four!

Steve and I decided to take the enneagram test, curious as to what it's all about and to see if it would help us understand each other more. I know, we've been married 30 years, but we have both changed a lot in those 30 years. We also asked our sons to do it.

I've heard about this test for the past several years from friends, but resisted taking it. I'm not a fan of Strengthfinders in the office place, so much, and a long time ago at a church we were given a personality test as part of being youth counselors.

"I'm an otter / golden retriever!" Steve says enthusiastically.

"I'm a golden retriever," I say less enthusiastically. I didn't want to be an animal. I was in my late 20's, trying to navigate the waters that come along with that age, and also marriage and work. Golden retriever made me sound like someone who was submissive and slept all day. 

I do have to back up and say that first I asked Syd to take the enneagram test, before the rest of us. Then I felt I should also take the test (in retrospect, as all good parents would do - trying something they've just advised their offspring to do.) When I saw my results and how right on they were, I convinced Steve to take the test.

About the same time I had decided to give the enneagram test another look, someone had recommended the book that explains the results quite well, called The Road Back to You, by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. An excellent book that will show you how to apply your results and really determine your number.  And the author is pretty funny, so there's that.

My results came back showing that I was a 4, or a 9. After reading the above book, I really think I'm a 4, the romantic.  4's are imaginative, creative, dramatic, empathetic.  They are also self-absorbed, dramatic and sensitive.

"It says here Cher is a 4," I say to Steve. "Do you really think I'm a four?"

"Yes," he says, not missing a beat.

I find out Chopin is a 4. I tell this to Ben.  

"Oh, did he take the test?" he replies. Funny.

Some other fours are possibly Jennifer Aniston (I'll take it), Vincent Van Gogh, Anne Frank, J.D. Salinger.  

"It hurts my feelings," I say to Steve, "that this test thinks I'm sensitive and dramatic."

"I think it's right," he says.  

I'm not allowed to say what number Steve is, which is a trait of his number. Wanting privacy.

A little while later Steve is jotting down a grocery list and I'm telling him what I need from the store.

I take a deep breath and pause. "I need 3 golden potatoes," I say loudly.

Steve has his back to me but I know he's laughing because his shoulders are shaking. "You're a four!"  Then he mimicks me and tries to kiss me. I get upset. This test is dumb. 

Yet, it has helped me to see whereI get tripped up, when I get my feelings hurt too easily.  It also confirms some things I do love about myself. There's a quote from the book i've carried along all week, in a part that gives some encouragement to fours. 

"When the past calls, let it go to voicemail. It has nothing new to say to you."

One of the traits of a 4 is to feel there is something essential lacking in you. Which can explain why the past can haunt you, as if it's pointing a finger and saying see, if you were more, this wouldn't have happened. 

I'm still processing and contemplating a lot of what this book makes aware by your number, but I really think it's a great tool in self-awareness, in self-improvement and in being kinder to yourself.

Highly recommend. And I'm not being dramatic.