The Head
A physical object, a symbol. Insofar as it relates to the body, the word “head” encompasses that extremity that generally sits at the top when one is standing or walking. Before we become bipedal, the head is that part that guides our movement—we move toward the head, crawl toward the head.
The head contains four major sensory apparatuses—the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth—encompassing the majority of our interface with the outer world. Thus it is tempting to prioritize head-based information.
The head also holds the brain, which we understand currently to direct our primary capacities to organize and enact movement, direct internal autonomic processes, process information and language, and execute the will. In history, in other cultural contexts, the seat of the personality and will might be in another organ, but today we situation it entirely in the brain, in the head.
In a culture that further values analysis, thought, logic, reason, timekeeping, and language, and situate all these functions in the left hemisphere of the brain, the head becomes the most important part of the body. Everything else in the body exists to serve and support the head—though all the rest of the body requires its own maintenance, and has a lot of sensations to offer as well.
When the head feels unsafe in the body—due to perceive threats and overwhelming sensation—we retreat into these linear capacities of the mind. Anxiety is both process and result of this retreat—attempting to meaningfully construct security safety in a world that feels unsafe. We go up into the lighthouse tower and look down, trying to make a plan to make it safe to go back downstairs, but unable to execute it because it’s too unsafe to go downstairs.
At this moment, culturally and economically, head-based activity seems to be more highly depended upon and more highly rewarded. Tech developers spend hours in front of a computer in their heads, and at times struggle to remember they have hearts or bodies that need attention.
Organizationally, the head is the leadership, the organizing structure, the directing structure, that which coheres all the parts of the body into an integrated whole. Yet within this hierarchical metaphor, the head easily becomes detached from the conditions on the ground and might prioritize cold rational choices on issues of principle or profit. We do not have to look at the head for this purpose, we could easily (and informally do) look to what is the “heart” of the organization, or further we could contemplate the center of gravity. Both of these concepts, arising from named functions of the body, have qualities of organization and coordinating homeostasis.
The Enneagram is one system of personality, one arising from esoteric and contemplative traditions rather than empirical scientific analysis, that looks to these three organizing centers as predominant in the personality. There are nine personalities organized in three triads. The head triad—5, 6, and 7, all share fear as a predominant trait. Fear, again, in a relationship of circular causality with the mind. We retreat to the mind out of fear, our gaze narrows, we have a hard focus on what the head can perceive and mistrust in the wisdom and instincts of the body. Because the head removes itself from relationship with the body and environment, fear increases. Thus the fear compels one to analyze to death, run toward or away from the fear, or simply turn around and have as much fun as possible to drown out the fear.
8, 9, and 1 would be the triad most associated with the body, its center of gravity in the gut. In these, sensory information and instinct drive much activity. The predominant trait is anger, that which arises from frustrated impulses and unmet needs, the anger of wanting a thing right now and not being able to have it. Thus the anger compels one to push forward, numb out, or become rigid and exacting.
2, 3, and 4 are the triad associated with the heart. In these, image, connection, and relationship drive much activity. The predominant trait is shame, that which arises from feeling rejected by others and an innate sense of one’s badness and unacceptability while longing desperately for acceptance and inclusion. The shame compels one to create elaborate romantic fantasies and a unique sense of self that seems not to care about acceptance, to go the other direction and bend one’s self into the most successful and acceptable image in any community, or to make sure that one is needed by fostering dependence from others.
The trick with all personality systems is that we each have all the capacities and experiences within us, but certain tendencies and problems are exaggerated and imbalanced. Thus those whose personalities are centered in one particular organizing principle do well to get access to, develop, and align themselves with the other two. Rational analysis works well in connection to gut instinct and the heart’s reconciling and connecting wisdom.
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