Heart or Feeling Instinct
Types Two, Three, and Four rely on their feelings, or heart, to guide them. They love emotions, deep feelings, and relationships. They are most comfortable in the realm of feelings and are highly motivated to form relationships. They use their heart or heightened ability to feel and observe others and how they appear to them. All three types within this instinctual group develop an image of themselves that becomes crucial to their personal identity. Unfortunately, they can become so focused on what others think or feel about them that they, ironically, often lose touch with their own deepest feelings. They are obsessed with the desired image they create and often depend on others to form favorable opinions about them or to validate their own opinions of themselves. They use their emotions to determine how well they are doing in terms of projecting a desirable image as follows:
Twos want you to like them and will usurp their own needs or anticipate your every real or imagined need in order to gain favor. They need you to need them, and they monitor your feelings, moods, and behaviors toward them to know if they are succeeding.
Threes want you to admire their accomplishments and success. They will stifle sad or undesirable emotions to keep their brilliant, dynamic, and sterling image intact. They want you to gush over them and compliment their every good deed or victory.
Fours have a vested interest in appearing unique, special, or talented. They can fall in love with their negative emotions and will often heighten or dramatize their emotions so they can then transcend them through art or other creative endeavors. They want you to see just how truly special they are.
Ginger Lapid-Bogda, author of Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work, which is based on Enneagram principles, describes Twos, Threes, and Fours as so focused on creating positive images to navigate the world that they are always accessing and assessing their feelings to figure out if they are doing well. Twos, she theorized, want to appear warm, optimistic, and enthusiastic, but they succumb to basing their own opinion of themselves on what others think about them. Threes want to project an image of success and are most concerned that others find them worthy of admiration for their accomplishments. They are, in fact, cheerier than Twos, perhaps because they concoct the image they want others to believe and act as if it's really who they are. Fours need to feel like they are both a true individualist and special. They embrace their most painful feelings and wield their hypersensitivity as a shield against withering remarks.
