Enneagram Type 4 Blueprint: The Dramatic Creative

(By Eldad Ben-Moshe)

❤ Hey there Better Lifers!

Welcome to another episode of the Enneagram Blueprint. And this time we have a very special guest, the Dramatic Creative - type four of the Enneagram.

And before we dive into the dramatic creative, and why type four is so special, a few short words about what we've done so far:

If you haven't seen it, we had the intro video which is all about what is the Enneagram and how is it so successful in changing so many people's lives.

We also had the videos about type one - the critical reformer, type two - the proud helper, and type three - the self-promoting achiever.

So if you haven't seen them, I highly recommend watching them, and especially the introduction video which gives you a good basis for understanding our conversation about each type.

And in the video about type one, in the first five to six minutes there I'm giving some general remarks about how to find your type and about the names of the types and stuff like that. That might help avoid some confusion.

This is not my full online course or non-online, in-person course. This is a taste. So there's only so much I can dive into - even in an online course there's only so much I can dive into.

For more details about my Enneagram courses, visit E-School, our Enneagram school, at betterlifeawareness.com/eschool. 

But the important thing is that here, in the Enneagram Blueprint series, I'm going to give you the essential blueprint of the nine types. It will be a quick description of each type, and it is going to be beautiful.

And with that said, let's head on and talk about our very special unique creative guest for tonight, type four of the Enneagram, the dramatic creative.

 
Type 4's Blueprint: The Dramatic Creative.

1. Type 4's core belief.

So as always, we start from the core belief. This is where the whole personality style, the defense mechanism, call it whatever you want, that's where it stems from - from the core belief.

And the core belief of type four is that something in me or in my life, but especially something in me, is lacking or defective or flawed. Or in other words, I'm not like everyone else.

And while with all types it can be unconscious and behind the scenes, behind their conscious knowledge of what's happening in their mind, with type four it's many times more conscious than with other types.

Many of them would feel that belief is true for them in my experience more so than with other types. But it's not a fact, just my experience.

But that's their core belief, that something in me is lacking or missing or defective or flawed. And from that comes their core need.

2. Type 4's core need.

And as always, I like to say that because it's important to understand and it's not discussed so much in the Enneagram world, we all have two core needs which are to be loved and to be safe, for survival. And each type has an additional core need on top of that.

So in the case of type four, that would be to be significant and unique and special. To know my authentic self and to have a special identity.

3. Type 4's core fear.

Their core fear is to have no identity or personal significance.

Now why is that?

If I see myself as defective and flawed, especially compared to others, then the last thing I can be in order to receive the love and to have survival and all that, I can't be plain, I can't be mundane or be like everyone else, right?

Because they at least are not defective or flawed.

If I'm like everyone else and defective and flawed then nobody will notice me. And if they notice me, they'll just say that I'm defective and flawed. And then of course, I won't get loved.

So my core fear would be to have no identity or personal significance, to just be like everyone else.

To be plain and mundane and to have no meaning, to be dull and ordinary and inauthentic (and even emotionally cut off), all these things that are just like everyone else.

Because I can't afford to have that if I want to be loved.

People will look at everyone, okay, everybody is the same, but this person, they're the same like everybody else, dull and mundane, but they are also defective and flawed.

And they're going to be the last ones to be receiving love. Right?

So I can't afford to be that. So that's why it's my core fear and my core need is to be significant and unique and special.

4. Type 4's strategy and tactics.

Another way to understand it is through their tactics.

We said in previous videos that the strategy is always the desire to fulfill our need and to avoid what we are afraid of, and that makes total sense.

And the tactics is how to fulfill our need and how to avoid our fear.

So in the case of type four, to be loved and safe and to avoid being insignificant, I must be special. I must be unique. I must stand out in order to be noticed and then loved.

If I'm not special and standing out, nobody will see me. Nobody will notice me, even more so because I'm flawed and defective.

And then if they do see me with all my flaws and defectiveness, nobody would love me.

So my tactics, the way that I'll try to gain my need and avoid my fear, would be to be special, to be unique, to stand out in order to be noticed and then loved.

So I must find my uniqueness and my meaning. Others have it in them, but I'm flawed and I'm lacking and I don't have it in me. And I must find it somewhere.

It can be that I'll go look inside and find the ways that I'm meaningful and unique and special. It can be that I'll do things outside in the world to make me be meaningful and unique and special.

But I must find it one way or the other.

And I must have an individual identity and personal significance by being unique and special.

I must stand out in order to be noticed and loved one way or the other. I either find it in me or I create it.

5. Type 4's automatic focus of awareness.

And because of that, the automatic focus of their awareness or their thoughts is to what is special and unique and different and meaningful - because then I can become that or create that.

My automatic focus can spot that even without me knowing. I'll just know it somehow - that that is the way to be special or unique or meaningful.

I'll be able to use that knowledge in order to become that or create that. So my automatic focus goes there.

But there's an interesting twist in the plot for fours:

It's not so much about what is special and meaningful and I already have, it's more about what isn't, what I don't have.

What's special and meaningful that I don't have, that is lacking, that is missing, that is unattainable, that is hard to get, that is out of reach - even that far.

And the result of all of that is a feeling of longing and yearning for what I don't have, for how things could have been, for how things could be in the future. And therefore also to feeling melancholia and nostalgia.

Because I'm drawn to how fabulous the past was, how things were and how things could be in the future, or how things could have been in the past.

Anything but the present moment because you have to compare it to how good it was or how good it can be. Otherwise, it will all be pointless and grey and dull and meaningless.

So everything I already have, everything that's easy to achieve, everything that's mundane and normal: taxes and daily life, going to the supermarket and living - going to work, coming back, eating dinner, watching TV or whatever you do, becomes not important and not interesting at best.

And it might be even ridiculed or mocked or despised and stuff like that. There's the whole part about levels of development and dynamic module and all these things that we discussed in the introduction video.

Again, I really recommend watching that, and because it's such a deep model and so dynamic, in this video I can only cover so much.

It's definitely way beyond the scope of what's usually being found on the internet. And I have much more in-depth materials in my Enneagram school, the E-School. You can find it under betterlifeawareness.com/eschool (E for Enneagram).

But just to say, I can't dive into all of the reasoning of all of what I'm saying here, and also there's way more behind what I'm giving you.

I'm giving you the essence of it, and because it's a modality with nine rooms and it's a dynamic modality and it goes deeper than what I'm saying now, there's a lot more that I'm not saying.

And some of you will identify with some of it and not the whole of what I'm giving here and still be a four.

And even more so when we dive into wings, with fours it's almost like you have two separate types - four wings three and four wings five - and it's a whole different discussion.

So back to where we were:

We were talking about the automatic focus and how that ends up in their life and how they're feeling and what they're doing.

So enjoying what is and enjoying what I have is kind of shallow, and it's not enough and it's even hard for them to achieve that state.

And later on, I'll tell you things that Enneagram type four that I work with are saying, things like "I wish I could enjoy what I have" - because at some point they might feel the pain and the problems that it creates for them, that automatic pattern of behavior.

Now they don't necessarily understand that it's an automatic pattern of behavior and that's the whole problem that we're in.

It seems an authentic experience, an authentic desire to have that unattainable, other, different thing that's out there.

6. Type 4's automatic focus of actions.

So with that core belief and core need and core fear and automatic focus of attention and awareness, my automatic focus of actions, interestingly enough for fours, is again pretty special and unique, is introspection.

And it's interesting and unique because it's actually going inside and I'm talking about actions which usually we would think they're outside. So it's more like internal actions.

It's focusing on their inner world and their emotions. The 'action' of introspection and focusing inside.

Like I said, they sometimes despise and mock those who focus on external things and about 'doing': It's not deep. It's not interesting. It's like everybody else.

My 'doing', on the other hand, is going into the depth of my soul, the depth of meaning, the depth of life, the depth of existence, and bringing that to the world, bringing things to the world from that depth.

And look at that difference between this and just going around making goals and achieving things and doing all these things and running around like robots like all the rest of you.

I'm going inside into my inner rich world, and I'm absorbing all that richness and all that exquisite delight that is in there, that richness that I have there. That's my action.

And that's how you'll see also a lot of artists are four: They go into that depth of the soul and existence and meaning and bring back, create from that depth something magical and unique and special and authentic and wonderful.

That is an expression of what they want to be.

And that's also why it's so impacting on all of us when it's done in some level of magnitude by tremendous artists - because they actually can go to that depth, they actually can reach that essence and bring that and create something from that.

And to be with a four sometimes, it can be an amazing experience, very unique and special to say again these words, but also you feel that coming out of them, oozing out of them.

They can take you on a magical ride just by being in touch with that place, just being that.

So that's a word or two about their automatic focus of actions and how that comes out even though it's like internal actions. That's how it manifests in the world eventually as actions.

7. Type 4's self-image.

So when we're talking about all that, my self-image is that I am different. I am deep, I am special, I am significant, I am authentic, I'm profound and insightful and creative, and I have good taste and good aesthetics, and I have a good eye for what's really beautiful and meaningful.

And if you noticed in this video, in this lesson, my body language also conveys that, right?

I'm noticing my body giving all those gestures that come with that fourishness essence. So that's kind of interesting to notice.

8. Type 4's gifts (“healthy”/ balanced/ high level of development).

Now, with all that focus of attention and the focus of action and the self-image and core belief and core need and fear, how does that show up in life? What are the behaviors that I'm going to see?

Now Again, as always I say we have levels of development and I'll focus on healthy or balanced and high level of development of fours, and then we'll talk about the shadow side, the unhealthy, the unbalanced, the lower levels of development.

Of course, there's the in-between. But these are the two distinctions that I'm going to make.

So on the healthy side, what we're going to see is emotional depth. They go around the world experiencing and sharing a lot of emotional depth.

They'll be original and creative.

They'll have a very rich imagination.

They have a good eye for aesthetics and beauty indeed.

And they can be highly empathetic and compassionate which can help them also support people in really dire situations, especially emotionally hard times, emotional distress.

They experience things in a very deep and rich manner, and you might hear that in the way they speak, you might see that in the way they act, the way they dress.

They dedicate a lot of their time to understanding themselves and to self-discovery and the meaning of life, the meaning of existence.

So these are all behaviors you can expect to see from healthy balanced type fours.

Again, eventually, every person is individual and unique, and it's not a list. You won't see necessarily all of that. You won't see only that. But these are typical things you can expect to see.

9. Type 4's shadows (“unhealthy”/ unbalanced/ lower levels of development).

Now, when we talk about the shadow side, the unbalanced, unhealthy, lower levels of development type of four (or any type), one thing to remember is that it's a dynamic module so it's not, 'oh okay, I'm at the healthy side, I never go visit the unhealthy part.'

No.

The more you do work on yourself, the more you can expect to be on the healthy side - but you will have regressions just like everybody else. So you can expect that, too, in each and every one.

So one shadow aspect is the belief that what I feel is the whole truth and not just part of the story.

So with that, logic and common sense and thoughts - the 'head' - of mine become irrelevant and unimportant and untrue; And even more so what you feel and what you think. Only what I feel can be the truth.

And you can think of it kind of like the difference between "I'm cold" and 'it is cold'. I'm cold, so don't tell me it's not cold right now. I feel it. I know it's cold. What I feel is the truth.

Another shadow aspect that is common is that they prefer their inner world over the external reality. So they might even end up believing that their inner world is the reality.

And it's kind of relates to what I said before, but from a different angle, it's not just what I feel, it's my entire inner world.

And I hear from type fours things like "I feel it in every cell of my body, in every bone. I feel it all the way deep inside to my core."

And your facts and the things you bring that happened or didn't happen, your 'head stuff', even if they are facts to you, they're irrelevant to me.

"What I feel is so intense that I know it's the truth." It can be that deep, and then it can be denial of reality and stuff like that. Again, it all depends how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go with that.

Another thing is that they often feel depressed even when they're not clinically depressed. So you notice I have used and I will keep using a lot the word "feel" here, right? They feel depressed.

And many times this leads to being unable to function in the world, I don't get out of bed and stuff like that, but it's not really clinical depression.

Of course, fours can be clinically depressed.

But sometimes with fours it's more of their mechanism doing its thing, and it looks as if I'm depressed because they will gladly dive into the depth of pain and misery and suffering, as opposed to some of us or many of us.

It's part of what gives them depth and meaning. "Of course I'll do that, what kind of a shallow person wouldn't do that? That's part of the core of life and who I am."

So with that they can sometimes feel as if they are depressed and even act as if they are depressed, but it wouldn't be from the same cause.

It would be from the core belief that they have and all the rest of that.

And it will be more, I want to say an emotional state, or... I don't want to fumble into words here, so I'll just say it's different.

And when I work with them, you can see the difference and we work on the distinction between depression and melancholia and stuff like that.

You can use that in order to see that it's not really clinical depression, but it's more of the type, the mechanism doing its thing.

They oftentimes believe that only when they'll find the perfect love, they'll be happy and fulfilled.

Now, one of the problems with that is that the perfect love and the perfect partner don't really exist, right? Not in this world anyway - the world of duality and imperfectness, it's part of the game.

So if I constantly look for the perfect love and the perfect partner, and I constantly believe that only when I'll have them, I'll be happy and fulfilled, guess what? I'll never be happy and fulfilled.

I'll have some periods of that, especially at the beginning of a relationship when everything is nice and honeymoon, colorful and all that. But eventually, it's not there.

And after the initial idealization and feel of the new relationship and the new partner, there comes the fallout and comes reality. You can talk about the chemistry of it too.

And when I compare it eventually to what I thought it is and to the ideal of how it can be and could be and all that - it's lacking. It's missing. It's meaningless. It's not deep enough. It's not authentic enough.

And then I can kind of sabotage your relationship that is perfectly good because I compare it to a certain ideal.

And I believe that until I find that ideal, I won't be happy and fulfilled - as opposed to learning to find joy in reality and what I really have and the mundane normal life that we all have.

Because eventually that's what fours have too. They have a mundane normal life, even though they try to not have that.

So they say many times "I love to dive into the depths of misery and pain" and all that, but eventually, like everybody else, they want to be happy and fulfilled. That's the part of the game.

So there's that and there's also another aspect of it - sometimes you can even see it as if, or not as if, they're more into the experience of falling in love than into the partner itself.

And they might find it only way after, when they are married with children, they'll find it out that it wasn't actually the partner that they liked. It was that whole experience. So there's that too, part of the shadow aspect.

And speaking of all that relationship stuff, they can create drama in a relationship that is perfectly fine, and this part is mostly unconscious, just so that there's going to be some emotional depth and intensity there, as opposed to just the mundane daily routine life.

"Where's the excitement that we used to have?"

Sometimes it can be an authentic thing but many times it's not.

And that's why I go top to bottom. I start with the core belief and core need and core fear so you could see how the ego would do such a thing.

It's not that they are bad people but their ego, the survival mechanism, is such, that I need that emotional intensity in order to survive even.

The belief that they have many times is that "life without that is not worth living - so I'll create that."

And it can be that I'll create imaginary problems in the relationship and I'll believe they are real in order not to deal with the reality of the relationship and life because it's not as colorful as it used to be, and it's lifeless routine.

And I don't want to be stuck in that. And I don't want people to think that that's what I have, and that's what I'm about.

So let's spice it up. Let's bring some flavors into it - even if they are spicy or not pleasant.

It's not the sweet flavors that we had in the beginning, but this is better than flat, no flavors kind of dish, which is kind of dead and 'normal'.

So I'll make it interesting consciously or unconsciously. And again, this part is many times unconscious.

And then even if the problem is solved, I'll go back to my usual thing of comparing you to the ideal partner or the ideal relationship and finding all the flaws because I'm comparing you to an ideal.

So the relationship can be much like them, which is an emotional rollercoaster with very high highs and very low lows and no flat normal stuff.

Kind of like, they say that back in the day in China, they used to have a curse: "may you have an interesting day" or an interesting life. So for fours it's not really sounding like a curse.

So all that I said here about the relationship is why sometimes they are called the romantic type. I said in the introduction video that the names can differ from teacher to teacher, and many times you'll hear them being called as 'the romantic'.

That fantasy, dwelling into the fantasy of the perfect partner and perfect relationship is part of why they're called 'the romantic' sometimes.

And speaking of the shadow part in relationships, all that I said can also lead to a push-and-pull relationship that can again ruin many perfectly fine relationships.

I'm not saying that it's always the fours who are responsible for relationships going down. I'm not saying that. On the contrary, It's never one person's 100% fault and sometimes things are really not good and all that.

But we're talking, I remind you, about the shadow aspect, the unhealthy unbalanced side. Not on the authentic or the high-level part.

Another shadow aspect is that they can be easily insulted because they're very sensitive.

Any innocent word can be perceived and experienced as a painful criticism because they already feel like they're flawed. Now when we go back to "what I feel is the truth"... Now go argue with that.

You might say to them "I didn't mean that the way you experienced that, I was just saying this and that." And they might answer "No, I know what I feel, I know what's true."

And inside it just triggered that place where they feel flawed and not good enough and not worthy of love.

And that's how we bring compassion with the Enneagram: We can understand where it's coming from.

For example the drama queen stereotype, and overreacting sometimes. It's something in them feels that and then comes the four mechanism and makes it even more intense because that's what I'm about, intense emotions, so it's not just a little criticism that's painful to the core.

And my painful to the core is 1000 times more painful to the core than all of your painful to the core. So I now feel rejected and unheard and unseen and all that, but with extra drama.

So their emotions can kind of rule their world, to put it mildly, and it can be hard to act from practical considerations, which is another shadow aspect.

They can be very competitive because they all the time compare.

They can be self-absorbed many times and others can experience them that way. That's a common complaint about fours, that they are self-absorbed.

And again, all of our shadows, I want to say that again and again, there's nothing wrong with fours. It's just like a different shadow. If you go to other videos about other types, you'll see other shadows that are not nice to hear.

So don't take it personally fours. You're not any more flawed than any of us.

They can be emotionally manipulating or hypercritical.

And last but not least, they need to constantly be acknowledged and affirmed and seen and heard. Because that feeling that they have of being flawed is all the way there.

It's at the core, It's a core belief, and everything will trigger that.

So I need constant reassurances and proofs that I'm not. So I need to be acknowledged and affirmed and seen and heard.

That feeling that I have that I'm not seen and not heard and not acknowledged, it's very painful to me because I'm doing this whole production, consciously or unconsciously, so that you'll see me and notice me and see how special and unique and amazing I am so that I'll be worthy of love, and you don't even see me.

You don't hear me. You don't acknowledge me.

I go to the depths of being and the soul, and I bring that back to you and you don't notice me and you don't recognize me, and that can be very painful. Especially with my core belief.

So again, that compassion to them, you can hear that from what I bring forward here.

10. Famous 4's.

So I think that's enough about the shadows aspect of the four. And let's go to something a bit more fun, even four is like to have more fun... from time to time :-)

Don't take away my pain, but yeah, I can have fun sometimes.

And the fun part is famous people.

And obviously you'll find many artists there. And it's fun twice, one time because they want to be associated with deep, meaningful artists.

But also, I want to put a little caveat on that. We don't really know these people. I didn't sit with them and had a one-on-one session with them.

So what I'm talking about is what I feel about them and that many people in the Enneagram world would probably agree, or do agree, that these people are fours, so go to the energy of them, and not necessarily to 'it's a fact that they are four.'

So artists like Prince, also known as 'the symbol' - speaking of fours and being special and unique. Paul Simon, Meryl Streep, Kurt Cobain, Frida Khalo, Alanis Morisette, Amy Winehouse, Shakespeare, Michael Jackson - you have a good gallery of artists there, and more and more and more.

And of course, not all artists are fours and you don't have to be an artist to be a four. But if you heard everything I said so far in this review, you understand why so many famous artists are fours.

And that artist thing brings us right into metaphors of being a four.

11. Metaphors to their world.

And the first metaphor is the tormented artist. I don't think I even need to explain it by now, but that's a good metaphor that will help you understand their world - the tormented artist.

Another one is the drama queen, which is more, if you know the wings, then it's more true for Enneagram fours with wing three rather than wing five.

Wing five would be more the "I don't belong here", even "I'm an alien, what am I doing here?" kind of sensation.

And like I said before, it's almost as if there are two different types, four wing three and four wing five, but it's not really true.

Another metaphor is the Princess and the pea story, right?

The sensitive princess could feel the little pea even underneath all the layers of fluffy pillows and blankets and all that.

Another one is the roller coaster - but not like sevens would think about the roller coaster, it's the fun of roller coaster, but it's the emotional roller coaster, the highs and the lows kind of thing.

The ugly duckling story is another metaphor, being different, not fitting in.

And of course, falling in love, where everything is accentuated and emotional and more colorful and have more meaning, and the emotional whirlwind - it overcomes reason, it overcomes logic.

And let's just run away with it and let love rule everything. And we don't need all the mundane things and all that.

So think of that, and you have a good metaphor, a good analogy for the world fours live in and how they experience life.

12. The prices type 4 pay for their strategy (/automatic patterns of behavior).

Now, with all that said, like all the other types, there are prices for the tactics of fours.

And one of them is that "I'm lacking and I'm flawed" leads to envy and endless comparisons and jealousy and feeling deprived.

Because, "why me? All of 'them' have it so good and so normal" and behind the scenes, they sometimes want that normal that others have.

When they feel that low of the low, they might even want that normal sometimes. But don't tell them I said that.

"I want that. I want to have what they have. I don't want to be that non-belonging person."

I don't want to be the ugly duckling that is being mocked and ridiculed and I don't fit in anywhere.

Yes, I use that to make myself special and part of my identity, but inside I want to be loved just like everybody else.

So there's that, and part of that also is that it creates a situation of not noticing or not valuing the good things that they do have in their lives.

And I have clients tell me "I wish I was able to be satisfied with what I have" - because when they touch that price, that painful part in them that pays the prices and knows and notices and acknowledges that they pay these prices for the tactics.

Even if they don't know it's for their tactics, there's a part of them that does wish that they could enjoy and be satisfied and not long for something else.

And then they can even see that what they have is good, but there's something that sabotages that.

That longing for something else, and I feel it to the core, I feel it's true that I need something else - and yet something in me also acknowledges that "maybe I'm a bit off here."

"Maybe I should be valuing what I have. But I just can't."

Because I'm seeing my mechanism and my automatic focus and everything - I'm seeing the empty half of the glass.

And so that's how I walk around in the world - and that's a big price to pay.

A lot of good things in their life just fade away because of that.

They often feel like their life is stuck - because they focus on what they don't have and how things could have been or could be in the future.

You can think that it leads to being visionaries and stuff like that, but it can also lead to feelings of melancholy and nostalgia and longing and not taking actions in the world in order to achieve things because I'm despising the mundane and the materialistic, even though secretly I sometimes want it.

So I won't take actions to achieve it.

And I'll even brag about not doing that because that's part of my image and that's part of what theoretically will bring me love and affection, that will make me special.

It's kind of like being in your car in a parking lot and everybody's going to vacations, and I'm thinking 'Ah, these people going to vacations, they're missing the whole richness and depth of going inside' -

But there's also a part of me that acknowledges that because of this, I'm still stuck in this parking lot, and I do want to go out there and have fun and visit all these countries and all that stuff.

So it's not to say that fours don't do anything in the world, but when they get to that place of feeling stuck, many times there's that duality of "I don't want to do things in the world", but I do want to do things in the world, and "I despise the world and all that thing, so I don't take the actions," and here I am feeling stuck.

People can't see how special and unique I am and recognize that and things just don't happen for me.

I don't want to deal with all this marketing and accounting and taxes and groceries and all that stuff. It's not for me.

I want to dive deep into the essence of spirit and soul and bring that back to the world and get all the rest of it to flow from that.

I want to get all the recognition and also money and house and lifestyle from that. I don't want to be doing that thing that everybody else is doing.

Another price they pay is that they can be experienced too much by people because every little thing can become a drama.

Every small word, every small scratch, every 'wrong' facial expression, everything can be given an emotional meaning.

That might be a wrong emotional meaning, but even if it's the right emotional meaning it can be blown out of proportion.

And that's why sometimes they are called the drama queen or 'the dramatic' type.

And they hate it when they are called like that, so please don't call them dramatic unless it's really important that you do that, in a specific situation where that reflection would actually be beneficial, and do that from love and not from hatred and all that.

They focus on being special and unique and different so they don't feel that they belong or that they can belong.

They don't feel accepted by the group and they don't feel welcomed by the group, and many times they are even called 'the individualist', one of the names that are given in the Enneagram world.

But again, that's a price that they are paying, that feeling of theirs, even though it's like many of us, we are self-creating those prices that we're paying, and it's not really the group, it's more about me.

And another thing because of their focus on what's missing and lacking and could be and how things could be and all that - they can be constantly unsatisfied and unhappy or even miserable.

Now again, obviously, the more you are on the lower levels of development you'll experience that more often. So when I say constantly, I should put that remark there about that.

But that's part of their experience.

And we said before that their emotions around their world, and it's hard to be practical and acting from practical consideration.

So you can understand also that one price they pay is they can put themselves in tough situations - financially and relationship-wise and others.

You have to be practical sometimes, or it's beneficial to be practical sometimes. I don't know about "have to be."

When they're emotionally unbalanced, they can have extreme emotional mood swings. Remember the roller coasters - the highs are very high, the lows are very low.

And while they might feel that this is part of their magic and their charm, they also pay huge prices for that.

Their strategy gets them many times to feel and be more alone and lonely than they really want to be.

Again, the gap between my image and what I want to project and what I really feel inside when I'm authentic and honest with myself.

And as always, as I say in other types, when unbalanced, the strategy brings exactly what you're trying to avoid:

Here I am wanting to gain love and appreciation and safety and all that by being so special, and over the top, and unique and 'see me', and be seen and all that.

But that's many times what pushes people away. Again, eventually, especially when it's unbalanced.

And that's part of why the Enneagram is so powerful, too.

We can see beyond the lies that we're telling ourselves, whether we are understanding that we're lying to ourselves or not.

And even more so when you work with someone that is a good practitioner and knows the Enneagram well and knows to use the map well -

he can help you see that it's an ego type, an ego pattern, and not really the authentic truth of what you're experiencing and wanting.

Also, the Enneagram helps us not just see what's happening - It's very practical.

If you know how to use it, you can have practices and other ways of changing your situation and your patterns and behavior and your feelings and your emotions.

So there's that to it too.

12. Common things they ask to be coached about.

And with that, common things that they come to coaching sessions with, things they ask to work on in coaching sessions...

Actually before I say that, I'll say - like I said about threes, that they many times don't come because of their strategy, fours actually come a lot because of their strategy.

They come a lot because that's part of what they do. They dive into their being and their essence and their emotions and all that.

It's kind of like coaching and therapy are almost made for them - that kind of coaching, not coaching of goals and achievements.

Another thing I'll say about this before I'll dive into what brings them is that many times, because, again, of their strategy and their belief, a common thing I hear from them when I work with them is in the beginning, they say:

"I don't think any modality can describe me. I'm too unique and deep and nothing shallow like a modality can describe me."

But when they hear about it, and when they would do some exercise, and many times even when they just hear, but sometimes when we do some exercise and they see, they'll tell me:

"This is so painfully accurate."

That "painfully accurate"... "Oh, my God, I can put in a box?"

Which is a wrong understanding of the Enneagram, but it's that feeling of "something can describe me? Someone who doesn't even know me and modality can describe me? Oh, my God, this is so painful. I'm not special. I'm not unique."

That's exactly touching their core fear.

So some of the things that they do come with are the feeling of being different and flawed and lacking and not belonging and misunderstood.

Again, they can spin it as part of their charm - "Look, I'm special and unique!", but eventually they do want to be loved and appreciated, and not just to be the ugly duckling that has been mocked and moved from one group of animals to the other.

Another issue they come with is low self-esteem and constant comparing to others, feeling that they are too much.

Another issue is, as we said before, they feel it, and sometimes they are too much for people. 

And that people will abandon them because of that, which sometimes is a true feeling, and sometimes it's not. So we have to work with that and see where it's coming from.

Issues about self-fulfillment and being unable to 'make it' in the world. Because it's a materialistic world and I despise it in one way, but some part of me actually does want it.

I do want to make it. I do want recognition. I do want money. I do want to live. So there's that tension there.

And when I see I can't 'make it' in the world I wonder why and I go for help. Many fours come to me with that.

Wanting to be understood and recognized for their specialness is another issue.

Depression, melancholy.

Being stuck on past events and not being able to let go.

Search of meaning and search for the meaning of life and meaning of myself and all that part.

And again, that paradox of being happy about their emotional depth but also, with honesty, when they face the prices many times they come for help with the fact that they're drowning so much in their emotional flood that they're not able to function in the world.

They can't just be in the eye, in the center of the storm, the eye of the storm and function. That emotional flood is just all over me and I can't take it.

I can't function, I can't take it. It's just too much. Even they have too much sometimes... So there is that.

13. Type 4's ultimate mission for growth & happiness.

The ultimate mission for growth for type four is to be fully present to the present moment and to what they do have, and enjoy and appreciate that - instead of focusing on what they don't have and what's lacking and missing and unattainable and hard to get and out of reach.

And with that comes also realizing that they are not flawed, there's nothing lacking or missing about them.

They are not meaningless and they don't need to find their specialness and meaningfulness outside.

It doesn't depend on anything external. You're just like everybody else: If all of us are seen as flawed you're one of us in that, and if others are seen as not flawed, you're one of us in that too.

And you don't have to do anything to be special and meaningful because you are. We all are special and meaningful in our way.

And you don't have to be special and meaningful to be loved and safe, either. And that's a different discussion.

 Speaking about different discussions - there is the Enneagram school, the E-School, at betterlifeawareness.com/eschool.

And over there we dive deeper into more 'special' things like the traps of type four and the paradox of type four and all the types;

The turning points, and the wings, and the arrows, and exercises, and how to get along with them, and how to talk to them, and levels of development, and relationships, and communication and all that beautiful things.

So if you want to know more, and if you want to dive deeper into all of that, go to betterlifeawareness.com/eschool - I'll see you there.

I hope you enjoyed this video.

I hope it was contributing to you either because you're a four, or because you have fours in your life and now you can understand where they're coming from and why they are the way they are, and how to have more compassion for them.

And maybe you are a coach or a therapist, and you work with fours, and that helps you with that.

There's definitely deeper stuff about that, too, in my E-School, about how to work with them as professionals, how to help them as professionals. So there's that too.

And let's discuss this either here in the comments or on social media. You can find me in Better Life Awareness or Eldad Ben-Moshe, and let's have a ball.

If you are curious, let's talk about it.

You can share some comments, write me an email, or even join E-School, our Enneagram school at betterlifeaawareness.com/eschool 
- we'll be happy to see you there.

I'm here for questions. I'm here for help.

Let's use the Enneagram to grow, to be better people to ourselves and to others, to have a happier, better, more aware life, more awakened life.

And next steps might be to go to our Enneagram school, or simply to watch the next video about type five, the Detached Intellectual.

Alright, that's it for today. Have a beautiful, beautiful day and bye for now.

To your better life,
with tons of 💖

Eldad Ben-Moshe
Founder, Teacher, and Coach
Better Life Awareness Center