Anatomy of a Type 6: The Glue That Holds Us Together
Type Sixes are loyal, engaging, responsible, and intuitive. They are committed to keeping our families, systems, and structures together, running smoothly and safely. Some Enneagram teachers believe that up to half of the population are Sixes.
Today I’m continuing the exploration of the Enneagram with my type 6 friend, Nicole Nelson. Nicole mentors and disciples college women at UC Davis with The Navigators. Today, Nicole shares what being a Six is like and how her need to feel secure informs her personality.
If you’re new around here and/or new to the Enneagram, check out my overview of the Enneagram here. You’ll also find links for other Enneagram Type explorations that I have published so far.
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Let’s dig in.
Defining Characteristics of a Type Six
Sixes can be extremely endearing and funny, responsible and loyal. They are decidedly not fair weather friends. While it may take the Six more time than others to build trust, once they are with you, they’ll be with you to the end.
While these traits are true of Sixes, Sixes can also appear very different from one another. Some Sixes are aggressive and resist authority like an Eight (albeit for a different motivation). Other Sixes are extremely conforming and obedient to authority figures. The differences can be accounted for by their stance toward fear. A counterphobic Six will tend to face their fears, moving towards them in efforts to overcome them. More phobic Sixes will be more likely to respond to their fear with avoidance or compliance. But all Sixes are united by an ambivalence and an inherent mistrust of authority and their need to feel secure.
Sixes run off of anxiety and fear, looking to authority and social structures to provide the security they are looking for. Still, they can feel quite a bit of ambivalence toward authority. Is this authority trustworthy and safe? Will they really bring me the security I need? These questions are at the heart of every Six.
Sixes tend to react to their fear with either a flight or fight response. Some Sixes work through their fear by overtly resisting the very thing that they fear, while other Sixes tend to retreat from the things that threaten their sense of security.
According to Beatrice Chestnut in The Complete Enneagram:
Sixes try to understand threats and uncertain outcomes so that they can prevent something bad from happening.
Sixes tend to be the most loyal people on the Enneagram and make good friends, and loving family members. The Enneagram Institute adds:
They will typically fight for their beliefs more fiercely than they will fight for themselves, and they will defend their community or family more tenaciously than they will defend themselves.
Sixes are the devil’s advocates of the world, using their fear to find any loopholes that might disrupt their sense of peace and security. They are excellent trouble-shooters and are the glue that holds many families and institutions together.
Core Desire: To feel safe and secure.
Basic Fear: Of feeling insecure or without support or guidance.
Driving Motivation: The anxiety a Type 6 feels drives them to be hypervigilant about anything that might threaten their safety. Some Sixes use their anxiety to fuel their resistance to whatever is threatening their security. These Sixes often look like Eights, but their motivation comes from their anxiety of feeling insecure rather than the anger that drives the Eight.
Main struggles: Self-doubt, suspicion, inability to make decisions, a failure of self-confidence. The Enneagram Institute also says:
Sixes come to believe that they do not possess the internal resources to handle life’s challenges alone, and so increasingly rely on structures, allies, beliefs, and supports outside themselves for guidance to survive.
Key traits: Playing devil’s advocate, trouble-shooting, finding loopholes, hypervigilance, doubt and ambivalence, and contrarian thinking.
Superpower: Chestnut captures it well:
Naturally intuitive, they read people well and their specific “superpower” is their talent for seeing through false pretenses and detecting ulterior motives and hidden agendas… [although] they can confuse accurate intuition with the projection of their own fears onto others.
Gifts to the world: When Sixes are operating from a secure and centered place, they can bring diverse types of people together to work in harmony towards a common goal. They also can have a surprisingly tremendous amount of courage. According to Richard Rohr,
In moments of crisis Sixes can overcome their fear more easily than anyone else. Sixes have had to grapple with fear all their lives.
Invitation to growth: Sixes need to learn to trust the goodness and protection of God to help them feel safe and secure in the world. They also need to learn how to stop doubting themselves so much and bring forth their gifts in a healthy way.
Ian Cron sheds some light on a Six that is growing in health and maturity:
Healthy Sixes have learned to trust their own experiences of life. They are aware that certainty and accurate predictability are not likely in most situations. They are productive, logical thinkers who almost always organize their thoughts and actions around what would be most advantageous for the common good. Loyal, honest and reliable, healthy Sixes are clear-eyed judges of character. These Sixes have come to believe that in the end everything will be alright.
From the Source: Being a Type 6
To better understand the inner life of a Type Six, I asked my friend, Nicole to share her experience as a Six and how she is using the Enneagram as a tool for growth in her life.
Describe how being a type 6 is for you.
There are aspects that I enjoy, but there are aspects that I wish were not true of me. I think initially there was (and at times still is) the temptation to think, “This is just who I am.” But I try to view my number more as a way to understand myself: my responses and my emotions, in order to bring them under the authority of Christ, rather than as an excuse to continue in my faults.
Being a 6 is a lot about having control. I have found it helpful to find verses that remind me only God truly has control and reading, or praying those in the moments when I’m tempted to try to grab for control.
It’s also helpful to understand my strengths so I can see how to use them better. Sixes often are described as being trouble shooters. One time I was given this example: “If you were part of a team building a house which role would you like? Would you like to be the one who finds the land? Who lays the foundation? Builds? The one who paints and decorates?” For me, I prefer to go in once it’s complete and see the problems, see what could be made better to run more efficiently — whether it’s fixing that current house or to bring those plan into making the next one. I think being a 6 helps me to see those things, and it’s what I enjoy.
I think that it’s also often why the 6 gets a bad rap. We can often be the “devil’s advocate” in situations, seeing where problems come up. And while we do need to be cautious in that area I also think it can be really helpful to have that perspective. Especially where individuals are involved and the desire to love them and help them feel loved well. In ministry I have often been able to bring to light how certain situations or words could make students feel unloved or uncared for.
How did you come to know about the Enneagram?
We learned about it through The Navigators in order to know ourselves better, both our strengths and weaknesses; and also to know our staff team to be able to work better together and love each other better.
How did you know you were a type 6?
I took the paid online test and when I read the description, it was very clear. Also, my team and my spouse also affirmed what they had seen in me as a Six.
What bothers you most about being a type 6?
The anxiety and traveling down all the worst-case scenarios. Not being as open-handed or as relaxed as others. Lack of confidence in myself, second guessing what I said, assuming people think the worst of me.
What do you enjoy most about being a type 6?
I enjoy being intuitive. There are times I have been able to understand something or see how things will end up. But this is also hard because others don’t always see it. Especially if it’s a bad thing, they assume I’m being negative.
Having insight has helped me to help girls discern where God is moving in their lives or what wrong beliefs are holding them back from trusting God. Part of being a 6 is loyalty. I think this is tied with my spiritual gift of faith, making it easy for me to trust God. I have seen Him be faithful so even when hard things happen it doesn’t cause me to doubt His goodness as I know it can for others.
How do you see your Six-ness affecting your closest relationships? Marriage? Kids? Friendships, etc.
In some ways, I think being a Six is helpful as I think about how to raise my kids and the long-term effects. But I can also tend to over think about things and if they are struggling or going through a hard season, I assume there was something I could have done differently, taking on that responsibility.
Friendships can be hard as it takes me awhile to gain trust and feel truly connected to someone. Also once I do feel that I am all in, it’s hard for me to realize that this is not always how others operate.
Until there was enough base for me to truly trust my husband, there was the temptation to assume the worst of what he was thinking and feeling toward me. At times it’s hard for my spouse to trust my discernment, but through experience he has learned to trust my insights more and I have learned to realize I might not fully understand the situation completely. We both have moved toward more middle ground and both of us have learned to bring what we know or think we know to God in prayer.
In what ways has the Enneagram been a useful tool for growth in your life?
It helps me understand why I respond to stress or hard situations the way I do. It also helps me to see how the other numbers respond. I always assumed that others think and respond the same way as me. So when others would react a certain way it went through the filter of how I would react. I would assume a lot about what they were thinking and feeling. It’s helped me to understand my thoughts and reasoning and fears and to be able to bring those to God.
In what ways do you see your type reflected in your childhood?
When I hit 3rd grade many things happened at once that shook me as a child. My mom didn’t understand why her once joyful, social child changed seemingly overnight to a terrified, clingy child. Eventually I was diagnosed with extreme separation anxiety due to all the things hitting at once.
I spent much of my youth trying to “fix” myself, trying to ignore those anxiety or fears, berating myself for thinking and feeling that way. Advice from family was to just “get over it”. When I got older I realized that I couldn’t just ignore or “get over it”. I needed to learn how to find healthy ways to deal with it.
Making plans for all situations can be helpful when planning large events. It has helped me in many work situations to make events run smoothly. There is a time and place for this, but there is a line where it crosses over from being organized into a frenzy of trying to protect myself and others and a lack of trusting God in the situation. Anxiety will always be a temptation for me. I know this. Instead of trying to control it I have learned to let God into those places, to practice trusting Him in those times and to remember past times when He was more than faithful.
Thanks, Nicole for sharing with us your inner world as a Type 6.
Not a type 6? Explore Types One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven, Eight, and Nine.
A bit about my contributor:
Nicole Nelson and her husband have been married for 10 years and have served with The Navigators since 2009 on college campuses discipling students. They are currently serving at UC Davis. They have a son (7) and a daughter (4), who God uses to stretch them, grow them and to reveal His goodness to them every day. You can find out and follow what they’re up to in their ministry on Facebook.
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