The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

Challenge your unwavering belief in your inferiority. Only by becoming aware of their vicious cycle of envy and need and inferiority and shame can Fours step out of the defensive patterns of thinking, feeling and acting they engage in that become self-reinforcing and self-frustrating. As long as Fours believe so strongly in their own inferiority, they can’t realize and embrace the essential truth of their own goodness and lovability. By noticing, exploring, and then actively challenging this belief, Fours can realize it’s a false belief and start to believe not in their own superiority, which is the other pole of this Four pattern, but in their own “goodenough-ness.” By consciously comparing their belief in their own deficiency with the evidence available to them—and by challenging themselves to consider the positive evidence—they can realize the falsity of their belief and expand their view of themselves to include their real value. Challenge shame by focusing on all the ways in which you are good.