Articles
* Enneagram Intro
* What People Say
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NLP + Enneagram
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Milton Erickson
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Enneagram:
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Ones
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Twos
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Threes
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Fours
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Fives
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Sixes
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Sevens
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Eights
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Nines
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Famous Examples
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Style Specific Quotes
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Tom Condon Interview
* Enneagram Exercises

* Bill Clinton's E-Style
* Death of Catastrophe




Fine Distinctions: Sevens
Subtypes
Self Preservation Sevens

  • Self-Preservation Sevens are confusing since they tend to be highly sociable and gravitate toward groups like Social Subtypes do. They specialize in “chosen family” in that they tend to create a network of people around them.
 • They enjoy sharing on a circuit of interesting or like-minded people. Other people are a source of information and stimulation; interested in the latest gossip and everyone’s news.
 • To the Seven, the group is a comforting barricade against the dangers of the outside world, a bulwark against an infringing universe.
 • Can be loyal, if slightly detached, friends; protective towards those within their inner circle and good about staying in touch.
 • Canny and practical, they look for the deals and the loopholes; can enjoy bargains, sales or getting something for nothing.
 • Equally well-versed in and fascinated by a large variety of subjects. May lack depth but have a breadth of knowledge.
 • Tend to depersonalize, talk in abstract or intellectual terms and don’t explicitly toot their own horn.
 • This subtype is associated with the cliche of the “party animal,” compulsive socializers who want to enjoy perpetual good times.
 • In NLP terms, Self-Preservation Sevens are “activity-oriented.” Sharing activity with others is a way to make contact or to avoid personal intimacy.
 • Can use people for stimulation and drop them when they stop being exciting.
 • Some fear being alone and will use others as a protection against solitude.
 • More likely to have an unconscious self-image of being abandoned, uncared for or left to their own devices. Abandon others out of fear of being abandoned.
 • Can live beyond their means and be chronically in debt; self-induced cycles of bounty and scarcity.
 • Could equate being disciplined and financially successful with being dull and stodgy. The Seven rebels by staying “free” (i.e. irresponsible and broke).


Intimate
Sevens
 • Intimate Sevens tend to have rich imaginations and are exceptionally creative.
 • They embellish reality with fantasy; see daily life through a veil of imagination.
 • Often think and communicate in stories.
 • Can see intimate relationships as shared experimental adventures.
 • Avid learners who are open to adventure and new experience.
 • Dreamers in the best and worst sense of the word.
 • Intimate Sevens tend to be suggestible and can be swayed in their positions and opinions.
 • Trend spotters who seek the new with the enthusiasm of a faddist; they filter reality through fantasy and the fantasy is what they purchase.
 • Sevens with this subtype are often more explicitly narcissistic.    • They tend to personalize their experiences, talk more about themselves and use the word “I” more than other subtypes.
 • Can be tentative about commitments and have a wandering eye.
 • May romanticize people outside their primary relationship as a way to avoid the limits and boredom of mundane life with the same old someone.
 • Can be more involved with their fantasy of their partner than with the real person.
 • Intimate Sevens can easily move from relationship to relationship searching for the right person or an “all time high.”
 • Sexual freebooters; Don Juan and Don Juaness patterns are possible.
 • Some report having high expectations of their fantasized partner and being easily disillusioned.
 • Some intimate Sevens do stay in long term relationships. They may be interested in the mysteries and vagaries of love as well as genuinely love their partner.
 • Can see the partner as several different people.


Social
Sevens
 • Healthy Social Sevens are notably steady, practical and accountable to others.
 • This subtype brings Sevens more conscience and follow-through.
 • When extraverted, they can enjoy social celebrations, fine wine and good food, storytelling, jokes, and travel, all with an obvious gusto.
 • They can be unusually grounded and faithful in their responsibilities. They are relatively at ease with their commitments and are often stable and generous.
 • They are sometimes motivated by idealism, serving something beyond themselves. This subtype can have a stronger connection to One.
 • Protective of group members; want every member to have a good time. If someone causes trouble for the group, a Social Seven may react with a flash of temper against the interloper or troublemaker.
 • Can be generous, protective friends.
 • Feel torn between their duty to others and a desire to escape.
 • Tend to feel codependently responsible for people close to them but experience that as a confining burden.
 • Can be highly irresponsible, overpromise and underdeliver.
 • A number of Social Sevens are firstborns or come from a large family where they were given a lot of responsibility and little guidance.
 • Others recall having to compensate for codependent or unstable parents.
 • Social Sevens sometimes resemble Sixes, because of their dutiful quality and their propensity for feeling guilty.
 • Social Sevens with an Eight wing tend to rebel against their sense of burden and can sometimes act terse and angry toward those they feel burdened by.

 
Seven with a Six Wing
 • Healthy Sevens with a Six wing are responsible, faithful, endearing, and funny.
 • More accountable to others, oriented to relationships; loyal friends.
 • Steady in their commitments as the Six wing brings a longer sense of time and more continuity to their perceptions.
 • They often have more conscience, are hardworking and idealistic.
 • Often funny or enjoy a good laugh. An amazing number of comedians are Sevens with this wing. The humor can have a playful, subversive quality.
 • Can be openly vulnerable and have an unguarded, tender sweetness.
 • Able to empathize with a wide range of people and experiences.
 • Often late bloomers. Some stall at the gate of adulthood, avoiding expressions of their power or competence because they unconsciously doubt themselves.
 • Some have trouble expressing anger even when they have been wronged.
 • Might exhibit some of the doubting, ambivalent qualities of a Six. Can have surprise episodes of anxious insecurity.
 • Aware of authority figures but tend to evade or finesse them. Can be unduly respectful towards traditions and authority structures.
 • They can feel (neurotically) guilty more easily than Sevens with an Eight wing
 • Can have distinct paranoid streaks that they are blind to; their self-image is of someone who is positive, forward-looking and adventuresome.
 • Project their conscience onto others and then act irresponsibly; can display a frantic all-over-the-place mentality.
 • Prone to codependence even to the point of enduring physical or mental abuse.

Seven with an Eight Wing
 
Healthy Sevens with an Eight wing are often gregarious and expansive.
 • Self-confident in worldly matters and have few qualms about getting what they want.
 • Often talented at creating something out of nothing – perhaps by inventing a successful persona for themselves or by creating a thriving career by accident after spontaneously seizing upon an opportunity.
 • Exceptionally materialistic. “Living well is the best revenge” is one possible motto for this wing. In a hasty, rapacious hurry to get what they want.
 • Loyal to their friends and can leap aggressively to their defense.
 • Generous, often sharing what they have; want everyone in their orbit to enjoy their sense of bounty and range of interests.
 • Sevens with an Eight wing are generally more kinesthetic and auditory and less consciously visual than Sevens with a Six wing.
 • Can be demanding, impatient and self-centered.
 • Thin-skinned; may require that the people in their lives candy-coat the truth, telling the Seven only what he wants to hear.
 • Can be hypocritical – moralizing to others about behavior that they practice
 • Some have hair-trigger tempers and can suddenly erupt. Their anger may pass just as quickly and the Seven then returns to a baseline of good cheer.
 • Some tend to age-regress, sometimes to a very young age. Can have the quality of a small child stuck in the “terrible twos,” behaving like a demanding toddler who wants instant gratification.
 • They unconsciously anticipate being frustrated and deprived and preemptively strike against the possibility.
 • Can grow delusional and grandiose; may love to hear themselves talk about big schemes that never come to pass.


Seven’s Connection to Five
 • The connection to Five brings Sevens sobriety, perspective and the power to integrate and internalize their experience – to digest what they have eaten.
 • Helps Sevens become calm and detached, to see the Big Picture.
 • More willing to accept the painful aspects of their experience; more likely to seek and find their own depths.
 • An introverted need to spend time alone; may do this ritually or periodically.
 • Sevens can also be bookish; may have distinct intellectual interests or embark on a search for philosophical wisdom.
 • Some Fiveish Sevens have an almost aesthetic distaste for excess. They could, for instance, be offended by how much something costs.
 • While Sevens tend to be naturally expansive and generous, they can have an incongruous cheap streak. Could be frugal and then go on spending sprees.
 • The connection to Five supports escapism, stinginess and depressive tendencies.
 • Unhealthy Sevens will check themselves out of difficult situations, withdrawing into their minds like a Five. Intellectualize their feelings out of existence.
 • May detach from people and commitments with alarming speed.
Defensive vanishing acts; can skate away when things get tough.
 • Prone to withdrawn depressions, especially as part of a cycle of highs and lows.
 • May have trouble handling and expressing their emotions or be emotionally dry beneath their high spirits.
 • More likely to have mental addictions – to information, ideas, fantasies. Defensively retreat into abstraction.


Seven’s Connection to One
  • Helps Sevens make appropriate, worthwhile, comfortable commitments.
 • Brings discipline and follow-through; Sevens do things well and work hard.
 • Oneish Sevens are often idealistic and can sacrifice for a cause or principle.
 • Solution focused; search for “win/win” outcomes to problems.
 • Oneish discipline helps Sevens give their lives a stable form.
 • Helps with appetite, brings restraint and self-control.
 • Oneish Sevens are good at sober, balanced critical evaluation; while they’re generous and sort for the positive they have a discerning, critical eye.
 • Can begin to confuse discipline with repression, build a jail that they need to escape from, while blaming their confinement on outside sources.
 • Some can be critical and dogmatic with a perfectionistic streak.
 • Might start to think in black and white; may become obsessive about detail.
 • The connection to One can also bring self-criticism and an overactive conscience.
 • Sevens who project their Oneness can see Ones as oppressive symbols or foils. “They don’t want me to have fun.” May provoke judgmental reactions in others.
 • Can latch on to a Big Idea, a future possibility or principle that the Seven is certain will resolve their present discomfort. The deluded, obsessed mentality of a compulsive gambler; excuse themselves from present responsibilities.
 • Can be libertine in their youth and then adopt a pious, conservative lifestyle as they age. Try to rein in their appetites with rules and morality.
 • Might be drawn to religious or ideological fundamentalism. Could be preachy and self-righteous.
 • “Do as I say not as I do.” Hypocritical.








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