“Fours sit with you in your pain.”
I read that about my enneagram type the other day and felt so. seen. I have received criticism on occasion, from outside and within, that I am too pessimistic and wallow in hard things—when in reality, I am most often trying to stare big, hard feelings in the face so I can experience them, honor them, find purpose in them, and eventually move past them.
Some people are good at being optimists (I married one!), and thank goodness. We need their sunshine and can-do attitude and cheerful perspective that perpetually lifts and encourages. But others of us are called to hold hands at the bedsides of the broken-hearted, and offer comfort or even just presence when things get hard. To get real—down to the bleeding, desperate, barely breathing parts. There have been times when I have felt guilty about that role; when I have felt devastated and even judged. I have wondered what I am lacking, and whether I am somehow broken—LESS for pausing to acknowledge and peer into the depths of the shadows we all sometimes walk in. But I have met so many angels there. I have seen true goodness, fierce courage, and real heroes.
It is rocky, sacred ground, and it has changed me for the better.
So. To the fours. 💛
