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.

“When things don’t go well, [Fours] automatically assume that they are the problem. Their belief that they are inherently flawed in some way, coupled with their tendency to withdraw, leads them to think that if they just pull away the problem will be solved.” (Suzanne Stabile, The Journey Toward Wholeness, p. 147)

I have gotten really good at apologizing over the years. This can be a really good quality. For one thing, when I do something that offends, upsets, or hurts someone, I don’t get caught in the trap of defending myself. I have learned that offense is in the eye of the beholder. If someone perceives that I’ve hurt them, then I’ve hurt them, and I will apologize. That has been really helpful sometimes. A sincere apology, without excuses or caveats, can often lower the heat in many conflicted situations. There have been a few times when the upset person was taken aback by my apology, as though they really didn’t expect it, and weren’t sure what to do or say next.

But the downside of it is that I apologize too much. I have found it so easy to take the blame on myself for things that I apologize for things that aren’t my fault. And I use it unthinkingly to try to defuse situations, to try to get rid of anxiety. I can’t stand the feeling that someone is angry with me, at least not unless I’ve done what I can to apologize. And this isn’t always good. Sometimes I try to take the blame for things that are much more complicated than that. Sometimes I try to make myself the scapegoat, sometimes I’m even strangely happy to be the scapegoat, thinking that it’s okay if I “take one for the team,” and let people think ill of me, for the sake of everyone else.

It feels like there are several components that feed this instinct I have. There’s the Dark Voice of depression always telling me that I’m worthless and that I’ve messed up again. There’s the high anxiety I feel when there’s someone angry with me, or even when people are angry with each other around me, pushing me to do something about it as quickly as possible. There’s something very comforting about doing something that feels selfless in order to fix a situation – I suppose it’s something of a Messiah complex, feeling that “it is a far, far better thing I do today than I have ever done before” – you know, that kind of nonsense.

All of these things feel unhealthy to me – depression, anxiety, Messiah complex – and it seems like it’s just a happy coincidence (or providence) that sometimes this leads me in the right path anyway. But like so many things in my life, I have so often assumed that I’m doing this all for the wrong reasons, which only then feeds my ability to apologize, because I feel so guilty!

But now, thanks to reading about the Enneagram, I can see that there’s something natural and normal about this instinct, something that’s tied in not with any flaw I have, but with the particular personality I have. It’s a natural instinct I have, not because I’m broken, but because I think I’m broken. (Because part of the core personality of Fours is that we believe there’s something inherently flawed about us.)

What if – what if the only thing truly wrong with me is the belief that there’s something truly wrong with me? I don’t buy it. But I guess I’m willing to entertain the possibility. Something to keep working on…

Image by Leopictures from Pixabay