Fine Distinctions - Nines (Tom Condon)

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Self Preservation Nines

• Often preoccupied with physical comfort, maintaining routines and satisfying appetites.
• Exceptionally good receivers and appreciators; the best things in life are free
• Grateful for what they have and treasure it
• Can be reliable, dependable and consistent
• Specialize in a defense of small horizons
• Self Preservation Nines are especially prone to diminish their own expectations, to not quite hope for much out of life-a defense against disappointment
• Could be financially well-off but have a self-image of someone poor or destitute
• Distract themselves with pleasant domestic activities. Live conservatively
• Consume food and drink for anaesthesia. Tend towards addiction, especially to numbing substances, smoking pot, overeating to the point of stupor
• Can have a love of the minimal and enjoy the repetition of known routines
• Sleepy; may be slow moving, lack energy and be physically lazy
• The cliche of the couch potato goes with the low side of this subtype
• Can be extremely neglectful and messy
• A spaced out, unfocused mentality; lack of rigor
• No enthusiasm for anything; life is purgatorial, just killing time

Intimate Nines

• Loyal in love; patient and enduring; able to stay steady in long term relationships
• Realistically see their partners limits but accept them
• Good listeners; supportive non-judgmental friends

• Often focused on an unconscious ideal of romantic union
• Nines with this subtype are sometimes mistaken for Fours because of the way they can melancholically yearn for what they don’t have

• May have high expectations of romantic partners and be prone to jealousy
• Often this dynamic represents a yearning for a distant parent
• The ideal of romantic union blocks out the real relationship. It is a way of staying disengaged from your priorities, a distracting obsession

• Find their attractiveness and self-worth in how others see them
• May idealize people while deleting their flaws; could tolerate being mistreated or abused
• Can be fickle in love. After committing to a relationship they can grow critical of their partner and develop a wandering eye
• Indiscriminate; might have multiple serial relationships, searching from one person to the next, obsessing about whether their current partner is “the right one”
• Some Intimate Nines get involved with two partners and can’t decide between them, a pattern of triangulation
• Can be romantic on the one hand, callous on the other
• Sometimes feel driven by lust, especially when the have an Eight wing

Social Nines

• Nine with this subtype enjoy group process and will work hard to facilitate a group purpose or mission
• Don’t seek the limelight but could be a group’s leader
• Could feel like the group’s emissary; no better or worse than those they represent

• Especially able to mediate, to speak to all sides in a conflict and find common ground between warring parties
• Gravitate toward groups but feel conflicted about fully joining them
• Enjoy a group’s energy and interests but are aware of the group‘s expectations

• Can lose themselves, immersing themselves in a group, trying to become all things to all people
• May play the role expected of them but stubbornly resent it
• Could also use the group as a barrier to keep the Nine from facing her own priorities

• Can get caught up in hyperactivity – a stronger connection to Three goes with this subtype. Often more extraverted and image conscious
• Rarely physically lazy. They can be very busy and active but asleep to their deeper priorities and needs

• Generally more cheerful and extroverted and may be mistyped as Sevens
• Can act spoiled and broadcast an implicit attitude of privilege, although this is otherwise inconsistent with Nine temperament
• An odd combination of self-importance and egolessness. Internally they struggle with feeling unseen, but outwardly they seek attention
• Beneath the adulation they received as children, they felt ignored for who they actually were

Connecting Points
Nine with an Eight Wing

• Healthy Nines with an Eight wing have a modest, steady, receptive quality
• Charged by the dynamism of Eight; can have great energy and force of will
• Get things done, make good leaders and have a personal magnetism of which they are only partly aware
• This wing brings a stronger internal sense of direction; when they decide on a path of action they may be impossible to influence
• Relatively fearless and highly intuitive; take their work seriously but not themselves
• Good friend to others, offers a protective quality. Sympathize with underdogs
• Not very visual but the connection to Three can modify this somewhat
• May seem laconic and laid-back on the surface but that belies a deeper intensity
• Can be surprisingly tactless, rude or gauche and be oblivious to the fact • Some Nines with an Eight wing aren’t conscious of being afraid-their connection to Six. Pave over their fears with aggression and numb callousness
• Might surround themselves with fearful people, say, a nervous dependent Six whom the Nine then rescues. Can have savior complexes • May displace their anger; pick a fight about something peripheral-not what’s really bothering them; Sometimes behind the anger is a tearful vulnerability
• Could be amiable, kindly and supportive one minute and then blunt, opinionated or nasty the next. A Jekyll/Hyde quality

• Prone to blame and to mishandling their anger; while not exactly vengeful they can be vindictive. An anti-authoritarian streak is also possible

Nine with a One Wing

• Nines with a One wing tend to have been “model children.” They instinctively worked to please their parents by being virtuous, orderly, and low maintenance
• Idealistic; a quiet moral authority plus good-hearted peacemaking tendencies
• Often have a sense of mission, public or private; work hard for the welfare of whomever they are committed to. Good with detail
• Unpretentious yet dignified; generally empathetic, have the “common touch;” An elegant simplicity of manner and speech
• Can be well-liked, modest, endearing; gentle yet firm. Some have a striking quality of grace and composure punctuated by bursts of spontaneity and sweetness
• Sincere, practice what they preach; effective, good natured and idealistic.
• Rule-bound, obedient/compliant; perfectionistic and self-critical
• Can be compulsively orderly, overly controlled, unemotional and disassociated
• Can act on weird principles that don’t make sense; A dubious, fractured morality
• May be visibly successful but don’t really feel connected to their achievements
• Passive tolerance of absurd or damaging situations; so normal they’re strange
• Exceptionally conservative in their habits of living and around making changes
• May go passively self-neglectful. Dutiful to what they shouldn’t be
• Minimize, tell themselves they had a great childhood, everything’s fine
• Placid numbness can creep over them. exceptionally out of touch with feelings. Intolerant of their own emotions; gradually deaden their souls

Nine’s Connection to Six

• This connection brings Nines courage. Where healthy Sixes develop the courage to do, Nines find the courage to be.

• The connection can usefully shake up a Nine’s complacency. It helps Nines challenge their fears and take risks, expose the inner self that they usually disguise and efface
• The connection to Six brings tenacity and stamina – a willingness to see things through, to work faithfully away at tasks and commitments with a committed perseverance.

• Brings an idealism, sense of responsibility that stirs the Nine to action.
• Realistic, more able to acknowledge what can go wrong. If Nines tend to minimize and Sixes exaggerate. unable to ignore being upset, useful self- doubt
• Sixish Nines can have a nervous, scatterbrained quality. They can overanticipate events, start to doubt themselves and think in anxious, obsessive loops
• Distract themselves from seeing the obvious or taking useful action.
• Can seem agitated and frightened in a beside-the-point way
• The Nine’s laziness about personal priorities is reinforced by the Six tendency to procrastinate. Sixes postpone taking any action, while Nines put off taking right action
• Sixish Nines can go in nervous busy circles. thinking about a problem or a decision extra hard while getting more and more confused and obsessive
• Can be risk-aversive, afraid of making mistakes that might provoke conflict.
• Obedient to authority and a sense of tradition
• Might hand over responsibility for decisions to others and then blame the others if the decisions don’t turn out well
• Can be cowardly and may run away from conflict or be undependable under stress or duress
• Anti-authoritarian attitudes especially with an Eight wing
• An episodic experience of fear-a Nine could have anxiety attacks followed by months when the Nine is not conscious of feeling fear at all

Nine’s Connection to Three

• Brings Nines a kind of clarity of the heart
• They can suddenly see and prioritize on their own behalf. They take decisive deliberate steps towards personal goals. brings energy, industry, action and purpose

• This connection supports a steady persistence. Focused Nines are unstoppable
• A stepwise strategy for taking action and completing tasks in the real world
• This connection also helps Nines with appropriate social presentation. They are more willing to dress up and voluntarily play roles in the service of goals. They can also have a sense of propriety, be well-groomed and have good manners
• Healthy Threeish Nines can find freedom in role playing and the connection to Three can bring acting abilities as well as a talent for mimicry
• Distinct tendencies towards role-playing and hyperactivity as a distraction from their basic sense of non-being. A busy form of self- neglect, an active laziness
• Threeish Nines can go false and be defined by a milieu, playing roles based on the expectations of others
• May be vain, enjoy being mistaken for an image or indulge in episodic show-off behavior
• Nines can be fascinated by or obsessed with Three-like falseness in others; may want to root out fraudulence in others and tear it down
• In Threeish cultures (America) or subcultures (corporations) Nines can feel extra pressure to succeed and achieve-which they may then accommodate or sabotage
• They may be ambitious although often they are acting out someone else’s ambition. Can be chosen to fulfill the family’s unfulfilled wished and dreams.
• This connection supports a prince or princess-like quality and Threeish Nines can act entitled.
• Can fluctuate between high and low self-esteem; underneath their image, a Nine may feel indefinite, insignificant and depressingly unworthy.