Image Types (2, 3, & 4) & Their Inner Experience
As an image type whatever you are doing, you are not fully embodied or immersed in the experience. It’s as if you can see yourself from all angles from outside of yourself at all times. Like you’re watching the movie of you… This is why I say that image types cannot be raw and unfiltered. Because they are not unfiltered to even themselves. They experience themselves as a thing which can be seen, not as a thing that IS. They’re hyper aware of how each and every thing they’re doing looks from the outside because these images play before them simultaneously as they do it. This doesn’t always equate to vanity or being polished (though it can), but it does mean that there is something rather removed about their presence such that they can feel unreal.
I’ll share a rather cringe example to further illustrate… when I was at the beach I was running into the ocean… and a wave began to break sooner than anticipated which caused me to need to jump and turn my head back toward the shore. The images that played before me as I did this were scenes from all angles as I did my pirouette into the sea. I was aware of how this move looked to the people in the ocean as well as those along the shore. I could see it all and my movements were created & adjusted instantly to match the movie playing before me. As you can see in this example, this all happens quite quickly because the wave did not wait for any director instructions.
Prior to discovering enneagram, I never gave much thought to this experience of myself because it’s what I assumed was just a human experience. It’s like asking a fish, “how does it feel to swim?” The fish never knew it was swimming it thought it was just living in the sea.