I'm not a 1, but I'll answer anyway. =)
How would you react to being called "vengeful" by someone close to you?
This happened to me recently. I was angry at someone, and was complaining to someone else, saying I thought that he had wronged me and betrayed me, and I would only forgive if he would grovel. Someone else pointed out to me that this was vengeful sadistic thinking; to expect someone to grovel when they're clearly going through a hard time and this is why they did things that felt like "betrayal" to me in the first place. She said I was only thinking about myself and not about the other person; failing to see it from his side. It was said to me as part of a long speech and in the manner of "dude, wake the fuck up, look at yourself." I actually started crying because I knew she was right. I'd been angrier and angrier, and I was so angry I was almost losing touch with reality, or perhaps seeing things in black and white rather than looking at the whole picture and the other person's point of view. When this was pointed out to me, plainly and clearly, my anger kind of "broke" into tears. I approached the other person in a much nicer way than I might have otherwise. And I thanked the person for pointing this out to me so boldly, and apologized if I'd made her uncomfortable. It was a heartfelt apology. I thought about myself for days, and it helped me to recognize some of the pitfalls of my own thinking and to see through myself. So, I will say that because it was the truth, I did not react badly, even in a moment of anger. The plain, straight declaration of the truth of my behavior was clear for me to see even when I was so far gone in anger.
I've had a hard time seeing sadism and vengeance in myself until recently. (And this makes sense because part of Type 8 is denial. What an 8 sees as practical and survivalist, can actually manifest in vengeful or sadistic thinking.) To me, I'm just doing what's practical and taking care of myself and refusing to let anyone take advantage of me or threaten me. I don't put up with abuse. I could not see my behavior as sadistic or vengeful without serious self-examination. So, in the past, had anyone called me vengeful, I probably would have shrugged it off and told them "Hmm? Me? Nope." And thought nothing of it. But now that I've seen it in myself I'd really rather not hear about it from people who don't actually experience my vengeance and anger, if that makes sense. If I open up to someone about my thoughts about myself or my enneatype, I'm trusting them with some of my deeper self-realizations, and I would feel disrespected if someone used this information and trust against me, or used it to make themselves seem better than me. But if it's just a discussion, I'm fine. It really depends on how I perceive the other person's motives.
How would you deal with being accused of a thing you consider unbecoming of you?
No matter what the thing is, I would probably handle it similarly to what I described above, but let me be specific:
- If I think you're correct about me but my behavior is unbecoming, I'd still thank you for pointing it out, and have the utmost respect for you for seeing through me, calling me on my bullshit, and having the balls to tell me. It's easy to stand up to your enemies or people you don't know, but telling a friend is harder; so I'd see that this person really cared about me, was brave, and had the balls to see through me and approach me. So, I might feel shitty inside, but I'd have nothing but warm feelings for the person who took the time to help me see through myself.
- If your presumption about my unbecoming behavior is based on something that I don't think is substantial, I'll probably explain my point of view if you're a friend, but if you won't listen and you continue holding on to the accusation, I might be distant for a while, because I don't like being misunderstood, misread, and told that I'm different than I am. In fact, it also turns me off if a person tells me I'm generous and amazing when I know I'm being a jerk. I want to keep it real, so to speak. The "becoming" or "unbecoming" part is almost irrelevant, except that when someone points out what's unbecoming about me, I recognize that this takes courage if they're trying to help me, but if they're doing it to one-up me or to make me feel bad, they're not worth my time. Their motives and tone are crucial. If someone says something bad about me and it's off-base, but I can see that they respect me and want to help me, I can chalk it up to a difference of opinion and forget about it quickly. If they approach me in a critical, judgemental way, and act like they're better than me, and look down on me or pity me or act like I ought to feel shame, it's simply not going to happen. I don't have any (conscious recognition of) shame, so trying to shame me will most likely lead to the other person feeling ashamed or moronic rather than me, because I simply will not be falling for it.
- If someone points out unbecoming behavior and I recognize it in myself, I will probably think about it a lot and try to understand why I do this and whether I should fight the compulsions and attempt to weed out the behavior. Contrarily if it's behavior I don't recognize in myself, the whole thing would just roll off at best, or at worst, I'll show you the error in your judgement.