Reach Out

#4: Niklas Wilkens, Type 2 – The Inner Hope Machine, Power Tripping as "Super Jesus," and Seeing Through Ego Pride (SO/SP 2w3 269)

Niklas Wilkens is a humanistic depth psychologist practicing in Germany, and he’s been working with the Enneagram for 14 years, although only 2 years ago realized that he was an Enneagram 2. Niklas honestly blew me away with his very personal and high resolution description of his 2-ness (despite mistyping as a 5 for 11 years!). We get into why 2 is a rejection type, the "inner hope machine," why 2s can come across as creepy, and what it took for him to start really seeing himself. Really (really) good stuff.

Read his blog: https://liebeundklarheit.com

Want to work with Niklas? Email him at: [email protected]

Watch our convo on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/BAfEVPXSuL8

In this conversation, we get into some REALLY good stuff:

- Realizing I thought my type was “universal," & how mistyping influences the value you see in the enneagram and the way you think of typology in general
- Realizing I was a 2, shaking and crying, no longer being able to delude myself that I was coming from a purely selfless, loving place
- 2 as a rejection type, not attachment type; “the hope machine” — I don’t believe being loved is possible, but I’m going go out to you anyway, hoping it reflects back to me
- what happens when someone tries to love me, to pierce through my own hopelessness
- what happens when the “image” is pierced through and shattered, and the most sensitive part of you is exposed
- The realization that there is an autonomous heart organ underneath my image
- The trouble of organizing birthdays, when I don’t have anything to offer other than myself
- Watching myself as a 2 therapist — the compulsion to move into others’ psychological space; sensing the other person’s readiness for the work; the beauty of seeing others’ vulnerability
- The heart nourishment of mattering to someone in therapy; when someone’s vulnerability is exposed, it matters how I treat you (in contrast to “the world” where people are numb)
- Watching for when I’m using clients as evidence for my hope machine. “If I can help this person, maybe all is not lost. And maybe my interventions (which “are me”) work!
- Power tripping as “Super Jesus,” the “power of love,”
- Contact with Essential Love when someone really does see me
- 2s talk about doing something out of selflessness, they’re usually honest, since that’s all they’re aware of (!)
- not seeing the contradiction between being selfless and morally indignant that my efforts aren’t reciprocated
- the path to ego transparency — marshall rosenberg & NVC; being with spontaneous emotions that aren’t necessarily shaped by my image with therapist help; - the vigilance of image types
- 2s being creepy & the pressure they put on you to reciprocate; “leverage”

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Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Coma-Media: https://pixabay.com/users/coma-media-24399569/
Pixabay:
https://pixabay.com/