Читать книгу Enneagram For Dummies - Jeanette van Stijn - Страница 58

Admittedly, the distinction is slight between being a type and having a type. But no matter how slight, the distinction is still important. It's connected to the difference between your nature — your true self — and your ego. Your nature, or true self (as the word true indicates), is what you truly are at the core. Your ego, or your type, is also called the false self: It’s what you believe you are. It’s an incorrect identification; in the development of their own identity, human beings started believing that they’re endowed with particular characteristics: I am shy, for example. Even if your ego is useful to you (more on this topic later in this chapter), people define themselves by what their ego tells them they are. If I’m truly convinced of my shyness deep inside, I will behave accordingly. This increasingly reinforces the behavior, and I resign myself to it, telling myself, “That’s just how it is.” Now any prospect of further development has vanished and I’m simply stuck. If I say, “I often feel shy” or “I need some time until I feel comfortable,” that's a different story. Then I don’t identify with the shyness, which in itself grants me some space.