E8 Social – Complicity

The social E8 is a kind of social antisocial. If we want to use the categories of modern psychology, the eight responds to the so-called antisocial personality: more or less, a person who is against social norms. Or rather a rebellious person.

But a social eight is a type that is only explained in contradictory terms. It's like a child who became violent defending his mother against his father. His violence arose from solidarity. He has resonated a lot with the phrase of "thundering in the face of injustice".

The central theme of the social E8 was named by Ichazo as friendship. I do not like to use words that have a universal meaning or that we can associate with great meanings to describe specific games of the ego, since many times we end up using those words to justify these same games. So I feel more comfortable with the word complicity. It has to do with the word loyalty, like that of a child who allies himself with the mother to confront the father and who develops a strong detachment from the paternal bond, for which he surely becomes a difficult child at school. He rejects school because the entire institution is associated with a father-like authority, and he comes to experience intellectual detachment because the intellect is equally part of the father complex. Not surprisingly, patriarchal culture is made up of intellect, authority, and impulse control.

Looking at the social eight with the mind of a Freudian, the concept of complicity will be better understood. We could speak of an Oedipus complex. We could say that the boy needs the love of his mother and that he has no hope of finding love in his father. Therefore, he concludes, "I am going to join with my mother against my father, I am going to protect mom, and I am going to get mom's love." If we go into Freudian psychodynamics, we might also add that this mechanism is not, after all, composed of pure loyalty, but rather a matter of self-interest.

But, for any person of this character, it is very difficult to go beyond the felt experience of simple loyalty. If we were to ask Karl Marx about the nature of his solidarity with the exploited, I don't think he would be receptive to the Freudian reproach, that he would say that he simply ganged up with his mother against his exploitative father. Or that his affinity with his mother was Oedipal and he had something to do with his own need for love.

It is difficult to make an eight aware of his need for love. We are all moved by love. Each form of disturbed personality is an alteration in the way we act to find love. One acts too cute or too good at school, another is too perfect in his morality, and so on. In an eight, it seems that the main issue is renunciation, the abandonment of love. He thinks it's better to go for power, for pleasure, for what he wants, instead of waiting for love, instead of getting sentimental. For an eight, people who are looking for love are sentimental. So an eight is a character that veers towards the cynical, towards the rough, towards the harsh.

Incidentally, eights are not usually interested in activities related to self-knowledge, since it is a little harder for them to develop this type of insight in their own emotional life: they have a lot of repression from the soft side, as if they had had to bury their inner child to be able to go out to life in an armed way, towards a struggle for existence, red in teeth and nails, as the Darwinists say. An eight is someone armed to the teeth.

The transformation in the social E8 by María Elena Tinoco

I was maybe four or six months old. I'm looking at mom, she's very beautiful, full of light; he looks like a heavenly being. I feel so full in his arms; the nectar in her breasts is so full of love that it shakes me; I look at her and feel ecstatic with love for her. When she leaves me in my crib and I see her walk away, I feel almost dying of pain. I think from here emerges that dreadful feeling of being dead, of an enormous feeling of emptiness and abandonment, extremely deep.

I decide to hate her, but I would actually give my life to be in her lap; I wonder: is this where I first felt this existential emptiness that leads me to fill it from lust, without ever achieving it?

Between the ages of two and three I want to go out and, near the door, mom has a stove full of burning coal; he's about to cook something and I pass... I can barely sneak between his legs. I lose my balance and just put my open hand on the burning embers. I feel a huge pain that runs all over my body, and they take me out of there. In my hand a kind of balloon appears, it hurts so much that I explode against dad and mom, and somehow I decide that they are assholes because they do not know how to take care of me.

Revenge appears as a companion of my life. It is not a premeditated or prepared revenge, it is rather a hidden revenge, crouching, as an act of its own for those who do not know how to fulfill their obligations (how fucked!).

A teenage girl also emerges, murderer? I don't know where she was crouching, hidden. She wore her hair Yoko Ono style, her body shapeless, she felt a huge hatred of women and a total contempt for men. It measured one meter and 54 centimeters, and weighed 38 kilos, pure bones: it was "La Flaca".

It was almost flat, because my breasts and buttocks didn't grow, so I wasn't very attractive. I felt more male than female, although sexually I was not aroused by girls. She was very daring with jokes and very broncuda.

I had a sick hatred against my stepfather. At the slightest provocation, we gave him some very strong madrizas. My brothers were younger than me, so I told them: "If you don't fuck them up, I'll fuck you up."

My friends were mostly male. Friends, I only had one from school; the others were known, from the blowout.

My longing to continue with high school was impeded by the misery in which we lived; so I had to go to work. I did the cleaning in a spa. He left home at five in the morning and returned at five in the afternoon.

I didn't know what I wanted, I didn't know who I was, I felt lost in the middle of a very difficult situation at home. I only lived to give my salary to mom and be defensive with my stepfather. My existence didn't seem to make any sense. I think that's where I developed the most a very great contempt for life itself; and at the same time I recognize that a desire for suicide also appeared in me, but more as revenge, so that others may feel guilty. The desire to kill or for someone to die was also constant.

I felt a huge crush, it hurt me a lot not to be able to quit the job, since we needed to eat; the boss was the most fucked up and there was no way to send her to shit. It is also at this stage that I feel most in the midst of ambiguity.

The religious family gave meaning to my life. Still, I felt hungry full-time.

I became a missionary and, in those years, it was like living fully for that goal. But as much as I worked and the mission was successful, there was a very large void that was never filled. It manifested itself in the disproportionate lust of projects. Now I am looking more to delve into the work I started 14 years ago.

Today I see that I was a very dark and undervalued teenager, with a very great instinct to end everything and at the same time living as the cleaning girl, who speaks little and receives too many humiliations from gringo bosses who are never pleased.

The beginning of the search

When I met Claudio in my life, apparently everything was going well. At that time I saw the SAT Program as a very liberating path for the indigenous people with whom I worked in the mission. I saw it as a synthesis of peace education.

As I walked the path of the SAT I realized how it was wrapped in a shell larger than that of a turtle. To encounter my truth consisted in recognizing lust as a disease that automatically dragged me to be intensely attached to the life of the groups all the time, without recognizing myself in my deepest needs. It was to be chained to the power that a group gives, but at what price.

Recognizing my enneatype, what first emerged were the madrizas: the pain, the helplessness in the face of such heartbreaking situations that I lived, and hence the decision that it was better to defend and take revenge than to lie on one's chest.

The process went through assuming a life where the constant had been; "I hit you where it hurts the most, so that you are careful not to get into my territory."

A very small little girl also emerges, who has the crazy idea to save the father and mother because they are so stupid. They are so unwise that they use the force of violence for everything. So this little girl is going to show them a finer, wiser violence, made of fewer blows to the body and more blows to the other's ego. And it goes around the world like a dead mosquito, playing the good game and screwing over those who are taken advantage of with the weak.

It's something like: "I can't hit you or kill you... but I kill you from my inner contempt and I move everything around you so you realize what a shit you are, and I'll always be there to remind you." This would be the five-year-old "Shit Elena" in me.

In reality, that girl is worth mother to adults, she is not afraid of them, her strength is those around her, her group, whom she protects with her very life and who also manipulates against all those considered enemies.

"Shit Elena" is unable to commit to a single person, since she can't stand submission, nor does she want people hanging on her. So the saying goes: "The ox licks just fine". Directing everything from the hidden, that's what he likes best. If she goes well, she thinks; "Wow, what a chingona I am!" If she goes wrong: "these assholes don't do anything right."

Jealous, gossipy, rude, lying, bossy... I have the intensity of a volcano!

"Recognize me!", is my childhood cry. Recognize me! I am just a very small girl, full of needs, full of hunger for tenderness. Hidden tenderness, hidden under the shell of a turtle. Tenderness that many times I hated to admit.

I have hidden my primary need: to recognize that I need to be loved in order to love myself. Recognize myself, my shame of being a little dog. My fear of rejection and abandonment.

Deep down, my lack of commitment to a partner has more to do with the fear of abandonment. My peculiar way of committing to the mission of the congregation to which I belonged is, in reality, a path of search where, through service to others, I have found myself, with my own reality as angel and devil.

My greatest suffering was the decision to leave the congregation to stand on my own two feet and not knowing what I needed or what I really wanted. It was like being in adolescence again: I lived with a lot of shame recognizing how twisted and tricky my life was, and it was very difficult for me to see myself as I am.

Today I begin to walk from a greater awareness, realizing when I want to subdue someone or when I am manipulating. And I recoil. This leaves me freer and less attached to relationships and teamwork, to material or spiritual things.

What has been changing in the process?

One of the biggest differences from the past is that now I can give myself a lot of time to reflect. It is an ability to enter thought in a new way, it is to look at the ego as a prison, a rhinoceros with small eyes and a horn ready to charge when they don't give it what it wants.

I also discover myself being able to choose better in each situation, realizing that I can respond from the rhinoceros or from the Breeze (the new name I assumed in my religious life, which means mercy), feeling from the heart and thinking what is most beneficial.

This is finally not automatic: I walk at times on one side or the other. I'm still on this path...

I see myself walking here and now with what each day gives me.

I find myself engaged to a partner.

With 80% less anxiety, I continue in the civil association that I founded, Edupaz, working as a team and assuming what I have to do: I stopped being the protective mother. And I feel free.

My life, I now live it with me, according to my needs. I started by renting a house and stocking up on the basics. Before, even the food was depending on the group.

I continue to work in groups; what has changed is my detachment.

I am recovering my sexuality, which I had lost for some years.

I feel honest with myself for deceiving myself rather less.

What works on the path to growth

In my path it has been especially useful the self-knowledge that makes possible the SAT and to recognize the ego, its magnitude, its sick force.

Now I feel an ability to enter thought in a new way, and I can look at the ego like a prison, like that little-eyed rhinoceros, with a horn ready to ram when they don't give it what it wants.

I also find myself choosing better in each situation, making aware that I can respond from the rhinoceros or from mercy, feeling from the heart and thinking about what would be most beneficial.

Above all, I have taken responsibility for my actions in my hands, which is equivalent to entering a space where every event I live is a teaching to me. The feeling is of a pleasant internal unity.

What is left behind and what is emerging now?

Blindness is left behind. From lust, a great anxiety was always present that is now left behind. Neither do I invite her or avoid her, she arrives and, from her, I recognize myself as needy.

Left behind is the patotera or gang member, as we would say in Mexico. That little girl so instinctive is left behind.

The disproportionate lust for projects is left behind: I seek to deepen the work that I began ten years ago. I start to walk from a greater awareness, realizing when I want to subdue someone or when I am manipulating.

All this leaves me freer and less attached to relationships, teamwork, material or spiritual things.

Now the intensity also emerges, the difference is the way I use it.

Now it's like sharing that strength from the needs I have as a person. The concrete commitment to the SAT for the Mayan indigenous people has been very important, trying to have a healthy balance between work and my personal life.

I am also more tolerant of frustration, and I recognize the rights of others.

I understood that if my torment came from when I was a two-year-old baby, it is totally absurd to be in a place as if it were the ultra plus of the universe.

Right now, my job is to occupy my real space, a more humble space, from the authentic. I work to be more receptive, more vulnerable, less arrogant, assuming that I can't do everything, admitting my needs and giving space for them. I understand that the others are doing their best and I am not the one to disqualify them. I understand my difficulty in acknowledging my own tenderness and love for others. I open myself to making a path with others, accepting the necessary confrontation as part of the process of maturation and growth, playing fair, without cheating.

I have also placed myself in a different place in my work team. I try to encourage everyone to take their space, without being "doña protection". At the same time, I feel free from expectations, happy with a more concrete, democratic and achievable project.

How I work the specifics of my character

I work with my character and I practice working with others. It has helped me a lot to be in the SAT for educators and in the SAT for Indigenous Mayans. It's a constant ruminating and realizing. I think I have a character that is constant action and, from it, I learn. It has not been easy. I have found no other way to grow than in action, recognizing my ego, which not infrequently hurts myself and others.

I review my actions every day, just to realize where I was responding from, what I said, how I interacted, which parts were egoic, and where those actions are leading me: toward transformation or into the ego trap.

If I want to walk, I need to look at myself. If not, I am not even aware of the actions that boycott my growth process. I am making my way from observation, looking curiously at my way of proceeding, listening to my speeches, studying my reactions, telling me everything as it is, without making up.

I helped by friends who approach without judgment, books, theater... And, above all, love.

Meditation has done me a lot of good in my life: it was also a long process at the beginning. Some years ago I got hooked and, instead of doing an hour of meditation, as the teacher indicated, I threw myself up to five hours in a row. This blew my fuses, since at a certain point I abandoned everything, not understanding what was going on. Now I can realize that it was the taste for intensity, trapped in the hardness, which in the first moments cracked. But he was not aware of it.

The path to self-perfection

The taste I feel for intensity is very strong, and the way for me is to learn to live with limits. Edupaz colleagues and colleagues in everyday life help me a lot in this. It is by feeling affection that I put the brakes on my actions, especially when they have a disproportionate and lustful character. Meditation is another space that allows me to focus and take a break before rushing into sterile actions.

In the future, I would like my process to lead me towards the unity and integration of my mind, emotion and instinct. I want to be more human every day. It is time to trust more in the smallest part; Fritz Perls would call him "the dog below."

In my experience, orgasmic regulation has taken on great relevance; It's been many years of living without knowing what was happening: instinct didn't ask for permission and wanted to do everything its own way.

In my future I see a greater harmonization, unity, authenticity, wisdom, freedom, mercy... There are many extremely beautiful words. This is what generates looking at what we really are.

It's not done yet: I have to do all these things moment by moment, as if it were a constant challenge.

For me, the path to perfection is through being what I am. The ego has its place, but I cannot allow it to drag me down all the time. He is a bit like a demon in the service of truth

seekers. By giving the ego a space, it also helps in the process. I find it present every time I think I'm enlightened or that I want to put myself above others by crushing them.

Recommendations for the internal work of a social eight

Although it costs a lot of work, it would be nice if the social E8 wrote down their actions every day and saw where they take them. I was very helped by the biography that Claudio asked me for, as well as group therapy.

Body work is also very helpful. In Buenos Aires, my first therapist hugged me like a baby and spent the hour crying, until little by little he led me to work with the body, to regain confidence in my value for what I am and not for what I am what do I do. Losing ourselves in group actions and the fact that they have to be great actions in order to value ourselves and feel powerful, is a very big deception. As a social eight, I was lost in megalomania. If I didn't focus on the concreteness of the actions, I was going to a wild fantasy. I dedicated myself to spending a lot of energy so that they would recognize me as the standard-bearer of the poor; how absurd or ... In this way, I also fed my narcissism.

Definitely, the SAT and the meditation retreat with Claudio have been a help. And also writing my emotional autobiography, revising my speech: who do I say I am? Who am I truly? What do I say about myself in the speech and what do I hide or do not recognize?

Meditation has been fundamental, especially vipassana meditation.

Body therapy has helped me to let go and recover my sexuality.

For the process of an eight, it is useful to leave the entrails a little and go to the heart, from the real and selfless service towards others.

It serves to spend more hours in reflection, meditation, observation.

Group therapy and silent retreats are the techniques that have helped me the most

How to help a social eight from therapy

I have a hard time admitting that I need help. It is difficult to find a therapist to trust, since my internal sensation is that of having a radar that leads me to immediately perceive the traits and weaknesses or shadows of others, and this is very fucked up for therapy. When I was blind, I thought that what bothered me was my frankness. And it hurt me when they told me that they had not told me the truth, because they were afraid of me. Worse instead of letting me hurt, she reacted by making me furious. Of course, I was one to put my finger up my ass, and I wouldn't let go of my prey until I cracked it. On top of that, my conscience didn't even bother me.

With therapists, I felt a lot of distrust: sometimes, feeling rejected or judged, I just closed the door.

Therefore, it is necessary for the therapist to be true to himself, to be sincere. What has helped me most about the SAT teachers is that they accept me as I am. In group therapy they contain me, not from the discourse, but from the body, from feeling accepted as I am. I feel that the therapists who have helped me the most are those who are closer to me than those who are worried about my neurosis

Group therapy allowed me, from within the group, to observe myself until little by little I let out my lone wolf disguised as a sheep. The therapist accompanied me and invited me to take my place without having to attack or defend myself. The acknowledgment of him was enough.

It also helps that the therapist makes constant reference to the actions that the social eight is performing, because it is in the action that it is lost. It is good to focus on your world of personal relationships, especially those outside the group, as the social eight has great difficulty committing to individualized relationships.