Fours desire deep connections with their inner worlds and with other people, and they

feel most alive when authentically expressing their feelings.

Worldview of Fours I am inherently flawed, so I must figure out what this is, redress the
deficiency, or hide behind just being different.
Strengths |
inspiring
|
creative
|
introspective
Development | intense | self-conscious | moody | guilt-ridden

expressive

Center of Intelligence: Heart Center

Heart Center Styles | Three Enneagram styles formed as a response to sorrow.

Your Enneagram style may be in the Heart Center styles Two, Three, and Four. Individuals
with Heart (Emotional) Center styles work hard to project a particular image as an unconscious
substitution for who they really are hence, the sadness or sorrow and they use their
emotions to perceive how others are responding to them. Twos try to create an image of being
likable, and they look to others for affirmation of their self-worth. Threes work to project an
image of success, and they seek the respect and admiration of others for what they
accomplish. As the most inwardly focused of the three Heart Center styles, Fours try to create
an image of being unique or different, and they use their emotional sensitivity to defend against
rejection. Enneagram style Three is the core style of the three Heart Center styles, with styles
Two and Four being variations of Enneagram Style Three.

Core Beliefs

Nothing has meaning or can be fully understood unless you go deeply into your own
personal experience.
Theres no greater feeling than sharing something profound with another person.
Life is full of joy and suffering; both must be integrated for someone to be completely
human.

Emotional Patterns

Experience a kaleidoscope of feeling responses, many of which are kept internal

Highly attuned to how others treat them, trying to minimize feeling not good enough

Behaviors
Engage in extensive introspection Want to be unique or special Can appear
moody Use self-referencing language Seek inspiration and want to be understood
Fours are among the most sensitive of all the Enneagram styles, although their
sensitivity is first and foremost focused on their own internal reactions and feelings.
Many Fours are also sensitive to the feelings of others, particularly when these involve
deep emotions and profound experiences.

Typing Questions for Fours

1. When you feel something very strongly, do you hold onto your emotions intensely for
extremely long periods of time, constantly replaying your thoughts, feelings, and
sensations?
2. Do you think of melancholy as a pleasurable experience?
3. Do you continually search for deep connections with others and feel distraught when
these connections become severed?

Fours search for deep experiences and emotional connection and avoid rejection and feeling
not-good-enough. Symbolized by the jigsaw puzzle piece, Fours perceive themselves as a
puzzle, trying to figure out why they feel so different from others and what makes them unique.
Individualistic, emotionally sensitive, and creative, Fours seek deep meaning, authentic
connections, and they tend to idealize that which seems unavailable, being especially attuned
to what is missing in their complex worlds. Focusing on their internal experiences as a way of
understanding and finding meaning, Fours seek to be deeply understood and want to be
perceived as unique, special, or different.

Although all Fours have a special connection to suffering and have robust, complex inner lives
full of nuance and symbolism, some Fours are hyper-active and risk-taking, silently enduring
their suffering as a badge of virtue; some Fours are hypersensitive and more despairing,
wanting to be accepted unconditionally for who they are; and some Fours exhibit a flair for the
dramatic and engage in extreme competition with others in hopes of winning and taking centerstage, thus minimizing their sense of not being good enough.
The Fours interpersonal style combines an abundance of self-referencing speech that is, the
extensive use of words such as I, me, my, and mine as well as personal stories and they
often use emotion-laden and metaphoric language. It is as if their own inner worlds are the
center of the universe, or at least, the center of their universe.
While we can all suffer at times and almost everyone wants to be understood, for Fours, the
search for deep experiences and connection and the avoidance of rejection or feeling notgood-enough is their primary, persistent, and driving motivation.

The Enneagram styles on both sides of your core Enneagram style can also influence your
personality
Wings are the Enneagram styles on each side of your core Enneagram style. These are
secondary styles of your core personality style, which means that you may also display some
of the characteristics of these Enneagram styles. Wings do not fundamentally change your
Enneagram style; they merely add additional qualities to your core personality. As can be seen
on the Enneagram symbol, Nine and Two are wings for Ones, One and Three are wings for
Twos, Two and Four are wings for Threes, and so forth.
You may have one wing, two wings, or no wings at all. It is also common to have had one wing
be more active when you were younger, and to have had another appear as you matured.
People of the same Enneagram style and identical wings may use their wing qualities
differently. However, the general wing descriptions for all nine Enneagram styles given here
may serve as guidelines to help you explore this aspect of the Enneagram and also help you to
identify your wing or wings.

Wings for Fours

Three Wing | When Fours have a Three wing, they are more action oriented, have higher and
more consistent energy levels, exhibit more poise and confidence, and are more comfortable
with being highly visible rather than shying away from visibility or feeling ambivalent about it.
Five Wing | Fours with a Five wing are more objective and analytical, which provides a
counterpoint to their more subjective emotional way of relating with others. In addition, they
have an increased ability to perceive situations from a more considered and less reactive
perspective and often demonstrate more self-restraint and self-containment.

The two styles with arrows that point toward and away from your Enneagram style can also
influence your personality
Arrow lines refer to the two styles on the Enneagram symbol that have arrows pointing away
from or toward your core Enneagram style, and you may show some characteristics of one or
both of these two additional styles. Access to your wings and arrow lines can be beneficial to
you, adding complexity, nuance, and flexibility to your personality, but they do not change your
fundamental style that is, your patterns of thinking and feeling and motivational structure
remain the same.
Arrow lines are best thought of as providing additional resources to our character structure
because it is possible to access the best of both styles; however, they are also referred to as
stress and security points because under stress, a person may move toward the arrow pointing
away from their core style, while when relaxed, the same individual may move in the direction
of the arrow that points to their own core style.

Arrow Lines for Fours

Arrow Line to Two | Because Fours normally focus on their own internal responses and
personal experiences, a strong link to their arrow line Two greatly enhances their attunement to
other people. This increased attention to others helps these Fours be more responsive and
more consistent in their interactions.

Arrow Line from One | When Fours have a strong connection to their arrow line One, they
become more objective and discerning of people and events rather than making assessments
based primarily on their emotional reactions. This provides them with greater balance,
increased emotional and mental clarity, and enhanced attention to details.

There are 3 variations of each Enneagram style, which actually give us 27, not just 9, different
character structures
Enneagram subtypes are an additional element that may affect your personality character
structure. Subtypes are the way in which the particular emotional pattern for each Enneagram
style most frequently manifests in that persons behavior. There are three different subtypes for
each Enneagram style: one subtype manifests the style through a particular behavior related to
issues of self-preservation; another subtype focuses primarily on social relations, often
behavior in response to social groups; the third subtype for each style is more oriented to oneto-one relationships.
Each of the nine Enneagram personality styles comes in three distinct varieties, depending on
which of the three subtypes is dominant. The repeating emotional pattern (referred to as the
passion) of the Enneagram style combines with the dominant subtype to create a
fundamental, driving need (mostly unconscious) that fuels the behavior, feelings, and thoughts
of the personality, yielding 27 distinct character structures (or three versions of each style) that
further elaborate on or present different flavors of the nine Enneagram styles. For most people,
two of the three instincts may be active, with the third less so or dormant.

Three Subtypes for Enneagram Fours | the passion of envy.

All Fours desire a feeling of deep connection both with their own interior worlds and with other
people as a way to avoid feeling deficient or not good enough. Because they believe there is
something lacking within them although they cannot define exactly what this is Fours
consciously and unconsciously compare themselves to others (referred to as envy) as a way to
determine what is wrong, consequently feeling superior, deficient, or both. There are three
distinct ways in which Fours manifest these characteristics.

Self-Preservation Subtype Fours try to bear their suffering in silence as a way to prove that
they are good enough by virtue of enduring inner anguish. In addition, they engage in nonstop
activity and/or reckless behavior as a way to feel excited and energized and to avoid not
feeling as good as others. Of all three subtypes, self-preservation Fours do not appear to be as
envious or sensitive as the other two subtypes of Four.
Social Subtype Fours focus more on their deficiencies and also on earning the understanding
and appreciation of the groups to which they belong. They want understanding and
appreciation for their suffering and sorrows, and desire acknowledgment for their heartfelt
contributions to groups, while at the same time they often feel marginal to or not fully part of
groups.
One-to-One Subtype Fours feel compelled to express their needs and feelings outwardly and
can be highly competitive with others to gain attention, to be heard, and to be acknowledged
for their perspectives and accomplishments. Winning is perceived as another venue for being
understood, and coming out on top is seen as a way to resolve their continuous comparisons
with others.

Potency, resilience, moral power, firmness, and courage these are all concepts that align
with real strength. How can the Enneagram help each of us develop true strength, not physical
prowess or outer toughness?
Fours | Every rainfall is not a storm; every event that does not go the way you had hoped or
dreamed about is not a typhoon. Allow the positive to infuse you, just as you face the turbulent
aspects of life. Look outward as much as you focus inward so that there is always a balance in
your internal life. Embrace gratitude more than you dread feeling not-as-good as others or
deficient in some hard-to-name way.