Transcript
Hello and welcome to the BarrCast. I'm your host, Nick Barr, coming to you on a windy Friday afternoon.
So we're jumping into the social six and the keyword for the social six is in Spanish, in English duty, duty or obligation. And remembering that the background passion for all of the subtypes of the six is fear. We've also been playing with angst as a keyword there.
But it's funny because I've been sitting with fear versus angst. And I think angst is a better description of a condition that the six might find themselves in. But fear might be a better word to describe the passion, right? The engine, the motivating, sort of the battery source of the six. The six scans their environment from a place of fear for danger and through that projects danger onto the world and sometimes even manifests danger where there wouldn't have been any uh previously and so that's that self-fulfilling prophecy that's that um see you know see that means i need to continue to scan for fear right so there's that pattern that reinforces itself
And angst doesn't, as much as I like the word angst, it doesn't quite lend itself as clearly to that passion.
So let's look at duty. And the other thing we need to keep in mind as we dive into the subtypes of the six is two things. One is that the six and the four have the most diversity in the subtypes. And secondly, that another way sixes are presented in the Enneagram is along the lines of phobic and counterphobic. So you can roughly think about this as people who have more of a flight response or more of a fight response. Do they move toward the danger or do they move away from it?
So all that's just background as we begin our translation work. Doody, here's what I call a Prussian character. The social six is cold, very formal. Kant, for example, was a great philosopher. He was Prussian, and the Prussians had this type of character. It feels great love for precision and intolerance for ambiguity. This is precisely the complete opposite of the conservation six or self-preservation six who is warm and feels too much permissiveness for ambiguity among the nazis there were many social sixes their behavior is very visible this is the line the party line the line that defines who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and what we need to do and we do it very efficiently in efficiency the six the social six is similar to a three.
Ichazo used the word duty, which is more than just being concerned with duty, as social sixes are primarily concerned with the point of reference. They have the mind of a legislator with clear categories. Their intellectual orientation is to know very well where the north is, where the south is, where the west and the east is. And if they were ever to become human beings, they would first need to go crazy and forget all the reference points. They need to forget duty, no duty, and connect with instinct and intuition with life.
So here's another reference to Nazis. Sixes are... The Nazi party comes up a lot. Hitler as a six. And the German identity before Hitler and after Hitler. This need for precision. So a certain kind of, it's got to be this way, it can't be that way. This efficiency.
So poor sixes are always getting... uh tagged with nazism um and of course uh that's that i i think that the job that that's doing is twofold one is it helps us it's always helpful to have like a country or a culture or another handle in mind and so germany in general or they call the prussians that german character is six-ish
And then I think part of the reason that teachers oftentimes reference the Nazis is because it shows a few things. It shows that
I guess what we need to keep in mind with the six is that there can be a clustering or a herd energy of this good guys and bad guys and the good guys need to stick together. The six has a very... There's a lot of we energy in the six. There's a lot of wanting to be with... An inside an institution and it shows how dangerous that thinking can be on a global stage, even if individually thinking is quite understandable.
Something kind of falls apart, you know, duty, right? This duty, I need to do what's right. I need to have a role. I need to know that my role fits inside of a system that's right. This need for orientation is really significant. Yeah.
So duty with respect to right and wrong, duty with respect to a role, duty with respect to a job or an institution or an organization.
So let's hear the Transformation in the Social Six by Gerardo Ortiz. And I love this. He starts out, let's just listen to the style of the writing. And if you've been along for this, you maybe can go back and remember what the fives writing sounded like and the fours writing sounded like. Listen to the writing of a six here.
It seems a very difficult task to make a self-assessment of my process over time and not fall into the conscious or unconscious temptation to favor myself in the evaluation, pretending to sell the idea that I am currently better. However, recognizing the great subjectivity in which I can fall by doing this self-evaluation forces me to be stricter and more demanding when applying this test to myself, making an exercise of honesty.
I mean, this person is really in their six energy as they're writing that. Can you feel that? First of all, he's saying, oh, this is good because it forces me to be stricter and more demanding. He's applying this rigor to the task of his self-assessment process. There's a lot of there's so much doubt. I need to make sure that I don't fall into temptation. So it's just really rich with six language here.
And this is sort of the sweet quality of sixes too, is it's like they have a lot of doubt. And I almost find myself wanting to put my arm around the author and be like, you're good, man. It's okay. But that's a bit of the fear reassurance loop that sixes can fall into. They kind of, in their way of being, they need reassurance from the outside. And giving them that can serve them in the short term, but in the long term, no. It potentially exacerbates the passion of fear, the operating mechanism of fear.
With this preamble made explicit, I can refer to my conclusion, sharing that a significant element in this diagnosis is the feeling of well-being with myself, achieved in recent times. This is a real novelty, as for many years in my life I felt a deep rejection of being as I was, and maintained a fierce fight against myself. This felt sensation, as Eugene Gendlin calls it in his book on focusing, of deep well-being, pleasure, and joy for being as I am, is the seal of guarantee that I'm not deceiving myself, and that this appreciation I now feel for myself is the fruit conquered over years of work and commitment to my personal transformation.
That's quite lovely, like he's... He's letting in joy, not merely for its own sake. Joy, just simple joy. Joy of being himself. Joy of being alive. Joy of well-being. Not simply as delightful, but also as the fruits of his work. That he can feel appreciation for himself. And that's his permission to let doubt go.
I recognize that several characteristic and defining traits of my personality have not ceased to manifest. However, I can confidently say that their intensity has decreased. I have not stopped feeling anxiety, but it is no longer an experience that traps and takes hold of me. Now it is lighter and sporadic in its presentation and most of the time controllable. I'm learning to be patient and not to get angry when things do not go as I intend or do not have control over them. Likewise, I've incorporated flexibility into my behavioral repertoire and my body through dance and body expression, which helps me not to obsess over the idea that everything has to be done according to my codes or points of view. I've also managed to significantly reduce judging.
And, you know, as we as we explore judging, I want to refer back to that question I posed in the introduction to the six was around guilt, the guilt that the six feels that they might be the cause, the underlying cause of the separation. And
So therefore, in that framing, then judgment is above and before all else self-judgment. He says here, recognizing that this aspect, judgment, is intimately intertwined with self-esteem. As every time I made a judgment, I was indirectly manifesting with arrogance that the people I put on trial were inferior to me.
And yet sixes don't have a superiority problem. They have an inferiority problem. Sixes, I think Richard Rohr says this, have the smallest sense of self. So they feel that somehow they are smaller than they really are compared to the eight who actually feels that they're bigger than they are, has a bigger energy.
I'm no longer afraid to show myself, nor do I feel guilty for not being as others want me to be. Episodes of inadequacy appear less and less intensely. So again, that guilt, that fear that one might be attacked, one might be found out, I'm still working through this guilt quality of the six, and I'm not quite sure if I... have grasped it and how it operates.
Let's keep diving in.
By making decisions from strength and courage, I have felt my self-esteem increase and I have been able to let go of the belief that everything is going to go wrong. This same happens to me when I dissent from authorities and express it, and also when I handle frustration better, accepting that I cannot please everyone and stopping imagining what others might think of me while avoiding self-judgment and judging others.
Again, that fear doesn't feel so profoundly connected to guilt to me. The fear just feels more core, feels natural. Everything is going to go wrong. The world is dangerous. Someone's going to hurt me. Someone's going to disappoint me. They're going to abuse or lie to me.
I don't know if the six, when I think about guilt, I think, and I somehow deserve it. And I don't know if sixes show up that way so clearly to me. So there might be guilt about like, I made something out of nothing. There might be guilt about like, I brought this on myself. Six might feel that kind of guilt. I did it again. Six might feel the pain of operating from doubt. There's a lot of doubt for a six.
But this feeling of being somehow responsible, that feels more one-ish or four-ish to me. Because there's a certain quality of largeness in that, you know, in the four, I am uniquely broken or in the one, I am bad.
And it has a different quality. Sorry, I'm kind of rabbit holing on this a little bit, but as I mentioned before, I'm still trying to get the feeling of the six more deeply. And so I'm really poking at guilt here and the nature of guilt.
describing his development. He continues, I trust myself. I'm more secure in my physical appearance, the energy that my presence radiates, my knowledge and wisdom, my sexual power in touching and being touched. I live with pleasure. I enjoy it. I live pleasure with enjoyment. I enjoy it. That's a pretty rough translation.
I'll just say I live pleasure with enjoyment. I savor it. What helps on the path? I confess that in my case the path is still being made, and nevertheless I have walked with decision.
So you see that kind of... Six language, and I'm not picking on Gerardo at all. I think this is, you know, a perfectly humble way of communicating. But it's the sixes, the six plays out their doubt. You know, I think when I contact my six energy, the sort of hemming and hawing and caveating and look, this is just my opinion and I haven't really thought it out well, but I do want it like that, that whole thing. That's kind of maybe one way into the six energy, right? And it comes from a really good place. It maybe comes from not wanting to make oneself be bigger or more authoritative, right? You're basically saying, I don't have authority here. You really want to reassure the other person that you don't have authority, right?
And while there are all sorts of healthy reasons for that, if you are a Sikh, if you've made an art form out of this practice, learning to actually say, you know, I actually do have authority here and either declaring it or just living it, as Gerardo says, like just sort of coming with that presence, letting yourself embiggen. That can be some of the work there.
I confess that in my case the path is still being made and nevertheless I have walked with decisive steps thanks to unblocking or completing through therapeutic exercises intimate situations that have been barriers in my life. For instance, facing fear.
expressing my disagreement with authority and defending my position now so this is something that's really key is that for some sixes the work will have to be to defend their position and disagree with authority however a common thing that sixes experience is they think they need to do that but the authority itself is already experiencing the six in disagreement
the six sort of says, I'm going to need to stand up for myself. But the authority figure is like, this person keeps kind of nitpicking or either passive aggressively or actually just aggressively sort of objecting to my things. And so the six sometimes isn't in contact with how critical they can be. This is why the six, I think, in terms of titles i like the loyal skeptic because it both communicates their loyalty to institution as well as this skepticism they're always in relationship to authority doesn't mean they're always following authority they might be rebelling against authority they might be seeking authority but they're always in relationship to authority and in their less integrated states authority is always somewhere out there never in here
By expressing my disagreement with authority and defending my position, I manage to act with determination and strength, with courage, feeling the impulse regardless of what they say. On the other hand, practicing compassionate love with myself has helped me to heal from self-demand and self-criticism.
Therapeutic theater has helped me. The SAT program used and uses a lot of therapeutic theater. I'm really interested in exploring that more. I think that's really promising.
Meditation, body work, more particularly working with my parental figures has helped me. It has allowed me to detach from my mother's toxicity, a very fearful woman who breastfed me with her insecurity. That's tough. As well as to shake off the gray shadow of a father without courage.
So his mother was fear and his father was a lack of bravery in his internal world.
Knowing, recognizing, and accepting myself as a coward has been a painful and sad mission, and it has also been the catapult that has launched me to come out of myself and start to dare. I have learned to live without a previous script, with a certainty of having the courage to face whatever comes, knowing that at every moment I will have the right answer. I'm learning to tolerate uncertainty.
And he says here, I think this is valuable. I recognize my fears, doubts, anxiety, and ambiguity, although paradoxically, I find serenity and joy with less mental dispersion.
So I think the six lives in fear. The six lives in simulating these paranoid chess games. And of course, not doing that is wonderful.
But the six, I think, The six is probably so inclined to sort of have this self slapping on the wrist. Ah, you did it again. You know, someone, I think it was Rohr again, this great word called scrupulousness. And it's basically like OCD before there was OCD and it was a problem in the church. So it's scrupulousness was described, it was a way of describing certain priests or people in the church who were like over, they were getting too like rigid and like got to do the rules just right and really needing to do all that. And so, again, I'm not saying that if people with OCD are in their six energy, I don't know enough about OCD to make that claim. But that is very, the thing that's six-ish about that is, again, like, focusing all your energy on the external getting that right as if that will make the inside okay when in fact it's the opposite and so i think you can't just say i'll stop doing that it's about connecting with your inner authority like like he says at the beginning about connecting with his joy his well-being as a sign of his okayness
Gestalt, body therapy work, energy work, breathing, body expression, holotropic breathing exercises with classical music. He really credits so many different modalities, which I really appreciate.
He's a therapist. And I love that, you know, working with the wounds of others generated in me the effect of the drop of water that constantly falls and by force of hitting the stone gradually wears it down.
sacred plants, yopo, I don't know, yopo. He's done it all.
Connecting with his ancestors who have been his teachers, his helpers, his healers.
More plant ceremonies, yahi, I think that's ayahuasca.
a mystical presence manifested in me in a deep voice that emerged from within, called me to surrender to the divine, recognizing in all existence and all people the manifestation of God. And yeah, if we go back to angst and fear and describing that wound as a loss of the paternal father,
In a way, I think a healing journey for the six is reclaiming a connection with God. It just might be a different kind of relationship with God. As he described here, this was a voice that called from within and recognizing everyone as manifestation of God, which is different than maybe, and I don't know what his own childhood religious experience was, but that might be a different...
a relationship with God than imagining, you know, a paternal figure outside of us kind of looking at us. That relationship, then you're constantly going to be living in fear if I'm living in his good graces or bad graces, right? And maybe that's the guilt, really. It's just sort of like, am I in... There's a camera that's watching me. Am I getting it right or am I getting it wrong? Am I with the good ones or am I with the bad ones? Am I on the path or am I off the path?
And so living as if there's this view from the outside onto oneself that maybe starts to speak to that guilt, the connection of guilt and fear. Like why do I need to be so oriented toward others
Um, one reason is I think the actual danger out there. Um, and so that's, it's one way of describing it. And I think then the other way is the guilt that there's some feeling, some, the fear is not just a danger. The fear is also that I am in sin essentially. Um, and, and, and underneath that fear, a guilt that I really am in sin, that I'm not getting it right. That's where that scrupulousness I think can emerge.
Okay, I think we're wrapping up the social six here.
I don't know Gurdjieff's stop technique. It helps to meditate and even practice Gurdjieff's stop technique where several times a day we stop to respond to what am I doing? What am I thinking? And what am I feeling?
Balancing compassionate love with devotional love. which is almost always the most developed. You know, I think sixes, that makes sense that sixes have, they might have more access to devotional love than they do to compassion love. So love for the other, whereas like love from the self maybe is one way to frame that.
Generating self-confidence. And I noticed that in the literature about sixes. I think the literature tends to be kind to sixes. And I think part of that is because they're maybe sort of people who could use some kindness from themselves, from others. And they also could use some reassurance. But in that reassurance, it has to serve the purpose of your own capacity and facility for self-soothing and self-assurance and self-confidence.
The optimal state of an Enneagram type 6 social subtype, in my opinion, is the full acceptance of oneself and one's fears. Acceptance of one's fears, not the cessation of fears. This acceptance will allow me to relax and conceive a deep state of gratitude, joy, and self-confidence. Freed from the sense of duty, I will be able to choose the life I want to live every day, trusting with my heart and intuition, feeling loved for what I am and not for what I do. And that's kind of a connection to the three.
In this way, the next step will be to live my emotions freely, containing myself with kindness, being sober, but with a sense of humor, optimistic, joyful, experiencing life with serenity, calm and peace, open to fun, enjoyment and pleasure. I will express my unconditional and non-judgmental love, balanced in the three loves. I will show myself and be assertive and trustworthy without explaining or justifying actions, accepting error and the ability to correct in myself and others. I will live creating a world of possibilities with more tranquility, facing what comes at the moment without thinking about hypotheses, risks, or danger.
Those are nice commitments that he's making at the end there. And, yeah, I think freed from the sense of duty is probably really scary for a six. I think there's attachment to duty. And my impression of sixes is, you know, compared to, I think, many other types, drawn to being freed from the sense of duty, I think a six would find that quite scary and would also be scared of what would happen to me on the one hand, the danger, and also what would I do to the point of the guilt.
So therefore, I need duty both to avoid dangers because I know that I'm doing the right thing and I'll get a pat on the head as opposed to a slap on the wrist. And also a suppression of guilt, because if I'm doing my duty, then as we learned from the trials, I was just doing my job. There's an absence of guilt because I was doing my job. But we see that that doesn't work.
And so the six has to move into that open space that was described at the beginning of this section of guilt. No orientation, no responsibility, no duty. And I think what the six might find is that they're just fundamentally have goodness in their hearts and they're not going to be some reckless monster. I guess the great irony is that the reckless monsters in history who have been sixes did that in the service of duty rather than the freedom from it.
Okay, that was the social six. We'll do the sexual six next time. See you later.
Duty and the Social Six