Subjugated Guillotine: A 6w7 Analysis of the Fear of Lost Guidance and the Fusion of Body & Heart
by Annie, sp/so 6w7 613
* indicates language commonly used in typology spaces
I’ve been trying to determine what I hate most, what I most want to avoid. There are emotions (temporary reactions) and moods (longer, when someone gets hit with “the blues” or “has pep in their step.”) I’m speaking of moods I wish to avoid on the scale of weeks/months, the ones which when out of whack lead to mood disorders. Misery is one of them, but there’s a delicious lite™ edition of it during which I’m more able to appreciate the art of human suffering. It’s a musical mood. Panic is another state I hate, but there’s a baseline level of activity in my brain which feels thrilling. I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to do work I find meaningful, new, and exciting without anxiety at this time.
In enneagram, my “passion” is thought to be fear. It’s something I should learn to live with, and through endurance, overcome. (The person who tolerates fear gradually experiences less of it.) But lack of anxiety is often associated with my least favorite state — ennui. A sense of meaninglessness, lack of direction, no further reason to justify my existence. I scramble up the walls of things which previously mattered to me, seeking a foothold which feels stable.
Stability lies at the bottom of a divot, and one of my “ideal” emotional states feels like a lightly oscillating* balance. Where I want to be is at the top of a rounded peak, or on a slippery smooth plane—things could roll any direction at any time. Spinning 20 plates at once. Even when things inevitably crash, the motion feels more exhilarating than the nothingness of being buried in the dirt. I said to someone the other day, “I actually enjoy interpersonal conflict.” When someone I care about is upset with me or there’s a chance I have wronged them, it’s like a fish hook tearing my guts out. But at the same time, this unthinking need to fix things, the compulsion to make things right with them again while still retaining my integrity (I’m allergic to regret,) is part of what makes life worth living.
When I was a child, I hated being bored, but dealt with it often. Minutes crawled by like being slowly boiled. I found ways around it by planning my own activities. I wrote stories, made carnival games for my sisters, resolved to begin certain habits for set lengths of time, and read obsessively. (I still do all these things, plus internet-induced stupor.) Undoubtedly I benefited from having some of this unstructured time. But the boredom which spawned it often brought me to a point of spiraling. What was all this activity for, given what bookended it?
I’ve been alternately miserable and listless for a few months now, and it’s anxiety/adrenaline which has snapped me out of this arc. Everything matters again, and is bathed in golden light. But my stomach feels like it’s on a full-time rollercoaster.
I seek “smoothness.” The ability to move through the day consciously, not with ease, but with intentional connections from paint A to point B, to not dissociate* to cope with the process. I’d rather be unconscious than not know What To Do. Without anxiety, there’s no motion, and without motion, there’s no juice. I want to see what happens on the other side, and my anticipation currently has a fearful monster strapped to its back. “If <the prize> doesn’t work out, what do I do? Will I regret my mistakes? How good can I make this? How can I do the impossible? How can I find what’s most important to me, to others, to bring constant energy into their lives?”
Oh, that’s another thing. I project my constant boredom. My desperate fear of it means that I often assume that others must be fighting the same long battle by withdrawing into blankness to escape the futility of time. I therefore assume I am boring, not active enough for others, taking their precious attention while giving nothing back. This is because subconsciously, I often expect life (and people) to be somewhat more interesting than they actually are. “If I’m struggling to see the point of doing anything here, how can you not be? How can you not want to rip me out of your life, to remove the obligation of entertaining me?”
It only feels possible to propel myself forward and to make key decisions while in a certain state of mind. That state of mind is anxiety. Is that indicative of an isolated head*? That I can’t recall my truths through a bad mood? I write things like this, assuming I’ll remember them, and they fall away into time to be maybe reviewed once or twice by me again. I’ve found the road out of boredom, at least for now. I’ve probably found the way out of anxiety in the past. But I can’t remember the information, and if I could, it wouldn’t be enough. My moods are a heart latched to a chain whipped bloody and raw. It’s futile to control them. All I can do is take note of when the lashings walk away, attempt to find a pattern which will keep them away for longer, maybe for good.
I currently feel reasonable enough to attack all my problems. It won’t last.
If it’s too depressing not to have a resolution or moral to this, I’ll say what’s been helping me. But it’s hard to write about, because it’s primarily nonverbal. It’s like mental mantras, but instead of words it’s meant to pass intentions through my body, like clouds. The more easily clouds pass through me, the more transparent my boundaries are. The more unified I am with the world, the more I can be in synchrony with it. Some mantras are as follows:
“It will be fine, when x happened before I felt (abc.)” Note I recall how I felt, not what I did. This sets up an expectation that I will react a particular way, not that I need to do a particular thing, which tightens the screws.
“Smoothly.” - The sense of consciousness flowing easily from place to place, a continuous path without stuttering or delays in the road.
“Tomorrow will be more interesting.” - When I’m struggling to bring myself to fall asleep.
“You can’t think about anything else when you think of the sky.” - The encompassing vastness helps relax my nausea, a major side effect of my anxiety.
“What would x do?” - I imagine a person I currently respect and gently embody them. It takes away the pressure of existing as myself, since my ability to observe and appreciate others feels stronger than my ability to consistently align with my own ideals.
“Inner child audacity” - 4-year-old Annie expects respect and takes everyone at face value. She reacts with indignation when people are unreasonable and demands results from others. For when I need permission to be indulgent without it feeling “too much.”
No mantra works in every situation. They need to be suited to induce a reverse physical state to the one occurring. You know your body best. But maybe some of these would be a good starting place.
(I would like to make a habit of quoting sections from pieces which feel like important context, because most of what I write is responding to something.)
In the fear points, the fixation is crystallized in the mental body. Empty intelligence is veiled by the chattering mind that calls itself intelligent. These are people who have a fear of fear. Living in the mind is a way of avoiding the emotion of fear. These points then use their minds as a form of protection against what is perceived as a threatening world. As a style, the fear points move away from people.
Sometimes called the ‘doing’group, these people are always dealing with a strong polarity between doing and trying to decide what to do. This is also the home of internal dialogue. All fixations have internal dialogue, but the fear points — in particular the Sixes — are especially addicted. Their powerful absorption with inner ideas or objects tends to prevent them from taking clear, decisive action.
Superego - The Separated Head and Body/Heart Scramble, by Mélanie
Sixes hide behind belief systems as a way of avoiding primal instincts. In this way they lose connection with their own deep instinctive sense. This in turn creates doubt and behavioral stuttering.
“Sixes are always searching for a model of correct behavior. The sense is that the body is an instrument of the mind, and if the mind just knew the right thing to do, then action could flow effortlessly.”
