# Developing the other wing?



## mental blockstack (Dec 15, 2011)

I've heard rumor that it's possible to do this,

for example if you're naturally 9w1, to develop a capability towards 9w8 traits as well. Or if you're a 5, to develop both 4 and 6 traits.

Are some people just more ambidextrous about their enneagram wings, than others?
If it's possible to do, what might be some ways to develop strength in the less-used wing?


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## Maker of helmets (Sep 8, 2014)

@GYX_Kid

I would think of it just as figuring out my Tritype, then enjoying that, and making positive improvements. 

I am not sure about looking at the wings, because it is hard to immediately quantify what the wings should signify.

I am not trying to delegitimise your question, but I think it depends on how and why we use the Enneagram, and how we understand it.

The value you seem to have in mind is achieving balance -

But I feel like sometimes we think of breaking the Enneagram into something quantifiable, and thus we make it as though it could be broken down into parts and quantified, whereas I think the beauty in the Enneagram could be its ability to allow us to see ourselves holistically again.

Maybe what I am saying is not helpful to you. I can imagine it seems to miss the point of what you are asking for.

I hope I will not have offended you.

I think my main point is it all depends on what you really want. And maybe there is another way of conceiving what you want than developing the other wing, or whatever it is.

I find that simply knowing my Tritype (146, at least at the moment that is what I self-identify it as) and subtype (SX-SO) really helps me to flesh out my understanding of myself, and has even made me more balanced just from knowing that. 

I think the Enneagram is more SUBJECTIVE a tool than anything really quantifiable. By subjective I do not mean it is illegitimate, or groundless, rather I mean that it depends on us centring ourselves, and self-identifying what it can do for us.

It is not so much of a "scientific" tool, and I rather think that balancing the wings could be taking the Enneagram in a rather UN-balanced way, not the way it is used best. 

It all depends on you and what you feel like


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## Maker of helmets (Sep 8, 2014)

@GYXKid

Are you five with four, and would like to develop six?

The first step would be identifying what you want 

Maybe what I was trying to say above is I was confused whether yours was a philosophical and generalised, or personal question.

It all depends on whether you are asking generally speaking, or whether you are wondering how you yourself could develop your wings.

If it is you personally, that changes things, because there is more information that you have which others would need, before we can try and help you 

Does that make sense, or is it honestly a bit obscure to understand?

I am often a bit obscure to understand, so I will not be offended if you say yes.

Please ask any follow up questions.

I am not a genius on the Enneagram. I have just recently started using it more myself.

But I would like to learn how to use it to help others, too.

And that is why I'm practising here!


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## Maker of helmets (Sep 8, 2014)

sorry for overdoing it a bit :/


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## cir (Oct 4, 2013)

GYX_Kid said:


> I've heard rumor that it's possible to do this,
> 
> for example if you're naturally 9w1, to develop a capability towards 9w8 traits as well. Or if you're a 5, to develop both 4 and 6 traits.
> 
> ...


 Yes, it is possible. 

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/


> There is disagreement among the various traditions of the Enneagram about whether individuals have one or two wings. Strictly speaking, everyone has two wings—in the restricted sense that both of the types adjacent to your basic type are operative in your personality since each person possesses the potentials of all nine types. However, this is not what is usually meant by “having two wings,” and proponents of the so-called two-wing theory believe that both wings operate more or less equally in everyone’s personality. (For example, they believe that a Nine would have roughly equal amounts of his or her Eight and One wings.)
> 
> Observation of people leads us to conclude that while the two-wing theory applies to some individuals, most people have a dominant wing. In the vast majority of people, while the so-called second wing always remains operative to some degree, the dominant wing is far more important. (For example, Twos with Three-wings are noticeably different from Twos with One-wings, and while Twos with Three-wings have a One-wing, it is not nearly as important as the Three-wing.) It is therefore clearer to refer simply to a type’s “wing” as opposed to its “dominant wing,” since the two terms represent the same concept.
> 
> ...


Here is my story-in-a-story where I made contact with my nine wing. The reason this is complicated is that between points eight and nine is the third enneagram shock point. The beautiful irony of a developed nine wing is that... most people assume I don't have it. Integrating that nine wing reinforces my access to point three (my image fix).

For a 5w4, fully accessing the six wing means recognizing and responding appropriately to the significance of the second shock point.


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## mental blockstack (Dec 15, 2011)

@_Maker of helmets_ Yeah, the MBTI and enneagram are pretty much all subjective; won't be quantifiable science until we find a way to relate them empirically to physical areas/chemicals of the brain.

Thanks for the posts. I still think I'm probably 5w4 9w1 4w5, but like I imagine with most people, it doesn't fit exactly or cleanly in every way like jigsaw pieces would. I guess I'm trying to figure out what's possible to grow into, and work from there. Not necessarily trying to be like type 6. But this thread is also just broad curiosity on the topic.



cir said:


> Yes, it is possible.
> 
> https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/


Interesting.

My dealing with anger in particular can be confusing; based on those descriptions, I relate to each 8, 9 and 1 types.

So so far, confirmed ways to awaken wing #2 is through either mature age or psychedelics? :tongue:


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## mental blockstack (Dec 15, 2011)

cir said:


> Here is my story-in-a-story where I made contact with my nine wing. The reason this is complicated is that between points eight and nine is the third enneagram shock point. The beautiful irony of a developed nine wing is that... most people assume I don't have it. Integrating that nine wing reinforces my access to point three (my image fix).
> 
> For a 5w4, fully accessing the six wing means recognizing and responding appropriately to the significance of the second shock point.


It does seem complicated, I'll have to do a bit of research on shock points.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

GYX_Kid said:


> I've heard rumor that it's possible to do this,
> 
> for example if you're naturally 9w1, to develop a capability towards 9w8 traits as well. Or if you're a 5, to develop both 4 and 6 traits.
> 
> ...


Yes it can be done.
*It is hard* and requires you to really understand the essence of your type and how it relates to it's neighbours.
The more you understand this, the more you can experiment with it IRL.
The IRL part is the crux of the issue, it doesn't help to draw pretty theories on paper.
Either you take actions that implement the understanding and get results in line with it or you don't.
Still the two wings are like polarities that don't agree, they can't really be done simultaneously.
Hence you are better off relying on one wing than two IMO.


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## cir (Oct 4, 2013)

GYX_Kid said:


> @_Maker of helmets_ Yeah, the MBTI and enneagram are pretty much all subjective; won't be quantifiable science until we find a way to relate them empirically to physical areas/chemicals of the brain.


 Yeah, I'm starting to understand the difference in how I approach the enneagram vs how others do it. To me, it's more "engineering" and less "empirical science".

Here are the problems with approaching the enneagram like that:

Psychology/neuro-biology/neuroscience as a (collection of) field(s) is in its infancy
Funding for researches within those fields is expensive and invasive
Good luck reproducing published results
Hoping that an MD or PhD who spends their life studying the brain will, on their own accord, map out their studies out to the enneagram? A seemingly arbitrary system?
For the ones who do can link the enneagram to something physical, like the Fauvres, you'll be waiting for a while for them to release their results to the public, if they will
So, if you want to make use of the enneagram, in my experience, you're better off treating it as a mental/spiritual/psychological model and mapping your experiences out that way. You're not supposed to know everything, but you're supposed to be able to identify what you know and don't know and start from there. Otherwise, treating the enneagram as "empirically" mapped out to the brain implies being able to exhaust the potentials of humanity and what it means to be human. By the time you get to that point, might humanity evolve beyond that?



> My dealing with anger in particular can be confusing; based on those descriptions, I relate to each 8, 9 and 1 types.
> So so far, confirmed ways to awaken wing #2 is through either mature age or psychedelics? :tongue:


 Well, all of that culminating in my best friend/roommate's death probably has something to do with it. Are you familiar with the abyss? Might you even live in one?

Even then, psychedelics is no guarantee. In my case, I made the decision to have faith in the visions I saw, and I was rewarded for it. But for my friend, and even referenced in Maitri's Spiritual Dimension chapter on type sevens, it's not a guarantee. People who hold on pretty tightly to their ideas of reality as they know it tend to lack the grace and appreciation for their experiences, and as a result, tend to fail to crystallize their psychedelic experience into something positive, lasting, and permanent.



GYX_Kid said:


> It does seem complicated, I'll have to do a bit of research on shock points.


 "The Integral Enneagram" by Rhodes is the only book I've seen that explicitly mentions the shock points in terms of the personality enneagram. The rest will be talking about it in terms of the process enneagram, such as Blake's "The Intelligent Enneagram", Russell Smith's "Cosmic Secrets", and Bernier's "The Enneagram, Symbol of All and Everything". Less Ichazo and more classical Gurdjieff.

By asking about how to awaken your second wing, you're going into uncharted territory. You will have to be able to interpret your own experiences objectively *and* subjectively. The second shock point requires you to have faith. Your willingness to give other people's ideas a benefit of a doubt and willingness to entertain them will be an external indicator (to others who aren't you) of how successful you will be, in that department. There are other steps that are required, and for you, that will be shown by how long you can connect to points eight and two.

Because your latent wing/shadow is type six? And type five is a variation of type six? You will be facing a lot of unknowns, and (Holy) Faith is how you awaken that center.


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## cir (Oct 4, 2013)

hornet said:


> Still the two wings are like polarities that don't agree, they can't really be done simultaneously.
> Hence you are better off relying on one wing than two IMO.


 I rely on both wings in the same way I rely on all nine of my inner points to guide me.

When you have two wings that are like polarities, then the next step is to figure out and manifest the third reconciliation force.

I say this, because "polarity" implies "duality", and type eight (and everyone else's inner type eight)'s delusion is "duality". Not because of "right/wrong" or "true/false", but because of the lack of the third force. That is the significance of the center triangle in the enneagram.


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## mental blockstack (Dec 15, 2011)

(Except it's not really exactly quantifiable like that lol)


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

cir said:


> I rely on both wings in the same way I rely on all nine of my inner points to guide me.
> 
> When you have two wings that are like polarities, then the next step is to figure out and manifest the third reconciliation force.
> 
> I say this, because "polarity" implies "duality", and type eight (and everyone else's inner type eight)'s delusion is "duality". Not because of "right/wrong" or "true/false", but because of the lack of the third force. That is the significance of the center triangle in the enneagram.


Okay, I don't really understand where this third force comes from.
It has something to do with the inner triangle?


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## cir (Oct 4, 2013)

hornet said:


> Okay, I don't really understand where this third force comes from.
> It has something to do with the inner triangle?


 Yourself! :happy: As Blake puts it.


The Intelligent Enneagram said:


> The third octave requires that we know what we are doing. It is intentional creativity. The inner lines made it possible for us to always find the connections that work. What goes further is the return to the source, which needs the second conscious intervention, or conscious shock, between points 8 and 9. It is this that enables us to "be" at point 9 and "know the place for the first time", in Eliot's phrase".
> 
> In Gurdjieff's psychocosmology the further development of the third octave feeds the third being-body, or body of the soul. *It is now that the three points of the triangular figure become "filled with the holy ghost", and the power of the reconciling force begins to manifest.*
> 
> ...


 Yes, all of that sounds so fantastic that no wonder Holy Faith is necessary. Being able to see the possibilities means you're in touch with Holy Harmony at point three.

In enneagram terms, this third force comes from point nine. Type nines are called "mediators" for a reason... the essence of type/point nine concerns mediation of opposites or multiplicity. Holy Love says "All is One", and that includes "polarities" such as both the abyss and the cosmos, or the theory that "all nine types are a variation of type nine".

What is in unity at point nine is at duality for points three and six. Therefore, three and six represents "unity in multiplicity". At point nine, you are individualizing. Between points three and six, you individuate.

[HR][/HR] @GYX_Kid 

According to Gurdjieff, "In order to understand the enneagram it must be thought of as in motion, as moving. A motionless enneagram is a dead symbol, the living symbol is in motion". You would have to be a part of and participate in the movement if you want to get a grasp on it. If I were to offer a suggestion, try shooting for this or this:


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

cir said:


> Yourself! :happy: As Blake puts it. Yes, all of that sounds so fantastic that no wonder Holy Faith is necessary. Being able to see the possibilities means you're in touch with Holy Harmony at point three.
> 
> In enneagram terms, this third force comes from point nine. Type nines are called "mediators" for a reason... the essence of type/point nine concerns mediation of opposites or multiplicity. Holy Love says "All is One", and that includes "polarities" such as both the abyss and the cosmos, or the theory that "all nine types are a variation of type nine".
> 
> What is in unity at point nine is at duality for points three and six. Therefore, three and six represents "unity in multiplicity". At point nine, you are individualizing. Between points three and six, you individuate.


Gee you just connected a whole shitload of stuff for me.
I think I need to lie down for a sec...


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