Worldview & Motivation

Driving your personality type is the worldview that to gain love and approval you need to give to others, be needed by them and not have needs of your own. Your sense of value comes from helping others and giving of yourself.

As a type 2, your underlying motivation is to be helpful and supportive of the people you care about. You pay close attention and are good at sensing what others need and your natural tendency is to want to please them by meeting their needs. You like the feeling of being needed and get reactive when you lose connection or don’t receive the appreciation you deserve from the people who are important to you.

Habitual Patterns of Thinking

Because of this underlying belief, your focus of attention naturally goes to the needs and wants of others, especially people who are important to you. Your habitual patterns of thinking also include other people’s feelings and emotions, your relational connections and comparing yourself to others as better than or less than. 

Your blind spots are your own needs, the availability of support and your desire to be appreciated and have your generosity reciprocated.

To expand your focus of attention, practice becoming more aware of where your attention naturally goes. As you notice these habits of mind they will begin to loosen and allow you to intentionally shift your attention and be more open and available to the present moment. Develop a practice of intentionally looking for your blind spots in order to gain a more balanced perspective.

Habitual Patterns of Feeling

The emotional drive of type 2 is called pride and refers to an inflated sense of self related to meeting people’s needs, being indispensable and having very few needs of your own. You pride yourself in tuning in and knowing exactly what others need, in particular people who are important to you, and in extending yourself to fulfill those needs. In Enneagram language, pride is the Passion or Vice of type 2.

What is often missing is humility, which refers to being free of the need to give to others in order to feel loved and valued; knowing that you are whole, complete and worthy of love just as you are, and knowing that everyone’s needs, including your own, will effortlessly and naturally be met. In Enneagram language humility is the Virtue of type 2.

The path from pride to humility is to recognize how your value is tied to being helpful, needed and appreciated for all that you do. Develop a sense of trust that everyone’s needs, including your own, will be sufficiently met without you having to take more than your share of responsibility. Practice getting in touch with your own needs, letting others see your needs and allowing them to support you.

Strengths & Challenges

As a type 2, you have many strengths which when integrated in a healthy and balanced way support you and your well-being. Paradoxically, these strengths can work against you when they are overdone or not appropriately integrated.

When you are at your best, you exhibit these strengths:

  • You are generous and helpful and love to provide support, guidance and advice to others

  • You are empathetic, sensitive to others’ feelings and good at knowing what others need

  • You are naturally appreciative and have a generally positive outlook

  • You are emotional, romantic and excellent at maintaining relational connection

  • You are energetic, engaging, enthusiastic and good at getting things done

When you move toward the unhealthy aspects of your personality you exhibit these characteristics:

  • You exhaust yourself by giving too much and investing too much in relationships

  • You neglect your own needs and don’t allow yourself to receive support from others

  • You feel unlovable or unworthy if you are not giving to others or if you aren’t needed

  • You compare yourself to others, either shaming yourself or feeling superior

  • You get angry or resentful when you aren’t appreciated or your giving isn’t reciprocated

Centers of Intelligence

The Enneagram recognizes our three centers of intelligence: the head center, which is the intelligence of the mind; the body center, which is the energy and sensations of the body; and the heart center, which is the intelligence of feelings and emotions. While we each have all three centers, most people tend to favor one center over the others. Ideally, we want to balance all three centers because each carries valuable wisdom.

Each Enneagram type is rooted in one of these three centers. The way this affects us is that we tend to perceive the world and rely most heavily for information from our own center of intelligence. We also tend to have the most dysfunction in connection with this center. It is both our strength and our weakness.

As a type 2, you are a heart type and most likely process information through your feelings or emotions. Heart types are particularly tuned in to their image and how others are perceiving them. Type 2s want to be seen as being kind, generous, helpful and likable. So they manage their image by becoming helpful and caring. Heart types also tend to feel more shame and regularly compare themselves to others. Type 2s go back and forth from feeling “better than” or “less than” which is often related to their sense of value in giving to and doing for others.

The path to growth is to balance the three centers of intelligence, which for type 2s means to become more rational and objective and to be more in touch with your body and your gut instinct.