Advice From FOURS for FOURS

Summary

In this episode of Advice From FOURS for FOURS, Jennifer Brave delves into the unique struggles and self-discoveries of Type Fours under the Enneagram system. With a plethora of insights gathered from personal stories, she highlights their common feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and emotional intensity while providing practical advice on embracing these traits rather than feeling burdened by them. Jennifer encourages Fours to use solitude as a tool for emotional processing, thereby celebrating their sensitivity as a strength that enriches their personal growth and interpersonal understanding.

Highlights

• Jennifer Brave acknowledges the abundance of information received from Type Fours compared to other types due to their introspective nature. 🤔
• The series skips directly to Type Four due to insufficient feedback from Types One, Two, and Three. 🚀
• Type Fours often feel guilty for dragging others down with their emotional intensity. Jennifer provides insights into why Fours should embrace rather than shame this part of their personality. 🌊
• Emphasizes the importance of solitude for Type Fours to process their overwhelming emotional energy. 🌬️
• Common insecurities for Type Fours include feeling broken or inadequate, which are shared in their personal stories. Sharing these stories can be a source of healing and understanding. 📖
• To combat feelings of emotional burden, Type Fours are encouraged to engage in self-care and retreat when necessary. This practice is reframed as a beneficial rather than a guilty activity. 🌿

Key Takeaways

• Type Fours often struggle with guilt and feeling 'not enough,' but understanding these feelings as common can be reassuring. ✨
• Taking time for self-care and solitude is crucial for Type Fours to process emotions and recharge. 🧘‍♀️
• The emotional intensity of Type Fours, often seen as a burden, can actually be a source of strength and insight. 💪
• A recurring fear for Type Fours is being misunderstood, which can lead to feelings of isolation. Connection with fellow Fours may provide comfort. 🤝
• Embracing one's unique perspective and emotional depth is essential for self-acceptance among Type Fours. 🌈

Overview

Jennifer Brave introduces her video series starting with Type Fours, as they provided the most insight into their personal experiences. She explains the tendency of Type Fours to be highly self-aware and growth-oriented, which contributes to their keen interest in sharing their emotional journeys and struggles.

The video delves into the common feelings of guilt among Type Fours, particularly revolving around their emotional intensity and the consequent alienation it may cause. Jennifer emphasizes the need for embracing feelings of melancholy as a normal characteristic within Type Fours and suggests self-care as a crucial practice for emotional processing.

Throughout the video, Jennifer also touches on Type Fours’ fear of being misunderstood, how this influences their confidence, and their desire to retreat. By sharing these insights and referring viewers to additional resources for personal growth, she creates a supportive community platform where Type Fours can learn to navigate their emotional landscapes more effectively.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to the Series Jennifer Brave, the owner of Fast It's Relational Care, introduces her new series titled 'Advice to Numbers by Their Own Number'. She shares that due to lack of substantial feedback, she will not be covering types one, two, and three, and will jump straight to type four in the series.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Feedback from Type 4 The chapter titled 'Feedback from Type 4' discusses the insights gained from individuals of personality type 4, known for their focus on self-awareness, personal growth, and relational health. The narrator notes that they found type 4 to provide more information than other types, attributing this to the type's inherent interest in personal and relational development. The chapter promises a detailed account with specific quotes from type 4 individuals, emphasizing the richness of feedback received from this group.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Challenges Faced by Type 4 The chapter 'Challenges Faced by Type 4' discusses the various struggles that individuals identified as Type 4 might experience. The speaker has compiled extensive notes to distill the main points and provide insights. The focus is on explaining these challenges and offering theoretical background or support to help Type 4 individuals understand and navigate their difficulties. The goal is to help these individuals make sense of their experiences and address any specific issues they encounter.
• 02:00 - 04:30: Feeling of Guilt in Type 4 In this chapter titled 'Feeling of Guilt in Type 4', the author explores the emotional struggles associated with personality type 4. Instead of receiving direct advice from Type 4 individuals, the author received personal stories and experiences. These narratives provide insight into the challenges and feelings, particularly guilt, that Type 4 individuals often face. Through these stories, the author gains a deeper understanding of the complex inner world of Type 4.
• 04:30 - 09:00: Self-Care and Withdrawal This chapter explores the concept of self-care and the challenges of withdrawal. The author discusses four primary struggles shared by individuals they refer to as 'fours.' These struggles include dealing with guilt and other unnamed issues. The chapter promises to include not only surprising findings but also advice on how to overcome these struggles. The objective is to provide helpful guidance for managing these emotional and psychological challenges.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Confidence and Vulnerability Issues The chapter delves into the struggles faced by individuals who lack self-confidence and feel overwhelmed by their emotional intensity. It highlights a common issue among those who are aware of their deep emotions but are unsure of how to manage or lessen them. The narrative begins with a discussion on guilt, featuring insights from a person who finds it reassuring to learn that experiencing guilt is a typical trait for type four personalities.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Type 4's Self-Perception Type 4 individuals frequently experience feelings of guilt. This guilt stems from various sources including feedback from Type 4 individuals known to the speaker, personal observations, and insights from others. These individuals often internalize guilt based on their perception and understanding of themselves.
• 18:00 - 20:30: Emotional Intensity and Desire for Change The chapter titled 'Emotional Intensity and Desire for Change' explores the theme of emotional hesitancy and how it can impact one's pace and engagement with life. It discusses a specific case where an individual feels guilty about being highly emotional, describing herself as 'melancholy.' This emotional state contributes to a slower approach to life and interactions.
• 20:30 - 22:00: Conclusion and Call for Interaction The conclusion and call for interaction chapter addresses the emotional struggles of individuals who identify with the Enneagram type four, specifically their experience of melancholy and sadness. It highlights a personal anecdote of a friend who feels guilty for her melancholic nature, contrasting herself with those who are more carefree and move on with life more quickly. The chapter emphasizes the importance of sharing these feelings instead of internalizing them to avoid feeling like a burden to others. This encourages interaction and mutual understanding to help navigate these deep emotions.

Advice From FOURS for FOURS Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey guys this is Jennifer brave the owner fast it's relational care and I'm gonna start my series today on advice to numbers by their own number so I didn't get enough feedback from types one two and three in order to make a video that I thought would be substantial enough to be worth your time and mine so we're gonna jump straight to type 4 not
• 00:30 - 01:00 surprisingly at least to me I got more information from type 4 than I did from any other type but fours are usually into this stuff because they're very much about self-awareness and growth and relational health and things of that nature so we're going to start with type 4 I want to say before I go into this that they're going to be instances in here where I use very specific quotes the majority of the time I'm probably going
• 01:00 - 01:30 to summarize just to capture the overall idea I got a lot of stuff so I've made a page front and back of notes here so we're just gonna jump into that and I'm going to tell you what was said and then I'll also try to give you some theory to kind of come in and explain or support some of that - in instances where I can because I think if you're a four that may help you to make more sense out of these things if these are some things that you struggle with - and if you're
• 01:30 - 02:00 not a four I think it can help you understand the four is that you know a little bit better I'm also going to say that while I asked for specific advice from one type for others of their type I didn't necessarily for type 4 get advice so much as I got life stories and just telling me about the things that they struggle with but that in and of itself has a lot of value in reading the stories that people sent me I actually learned a few things about type 4 that I
• 02:00 - 02:30 found surprising so I am going to include those things here as well as any advice that they gave for overcoming those things or dealing with them if that makes sense so here we go so there were four basic things that all of the fours that contacted me said that they really struggled with those four things are guilt feeling like they
• 02:30 - 03:00 aren't enough not being confident in themselves and a frustration with being so emotional or so aware of their emotions or having such an intense emotional energy and not knowing how to turn that down okay so starting with a guilt I had a four that said it was really helpful to know that guilt is a regular thing for type four it helps me feel
• 03:00 - 03:30 normal yes guilt is a very regular thing for Type four I wanted to add some reasons why type four feels guilty these reasons come again from some of the things mentioned in the emails that were sent to me but it also comes from a couple of fours that I've known in my personal life and feedback that they've given me and just kind of some things that I've picked up intuitively as an infj that I think is there fours feel guilty for
• 03:30 - 04:00 dragging everyone else down and by that I mean they move a little bit slower they're slower to get to things than the rest of us there's a lot of emotional hesitancy to show up and be fully present with life I'll also say this one for very specifically mentioned that she feels guilty for being so emotional she specifically used the word melancholy she attached that on to there and I've
• 04:00 - 04:30 gotten that feedback from fours that I know personally in my life too they feel guilty for being so melancholy I had a for say that she she didn't use the word melancholy she used the word sad and she didn't want to burden other people with her feeling sad or feeling melancholy again is another word because she felt like other people are more carefree than her they move on with life faster than she does and she kind of feels like like a
• 04:30 - 05:00 buzzkill is a better way to say it you know what I mean so she feels guilty for being the person that's melancholy I've had fors say that they they feel guilty because they are not as engaged fully with life and with others as they feel like they should be they feel they feel guilty for being what they perceived to be is broken whether or not the rest of us on the outside see that is another matter but fours believe that that's
• 05:00 - 05:30 what other people see in us too so they they feel guilty for being the broken person I had one force specifically say why can't I just let stuff go and be happy like everyone else so in other words again going back to the idea that they feel guilty for having that melancholy for being the buzzkill right I had a form make a recommendation for
• 05:30 - 06:00 how she deals with that specifically and I love this answer I'm gonna summarize what she said she said put your self-care first withdrawing and spending time alone can be very beneficial to a Type four it's nothing to feel to feel guilty about and she's right I agree with this wholeheartedly because the alone time that fours take you know when
• 06:00 - 06:30 they withdraw we talk we talk about this a lot in Enneagram language the word is aloof because they'll show up and they'll be present in relationships and in life and then they withdraw and they're not present and I don't necessarily mean that they're physically gone even of course that happens but they can be in a room in a situation in a place and it's it's kind of like they've just checked out they're not there you know what I mean all of their attention has turned inward to how they're being emotionally affected by
• 06:30 - 07:00 where they're at and so this is where we get the idea of being aloof for a type for that's a very sim way to say it again it expresses itself in relationships being fully engaged in the relationship and being fully open and authentic and then closing off in their relationships for fear of being abandoned misunderstood and rejected and by the way out of those three things the number one thing that the force told me
• 07:00 - 07:30 that they fear isn't necessarily so much the abandonment in the rejection as it is being misunderstood although being misunderstood could lead to abandonment and rejection and so I think that that's still under there it's just a much deeper level of insecurity whether or not force register that or not I don't know I would imagine that they do but misunderstood was the word that was used most often in the emails sent to me piggybacking on to that the four that
• 07:30 - 08:00 suggested that the withdrawing and the spending time alone was very good because it allowed her to process what she was feeling I am going to say it a little differently I think that when you're a four and you withdraw for a little while and especially if you can physically get to a place where you're alone that's going to be beneficial because it allows you to process and unload the emotional energy not
• 08:00 - 08:30 necessarily a specific emotion even though that does happen two fours are like emotional sponges and again I want to go back to emotional energy it's not necessarily that they soak up specific feelings in the environment around them although that can be the case especially if they are extroverted feeling type force but really fours just pick up on emotional energy in a room they're just
• 08:30 - 09:00 sponges they walk in and immediately they just take all of it on and that can be very overwhelming and very draining for anybody so the alone time allows them the opportunity to just let let some of that energy go let it out and the way that fours do that is they brood that's the other word that you'll hear used a lot in Enneagram circles will talk about fours brooding so in other words they go and they get to these places where they can be alone
• 09:00 - 09:30 and they go through that process time and they brood and they take in that energy and they kind of let it bubble up if you will and in that process that's when they find the ability to let it go if that's what they choose to do so they've got to take it in and really emphasize it in order for it to be something that they can put down and move on from and that's what I had one for say again in different words but she talked about how doing that helped her
• 09:30 - 10:00 appreciate the time then that she could be fully present in life and with other people and in her relationship so she can be alone and process all of this and let it go and then go back out with a clean slate if you will for lack of a better word and re-engage and be fully present there and she's got an appreciation for that now that she didn't have before because she felt so guilty about having to go and retreat so
• 10:00 - 10:30 often to do that processing time I want to say before I go any further with some other things this particular piece of advice that was offered ties in really well with a video for type four that I just did in a series about why each Enneagram type is awesome in essence really what that series was about is it was taking the things that traditionally when teaching
• 10:30 - 11:00 the Enneagram we consider to be personality flaws that cause problems and prevent growth and development and the point that I was trying to drive home in a very indirect way in that series was that sometimes the behavioral patterns that we engage in underneath our Enneagram type can be very beneficial and very helpful and if you use them appropriately they can be a tool for your integration and your betterment of self and really
• 11:00 - 11:30 that's what this 4 was saying here and she's absolutely right I love that she brought up an aspect of type 4 the aloofness and the brooding as again it's traditionally called and talks about how she's found that it's actually something that's helpful for her when it's used appropriately and not at all something to feel guilty about so I really like that the same for also said that for her specifically she finds that she has to take breaks from
• 11:30 - 12:00 people or just places that are overwhelming for for her throughout the day she talked about feeling some guilt about that because everybody else is ready to go on with life and just move on to the next thing and kind of carry the responsibility load that they have all day long and she feels like she has to disengage every now and again throughout the day just to kind of again recharge those batteries and let that emotional energy go and she feels guilty about that but again I love the idea of putting your self-care first and using
• 12:00 - 12:30 that tendency to withdraw to brood the aloofness again to your advantage like she does it's a great idea they feel like they have to have something external of who they are to feel like they have any value as a person the examples that were given to me were knowing things that other people don't know having really unique talents that other people don't have and being able to achieve things that other people can't achieve I do want to say that this
• 12:30 - 13:00 is what makes type 4 look a lot like type 3 sometimes believe it or not I think when you read the profiles between the two they seem pretty distinct or at least that's me but in practice the fours and the threes that I have known have been very easily confused sometimes my dad was the same way he was a four with a three were three wing but when I first started learning the inia Graham for awhile I thought he was a three with the four wing it took me a while to get that distinction I also used to work
• 13:00 - 13:30 with a lady same thing she was an ENFP though and E&F peas have a lot of 3ish qualities to them they also have forged qualities too but I think if the ENFP profile was going to be confused for anything it would probably be type three before type four anyways the point is I used to work with the lady that was a four with a three-three wing and she was also an ENFP and for a little while I thought she was a three with the four wing so it took some time for me to get that
• 13:30 - 14:00 differentiated as well so I got that feedback I had a lot of force talk about how they don't feel like they have any confidence in themselves I wanted to read a quote that I got in one email I have always felt separate from those around me even in close circles I am scared to share myself because I know that I'll be misunderstood I don't like having to explain myself to others I prefer that they just get it so I can see how if you're a for this particular
• 14:00 - 14:30 four touched on the idea of having to be open and vulnerable in other words being willing to show herself to other people and whoever it is that she is whatever she's trying to express feelings thoughts opinions it doesn't matter and that being misunderstood that can be a really intimidating thing especially when you're four if you have had a history of that happening or even if you just have the belief that that's what's going to happen I entirely understand
• 14:30 - 15:00 why you wouldn't have any confidence in yourself because that can lead over time to this internal belief often unconsciously that there is something wrong with me every time I try to express myself people get something completely different that I wasn't intending or they get offended or they label me or come to a conclusion about me that's not at all Who I am and that's very upsetting and it can make you feel like perhaps the way that you're coming off is offensive or just unclear so I
• 15:00 - 15:30 absolutely understand why that would be something that leaves force feeling self-conscious about opening themselves up and being authentic with other people which I would also imagine as a four can be very debilitating because being open and authentic with other people at the core of who you are is really what you want I didn't get anybody that gave me any particular advice on how they're coping with that but I did want to mention it because it
• 15:30 - 16:00 was a common theme that I read and a lot of the emails that I got another thing too that I got a from several different force was talking about things that they don't like about themselves which was interesting that a lot of the fours that emailed me went into depth about just things they didn't like about who they were which I found fascinating that so much attention and
• 16:00 - 16:30 focus in the emails that I got would have been put on that and again not all but a lot I think that in and of itself kind of speaks to the fore mindset that feeling of being inadequate and that feeling of being guilty just for being who they are so kind of the fact that that was a very common theme in the emails stood out to me as being a very foolish thing too
• 16:30 - 17:00 one of the things I got a lot was that a lot of fours are saying that they feel like they get too caught up again in that emotional energy and that it's very draining for them a lot of fours have said they don't like that they wish they could change it I had a couple of fours more than one say that they wish they could be more like type 5 in the respect that they can emotionally detach and approach things from a more logical perspective just to find some way to
• 17:00 - 17:30 step outside of that emotional energy because it's so very draining for them that's pretty much the content that I got from the emails that were sent to me by any Graham type for I'm gonna leave the comments open on this video if you're a four and you want to throw in some additional information or you guys get in here and start having a discussion about it that'd be really cool this is the perfect place to do it since this video is about fours helping other fours so I don't know you could have a little for support group in the
• 17:30 - 18:00 comment section down here if you wanted to if you have not seen my series on why each Enneagram type is awesome I have a video for type 4 it's available on my patreon website I'm going to put the link below in the comment section it's available to everybody who subscribes to tier 1 or higher so tier one is the lowest subscription that you can have it's a dollar a month you can pledge more if that's what you want to do you don't have to a dollar it's fine that will get you access to all of those videos if you want to pledge a minimum
• 18:00 - 18:30 of two dollars or more a month it also gives you access to the podcast episodes that were made from those videos although I will say for that series I wasn't able to do a podcast episode for every number so you've got a whole video series just not a whole podcast series but anyways it's pretty cool check it out this is going to be free on YouTube for everybody since you guys were so kind to help me out and give me the information to make the videos so yeah I'll be back with type five