Love

For you, my love For you, my love I went to a bird market And I bought a bird For you My love I went to a flower market And I bought a flower For you My love I went to a junk market And I bought a chain A heavy chain For you My love And I went to a slave market And I searched for you But I couldn't find you anywhere My love – Jacques Prévert

Claudio Naranjo speaks, in his book The Enneagram of Society, of a complacent love for Self-Preservation 9. This subtype substitutes the need and expression of love for nurturing and being nurtured through things. There is a care for the external without wanting to go deep.

He has an important capacity for listening and a presence that allows others to feel comfortable and seemingly welcomed. But this Enneatype, as we have been saying, does not want to enter into the essence of pain and love for fear of being told that they are not loved. It is like a love at a distance: he gives love, leaves it (as food, care, clothing, or a gift), and then walks away to see how the other receives it.

In their relationship with themselves, the person ignores themselves and does so through abuse and various addictions: tobacco, alcohol, food. There is a relationship of little love with their own body, with their achievements, and with their failures.

According to the theory of the three loves by Claudio Naranjo, in Self-Preservation 9, the most developed love is compassionate love, followed by admiring love. However, it suffers from a clear imbalance in terms of Eros.

"From now on, I will sell maternal love, which, however, I do not believe, as long as I have erotic love from the man. I would have had love relationships where I would sell love with the illusion of rediscovering an erotic intimacy that, as I would discover over time, is a door to get back in touch with an even greater intimacy, the spiritual one with the whole. The mind becomes my rival, and in order to achieve sexual intimacy, I must adapt my mind to the man's, recognizing his value and admiring him. By striving to be like him, I also sell admiration for erotic intimacy and compassionate love.

In short: I have easy access to the admiration of the other, while recognizing the falsity in giving care, since the latter is only a functional channel to receive contact with myself, that is, erotic love." — Emilia

The Self-Preservation 9 lives in love in a childish way; if he falls in love, he loves "with his eyes closed," it is an absolute form of love. Each crush is as if it were the first. He is, by nature, faithful and remains linked for a long time, even if he feels that the relationship no longer nurtures him. He needs a lot of energy to separate because he takes all the responsibility on himself. He overestimates his ability to endure, to anesthetize himself in the face of suffering, and underestimates the other's ability to react.

Catastrophic fantasies and a tragic sense of life are common.

"My mother used to tell me as a child that in her father's town, there was a girl who had a very bad heart condition, and a boy fell in love with her, and so did she. And when he was going to confess, she heard the noise of his motorcycle in the distance, and because of the emotion of him coming to see her, she had a heart attack and died." — Pilar

Another catastrophic fantasy relates to love and death.

"As a result of seeing for the first time a film of 'Romeo and Juliet' by Shakespeare, I was terrified to think that, without being dead, my love would think that I was, and that she would commit suicide, and I would wake up and find myself alone. It has to do with what Claudio says about E9: that it feels dead in life." — Pilar

Nor does love live if it is not in relation to danger and death.

"In Seville, in a roundabout in the María Luisa park, there is a monument to Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and to love. To love as he expressed it in his book Rimas, always romantic, tragic, and miserable. It is a sculpture sheltered by a cypress (the cemetery's tree), with three women, each one showing an aspect of love: ‘el amor ilusionando’ (hope), ‘el amor poseído’ (fullness), and ‘el amor perdido’ (heartbreak). There is no love for me. It is a very deep feeling of lack and hopelessness. Rimas by Bécquer was my bedside book when I was a teenager. Another fantasy: If I love, I disappear. That is linked to the pain I felt when I read Andersen’s The Little Mermaid as a child. She sells her voice to make the prince fall in love, but he doesn’t recognize her, and she dies." — Pilar

In the masculine Self-Preservation 9, catastrophic fantasies related to one's own death or that of close ones, such as children, often coexist: "If my children die, I die," while underestimating the other's ability to react: "If I die, what will become of my children?"

With his partner, he establishes a relationship of dependency and even submission.

"With my partner, it is difficult for me to maintain my position, and in discussions, if he hurts me, I can remain without reaction. I lose the opportunity to defend myself, to feel that I deserve respect, and this can lead to an unbalanced and unhealthy relationship." — Jordi

With his children, the love he feels must learn to be shown. He lives it in a polarity of authority/tolerance, which sometimes leads him to authoritarianism.

"With my children, I am strict and demanding with the schedules and tasks that I say must be fulfilled. I lose a relationship of cooperation and understanding, and feed a bond of submission that I don't like. I lose the opportunity to strengthen more just and balanced relationships." — Jordi

On other occasions, he may act with excessive tolerance and overprotection. He then falls into indulgence and indolence, not knowing how to set limits and leaving the role of educator and father or mother to chance, without considering the needs of the other.

With respect to compassionate love, the Self-Preservation 9 is considered generous. His money and house are always at the disposal of others unless he becomes encased and retreats to lick his wounds. He usually attends compulsively when others need him.

On the other hand, because it works like an automaton and makes itself available to others in a servile way, there is no clear vision of the needs of others, only an intention to be useful for whatever they ask, as long as they love him. To the extent that the Self-Preservation 9 does not respect his own needs, or underestimates or postpones them, and although he

knows how to see what others need (at least, what they need concretely—always with great difficulty in seeing the interiority of others), he can't stop meddling. He is capable of doing incredible things to maintain a relationship out of sheer fear of abandonment.

This usually has labor consequences because a servile attitude often complements a sadistic one. There are people who cyclically suffer episodes of workplace harassment by bosses and colleagues.

The Self-Preservation 9 tends to be invasive. The result is that others become defensive and angry at being meddled with. Claudio talks about the experience of an invasive mother. Some mothers read the newspapers with Self-Preservation 9s when they were children, and he somewhat repeats this with others. He confuses caring with invading.

There is a lack of sincere expression (he trembles inside but does not express it) and seeks something external to show his love. For example, he might buy books and give them away as an expression of love. By sharing what he likes, he wants to involve the other in his world. Everything really revolves around him.

When someone is sick, the E9 knows how to take care, although without respecting the process of the other. He takes care of someone for a day or two, and then considers the illness over. He doesn’t like the demanding love part.

He considers love very spiritual, clean, light, angelic, and divine. It is not allowed in the shadow. If he wants the other, he wants him whole, “devours him,” everything he likes without discriminating.

In physical space, the Self-Preservation 9 lives in chaos. It does not accept limits and spreads throughout the house. He wants to be present everywhere.

The Self-Preservation 9 is in love both grateful and remote.

Regarding Eros, it is clear that he has a lack of deep desire. It is as if something very disconsolate beats in the background, determining him to give up his desires. His strategy has been to deny his needs and desires so that they will love him. His erotic desire is very dissociated from love.

Some feel a split in the waist at the energetic level, with the motor center on one side, and the affective and mental centers on the other. Sexual and romantic relationships are seldom developed on an equal footing. At the time of making love, he gives a lot of confidence, shows a lot of respect and care toward the other. He seldom thinks of himself (perhaps because he is angry or upset). He doesn’t want to feel comfortable if the other person doesn’t.

This same servility, taken in an insane way to relationships, perverts their erotic love. He manages to develop his masochistic streak and sometimes suffers abuse. It is common for him to financially support the couple's needs, and to support them.

"My boyfriends were almost always unemployed, and I supported them and paid for their vacations." — Anonymous