnection of all beings. When a 4 can do that, they can also see that nothing is missing inside of them. They learn to hold all things – from pain to joy – lightly. They also learn that meaning is not something that needs to be sought, but rather something that emerges from the beautiful flow of life all around them.

A 4 in this space of growth can bring their unique capacities to the world in a way that illuminates the deeper qualities of the heart space, like compassion, warmth, and kindness. They can also access and facilitate the profound self-renewal that is the special gift of the 4. Healthy 4s are said to have the ability to regenerate and re-create the self, coming back from circumstances that might crush those too fixated in a limited identity. Such 4s can manifest this ability through their art, their relationships, or just their embodied presence, helping all types grow and get in touch with their own hearts and limitless capacity for rebirth. This is the aspect of the Heart space the higher side of 4 represents in the world, and one that must be included in discussions of the type if we want to fully experience the transformative power of the Enneagram.   

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Guest columnist Monique Lacoste (SX/SO 468) is a writer, filmmaker, and typology and psychospirituality enthusiast. After working as a professor for many years, Monique is transitioning into a new position as a personality coach. She hopes to use her passion for the Enneagram and spiritual growth practices to facilitate change in others, helping them become more in tune with themselves and the world around them.

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