E7 Social – Sacrifice

The social E7 is the counter-type seven, in the sense that it is difficult to recognize in him the passion of gluttony, because he strives to hide it with an altruistic behavior that, in some way, should purify him from the guilt of feeling an attraction to pleasure or to one's own advantage. This is an attraction that he tries not to feel by pursuing an ideal of himself and the world: he sacrifices his gluttony to be better and for a better world where there is no pain or conflict.

The social seven are people who, on the surface, do not want to exploit others, do not want to be tied to their desires. They are very pure people, too pure. There are some sevens who are very concerned about their diet, about world hunger, and so on. New Age fashion was a hotbed of this seven social culture.

It would seem that the individual had the intuition that he hides a pig inside himself and said, "No! I'm going to define myself as a detached pig." This is the social seven.

The word Ichazo used was sacrifice. But it is a sacrifice of gluttony. It is a postponement of desires before an ideal. The deception is that these people really have a great gluttony in recognition of their sacrifice. They want others to see them as very good.

Now I am going to give a bad example about the social seven, since I will refer to the life of a true saint, highly revered in the Christian world. It is obvious that I am talking about San Francisco, who was this type of person.

Saint Francis followed the kind of advice that William Blake gave: if we lived madness and followed it, then it would become wisdom. If the mad and neurotic man fully lives his madness, he would become a sage. It is a path.

So San Francisco wanted to be good. Therefore, he did all the things that a seven needs for transformation: he lived miserably, he raised stones to repair the shrine, he kissed lepers... Nothing could be more horrible. So he did all the right things to detach himself from the seven of him. But if we examine the early life of Saint Francis, we will find a very revealing anecdote. Together with his monks, the saint built a kind of tent to take shelter. Suddenly it started to rain and Saint Francis and his monks went to the shelter to rest. But when they arrived they found a farmer with his cow inside the store. And Franciscan generosity was to give priority to the farmer and his cow.

It seems to me that health, both mental and spiritual, has to do with loving what your neighbor asks of you. But when you love your neighbor more than yourself, then you are trying to be too good. This is very typical of nuns, and some social sevens can also get into that kind of

stereotype of goodness, which consists of trying to be good according to a code or a social consensus.

Perhaps humans today would be tempted to think that they have more rights than a cow, but perhaps we are wrong about this too: deep ecology has something to tell us about it. But where is the limit of goodness? There is a kind of kindness by applause, very typical of the social seven.

The transformation in the social E7 by Francisco Peñarrubia

The word sacrifice with which Claudio Naranjo has traditionally labeled the social subtype of enneatype seven portrays well a complacent and generous personality, capable of managing projects and mobilizing energies for a certain purpose, to which he can give himself with great dedication. This requires enthusiasm, idealism and social skill, and of all this he usually has in abundance a sacrificed seven. Such a position before the world has many selfish compensations: appreciation, recognition, good image, reduction of conflicts and create debts in the other (so that in turn it treats you this well), finally generating interested relationships that end up devoid of real meaning (yo-yú), and with a tendency to superficiality.

The path to self-realization involves dissolving this compulsion of a good child, going through two complex and complicated internal pitfalls: guilt and selfishness. The guilt is hidden, rather projected, blaming others for their lack of commitment and dedication (the latent complaint is: "with what I have done... and how unjustly I am answered"), or reproaching himself for being naïve and delusional, for expecting so much from the human race.

But behind all this there is guilt for feeling so interested under the mask of good, for manipulating through enthusiasm, for delegating excessively in the name of tolerance, etc. So he begins to distrust his good intentions, to feel quite miserable and to make a mess between what is altruism and/or selfishness.

Changing the "being for the other" to "being for himself" is a complicated process: attending to the deepest self-motivations is extremely difficult because, either you do not see them, or they seem "bad" (interested). So you have to clothe them with altruism, idealism, dedication and sacrifice to make them acceptable. The reverse path is to recognize comfort, laziness, narcissism... and then the hunger for recognition and love, so insatiable.

The healthy way for a social E7 is to decriminalize selfishness, turn this taboo around, and start really loving yourself, legitimizing your real needs instead of fraudulently disguising them. Contributions in this regard abound, received from other social E7:

"To be more for me and less for the other. Being more selfish in depth, knowing what I want and need." (Irene Díaz)

"Legitimize one's own and others' "no‘, without conditioning or commodifying it... Generally, we use sacrifice to cover our deficits and shortcomings, to claim recognition and admiration, to be loved (as we do not know how to love ourselves), to legitimize our desires and whims." (Enrique de Diego)

"Sacrifice and service is the price to pay for my neurotic need for the admiration of others." (Josep Micó)

"Acceptance that "nothing happens‘, but not in a superficial sense of false joy, or rather, of superficial joy, but in the line of trust in others and, above all, real confidence in myself." (Jaime Locutura)

"...when the complicated mind quiets down, one can be at peace, open, to the rhythm of the present day, with nothing to prove or anything to hide." (Katriona Munthe)

"Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not giving what is expected of me, but it is like a burden of guilt that I have left over, better to be attentive to my responsibility, not to become a small child to avoid the things I do. Take over. It is not guilt, but responsibility." (Manuel González)

What was left behind, what has changed

The most notorious thing that has been falling is idealism, that mixture of illusion, good intentions, idealization and naivety that works as an intellectual drug (a cognitive stimulant) for action. With a shot of idealism you can maintain the energy and effort that all sacrifice entails, otherwise, strength and dedication would decay, time would go on dreaming and not on doing. And the social E7 is active, it is moved by ideals that it tries to capture in life, and that, generally, refer to improving the world, whether from religious, socio-political, therapeutic budgets ... with a certain sense of mission, not in the most tremendous version of messianism, but in that of the visionary, the one who is able to imagine a freer world, or peaceful, or healthy or whatever moves him. In this idealism there is a considerable component of rationalization and ideology, almost always in favor of the change from the obsolete to the modern. If any of these creeds proves wrong, it is changed to another, explaining this change as evolution.

The dissolution of this idealistic structure is therefore very difficult and at the same time inevitable if one is serious about maturation. The fear of stopping moving for ideals is to fall into apathy, to lose the fuel that allows you to intervene in the world, to exist socially, to be recognized.

Deep down there is a deep pessimism towards oneself, towards people and towards the world: with a little more confidence in life it would not take so much indoctrination in one's own ideals or so much effort to please and mobilize others with these ideals. Some of this is being abandoned in exchange for greater and more authentic confidence.

The mind of a social E7 has something of a permanent teenager: provocative, enlightened, simplistic and comfortable when the task becomes too demanding. Growing up literally means getting older, more realistic, less subjective and willful. More sympathetic to the models previously reviled ideologically.

"Change is seeing more accurately even what I find ugly or painful... Discover the simplicity... To put under suspicion the excessive enthusiasm..." (Katriona M.)

"I look and feel more normal. I am aware that sacrifice is to achieve my ideal... for the search for recognition (narcissism), to not set limits... and it is also a compensation of the most manipulative part, which leaves the other in debt." (Irene D.)

"I have stopped having perfect future fantasies, where everything was just as I wanted. Now I only have catastrophic fantasies, and the other day I understood that they are a way to give way to my fears." (Xavier Florensa)

"Breaking the mask of the good, taking my strength and my power... Do not avoid dissonance, conflict... Stop wanting to be the savior or permanent helper of the other, who has his own responsibilities and does not ask me or need me to be the savior." (M. Gonzalez)

"I understand better my need to be loved, the fear of not doing what is expected of me. I can look compassionately at the need I have for what I do to be valued, as if I constantly ask, "Look, Mom, what I know how to do.‘ I can tell and smile when it happens." (Pep Duran)

What a social E7 would have to understand to transform itself

That the world is hopeless. That the human race is quite abominable.

That beliefs are self-hypnotic.

That there are some (few) solid and respectable values: the pursuit of truth and knowledge, right action, compassion… Everything else is questionable (or outright false)

And, with all this, do not fall into cynicism, accept the pain of lucidity and honor life as a sacred joke, which is not the same as surviving or adapting.

I have come up with a kind of manifesto, an anti-idealist statement of a somewhat skeptical renunciation of altruistic ideas in order to be able to heal from the illusory nature of this subtype. So, let's look at other contributions less iconoclastic than mine:

"How to be fully awake and doing nothing. Awake and sensitively empty. Hungry without being sad. But avoiding the trap of putting oneself in parentheses ("I will attend to your needs now and think about mine later"). Part-time sacrifice (a form of deferral or self-denial) idealizes intermittent effort. And it postpones being. For transformation we need to understand

the continuum... the present, in the here and now... May each of our actions tend to open and reveal the simple and dynamic development of life." (K. Munthe).

"In the rebirth (SAT 3) I had a kind of vision of Jesus Christ with these words: "You have already sacrificed enough, now it is time to live.‘" (J. Mico)

"The fantasy that everything has to be perfectly fun and that any pain, no matter how small, is not worth living, makes you lose the meaning of life. You have to understand the meaning of life. You have to understand that happiness is not an idea, it is something real, on many occasions (when there is harmony at home, etc.), and that the price I pay is to be sad, sore or angry when, on those same occasions, things do not flow." (X. Florensa)

"Understand that things are simple. That no matter how brilliant one believes, one cannot deceive everyone all the time, particularly oneself. And it's okay to be weak or clumsy: it's worse to be an emotional idiot." (J. Locutura)

"That the world can function without your presence. That what the body feels is real and adequate... That what you should do is what life puts in front of you. And it must be done in the moment. That doing needs time, awareness and presence." (P. Duran)

Difficulties in love

The most difficult thing is to recognize one's own and others' limitations in love. Neither everything is pure and perfect nor does the opposite justify disbelief.

What is difficult is to humanize oneself, to see the other as such and not as an expression of your unattainable models; all these are dreams, fantasies ideologized to avoid loving surrender, without guarantees or reservations. Feel (emotionally and sensorially) instead of thinking and imagining transcendent love, the one that makes you touch the heavens. That love, as a transforming force, exists, it is a real and known experience. The mistake is not to accept its gratuitousness and impermanence. To want to hold it back is to condemn oneself to limbo and then sink into hell. The love aspiration is that of a perpetual infatuation, even denying that it is impossible and exhausting to maintain such a level of exaltation.

The experience of maturity puts things in a less absolute place: the heart is generous and also petty, love is sometimes unconditional and sometimes calculating, etc. And that psychospiritual development will not end all imperfections, since, in addition, one puts oneself in the arrogant place of feeling better than their partners and of waiting resignedly for them to evolve towards perfection. This position conceals a poor internal opinion: the incompetence to love, the limitations to trust and surrender. Without crossing these wastelands it is difficult to rebuild self-esteem and become more permeable to love.

In my work a certain emotional indifference has appeared, at first forbidden and recriminable, but later recognized: in reality it is not to feel less but to feel better. Quality rather than quantity. They move fewer things, but those that are genuine touch your heart more deeply.

Regarding admiration, the same venerative love is maintained for everything that was once really meaningful. Most of the true appreciations have survived the process of desidealization. But I find it more expensive to recognize new ideas, people, teachings. In part there is less willingness and openness, in part the experience is disappointing: almost everything sounds like déjá vu and usually loses when compared to what has already been received and learned. It happens with teachers, books, music, artists, etc. The loss of the old enthusiasm leaves a certain tone of indifference towards novelties, with joyful exceptions.

In this same line of the three loves (father-mother-child), we present some more contributions, followed by other more generic reflections on love and affections:

"In my feeling of the three loves I see fraudulence. In the love of the father (admiration) there is competition: it is an example to follow to immediately overcome it... with the illusory dream of becoming another that exceeds the old limits of its own... Mother's love (compassion) seems like an overwhelming stream of empathy, but it is a deception: I step over my loneliness, hide it in the illusion of "being in this together‘, seeking companionship and comfort in this valley of tears, but without revealing my feelings, without letting myself be touched. Childlike love (pleasure) is sometimes confused with indiscipline or distraction. I recognize feelings of guilt or introjections that contaminate my naturalness and control fluidity, abandonment and trust in life. Fear paralyzes the child's creativity." (K. Munthe)

"The most expensive thing is to be with an open heart... If I get paranoid, my internal dialogue shoots up, I get angry and thus avoid feeling bad. That closes my heart and takes me away from the world." (X. Florensa)

"In the couple I have always had a high concept of commitment, I have done the impossible to fulfill what I promised. This awareness of responsibility I think is what makes it difficult for me to commit, and especially with a woman, since it will be for life. Which, together with the idealization of women (the certainty that there is a better one) has been a cocktail of difficult solution." (J. Micó)

"My biggest difficulty is to surrender, to give myself. Sometimes I feel like the situation of not having love is a punishment for not having taken it when I had it." (M. Gonzalez)

"Do not encapsulate or hide anger, anger, or narcissistic wounds, which only seek false isolation and resentful loneliness." (E. de Diego)

Recommendations

In the general wave of practicing the virtue of sobriety, the social E7 does well to stop, slow down its actions, stop anxious action and prioritize what has intrinsic importance.

The development of non-doing as a psychospiritual attitude is the most powerful field of experimentation for its transformation, since it does not correspond to the passivity or comfort that drags all E7, but to a detachment from interested, egoic, narcissistic action and an approach to action per se, to the work well done (not in the sense of perfectionism but of impeccability): do what you touch in each moment without going overboard and without falling short. Then much of the compulsive activity ceases to make sense, things are simplified and the inner chemistry is transmuting the doing for being, helping the experience of being.

Meditation is the practice par excellence to cultivate this attitude. In my case, which is not static meditation, I am more helped by meditation in movement, attention paid to physical/manual activities (gardening ...) or artistic activities that require concentration and at the same time inner freedom.

Listening to one's own body is a regal way, as well as the practice of the present, especially separating oneself from goals and focusing on the process.

This attitude is highly recommended when imparting therapy, as well as the above: develop a therapist with more patience, less savior and more companion, precise instead of overwhelming, more tolerant of dry phases; and without absolute maps of health, awakening, maturation and much less therapeutic success.

Here are some contributions in this regard:

"To carry out the projects, to transform them into realized works, to consciously suffer the pain of disappointment when the final result does not resemble the original idea... Practice the Gestalt precepts: get ready, live in the present and take responsibility!... As a therapist, the work on one's own character has helped me to develop an attitude of help and service to the other, not to be the protagonist but a discreet witness... with more patience with me and with the world... incorporating the relationship as an essential factor of the therapeutic process... that helps to feel the pain in company, without feeling judged or consented ... with the help of silence, body awareness and especially with work done with the hands." (E. de Diego)

"Meditation, being in the obvious, the here and now, as a mantra to be in touch with reality, helped me a lot. And work with the body." (I. Díaz)

"Connect with the pain of seeing yourself with judgment and contempt for others." (J. Mico)

"Helping the social E7 focus its ape mind and challenge it... to reach a place of rest and stillness. He has to find an inner sanctuary... frustrating his escapism: no one can do the work for him, it's the only chance he has to really live." (K. Munthe)

"To say to the other: "So far I am with you, now I am leaving, or I need time for myself‘. Lately I have managed to be more at home, reading, quiet, and I have stopped walking so much on the street without concrete direction." (M. Gonzalez)

"The practice of meditation so as not to get lost in fantasies... knowing how to really listen to others and myself. Be. Laugh, do not ironize... Pay attention to the body... Go to the essence of the problem and not stay on the surface... Acknowledging that I don't know something." (J. Locutura)

"In my case I have found pleasure in the physical, in the body, through simple activities: walking, cooking, digging the earth, resting... Claudio's formula has been magical: "do what is right in the moment.‘" (Fr. Duran)