[Type 6] What does security mean to you?

[fetus]

When you seek security, what does that mean? Physical or material security? Emotional security?

Here's something I wrote on my outside blog about possible 6w7 "anchoring." Wanted to know if the rest of you related.

I have mentioned that, in the past, I have had difficulties with attachment and abandonment. It’s because I cling. Anchors are intensely important to me. I am a free-spirit at heart, but I do not waver in my loyalty or values. I am unafraid of commitment; once I have found my anchor, I will wholeheartedly plunge myself into steadfast devotion. In my body, I may flit around some, but in my soul, I am unmovable. And Lord knows my soul, not my body, has rule over me.

Does security-seeking have to do with instinctual variant differences also? Sixes seem to be extremely varied, thus hard to describe, no? With wings, variants, and phobic vs. counterphobic, they can appear quite different. (My sister, a counterphobic 6w5, and me, a phobic 6w7 - though I don't mean to use my personal experience as truth). How would different flavors of 6 seek security in different ways?

 

[Thalassa]

When I was younger I didn't trust myself, which is a typical trait of 6, but as a counter phobic 6w7, I probably came across as a 7 to anyone who didn't know me intimately. ..in fact I saw a lot of people guessing 7 or 4 for me (and 4 is definitely my heart fix, I have that 4 "art is more important than people" streak sometimes, that exhibits itself as pretentiousness or envy or seemingly insane glamorous detour from my other core values) ...but as someone who finally became a long term life vegan in my 30s, who started trying to go vegan at 24, on and off, my behavior says more about my lack of trust in myself, my trust of conformity and childhood and security and traditional SJ stuff, than about the scientific facts of veganism, something of which I'm finally aware and informed. I would be vegan for months at a time, I actually alternated low carb and vegan a few years ago, until I was in the past year finally capable of staying true to my own convictions with scientific information. Some people could probably never fathom this, people who are 1s, especially, who were the sort of people who stopped consuming dairy products when they were thirteen living with omnivore parents.

I formed my identity at a young age by rebelling against what made me feel secure, instead of simply trusting myself. The lesson for all 6s, is to integrate to 9 to learn to just be and trust self and universe instead of a certain sub-set of institutions.

So how I learned to trust me was isolating myself from every thing or organization I trusted. This probably has also to do with me being an Fi type. I think a lot of 6s are either overly obedient or rebellious to the point of being self destructive.

It's also really helped me politically to look at the right and the left with an equally critical eye. This has isolated me even more from people, but in a much healthier way of self trust rather than pointless rebellion.

I think money makes me feel safe, and so do stable sexual or romantic relationships. ..but those things are also transitory and fleeting, which is why 6 ultimately has to trust themselves. I also feel a false sense of security in any artistic media I like from my childhood. ..old music, movies, novels, etc...I think that might be part of "trusting myself" though...like my own experience and preferences and ideas and generation.

 

[Kullervo]

When you seek security, what does that mean? Physical or material security? Emotional security?

Here's something I wrote on my outside blog about possible 6w7 "anchoring." Wanted to know if the rest of you related.

I have mentioned that, in the past, I have had difficulties with attachment and abandonment. It’s because I cling. Anchors are intensely important to me. I am a free-spirit at heart, but I do not waver in my loyalty or values. I am unafraid of commitment; once I have found my anchor, I will wholeheartedly plunge myself into steadfast devotion. In my body, I may flit around some, but in my soul, I am unmovable. And Lord knows my soul, not my body, has rule over me.

Does security-seeking have to do with instinctual variant differences also? Sixes seem to be extremely varied, thus hard to describe, no? With wings, variants, and phobic vs. counterphobic, they can appear quite different. (My sister, a counterphobic 6w5, and me, a phobic 6w7 - though I don't mean to use my personal experience as truth). How would different flavors of 6 seek security in different ways?

Everyone, IMO, seeks security to an extent in their own way, the question is why.

For Sixes it becomes a sine qua non of existence, they seek security for the sake of being secure. The most difficult emotion for a 6 to experience is therefore uncertainty, because it fuels their negative feedback loop of feeling unstable, rootless. Contrary to popular opinion, 6s do not always try and compensate through seeking out social structures, or an organized ideology which is very concrete (this seems like how FJ and TP 6s would behave, respectively).

You might feel a very strong connection to your partner, and have a "need" to be in a relationship, but again, why? Is it because you fear not being in one, or simply because you idealise romance?

Also what kind of emotions do you feel the most habitually; anxiety, anger, sadness, longing, pleasure? Do you even know?

 

[Yama]

I am a 9, but 6 is in my tritype. So take me answer not as a 6, but rather a 9 disintegrating into a 6 when unhealthy, for the most part.

Fetus, I TOTALLY relate to your blog snippet. I recently wrote about something similar in my blog on here.

Pretty much all of my confidence and stability rests in the hands of the people closest to me, and not myself. It's not something I can really help--but many times in my life, I have become close friends with people who have later abandoned and replaced me, or slowly drifted apart from me and forgotten me. I have the tendency to now put up barriers to emotionally protect myself from it happening again, and I am reluctant to pull down those walls for anyone. So my sense of security lies completely with those few people who are still with me after losing so many.

For for me, security is stability in my relationships. It might also heave an Si and 9 flavoring to it, but in order for me to feel stable, things need to be balanced, peaceful, and except for minor things, unchanging. When big changes in my life happen--for example, graduating high school and my world being turned upside down as I transitioned to college about 4 years ago--that was the biggest disintegration I ever experienced. I was an anxious wreck literally all the time, total unhealthy 9-gone-6. I imagine for a healthy 6, it would be a lot different.

 

[thoughtlost]

You also have to look at MBTI/cognitive functions.

I think an ISFJ 6 may look different than an ENFP 6.

 

[GIjade]

I have the tendency to now put up barriers to emotionally protect myself from it happening again, and I am reluctant to pull down those walls for anyone. So my sense of security lies completely with those few people who are still with me after losing so many.

Still with you. Are you sure. I hope they are, but it has been my experience that no one, I mean absolutely no one, is to be trusted. I went from finding out that my friends weren't really my friends, to finding out my family had been lying to me to finally having to find out, and live with the disbelief, that the few people left who I thought I would always be able to trust no matter what, were just like all the rest of them.

 

[Yama]

Still with you. Are you sure. I hope they are, but it has been my experience that no one, I mean absolutely no one, is to be trusted. I went from finding out that my friends weren't really my friends, to finding out my family had been lying to me to finally having to find out, and live with the disbelief, that the few people left who I thought I would always be able to trust no matter what, were just like all the rest of them.

I would be inclined to say that I am sure--but of course that's why I get hurt in the first place. I either give all of my trust to someone, or none of it. It is very hard for me to be halfway with people--it's all or nothing. I either love someone or I don't care about them. Not much of an in between. The ones that I have now, I have had for a very long time and think I have enough experiences with them to say that I truly do trust them--my best friend even saved me from getting hit by a car in a parking lot once. I talked about it in my blog a little bit, but what I'm really afraid of isn't my friends "breaking my trust" or anything--rather, I'm afraid that if I don't cling to them hard enough, we will gradually grow apart and they will forget about me. It's happened to me six times before. I guess I don't really learn lol

 

[GIjade]

I would be inclined to say that I am sure--but of course that's why I get hurt in the first place. I either give all of my trust to someone, or none of it. It is very hard for me to be halfway with people--it's all or nothing. I either love someone or I don't care about them. Not much of an in between. The ones that I have now, I have had for a very long time and think I have enough experiences with them to say that I truly do trust them--my best friend even saved me from getting hit by a car in a parking lot once. I talked about it in my blog a little bit, but what I'm really afraid of isn't my friends "breaking my trust" or anything--rather, I'm afraid that if I don't cling to them hard enough, we will gradually grow apart and they will forget about me. It's happened to me six times before. I guess I don't really learn lol

Oh, yeah, growing apart. I guess that's why I learned somewhere along the line not to get too attached in the first place. I'm not saying that's what you should do, but it's a concept that makes sense to me - the deeper the attachment to someone or something, the harder it is to have to let go. I do hope you keep these few friends that you have now, I hope they will always love and value you for all the uniqueness and special things you have to offer. I really do.

 

[Kullervo]

Every Enneatype has a negative feedback loop which drives poor mental health (this is one of the most useful aspects of the system, as you can easily incorporate it into CBT for example. I have done this myself).

This is a good one for Type 6, from 9types:

Basically the fear of being abandoned leads 6s to distrust others, which makes them avoid commitments and hence their fears grow ever greater, in extreme cases leading to full-blown paranoia. The way to break out is to confront the fear and take a risk. Likely as not, it won't be nearly as scary as you thought it would be.

Because I have gone out with a...rather unhealthy E6 (she was hot, but also crazy), and have a 6 fix myself, I have had to deal with these issues in all their ugly glory.

 

[sonickel77]

I've got a very strong 5 wing, so knowledge and physical withdrawal has = security for me. I've tended to see relationships as fraught with danger and destruction so I've avoided them, even made myself ugly with obesity and mannish dressing, to avoid male attention. Nevertheless I'm probably a sexual subtype, as I mistyped as 4 for 20 years, and strength (physical and mental) has been a very high value for me. Beauty I also adore, but more in terms of artistic creation and merging with nature, not so much in beautifying myself. That's slowly starting to change though.