Table of Contents
Intro
Last week I got great feedback on my article Enneagram Type 5 vs Enneagram Type 4. Everyone enjoyed it, and everyone complained that it was too long. So, this week I am breaking up the normally almost 2500 word blog posts into several 300-500 word posts. If you liked the long version, don’t worry I will release it at the end of the week. Since I am breaking up the posts into bite-size bits, you might want to check this one to get a better introduction into the series.
Enneagram Type 5
Enneagram Type 5’s begin the fear triad of the Enneagram. If you want to read more about that go here where I explored it a bit more extensively. Our fears do two things in relationships and both push people away.
We keep people to specific relationship blocks, not allowing the emotions to move between them, and we stare at people through our walls never letting them get too close. Share on XThe first is fear puts up walls. These walls keep emotional distress from affecting us because no one ever truly sees all of us or knows all of us. This is somewhat analogous to the Enneagram Type 3’s mask, but different because we don’t want to be seen. A Type 3 wants to be seen as the best in every situation and so people miss who the really are. For the Type 5, we want to be noticed but not really seen and rarely interacted with. In the end, we keep people to specific relationship blocks, not allowing the emotions to move between them, and we stare at people through our walls never letting them get too close.
The second thing our fear does is move us into a more challenging position. Healthy Type 5’s have access to Enneagram Type 8 (the challenger) energy. This means we use our knowledge and push people away out of fear with the strength of a Type 8.
Relationships
Quiet and introspective, the walls an Enneagram Type 5 put up are some of the hardest and most unforeseen obstacles in our relationships. Beyond that, is our lack of emotional energy. While Enneagram Type 9’s have the least energy of the Enneagram Types, Type 5’s manage their energy to exactness. Relationships cause great variations in energy usage, so we often seem tired in them.
Tune in tomorrow for how Enneagram Type 5’s can be healing for each other. Or, get the full story here.
