L'Ennéagramme

Type 8

For a very, very long time, I have never questioned myself. I had to be strong and deny any form of weakness. My ex-husband had a mistress. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer. And for a year, whenever I was leaving for work, I just cried, cried, cried. That’s when all my personal development began ...

A Type 8 person doesn’t easily let his frailties show through. Primarily he gives the image of someone strong, solid, powerful and as indestructible as a rock. He learned very early to assert himself and fight to keep his place.

I lived with people who were always in an emotional state. To keep my distance emotionally, and faced with a grandmother who had assumed a huge role in the family, I had to harden myself and armour myself. To be deeply affected by emotions can be very hard. I have a terrible fear of experiencing emotions and then being deeply affected by them.

As for me, when a problem arises, I don’t see the problem, I immediately see the solutions. That is an unimaginable strength. It's therefore very agreeable because I don't know anguish or worry. In life there are very few things that frighten me. I face up to events and I act accordingly.

Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in. Charles de Gaulle

Type 8 positions himself in terms of virtually permanent relationships of strength. He seeks to prove his strength to himself as well as to others. He likes goading and testing others to see what they are made of.

Provoking others is something I do in an entirely impulsive way. Provoking you to see "what will you answer?" I can do it in a very relaxed way like a game. But I can also do it in a much harder way with people I am in conflict with. Then others don’t know how to answer me: I always get the upper hand...

Type 8’s world is unconsciously divided into the "strong and the weak". On the one side, there are "strong" people he will fight because they are unjust. But there are also "strong" people he respects, those who can stand up to him and measure themselves against him, but loyally.

As for the “weak”, on the one hand they include people who only have themselves to blame if things go badly. In fact Type 8 finds it hard to understand that people can let themselves be victimised and crushed without responding. But on the other hand, he is ready to fight unreservedly for those who are victims of injustice.

When someone is a victim of injustice, my blood rises and I do everything I can to defend that person.

Before, I thought there was me and there were weak people I despised. Now, I am more tolerant. I think that we all seek to be loved, we seek happiness and we all have the same human feelings. I have learned to accept my weaknesses more, even if I only display them under control.