This is one in a series of posts about my recent interest in the “Enneagram of Personality,” and how Type Four is a perfect fit for me, and also offers me insight and potential growth. For more information about this series, see the first post here.

“I’m very sensitive to criticism, and it takes me a while to get over it.” (Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile, The Road Back to You, 148)

One of the authors of The Road Back to You, Ian Morgan Cron, identifies himself in the book as a Four (like me!), and so some of what he writes about Fours is in the first person, like the quote above. He owns being a Four, and is honest about the blessings and the curses of living with that identity. I was grateful that he wrote it that way, as it made the book even more real to me, knowing that the author wasn’t just telling me information about this psychological typing tool, but was offering me direct insight into myself.

On the outside, I try really hard to take criticism well. I am thinking about a few moments in my ministry as a leader in the church. In each of these moments, someone was very critical of something I had done. Something I had done had caused them hurt, and they felt it was important to tell me that. In the moment, my response was to listen to them, to ask clarifying questions, to apologize profusely, and to offer to make amends. I think that I have learned good ways on how to deal with criticism, on the outside.

However, on the inside, I do not receive that criticism well at all. Those two cases I am thinking of occurred over fifteen years apart, the first when I was in my twenties and the second when I was in my forties. But in both cases, my internal reaction was the same. When I was alone right after each incident, I curled up into a ball deep inside myself, and I allowed the self-critical voice inside me (whom I call “The Dark Voice” in my book) to viciously attack me. He told me (I told myself) that I was worthless, stupid, terrible – that I had not and could not grow in any way – that I should have known better, and because I didn’t, I have destroyed someone else’s life. It took me several days to get over when it happened in my forties. But that’s actually some real progress, because when it happened in my twenties, it took me several months.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay