I look an enneagram test and these were my results:

The enneagram numbers are across the top column, from type 1 to 9.  The numbers beneath were my scores based on the survey I filled out.

My top numbers:

Type 4: The Artist: Intuitive and Reserved (*my highest score)
Type 3: The Motivator: Adaptable and Success-oriented
Type 2: The Helper: Caring and Nurturing

The Romantic (Enneagram Type Four)

Romantics have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me:

• Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
• Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
• Though I don’t always want to be cheered up when I’m feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
• Don’t tell me I’m too sensitive or that I’m overreacting

What I Like About Being a Four:

• my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
• my ability to establish warm connections with people
• admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
• being unique and being seen as unique by others
• having aesthetic sensibilities
• being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What’s Hard About Being a Four:

• experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don’t deserve to be loved
• feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• expecting too much from myself and life
• fearing being abandoned
• obsessing over resentments
• longing for what I don’t have

Fours as Children Often:

• have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
• are very sensitive
• feel that they don’t fit in
• believe they are missing something that other people have
• attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
• become anti-authoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
• feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents’ divorce)

Fours as Parents:

• help their children become who they really are
• support their children’s creativity and originality
• are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

To take an enneagram test or to read the descriptions, check out: 9types

Oh man, where do I even start.  This is totally me.

For acquaintances and friends on Instagram, you see my creative side, my aesthetic, and how I care about people.  What few see, except for my husband, is what’s hard about being me.

I have feelings of self-hatred, often.  I feel disgusting in my own skin (harsh, but true).  I’m double the size of what I used to be.  I ate the old Lainie.  I often feel like I’m not doing enough for those around me.  I should be a better mom.  a better wife.  a better friend.  a better daughter.  I expect waaaay too much from myself and life.

I long for things all the time.  I worry about being misunderstood and overly censor myself to the point where others don’t always get to see the real me.   I feel dark moods of emptiness and question whether I matter.  I think that’s why Imperfect Boss Camp shook me like it did.

Picture a group of creative women sitting in a camp hall during a keynote speaker.  The speaker says, You are enough.  You matter.  And Lainie is sitting there on the verge of tears because it hit a little too close to home.  Because I don’t often feel that I’m enough and I don’t even know when that started.

Now I want to go back through my enneagram results and come up with a plan (which is so me.  I need to take action.  Information is nice to know but a person needs to do something with it.)

I want to share my How to Get Along with Me info with my husband, even though the guy has known me for over 20+ years (he knows me better than I know myself sometimes).  In sharing it, I hope to better communicate what I need.  And with What’s Hard About Being a Four, I need to think about what I can do to support myself during those times.

Whether quizzes are seen as silly or not, if it makes me reflect on my behaviour and who I am, it’s well worth my time.

If you have kids and they’re old enough, it might be interesting to have them do an enneagram quiz.  I wrote a post that shares some links if you’re interested.  Or you could  read the descriptions of each number with your kids in mind.

In reading the description for Enneagram Four, I worry about Thatcher.  I think he’s a four too.  He’s such a sensitive soul who laughs in our faces when getting into trouble (total anti-authoritarian).  We will need to keep an eye on him and love on him big time.  Being a four is hard.

There’s also an interesting section about marriages and enneagram numbers.  Look out, Eric Holmes, I see you being subjected to an enneagram test in your near future 🙂