- Home
- Preface
- Introduction
- Three Zones and Nine Sectors
- Wings and Moves and other functions
- Wings and moves – introduction
- The wings – the neighboring sectors
- Moves across the board
- No better, no worse
- A chosen move
- Life on the axis
- Lost FOURs and false TWOs
- Access all areas
- Longing for the opposite
- Colleagues of the opposite type
- Discerning home base part 2
- Couples
- Colleagues and friends
- Age and the journey
- The path to redemption part 2
- Biblical Journeys
- Prayer
- The Enneagram
- From the Enneagram to the Strategy Board
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Longing for the opposite
We all have gifts and talents and abilities built into our home base sector – but we all long for more gifts, more talents, more abilities. Perhaps we long most consciously for those that would most complement or balance the ones we have – the very gifts and talents and abilities that are least like our own.
Those are the gifts and talents and abilities that are diametrically opposite our own on the strategy board – in those sectors of the board where our own natural balance of head and heart and gut is completely reversed. We long for the opposites – and the opposites become ‘the wannabe types.’
NINEs, who live continuously in the present tense, long for FIVE’s ability to find some distance and objective wisdom, and for FOUR’s ability to find an imaginative richness and creativity – both of which are to be found in a place of quiet separation from the immediate.
NINE may find some access to the gifts of FIVE and FOUR through the wings of the stress and security types SIX and THREE.
THREEs, forever changing to suit the mood of the audience, might wish they could more easily stand up against the crowd for a principle, like EIGHTs. Stressed at times by the complexities of managing group dynamics from the heart, they might also long for the simple, less emotionally involved happiness of SEVENs.
THREE may find some access to the gifts of EIGHT and SEVEN through the wings of the stress and security types NINE and SIX.
SIXes may look with envy at the passion in TWOs’ relationships compared to the headish logic of their own – and may also look with envy at ONEs who have such energy and passion in believing and promoting the ideals and standards within which SIX chooses quietly to live.
SIX may find some access to the gifts of TWO and ONE through the wings of the stress and security types THREE and NINE.
EIGHTs, forever challenging and fighting, might wish that instead they could communicate profoundly like FOUR, or lead naturally and effortlessly like THREE.
EIGHT may find some access to the gifts of FOUR and THREE through the wings of the stress and security types FIVE and TWO.
ONEs can be exhausted and half destroyed by their own perfectionism and their fight against all that is less than ideal. They may look with envy at the ease with which SIXes live good lives in the world just as it is – and long also for the calm, detached, and objective wisdom of FIVE.
ONE may find some access to the gifts of FIVE and SIX through the wings of the stress and security types FOUR and SEVEN.
SEVENs, carefully planning the day ahead and managing their friendships in the head, might long for the instant heart connections that seem to come so easily in friendships for TWO and in groups for THREE.
Head zone SEVEN may find some access to the gifts of TWO on the wing of stress type ONE – but lacks easy access to the gifts of THREE right in the middle of the heart zone.
TWOs, drained by their emotional engagements with others, might look jealously at SEVENs with their constantly cheerful friendships – and at the simple lives of SIXes who seem to fit in so easily and play their full part with so much less emotional cost.
Heart zone TWO may find some access to the gifts of SEVEN on the wing of stress type EIGHT – but lacks easy access to the gifts of SIX right in the middle of the head zone.
FIVEs may admire ONE’s ability to engage with the world so directly and so passionately – and also look to NINEs, who live full and engaged lives without the constant noise and complexity of FIVE’s endlessly churning mind.
FIVE may find some access to the gifts of NINE on the wing of security type EIGHT, but lacks easy access to the gifts of ONE – out there in the gut zone, and on the other side of the board as well.
And from their place of deep emotions and their sense of distance from the world, FOURs look with envy at NINE’s ability to engage with the world so directly while maintaining an easy sense of peace and calmness and innocence – and also at EIGHT’s engaged ability to challenge.
FOUR may find some access to the gifts of NINE on the wing of security type one, but lacks easy access to the gifts of EIGHT – out there in the gut zone, and on the other side of the board as well.
We saw in Part 1 that taking the advice of the opposites can be part of the path to redemption for everyone – so that ‘longing for the opposite’ has a purpose. Emulating the opposite may not come naturally – FOUR will never be a natural fighter-protector like EIGHT – but there will always be situations where the advice of the opposites will be the best advice. We do all have at least something of all three resources – of head and heart and gut – and while it might not come naturally, sometimes we just need to pull them together in the combination that the best advice demands, and do what we can.