How to Neighbor Well as an Enneagram 4: Enneaneighboring Summer Series

You might be an Enneagram 4 if

You don’t just feel your own feelings, you feel others’ as well.
It’s the best day ever—or the worst day of your life.
The present rarely lives up to the past.
You are creative, imaginative, and intuitive.
You will sit with someone when they are sad.
You need some alone time to recharge.
Your emotions like to take the reins.
You worry you are somehow defective.
You dislike ordinary, mundane days.
You have an eye for ascetics.
You prefer your own unique style.
You can become moody or melancholy.
You enjoy a good, tragic story.
You cry easily.
You can get lost in your imagination.
Sometimes you’re quiet. Sometimes you just can’t stop the words.
You often feel that you’re different from everyone else.
You value honesty, authenticity, and originality.

Wait, you may be thinking, there are others like this too?! I hear you.

Maybe you’ve thought it’s just you. Maybe there is a piece of you that doesn’t want anyone else to share the same description. Can we talk about it?

You don’t want to be boxed in. You don’t want to be labeled. You don’t want to be reduced to anything less than your whole, beautifully authentic self. That’s fair. And it’s not what I want either—for you or for me.

The Enneagram is not something to fit into, but something that can help us understand how we fit like puzzle pieces with others who see the world through a different lens. It’s not a label, but an invitation to better understand why we do the things we default to so we don’t get stuck in a rut.

The Enneagram doesn’t tell you who to be. But it can help you become the best you that you can be. Used as a spiritual growth tool, it has exponential ability to help you live your best life, in authentic relationship with God and others.

So today, let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about how you’re the one we look to when life is hard and we need someone to listen. Let’s talk about the way you help us see beauty in the world around us. Let’s talk about your creativity that makes everything more magical and majestic.

Let’s talk, too, about how you want to fit in, but also you don’t. Let’s talk about how you value deep connection but sometimes push people away.

Let’s talk about why we need you, how we can better love you, and ways you can use your strengths to neighbor well.

Somedays you feel like you’re flawed and broken. Somedays you feel like no one truly knows you. Somedays you feel like no one cares to fully get to know you.

This is what I really want you to hear today: You’re not too much for God. He’s not put off by big emotions. He created them, and He feels them too, feels them for you. You don’t have to stuff them down, turn them off, or dismiss them. Your emotions can mirror to others the depth of what God feels for them, and He designed you this way on purpose.

Enneagram 4, you're not too much for God

He didn’t mess anything up when He made you. You are not a mess, but a masterpiece of the highest caliber. God is proud of His creation.

There will be people who don’t understand you—but God is not one of them. There will be people who reject you first—but God is not one of them.

There will be ordinary days sometimes—but God is there in the middle of them. Look for Him. In everything. He’s there, showing up big in a whole beautiful lot of little ways.

10 Things to love about Enneagram 4s

She is a sympathetic and active listener.
She doesn’t shy away from the painful things.
She is emotionally present.
She loves to create beautiful things.
She wears her heart on her sleeve.
She is not easily swayed by what everyone else is doing.
She is true to herself.
She brings depth, dimension, and passion.
She will cry with you for as long as you need.
She unashamedly loves her people.

10 Ways to love your neighbors well as an Enneagram 4

Do what you do so well. Be that shoulder to cry on for a neighbor.
Initiate deep conversations with neighbors and let God ripple out into your words and expressions.
Gift others near you your availability.
Give yourself permission to enjoy the non-spectacular moments too. This is where much of the life-on-life stuff with neighbors happens.
Let God grow your confidence in His gentle way.
Choose to stay in the present. It tells others they matter to you.
Soak in the truth of what God says about you. You love others best when you know you are deeply loved.
Disciple a neighbor. Your nurturing heart will help you mentor others.
Marvel out loud about the ways you see God reflected in creation.
Resist the urge to push people away. Rooting deep in Christ in these moments will empower you to stay.

10 Ways to better love your Enneagram 4 neighbor

Go deep with her. She needs meaningful conversation and quality time.
Acknowledge her feelings by rephrasing and repeating them back to her.
Verbally (and sincerely) affirm her.
Practice being sensitive and patient.
Point her to Bible verses that remind her God’s love for her never changes.
Gently help her see beauty in the ordinary.
Be honest and trustworthy.
Give her all the hugs.
Share your heart with her. She wants to talk about what you’re feeling too.
Encourage her to look for the positive in her day.

Dear Enneagram four, God sees your deepest longings, your giant hopes, the dreams you can’t even put words to yet. They aren’t silly. They don’t overwhelm Him. You don’t overwhelm Him.

But God. God can overwhelm you with His affection, His kind attention, His giant embrace. He can overwhelm you with His sufficiency when you feel deficient. He can heal the fissures in your heart.

Those things you’ve been hanging onto, would you let them go? Could you root yourself here in the present, hold the future and the past in open hands, let Him hold you in His loving hands?

When you’re ready, here are a few reflection questions you and God can chat about:

Reflection questions for Enneagram 4s

What are you grateful for right now?
Where did God show up today?
What have you been saying about yourself?
Is God or your feelings defining you?
Where are your longings leading you?

Just a friend over here in your corner,

P.S. This series will dig deeper into a piece I wrote previously for Relevant Magazine. Check out the article here:

Enneaneighboring: Forming Community in My Neighborhood Out of Different Types of Normal – RELEVANT
Ann Voskamp said it in her book The Way of Abundance, and the words sink deep: “We will never reflect the image of Christ to the world unless we first see the image of God in everyone.”

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