What It’s Like to Be a Five
- I can take care of myself, and I think others could do the same.
- I don’t always say things out loud, but in my head I am pretty sarcastic and cynical.
- I often feel awkward around other people.
- I’m okay if people ask me a few specific questions about myself, but I don’t like it when people want too much information.
- I need time alone.
- If I want people to know how I feel I will tell them. I generally wish they wouldn’t ask.
- I think thoughts are more reliable than feelings.
- I need a couple of days to process an experience or know how I feel about something.
- People are wasteful. I hold on to what I have.
- Often I find that I would rather observe than participate.
- I trust myself. That means I think about things for a while and then I make my own decisions.
- I can’t understand why people get together to “just hang out.”
- I’m a listener.
- I have to be very careful with my time and energy.
- I get tired when I have to be with people for too long.
- I often felt invisible as a child. Sometimes as an adult I choose to be invisible.
- Sometimes I think I should be more generous. It’s hard for me.
- In groups, being uninformed makes me very uncomfortable.
- I don’t like big social gatherings. I’d rather be with a few people.
- Material possessions don’t make me happy.
9
Type Five
The Investigator
I think I am, therefore, I am. I think.
Healthy Fives have a long view of things. They manage an appropriate balance between participation and observation, engaging with others comfortably and demonstrating true neutrality. These Fives are likely to have depth in knowledge in several areas of their lives, and they willingly share their findings with others. They live in a world of abundance, seeing themselves as part of the whole environment instead of separate from everyone and everything.
Average Fives hold to a scarcity mentality, which leads to hoarding time, space and affection. They feel more at home observing rather than participating in the external world, and thinking substitutes for feeling. Fives in this space tend to rely on themselves rather than faith, and they carefully measure how much time they spend with others. They struggle with anything that makes them feel incompetent or incapable.
Unhealthy Fives don’t want to depend on anyone for anything. They have a defensive personality that is preoccupied with security, independence and privacy. These Fives are trapped in believing there is not enough and often express that way of thinking with judgment, cynicism and sarcasm. When they do participate in family or social gatherings, they stay separate from others.
Bill and I met and became fast friends in seminary. He was a psychiatrist who had decided to leave behind a thriving practice to pursue a doctorate in theology. We shared a love for Flannery O’Connor, Willie Nelson and G. K. Chesterton, and we spent hours hiking, playing squash and fly fishing together. Thankfully our wives became close friends too, so they were company for each other whenever Bill and I headed off to the mountains.
Bill was the most brilliant person I’d ever met up to that point in my life. He had attended an Ivy League university where he majored in classics, graduated first in his class from medical school and then spent two years in Switzerland studying Jungian psychoanalysis. He was a man who seemed to know more than the average savant about a wide range of subjects like art, philosophy, ancient history and architecture—not to mention he could read Homer’s Odyssey in Greek.
Once while ordering lunch at a Mexican restaurant Bill broke into conversation with the waiter in Spanish. I’m not talking “¿Dónde está el baño?”–level Spanish; I mean “I hear Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s new novel is quite good. Have you read it?”–level Spanish. You could bring up any obscure topic and somehow Bill knew at least a little something about it. He probably should have backed up some of the information sloshing around in his head to one of those secure servers you hear about in the Utah desert.
During our final semester Bill and I had a conversation during which he mentioned an upcoming trip to visit his sister who suffered from a serious lifelong illness. I was stunned. I had no idea Bill even had a sister, let alone that she was ill. In the days that followed I thought about our friendship, and it gradually dawned on me that there was a lot I didn’t know about Bill. We’d spent hours hiking and fishing the Roaring Fork together, and in all that time he’d shared only a fraction of what I had told him about my own history, struggles, joys and disappointments. Fascinated to know about other people’s lives and a great listener, Bill always found a way to shift the focus of conversation back to me whenever I asked him about his own life.
At the time I wasn’t familiar with the Enneagram and didn’t know that withholding personal information is a classic trait of Fives.
The Five’s Deadly Sin
Fives like Bill experience the world as intrusive, overwhelming and draining. It’s a place where demand always outpaces supply. It asks for more than they want or think they have to give. Typically introverted and analytical, Fives don’t believe they have enough inner resources or energy to meet the demands of life. They feel drained by prolonged involvement with other people or by having too many expectations placed on them. Every handshake, phone call, business meeting, social gathering or unexpected encounter seems to cost them more than it does other people. Fearful they don’t have sufficient inner resources to function in the world, they detach and withdraw into the mind, where they feel more at home and confident. They monitor the amount of time they spend with others and hightail it back to the realm of the mind whenever possible to refuel.
We don’t hear the word avarice very often, but avarice is the deadly sin of Fives. Typically we think of it as a greedy craving for money or material gain, but in Enneagram-speak it refers more to the Five’s need to retain, a desire to clench and protect what little they already have rather than a desire to acquire more. Afraid there won’t be enough, Fives pare down their needs and hoard the barest essentials to ensure they can maintain a self-sufficient existence now and in the future. For Fives this not only includes withholding their many resources but their time, energy, physical space, personal information, solitude and privacy as well. Fives value autonomy and self-containment, so they stockpile these things because they never want to be put in a position where they have to depend on others to take care of them. The idea of losing their independence and self-reliance terrifies them. Needless to say, Fives are reluctant to share their prized necessities with others.
Avarice also expresses itself in the Five’s excessive desire for acquiring knowledge, information, ideas, conceptual models, expertise, interesting facts and understanding for how things work. Fives look to knowledge to provide them with what most people find through relationships, such as love, comfort and support.
Fives, Sixes and Sevens make up the Fear or Thinking Triad (also called the Fear or Head Triad), and each number has a distinct strategy for finding a sense of control and safe refuge in this unpredictable world. Fives are motivated by a desire to understand. To them, gathering knowledge and mastering information are not just interesting endeavors but keys to survival. By embarking on a lifelong quest for information, often about unusual or challenging subjects, Fives believe they can insulate themselves from emotional and spiritual harm. Albert Einstein, Oliver Sacks and director David Lynch are but a few examples of Fives who departed from well-worn paths to pioneer ideas and explore subjects few others have. What better way to build self-esteem (and sometimes feel superior to others) and insulate yourself from others than to become an expert in a niche field of study?
Fives are minimalists. They don’t need or want too many things. In their minds, the more possessions people have, the more energy they’ll have to expend thinking about them, maintaining them or restocking them. Unfortunately, Fives’ desire to keep life simple and economical can reveal itself in their appearance. They don’t win fashion shows.
In the end avarice catches up to Fives. They hoard too much, emotionally speaking. Their greed for privacy and their fear of self-disclosure lead to isolation. Believing the old maxim “He who has the knowledge has the power,” they prefer to keep too much knowledge and those few necessities to themselves. Even worse, they scrimp on love and affection and stingily withhold it from the people who most want to support and care for them.
All About Fives or Investigators
Fives can be a bit difficult to get to know, but they do share some general characteristics that mark them as a tribe.
Fives prefer to observe. Fives can appear to be loners, and sometimes they are. They often strike people as emotionally distant, not entirely present or at home in their bodies, aloof and sometimes intellectually arrogant. In part this is because Fives observe life from a distance rather than jumping in and participating in it. Watching from the sidelines, along with obtaining knowledge, is their first line of defense. If they can observe and understand what’s happening maybe they’ll feel in the loop or be prepared should something suddenly be expected of them. Not all Fives are smart, but they’re all observant. You might glimpse them at a party observing the crowd from the periphery or circling a social event like an anthropologist performing work in the field, collecting and analyzing information on people and the general goings-on. This tendency to observe is not passive, however; far from it. Fives are actively watching—taking in information and filing it for future use.
Despite their tendency toward observation, many Fives are social. Some especially enjoy being with fellow knowledge lovers, the intellectually curious, or those who share their enthusiasm for a niche subject or hobby, such as rare book manuscripts, German opera or perhaps collecting Star Trek paraphernalia.
One benefit of all this observation from the periphery is that Fives can remain objective even if they have a dog in other people’s fights. When it comes to being neutral, Fives are like Switzerland. If I’m faced with a major life decision and my feelings are clouding my judgment, I call my friend Chris. As a Five he can sort through the facts, study the situation from every angle and then present me with a well-reasoned, unbiased case for why he thinks I should choose a particular course of action, even if it’s not what I want to hear or might somehow negatively affect his life. And because Fives are capable of being neutral, they rarely react; rather, they respond. When stewarded properly, this is an amazing gift. (Like Nines, Fives are able to see both sides to things, but because they’re not worried about causing conflict they’ll shoot straight up with you.)
“Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”
Carl Sagan
Fives collect knowledge. Knowledge and information of almost any kind (even the strangest information) provide Fives with a sense of control and a defense against feelings of inadequacy. Fives also collect information or knowledge because they don’t want to appear foolish or uninformed, or be humiliated for not having the correct answer. They don’t want to feel incapable or inept, which is what they believe they are. Needless to say, the best and worst thing that ever happened to Fives is the advent of the Internet. Once they tumble down that bottomless wormhole, these information junkies fall into their trance of knowledge collecting and there’s no telling when they’re coming back and what new and fun information they’re hauling back with them. I saw this in action when one afternoon I called to check in on my friend Bill.
“My printer broke and I’ve been on the Internet trying to figure out how to fix it,” he said.
“Bill, how long have you been working on this?” I asked, sighing.
“Since 8:00 a.m.,” he admitted.
I looked at my watch. “It’s 5:00 p.m.! Did you think to take the printer back to where you bought it and have them repair it?”
There was a long pause.
“It’s an old Inkjet. They stopped making parts for it years ago,” he said, sheepishly.
“You’re a $200-an-hour psychiatrist and you just wasted an entire day reading up on how to repair a printer you couldn’t give away at a yard sale?” There was a pause.
“Yes, but now I know the history of printing beginning with the Gutenberg press to the present day,” he said triumphantly.
As humorous as that story may be, Fives really do end up as roadkill on the information highway. For Fives, computers and the Internet provide another way to avoid interaction with people—which is the last thing they need.
“I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?”
Sherlock Holmes
Compartmentalization and privacy. Compartmentalization is a signature defense mechanism against feeling overwhelmed in the life of a Five. Believing their inner resources are limited and seeking to feel in control, Fives assign their job, marriage, hobbies, friendships and other commitments to separate mental cubbyholes. This way they can determine precisely how much energy each will require to maintain, apportion it correctly and deal with one compartment at a time. Soon they discover life will not cooperate with their desire to keep the different areas of their lives partitioned off from each other. Similarly, Fives maintain friendships in each compartment with people who neither meet nor know about each other. A few years ago I arrived at the funeral of my Five friend Sam, and to my amazement the church was packed. Unable to find a seat, I stood at the back and wondered whether I’d stumbled into the wrong service. Apart from three or four people, I hardly knew anyone there, despite the fact that for ten years Sam and I had been part of the same men’s Bible study and hung out together regularly.
At the post-service reception I learned some of the mourners were members of an astronomy club Sam had been active in for a long time. Several others were fellow crew members from a boat he raced on. I met five guys he biked with on Saturday mornings, and a bunch of bird watchers who had flown in from Baja, California.
Astronomy? Blue-footed boobies? Who was this guy?
To maintain their privacy, Fives tell each group of friends or colleagues one part of their story, but they never tell any group their whole story. They won’t tell you about every activity they’re involved in or introduce you to the friends they’ve made in their different spheres. As a young Five once jokingly told Suzanne, “I’m terrified I will wake up from a coma one day and the people standing around my bed will be from all the different parts of my life. What if I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious and what they’ve told one another?”
Fives aren’t ruled by their feelings. Of all types Fives are the most emotionally detached. This doesn’t mean Fives don’t have emotions, but that they want to have control over unpredictable feelings that might threaten to overwhelm them. For Fives, detachment means they can have an emotion and then let it go. Then they have the next emotion, and then let it go. Fives fancy themselves rational thinkers and see the rest of us as being irrational. In particular, they look at feeling-centered types like Twos, Threes and Fours and wonder how they can possibly waste so much energy on all that inner turmoil.
I’m a Four. When it comes to feelings I’m flypaper. I’ve had feelings show up and stick around so long I should’ve charged them rent. At seminary if I became worked up over something I would go to Bill, who listened patiently to me. If I became emotionally incontinent, however, he would move from looking concerned to regarding me with all the warmth of a snow owl, blinking and staring at me as if to say, “When does this end?”
Fives need to have time to process emotions. At Enneagram gatherings people will hear their number described and become emotional because they finally feel understood (or, on the flip side, embarrassed and exposed). Not so with Fives. They take in all the information and don’t feel anything until they have a few days on their own to process it in private. For them life is like a knowledge salad bar. They get in line, pick what they want, then bag it up, take it home, eat it and over the next week digest it. They need extended periods of time alone where they can process their thoughts and feelings.
“I’d like to be the kind of person who can enjoy things at the time, instead of having to go back in my head and enjoy them.”
David Foster Wallace
This delay can bewilder people of other types. When Bill and I went to see the movie Philadelphia years ago, I responded like a typical Four. When the lights came on at the end of the film I sobbed like a baby. I was all but looking for a grief counselor in the lobby, while Bill gave me that signature snow owl stare. At the time I thought he was a little heartless, but now I know Bill had to go home where he could try to think his way to his feelings.
Fives as Children
Many Fives I know say they grew up with a parent who was intrusive or engulfing, while others describe childhoods that lacked affection or deep, meaningful interactions with their caretakers. Sensitive and quiet, these Five kids took refuge in the realm of their minds where they could fend off or hide from an overbearing parent, as well as work through their feelings out of sight.
As kids, Fives are curious, imaginative and comfortable being alone. Many are computer whizzes and voracious readers who enjoy collecting things. My Five friend Dan grew up with six rowdy siblings in a tiny house in rural Texas. To escape the mayhem he turned one-half of his father’s tool shed into a haven.
“I spent a million hours in that shed reading The Lord of the Rings and taking things apart to figure out how they worked. It was where my friends and I made our first foray into the world of computer coding. My brothers and sisters were loud, outgoing attention seekers, while I didn’t ask for much really. I couldn’t have faulted my mother if one night over dinner she had looked up from her plate at me and said, ‘Wait, who are you?’”
Kids who are Fives are usually quiet and self-contained. They are uncomfortable when they can’t take care of themselves, so they have learned to hold on to themselves instead of others. They find answers to most of their questions within themselves, and they have far more information about things than they share.
These kids have mixed feelings about school. They are smart and enjoy learning, and they usually make good grades. However, the social demands of school are hard to read and a challenge to accommodate. It feels to them like people either want too much time with them or not enough. They are comfortable spending time alone so they would be content with just one or two friends, but they aren’t adept at sharing feelings, and their need for personal space is difficult for other kids to understand.
These thoughtful kids have significant fears, so they often appear to be more serious than they are. They have to be invited to be playful, and even then it feels a bit frivolous and awkward. Deep down, they are tender and compassionate and would like to be more open with their love and affection, but the vulnerability they feel is too much to navigate.
We all pick up wounding messages as kids. If you’re a Five, come up with words to articulate the wounding message you picked up; it will probably be some variation on the broad themes of competency and connection, like “You’re not capable of handling the demands of life and relationships. To survive you’ll need to emotionally detach and hide.”
Fives in Relationships
When it comes to relationships, Fives may be the most misunderstood of all types. It’s important to remember just how taxing social engagement can be for them. For example, Anne and I have a Five friend named Georgia who is a private tutor for children with profound learning disabilities. Quiet and kind, Georgia can only take so much social interaction before her tank empties and she has to go home to recharge. At large gatherings she and her husband, an outgoing Seven, will often drive two cars, as she almost always wants to leave before he does. At our weekly small group supper club Georgia often clears the table and withdraws to the kitchen to wash the dishes while the rest of us continue talking. It’s Georgia’s way, and we’ve learned not to insist she stay and socialize. Georgia isn’t cold, but connecting with her can be challenging. Like all Fives her talk style is presentational or lecture; if you ask her what she feels, she’ll tell you what she thinks. Fives have tall, thick boundaries. It’s as if Georgia’s on the other side of a three-lane highway and you have to yell over traffic to establish a real connection with her.
Fives don’t want to be sucked into your emotional dramas, which is another relational challenge for them. They aren’t cold-hearted jerks; on the contrary, they will listen and be supportive while you talk about your feelings. But they don’t want to be made to feel responsible for those feelings. They’ll take responsibility for their own emotions, and they expect you to take responsibility for yours.
Fives have to have independence. People who are in a relationship with them need to understand that this is not a preference but a necessity. Because Fives want to maintain their independence and self-sufficiency, you might wake up one Saturday morning to find your Five spouse has taken the dogs and headed off somewhere without leaving a note telling you where they have gone or when they plan to return. When they surface several hours later you might have to ask them where they went or else it might not occur to them to tell you.
People in a relationship with a Five have to recognize and honor the Five’s need for privacy and times of solitude. At home Fives usually have a space where they can withdraw to recharge. A Five friend who is a huge audiophile built out a room in his basement where he goes to read, smoke cigars and listen to his collection of John Coltrane records. His wife calls it “the hermitage.” For Fives on a tighter budget, their retreat might be a leather chair tucked away in a nook or a simple workbench in the basement. Often their special space is littered with books, papers, years of National Geographic magazines and odd curios picked up while traveling. But this is their space and their mess, and it’s unlikely a Five will express appreciation if you trespass on it without a very good reason.
The high value Fives place on privacy also extends to keeping their cards close to the vest. Though Fives want to get together or be included, they rarely initiate social interactions, so I was surprised when my friend Adam called at the last minute to ask whether I wanted to join him for dinner.
“If it were any other night I’d love to get together, but tonight is Anne’s birthday and the kids and I are surprising her by taking her to that great Italian place she loves over on 12 South,” I explained.
“Okay,” he said. “Some other time.” And he hung up.
Later I contemplated what would have happened if our roles had been reversed. What would Adam have said if I had called to ask if he wanted to join me for dinner, but he had a conflict?
He’d say, “I can’t.” Full stop. He wouldn’t tell me why he couldn’t go—where he was going instead, what he was doing or who he was doing it with. That’s private. He would provide only the facts I needed to know and no more. By comparison, I shared “insider information” about my family’s plans. I even gave him the restaurant’s dang address. Fives may not be aware of it, but when people share these trivial life details it’s a way of leaving a door open for the other person to talk about what’s happening in their life. Adam might have said, “How are the kids? Does Anne still enjoy her job? I contracted food poisoning from the calamari at that restaurant, so don’t order it.” This may sound like mundane stuff, but disclosing even little things about our lives is like Miracle-Gro for relationships. By keeping everyone on a need-to-know basis, Fives can make their friends and even their partners wonder, “Do I really know this person? Will I ever know this person?” Like flowers, relationships don’t grow in the dark. Relationships bloom in the light of self-disclosure.
Spouses of Fives sometimes tell Suzanne and me they feel emotionally neglected. The husband of a Five once told me, “My wife and I have been married for thirty years and adore each other, but she’s so independent and mentally self-sustaining that I know she could adjust to life without me better than I could without her. It’s taken time for me to be okay knowing she doesn’t need me as much, or at least in the same way, as I need her.”
Fives need and enjoy being with other people, but don’t ask them if they’d like to “hang out.” A Five wants a reason for getting together like a birthday party, a movie or to go with you to an antique car show, a subject about which they have no knowledge—yet. But if the agenda is just hanging out, they’d rather do that alone.
To further understand Fives, let’s use a car analogy. Imagine you have a tank in which you keep all the fuel you need to interact with people all day. Fives have smaller tanks than other numbers, so as the day goes on they’re checking that gauge more often and becoming increasingly aware that they’re running out of fuel and need to get home.
There are also amazing benefits to being in relationships with Fives. They’re not emotionally needy, don’t have impossible expectations of the people they love and typically stay calm when the folks around them are all falling apart. You can also share your darkest secrets with Fives and know they will hold them in sacred trust. Like a priest, they will keep whatever you tell them under the “seal of the confessional,” in part because they know how important such confidentiality would be to them if the shoe were on the other foot.
“A good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Fives won’t often tell you they love you, but this doesn’t mean they don’t. I spend sixty days a year speaking at retreats and conferences. One or two times a year Bill will visit my website to check my calendar and ask whether he can meet me where I’m speaking, even if it involves his having to get on a plane and he’s already heard me give the talk before. That’s love, people.
Love is dangerous and demanding. For a relationship to flourish, two people have to openly share not only their thoughts but also their feelings, which is a challenge for Fives. It requires them to share space, exert less control over the time they have alone, sacrifice privacy, and cope with another person’s overwhelming emotions. To make it work, they have to give up a large measure of the security, independence and privacy that’s held their life together since they were children. Their partners and friends can help them by being patient while Fives learn to identify and express their feelings. It’s no small thing when a Five takes the risk of exchanging secrets and commits to walk beside another person. Celebrate it every day if a Five has chosen to undertake this journey with you. Chances are you are more special than you know.
Fives at Work
In the professional world Fives are valued for their cool, clear, pioneering, analytical minds. From Microsoft founder Bill Gates to novelist Jean Paul Sartre, from physicist Stephen Hawking to primatologist Jane Goodall, Fives are well represented on any list of the world’s greatest innovators and thinkers.
Not every Five can be a titan of industry or a Nobel Prize winner, so they may choose careers as engineers, scientific researchers, librarians, professors, computer programmers or psychologists. Because they remain calm in a crisis, they make great emergency room doctors and EMTs. Because they’re masters of observation, Fives can evolve into magnificent artists. Author Joan Didion, painter Georgia O’Keefe, lead singer of Radiohead Thom Yorke and actor Anthony Hopkins are but a few of the Fives whose artistic vision has left a mark on the world.
Regardless of what they do or how successful they are, what Fives need most at work is predictability. If Fives know what demands will be placed on them every day, they’ll know how to wisely apportion their inner resources so they’ll make it home without running out of gas.
To this end, Fives don’t like meetings. If they have no choice but to attend one, they will want to know precisely when it begins and ends, who else will be there, and what the agenda is going to be. When a meeting is finished Fives are eager to go, so if the person leading it asks if anyone has any last questions and someone’s hand shoots up in the air, Fives will bury their face in their hands and mutter, “Give me a letter opener and this will all be over in a flash.”
In leadership positions, Fives can overfocus on a project and end up not supporting or paying enough attention to other people. To maintain privacy and to guard their inner resources, they set up lines of defense between themselves and others. They’ll gladly surrender their prestigious corner office with the glass walls to an image-conscious Three colleague and seek out another spot where people will have trouble finding them—like in the basement, since they hate to be interrupted while they’re working. If they’re high enough on the corporate ladder they will have an administrative assistant and a few interns who will run interference and insulate them from having to meet or talk to too many people.
Fives would rather you give them a project, tell them when it’s due, and allow them to accomplish it however and wherever they choose. Many of the traditional rewards for excellence at work aren’t primary motivators for Fives, who aren’t typically materialistic and aren’t always angling, like Threes can be, for a promotion or a raise. If you want to recognize and reward Fives for a job well done, give them more autonomy. Independence is what they crave, even when they’re working on a team. They are generally impatient with group decisions because they don’t like long discussions or having to listen to people free-associate ideas.
Fives can successfully hold positions that require making presentations or making speeches, so long as they have time to prepare. They don’t like to be unexpectedly put on the spot or asked to spontaneously say or do something. If Fives know what’s expected of them and they’re kept well informed about what’s happening, they perform great.
Wings
Fives are wedged between the passionate, intense Four on the one side and the loyal but anxious Six on the other. Either or both the qualities of those types can be available to the Five.
Fives with a Four wing (5w4). These Fives are more creative, sensitive, empathetic and self-absorbed than 5w6s. Independent and often eccentric, 5w4s are not sure what to do with their feelings but would rather process them alone than in a group. Think actor Robert De Niro, photographer Annie Leibovitz or physicist Albert Einstein. Not bad company.
Fives with a Four wing are more likely to experience melancholy. The connection to Four’s energy and depth of emotion helps these Fives be more tender with themselves and less emotionally guarded around others. Healthy 5w4s are able to communicate their own feelings to the people they love.
Five with a Six wing (5w6). Fear plays a more prominent role in the life of a 5w6 than in the life of a 5w4. They are more anxious, cautious and skeptical, but they’re also more social and loyal than 5w4. Fives with six wings live more in their minds and will question authority and the status quo.
Fives with a Six wing are also more relational. With a Six influence Fives are more aware of their own fear, which increases their interest in forming alliances with others in the various communities they are a part of. They are often socially awkward, and they remain skeptical of others, but getting to know people is more comforting than disconcerting.
Stress and Security
Stress. In stress Fives instinctually move to the not-so-healthy side of Seven, where they will hoard and cling more tightly to things, which only makes their world feel smaller and smaller. When this happens they turn their attention away from the needs of others and focus almost solely on their own need for safety and independence.
Here also Fives become frivolous, disorganized and distracted to the point of not being able to complete tasks. They’re still living in their heads, but they stop short of thinking through the consequences of their behavior. In this space Fives can become rude, condescending and disconnected.
Security. When Fives feel secure they move toward the positive side of Eight, which is a gigantic move! When this happens Fives become infinitely more spontaneous, outspoken and physically present. The difference is so striking people will say, “What’s gotten into Holly? She’s suddenly so energetic, confident and talkative.” Fives who want to know and experience life abundant without it costing them more than they can afford to lose can achieve that on the high side of Eight.
Spiritual Transformation
When it comes to spiritual work, Fives have an advantage over the rest of us. They don’t cling to their ego with as tight a grip. Their love for solitude makes them natural contemplatives. They are attracted to simplicity, forming fewer attachments to worldly things and letting go more readily when they do. People of other numbers who are on the road to spiritual transformation might envy the Five’s inner calm and detachment.
When they exaggerate it, however, detachment ceases to be a virtue. For Fives it risks devolving into disconnection from their feelings to prevent injury and depletion. It makes them cold, aloof and relationally unavailable—observers rather than participants in life. From a Christian perspective that’s not detachment. “The ultimate goal of detachment is engagement,” writes David Benner. “We detach so we can re-order our attachments and then, aligned and cooperating with the inflow of Grace into our deepest self, we can allow love to pass through us to touch and heal others in the world.” To mature spiritually, Fives will need to learn this pattern of detaching in order to engage.
Fives need to practice connecting to their emotions in real time. A person can’t celebrate Christmas on Monday and not feel it until Friday! If everything I’ve said in this chapter until now makes Fives feel miserable, I encourage them to feel that misery now, not next month. Once they master first attaching to feelings and then letting them go, they can teach others how to do it, because the rest of us get entangled in our feelings way too much.
Fives who seek to be free of their default patterns should recognize how often their actions are driven by fear. Like Sixes and Sevens, Fives’ deadly sin is fear, and they’re motivated by a desire for security. Aware that they have limited resources, they wonder how much information, how much affection, how much energy, how much privacy, how much money, how much anything they can afford to give away and how much they should conserve for themselves.
How different would Fives’ lives be if they embraced a mindset of abundance? This mentality says that when we give, we receive. This is the algebra of the gospel. What if Fives trusted that there was more than enough to go around in life, so they could give more away?
To some extent, Fives also have to become comfortable with dependence, or at least interdependence. Fives have been motivated to live so self-sufficiently that they never have to depend on anyone else. Yet there is a humility that comes when we allow other people to take care of us. For Fives, establishing so many boundaries that they never have to experience depending on anyone else sets them up for a great loss. It also deprives those who love them of the joy of caring for them.
Ten Paths to Transformation for Fives
- Allow your feelings to arise naturally and experience them in the present moment, and then you can let them go.
- Recognize when you’re succumbing to a scarcity mentality by hoarding affection, privacy, knowledge, time, love, money, material possessions or thoughts.
- When something occurs that seems to elicit emotions in other people, try to feel with them in the moment rather than saving those feelings to process later.
- Try sharing more of your life with others, trusting they won’t misuse that information.
- Venture out of your comfort zone and share more of who you are and what you have with others.
- Try to remember that you don’t have to have the answers for everything. You won’t look foolish, just human.
- Call a friend and offer to hang out, for no reason at all other than to enjoy each other’s company.
- Allow yourself some material and experiential luxuries. Buy a new mattress! Travel!
- Take up yoga or another activity that will connect you with your body. Overcoming the disconnect between your body and head will be life changing.
- Even when you’re unsure of yourself, jump into a conversation rather than withdrawing from it.