Another very significant feature of my early personality was a pronounced isolation. I don’t remember having a single personal friend until my military days. Friendship almost bounced off me, perhaps because in the working-class environment I grew up in there was nothing that could really stimulate my true nature. I almost always felt different. It makes sense today, however, that I was so isolated, since the 1 and the 6 often prefer to be alone rather than adapt to their surroundings. The 1 in particular has a great inherent need for freedom, and will rarely compromise.
Another significant theme has been the experiences of major inner conflicts, that is, a difficult temperament with strong emotional reactions if I felt dominated or was subjected to injustice. The emotional reactions could often not be played out, because the demand for self-control (the 1’er) was always massively present. However, the first 3 years of my elementary school I often had physical fights with other boys at school. It was almost natural to fight, it was something boys did, but it naturally increased the isolation. It was clear that I was strong and good at fighting, which is expressed in my 1’er body. However, that pattern stopped abruptly when I lost a fight at school to a stronger boy and was humiliated by the defeat. At that moment, the 1’er in me stepped into character, and chose a different path to the top by being the fastest and sharpest in the line (1’er mental). The fear of humiliation is one of the 1’s biggest limitations because it wants to be the strongest or at the top of the food chain.
Military service made it possible to channel all my aggression and frustrations into a constructive expression. The relatively harsh discipline, and not least the approach to destructive weapons, gave me an experience of being able to handle the energies in my nature. People who have not been in the military will probably have difficulty understanding what it does to the personality when you receive training in the different types of weapons. In my opinion, it gives a form of trust in some of the most primary energies in the personality when you learn to handle weapons. Shooting training gives the ability to be calm and focused in order to hit the target. The first time you throw a hand grenade, you have to develop confidence that it will not blow up in your face when you pull the safety and throw it. When you fire an anti-tank rocket or the cannon on a tank, you get access to the same primary destructive energy.
I don’t want to glamorize life in the military, and most of us probably wish we didn’t need the military. But it was a good experience for me at the time that helped to give direction to my life, even though it could in no way solve my deeper psychological problems. When I look back on this time, the discovery of energy psychology in particular has given me a much deeper understanding and acceptance of my basic energies and the problems I have struggled with. It has made it much easier to understand both my positive qualities such as determination, idealism and hard work (1’s and 6’s). But of course also the dark sides such as self-sufficiency (1’s), a fiery temperament (6’s), and a deep dissatisfaction with my personality because it does not live up to my high ideals (6’s).
Military service gave me something to believe in, it motivated me to discipline my nature and gather my resources around becoming a good soldier. It is clear that those 5 years were the first step in a long process of gathering my personality through idealism, commitment and activism. I truly believed in the project – to defend Denmark and the free world, but typical of this phase in life where you build your personality, it also happened for me in a very unbalanced way.
Collapse and breakup
In the years from when I was 17 to 22, there was no question of going to psychotherapy or reflecting deeply on my own nature. It was a period when I was often deeply unhappy, especially about my absent love life. In the military, I made my first real friends, but inside I was often depressed without being able to share it with anyone. I developed an ability to isolate myself, and went through the processes alone. A condition that often comes with a strong 1 is that you have to stand up on your own. I had also built up a massive defense system (1) so that no woman could gain access to my vulnerability (6). However, behind my hard facade hid a devoted and romantic heart that belongs to my 6 nature. This made it impossible to open up to a love relationship, even though I did not lack opportunities, but there was almost a glass wall between me and my surroundings. During these years, I also developed severe acne with boils on my face, which made me even more vulnerable and reinforced my fear of humiliation if someone were to ridicule me for that reason.
It goes without saying that when your personality is composed equally of the 1 and the 6, there is a violent conflict between the two energy types. In my younger years, it was the need for self-control and a cool facade (the 1) that fought with the need for romantic passionate devotion (the 6). It was only when I met my first girlfriend at the age of 21 that the cork came off the bottle, and out poured a lifetime of repressed emotions. A great romantic infatuation combined with an uncontrollable wave of unhappiness washed through me. It turned my life upside down, because I completely lost self-control due to the strong pent-up emotions.
The relationship lasted a few years, and the end of it triggered my first major existential crisis, which meant that I could no longer live behind my isolated facade (the 1st). Something new had to happen, and in a strange way, I left the military in a short time at the age of 24, moved from Næstved to Copenhagen, and went to college. It was a complete identity transformation that took place over the next few years.
From soldier to New Age follower: Personality version 2.0
A whole new energy now entered my life, and it was about understanding and developing my EMOTIONAL LIFE (6’s personality and emotions). It was clear that I was waking up to my repressed emotions and my social phobias, and that I was living in a shell that I had to get out of. The most important change during that period was that I got a whole new social life with people who were interested in astrology and self-development. I let go of life in Næstved and everyone I knew; I knew instinctively that I had to free myself from old influences in order to be able to carry out a major identity shift. The mental 1’s gives the ability to let go and chop down bonds with the mental axe to create greater freedom.
At college, there were courses in astrology and parapsychology that lit a fire in me that I had never experienced before. When I encountered astrology, I knew what the rest of my life would be about, because it gave me a key to understanding who I was and what I had the potential to become. It was once again the 6 that drove the process with a burning interest, supported by my dynamic mentality that made me ambitious and goal-oriented. But it was also the first contact with my essence (the 2), because astrology opened up to a cosmological wisdom that gave me an understanding that I was part of a greater whole.
My primary commitment in life was still egocentric, and it was primarily about freeing myself from the prison of uncertainty I lived in. In short, I woke up to the multiple conflicts that lived in my being, but now I began to do something about them. The years until I turned 29 were primarily focused on studying astrology, meditating and going to psychotherapy. I still had no significant education, and therefore I lived off odd jobs in the construction industry and as a cleaning assistant in a kindergarten. I came from a working-class environment, and was used to doing hard manual labor. There was nothing in my upbringing that could stimulate my ambitious 1’s, other than the will to fend for myself. It had begun to become humiliating for my 1’s to do hard physical labor, but this was offset by the fact that I had begun to identify with the alternative universe that I was increasingly involved with. That’s why it worked for me, and it was the first period in my life where I started to like myself a little.
When I was 25, I sat down to meditate for the first time, and it was like coming home. Meditation taught me that I could change my unhappy emotional states by visualizing a sun in my chest that radiated with spacious acceptance. For the first time in my life, I found a place inside where there was love, and so meditation became a self-healing, a place where I gathered strength and could transform myself from the inside out.
What drove this process was my need to experience love (2-6’s) and to be completely free to be myself (1’s). The introverted part of the 6 was activated through the meditation, and my inner mystic slowly faded out. In the meditations, I experienced spontaneous openings to love energies that were unconditional, and they liberated my vulnerable nature in love. In the first years, a deep love for Christ broke through, which seemed completely natural to me, even though I grew up in an atheistic home.
From New Age to missionary in social psychiatry
My 6 personality became increasingly focused on developing myself through my daily meditation practice, psychotherapy and studies in astrology and spiritual science. In 1991, my personality gained a new focus when I started training as a social educator. It is safe to say that it was something of a culture shock for me to step into a relatively left-wing universe. One must remember that it was not long ago that I was a flaming right-wing nationalist soldier who hated communists and other left-wing people.
It was as if I had gone to the enemy’s camp, and yet not, because I had gradually put my identification with my past behind me. I had become a vegetarian, did not touch alcohol, practiced meditation and new age philosophy, so the education was just a natural step into a completely new identity. From one extreme to the other, again a completely classic development pattern for an immature 6 personality.
Throughout the 90s I stabilized my personality. I started a family for the first time, and became heavily involved in social policy in connection with my work with the mentally ill. I initiated a nationwide magazine for psychiatric users, written and produced by them themselves. This, along with my involvement in Theosophy, a cosmological and spiritual philosophy, were the main focal points of my life.
The 6 personality was still in the driver’s seat, because I was an activist missionary for my two heart causes. I was fairly single-minded and a little fanatical in my approach to what I believed in. However, many good things came out of that, even though it was unbalanced. In the years around the turn of the millennium, another big shift occurred. I had a daughter and had to develop a completely new identity as a father, which was good for me, because it made me more soft and listening.
I left Theosophy after a crisis in the community I was a part of. I was deeply disappointed and disillusioned by the inability to live the ideals we preached. It was an event that made me decide that I would never, ever identify with a religion or a philosophy. I still valued many of the values and insights that were part of Theosophy, including the philosophy of the seven rays. But I realized the limitations of being trapped in a particular philosophy. I needed to be much more flexible and think for myself. In a sense, it was the missionary in me that died, but not the activist. Both archetypes are strongly influenced by the 6’s need to advocate for a cause of the heart.
The missionary dies, but the counselor is born
It was also during those years that I changed from an identification with the qualities of the 6 to that of the 2. I decided, based on this crisis, that I had to further my education and go on an intensive psychotherapeutic course. I therefore began training as a psychotherapist in Psychosynthesis, and completed it with an MA at a university in London. This made me the first in my family to receive an academic degree, another clear example of the 1, but also the 6 who, as a pattern breaker, often creates new tracks.
I also changed careers during these years. I left social psychiatry and started my own business as a coach, teacher, and later psychotherapist. It was clear that my focus shifted inside, because I came under the influence of a completely new energy. The psychotherapeutic work opened me up to a much more intimate, calm and accommodating part of me. I became more embracing in my philosophical stance, was more experience-oriented and down to earth. It is clear to me today that it was my 2’s essence that paved the way for my full-time work as a psychotherapist and teacher of psychology and meditation. I became better able to master the passionate energies, so it is me who rides the horse and not the horse that rides with me.
What the sensitive life energy brings with it in my case is a much greater awareness and insight into the psychological universe we live in. It stimulates me to find a center of calm and presence within myself, where I can be in sensitive contact with myself and my surroundings. However, it is still a daily struggle to conquer this calm, loving, observant being, because again and again the fire from my personality types (6-161) flares up and temporarily throws me off balance.
Let me give a few examples of how my energy types are in conflict with each other, and what I must do to harmonize them and get my body, emotions, and thoughts to cooperate with my essence.
In my writing, I am often challenged by the reactions of my dedicated and passionate emotional life. I can get so excited about the ideas and insights I am describing that I cannot continue writing because I become too emotional. My solar plexus starts to seethe and bubble, and I have to go for a walk to let off steam. This is very inappropriate, because it destroys the creative flow of the writing process. I therefore have to continuously intervene in my reactions, and let go of the disturbing emotions by breathing through them and calming them. I observe them in a loving and impersonal way, and ask them to relax. This is an example of how I can intervene in the disturbing passion of the 6 using the sensitive energies of the 2.
Another problem with the writing process is that I sometimes create such an intense focus that I run over my bodily and emotional signals. I write regardless of how I feel, and I force the words through and onto the paper. After a few days of doing this, I start to get clear stress symptoms: irritation, tension, and a feeling that I am no longer in touch with the gentle feelings. This is an example of how the dynamic mind can force its agenda through sheer willpower. It is extremely unproductive, because at some point I have to give up the writing process for a few days because my nervous system is completely exhausted. These are clear examples of how too much intensity and force creates problems.
I like to say with a humorous twinkle in my eye that my life project is about getting my wise and sensitive nature to express itself through a tank. This is not an easy project.
When humor, spontaneity and openness polish the personality
This brings me to my final point, which is the necessity of integrating some of the other energy types into one’s expression. We always have all seven life energies at our disposal – an essential point to make. At some point in 2012, I came to the conclusion that I needed to strengthen my connection to the creative and spontaneous energies of the 4. I felt that I was still too stiff, inhibited and one-track in my personal expression. These are of course obvious consequences of having the energy typology I am endowed with. I therefore decided that I would put everything I had into developing a more spontaneous, easy and relaxed personality.
When we know the energy universe of energy psychology and the methods for working with energy, we can begin to shape our personality as we want it. That is, within the framework of the type composition we have, but there are very large possibilities for adding strong facets from the other types. It all depends on how much effort you are prepared to make.
I reorganized my meditation practice so that I meditated for a long time on the psychological qualities of the number 4. Using visualizations of inner images of beauty and harmony, I came into contact with the qualities of grace and playful lightness. Every time we experience the energy, appreciate it and let it fill our being, we gradually build the qualities into our personal psychology. In this way, we can create a new atmosphere and behavior, and this is actually the core of Eastern yoga philosophy. Or to put it in a Christian perspective: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
However, there is always a price to pay, a challenge that arises when we seek to change qualities and behavioral habits. In my case, this meant that the opposites of this open and playful energy arose in my being, especially when I had to live it out in my encounters with the outside world. For example, I experienced a hardening fear of letting people get closer to me in public. I worked on these reactions in a long-term psychotherapeutic process, and in this way I was helped to let go of some of my defense mechanisms. How strong an inner resistance we experience depends on how high a goal we set for ourselves.
I also started going to yoga three times a week because my body was stiff as a board and not very graceful or mobile. The physical yoga is a form of movement that has many of the energies of the 4 in it, as it leads to physical and mental balance and harmony. I practiced yoga over a two-year period, and the result was amazing, because my body changed significantly and became much more flexible and well-coordinated. It also affected my emotional life to be with the other yoga practitioners because I almost sucked their energy into me. The people who practice yoga are often small, slender and graceful people who radiate the lightness and grace that I myself needed.
During these years I participated in several courses where the focus was dance, authentic relationships and intimacy, something that was extremely borderline for my personality type. It is the balance between the inner work and the changed behavior among people that creates the fastest transformation. I therefore sought out social environments with people who had strong 4’s energies, which was also quite challenging because they are far more physical and intimacy-seeking than my being is used to.
The result of all these efforts was a completely new way of being in life. It changed the way I taught, which became much more experience-oriented and bodily. By integrating the qualities of the 4, I became much more expressive and relational. This made it easier for my 2 essence to be expressed in my personality.
It also changed my love life, because in 2015 I met Karianne, who is now my wife, my soulmate and life partner. The love we share, and which I only now had the opportunity to open up to, has strengthened my ability to be both present, vulnerable and strong.
I am still on a journey to balance my energy type composition with the other life energies, but I have now found the color palette that I can decorate my personality with. That way I have even more to give, and as mentioned earlier, our greatest gift is to give who we are to the world .
Do you want to know more about energy psychology and its energy types?
Here you can buy the book : Energy Psychology – Your Energy Types – Your Psychological DNA
Here you can read the in-depth article about Energy Psychology.
An energy psychology biography – my life with energy types
By Kenneth Sørensen, the article is included in the book Energy Psychology and maybe
It is assumed that you have a basic knowledge of the energy types before you get the full benefit of this article, therefore I would recommend that you first read: Energy Psychology and the Seven Energy Types
The purpose of this article is to inspire you to explore your personal energy psychology and experience how revolutionary it can be for your self-understanding and your insight into others.
We do not see reality as it is, but as we ourselves are. That is, we perceive ourselves and others through a filter that can be more or less blurred. Energy psychology is a lens through which you can see the entire psychological spectrum of being human – and in a way that no other psychological theory can. It allows you to act more wisely and authentically because you understand and accept more.
Therefore, in this article I will strive to inspire you to implement energy psychology in your everyday life. I will do this by telling you how I have personally experienced my type composition and what I have done to bring my psychological DNA to life.
It is only when we translate psychological theory into practice that we understand whether there is a real reality behind the theory. We must remember that a theory is not reality. A good theory only points to phenomena that must be discovered and experienced when we observe, study and experiment with it in practice.
So let me take you on a journey to my youth and show you how my energy types unfolded, without me even realizing that this was actually what was happening.
In the military, my 6 personality takes shape
When I was 17, I signed a contract with the army as a professional soldier. This was the beginning of a 5-year stint in the army’s combat troops, first as an infantryman, then as a tank gunner, and finally as a scout in a tank squadron. I also participated in a one-year mission as a UN soldier in Cyprus, and the whole process helped shape my first budding personality.
It was a good time, and I felt in my element, because at the time I was a right-wing nationalist who wanted to defend my homeland against the communist threat from the East. This was before the fall of the wall, and the Cold War was in full swing, which gave free rein to my passionate commitment.
Today it is clear to me that it was my 6 personality that woke up, because it was the first time that I experienced a direction in my life, something I could dedicate myself to and believe in. It was also a very insecure and vulnerable young man who enlisted. My dedicated and passionate emotional life (the 6) had had a very difficult time expressing itself in the years leading up to my enlistment.
I had entrenched myself in a tough and isolated male role, where there was no room for emotions, and where I spent a lot of effort suppressing my vulnerable and sensitive sides. Today I can see that this preoccupation with self-control and fear of humiliation (because it was shameful to show emotions) was created by my dynamic mentality (the 1). I clearly remember that the literature I was most interested in in my teenage years was war literature or westerns. They conveyed the same black-and-white image of the man as a tough hero who took the lives of the bad guys. It is not surprising that this particular stereotype appealed strongly to me, when you see that my entire personality is dominated by 6-161 – in other words, a strong dominance of the will function, which is also included in the 6.
Another very significant feature of my early personality was a pronounced isolation. I don’t remember having a single personal friend until my military days. Friendship almost bounced off me, perhaps because in the working-class environment I grew up in there was nothing that could really stimulate my true nature. I almost always felt different. It makes sense today, however, that I was so isolated, since the 1 and the 6 often prefer to be alone rather than adapt to their surroundings. The 1 in particular has a great inherent need for freedom, and will rarely compromise.
Another significant theme has been the experiences of major inner conflicts, that is, a difficult temperament with strong emotional reactions if I felt dominated or was subjected to injustice. The emotional reactions could often not be played out, because the demand for self-control (the 1’er) was always massively present. However, the first 3 years of my elementary school I often had physical fights with other boys at school. It was almost natural to fight, it was something boys did, but it naturally increased the isolation. It was clear that I was strong and good at fighting, which is expressed in my 1’er body. However, that pattern stopped abruptly when I lost a fight at school to a stronger boy and was humiliated by the defeat. At that moment, the 1’er in me stepped into character, and chose a different path to the top by being the fastest and sharpest in the line (1’er mental). The fear of humiliation is one of the 1’s biggest limitations because it wants to be the strongest or at the top of the food chain.
Military service made it possible to channel all my aggression and frustrations into a constructive expression. The relatively harsh discipline, and not least the approach to destructive weapons, gave me an experience of being able to handle the energies in my nature. People who have not been in the military will probably have difficulty understanding what it does to the personality when you receive training in the different types of weapons. In my opinion, it gives a form of trust in some of the most primary energies in the personality when you learn to handle weapons. Shooting training gives the ability to be calm and focused in order to hit the target. The first time you throw a hand grenade, you have to develop confidence that it will not blow up in your face when you pull the safety and throw it. When you fire an anti-tank rocket or the cannon on a tank, you get access to the same primary destructive energy.
I don’t want to glamorize life in the military, and most of us probably wish we didn’t need the military. But it was a good experience for me at the time that helped to give direction to my life, even though it could in no way solve my deeper psychological problems. When I look back on this time, the discovery of energy psychology in particular has given me a much deeper understanding and acceptance of my basic energies and the problems I have struggled with. It has made it much easier to understand both my positive qualities such as determination, idealism and hard work (1’s and 6’s). But of course also the dark sides such as self-sufficiency (1’s), a fiery temperament (6’s), and a deep dissatisfaction with my personality because it does not live up to my high ideals (6’s).
Military service gave me something to believe in, it motivated me to discipline my nature and gather my resources around becoming a good soldier. It is clear that those 5 years were the first step in a long process of gathering my personality through idealism, commitment and activism. I truly believed in the project – to defend Denmark and the free world, but typical of this phase in life where you build your personality, it also happened for me in a very unbalanced way.
Collapse and breakup
In the years from when I was 17 to 22, there was no question of going to psychotherapy or reflecting deeply on my own nature. It was a period when I was often deeply unhappy, especially about my absent love life. In the military, I made my first real friends, but inside I was often depressed without being able to share it with anyone. I developed an ability to isolate myself, and went through the processes alone. A condition that often comes with a strong 1 is that you have to stand up on your own. I had also built up a massive defense system (1) so that no woman could gain access to my vulnerability (6). However, behind my hard facade hid a devoted and romantic heart that belongs to my 6 nature. This made it impossible to open up to a love relationship, even though I did not lack opportunities, but there was almost a glass wall between me and my surroundings. During these years, I also developed severe acne with boils on my face, which made me even more vulnerable and reinforced my fear of humiliation if someone were to ridicule me for that reason.
It goes without saying that when your personality is composed equally of the 1 and the 6, there is a violent conflict between the two energy types. In my younger years, it was the need for self-control and a cool facade (the 1) that fought with the need for romantic passionate devotion (the 6). It was only when I met my first girlfriend at the age of 21 that the cork came off the bottle, and out poured a lifetime of repressed emotions. A great romantic infatuation combined with an uncontrollable wave of unhappiness washed through me. It turned my life upside down, because I completely lost self-control due to the strong pent-up emotions.
The relationship lasted a few years, and the end of it triggered my first major existential crisis, which meant that I could no longer live behind my isolated facade (the 1st). Something new had to happen, and in a strange way, I left the military in a short time at the age of 24, moved from Næstved to Copenhagen, and went to college. It was a complete identity transformation that took place over the next few years.
From soldier to New Age follower: Personality version 2.0
A whole new energy now entered my life, and it was about understanding and developing my EMOTIONAL LIFE (6’s personality and emotions). It was clear that I was waking up to my repressed emotions and my social phobias, and that I was living in a shell that I had to get out of. The most important change during that period was that I got a whole new social life with people who were interested in astrology and self-development. I let go of life in Næstved and everyone I knew; I knew instinctively that I had to free myself from old influences in order to be able to carry out a major identity shift. The mental 1’s gives the ability to let go and chop down bonds with the mental axe to create greater freedom.
At college, there were courses in astrology and parapsychology that lit a fire in me that I had never experienced before. When I encountered astrology, I knew what the rest of my life would be about, because it gave me a key to understanding who I was and what I had the potential to become. It was once again the 6 that drove the process with a burning interest, supported by my dynamic mentality that made me ambitious and goal-oriented. But it was also the first contact with my essence (the 2), because astrology opened up to a cosmological wisdom that gave me an understanding that I was part of a greater whole.
My primary commitment in life was still egocentric, and it was primarily about freeing myself from the prison of uncertainty I lived in. In short, I woke up to the multiple conflicts that lived in my being, but now I began to do something about them. The years until I turned 29 were primarily focused on studying astrology, meditating and going to psychotherapy. I still had no significant education, and therefore I lived off odd jobs in the construction industry and as a cleaning assistant in a kindergarten. I came from a working-class environment, and was used to doing hard manual labor. There was nothing in my upbringing that could stimulate my ambitious 1’s, other than the will to fend for myself. It had begun to become humiliating for my 1’s to do hard physical labor, but this was offset by the fact that I had begun to identify with the alternative universe that I was increasingly involved with. That’s why it worked for me, and it was the first period in my life where I started to like myself a little.
When I was 25, I sat down to meditate for the first time, and it was like coming home. Meditation taught me that I could change my unhappy emotional states by visualizing a sun in my chest that radiated with spacious acceptance. For the first time in my life, I found a place inside where there was love, and so meditation became a self-healing, a place where I gathered strength and could transform myself from the inside out.
What drove this process was my need to experience love (2-6’s) and to be completely free to be myself (1’s). The introverted part of the 6 was activated through the meditation, and my inner mystic slowly faded out. In the meditations, I experienced spontaneous openings to love energies that were unconditional, and they liberated my vulnerable nature in love. In the first years, a deep love for Christ broke through, which seemed completely natural to me, even though I grew up in an atheistic home.
From New Age to missionary in social psychiatry
My 6 personality became increasingly focused on developing myself through my daily meditation practice, psychotherapy and studies in astrology and spiritual science. In 1991, my personality gained a new focus when I started training as a social educator. It is safe to say that it was something of a culture shock for me to step into a relatively left-wing universe. One must remember that it was not long ago that I was a flaming right-wing nationalist soldier who hated communists and other left-wing people.
It was as if I had gone to the enemy’s camp, and yet not, because I had gradually put my identification with my past behind me. I had become a vegetarian, did not touch alcohol, practiced meditation and new age philosophy, so the education was just a natural step into a completely new identity. From one extreme to the other, again a completely classic development pattern for an immature 6 personality.
Throughout the 90s I stabilized my personality. I started a family for the first time, and became heavily involved in social policy in connection with my work with the mentally ill. I initiated a nationwide magazine for psychiatric users, written and produced by them themselves. This, along with my involvement in Theosophy, a cosmological and spiritual philosophy, were the main focal points of my life.
The 6 personality was still in the driver’s seat, because I was an activist missionary for my two heart causes. I was fairly single-minded and a little fanatical in my approach to what I believed in. However, many good things came out of that, even though it was unbalanced. In the years around the turn of the millennium, another big shift occurred. I had a daughter and had to develop a completely new identity as a father, which was good for me, because it made me more soft and listening.
I left Theosophy after a crisis in the community I was a part of. I was deeply disappointed and disillusioned by the inability to live the ideals we preached. It was an event that made me decide that I would never, ever identify with a religion or a philosophy. I still valued many of the values and insights that were part of Theosophy, including the philosophy of the seven rays. But I realized the limitations of being trapped in a particular philosophy. I needed to be much more flexible and think for myself. In a sense, it was the missionary in me that died, but not the activist. Both archetypes are strongly influenced by the 6’s need to advocate for a cause of the heart.
The missionary dies, but the counselor is born
It was also during those years that I changed from an identification with the qualities of the 6 to that of the 2. I decided, based on this crisis, that I had to further my education and go on an intensive psychotherapeutic course. I therefore began training as a psychotherapist in Psychosynthesis, and completed it with an MA at a university in London. This made me the first in my family to receive an academic degree, another clear example of the 1, but also the 6 who, as a pattern breaker, often creates new tracks.
I also changed careers during these years. I left social psychiatry and started my own business as a coach, teacher, and later psychotherapist. It was clear that my focus shifted inside, because I came under the influence of a completely new energy. The psychotherapeutic work opened me up to a much more intimate, calm and accommodating part of me. I became more embracing in my philosophical stance, was more experience-oriented and down to earth. It is clear to me today that it was my 2’s essence that paved the way for my full-time work as a psychotherapist and teacher of psychology and meditation. I became better able to master the passionate energies, so it is me who rides the horse and not the horse that rides with me.
What the sensitive life energy brings with it in my case is a much greater awareness and insight into the psychological universe we live in. It stimulates me to find a center of calm and presence within myself, where I can be in sensitive contact with myself and my surroundings. However, it is still a daily struggle to conquer this calm, loving, observant being, because again and again the fire from my personality types (6-161) flares up and temporarily throws me off balance.
Let me give a few examples of how my energy types are in conflict with each other, and what I must do to harmonize them and get my body, emotions, and thoughts to cooperate with my essence.
In my writing, I am often challenged by the reactions of my dedicated and passionate emotional life. I can get so excited about the ideas and insights I am describing that I cannot continue writing because I become too emotional. My solar plexus starts to seethe and bubble, and I have to go for a walk to let off steam. This is very inappropriate, because it destroys the creative flow of the writing process. I therefore have to continuously intervene in my reactions, and let go of the disturbing emotions by breathing through them and calming them. I observe them in a loving and impersonal way, and ask them to relax. This is an example of how I can intervene in the disturbing passion of the 6 using the sensitive energies of the 2.
Another problem with the writing process is that I sometimes create such an intense focus that I run over my bodily and emotional signals. I write regardless of how I feel, and I force the words through and onto the paper. After a few days of doing this, I start to get clear stress symptoms: irritation, tension, and a feeling that I am no longer in touch with the gentle feelings. This is an example of how the dynamic mind can force its agenda through sheer willpower. It is extremely unproductive, because at some point I have to give up the writing process for a few days because my nervous system is completely exhausted. These are clear examples of how too much intensity and force creates problems.
I like to say with a humorous twinkle in my eye that my life project is about getting my wise and sensitive nature to express itself through a tank. This is not an easy project.
When humor, spontaneity and openness polish the personality
This brings me to my final point, which is the necessity of integrating some of the other energy types into one’s expression. We always have all seven life energies at our disposal – an essential point to make. At some point in 2012, I came to the conclusion that I needed to strengthen my connection to the creative and spontaneous energies of the 4. I felt that I was still too stiff, inhibited and one-track in my personal expression. These are of course obvious consequences of having the energy typology I am endowed with. I therefore decided that I would put everything I had into developing a more spontaneous, easy and relaxed personality.
When we know the energy universe of energy psychology and the methods for working with energy, we can begin to shape our personality as we want it. That is, within the framework of the type composition we have, but there are very large possibilities for adding strong facets from the other types. It all depends on how much effort you are prepared to make.
I reorganized my meditation practice so that I meditated for a long time on the psychological qualities of the number 4. Using visualizations of inner images of beauty and harmony, I came into contact with the qualities of grace and playful lightness. Every time we experience the energy, appreciate it and let it fill our being, we gradually build the qualities into our personal psychology. In this way, we can create a new atmosphere and behavior, and this is actually the core of Eastern yoga philosophy. Or to put it in a Christian perspective: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
However, there is always a price to pay, a challenge that arises when we seek to change qualities and behavioral habits. In my case, this meant that the opposites of this open and playful energy arose in my being, especially when I had to live it out in my encounters with the outside world. For example, I experienced a hardening fear of letting people get closer to me in public. I worked on these reactions in a long-term psychotherapeutic process, and in this way I was helped to let go of some of my defense mechanisms. How strong an inner resistance we experience depends on how high a goal we set for ourselves.
I also started going to yoga three times a week because my body was stiff as a board and not very graceful or mobile. The physical yoga is a form of movement that has many of the energies of the 4 in it, as it leads to physical and mental balance and harmony. I practiced yoga over a two-year period, and the result was amazing, because my body changed significantly and became much more flexible and well-coordinated. It also affected my emotional life to be with the other yoga practitioners because I almost sucked their energy into me. The people who practice yoga are often small, slender and graceful people who radiate the lightness and grace that I myself needed.
During these years I participated in several courses where the focus was dance, authentic relationships and intimacy, something that was extremely borderline for my personality type. It is the balance between the inner work and the changed behavior among people that creates the fastest transformation. I therefore sought out social environments with people who had strong 4’s energies, which was also quite challenging because they are far more physical and intimacy-seeking than my being is used to.
The result of all these efforts was a completely new way of being in life. It changed the way I taught, which became much more experience-oriented and bodily. By integrating the qualities of the 4, I became much more expressive and relational. This made it easier for my 2 essence to be expressed in my personality.
It also changed my love life, because in 2015 I met Karianne, who is now my wife, my soulmate and life partner. The love we share, and which I only now had the opportunity to open up to, has strengthened my ability to be both present, vulnerable and strong.
I am still on a journey to balance my energy type composition with the other life energies, but I have now found the color palette that I can decorate my personality with. That way I have even more to give, and as mentioned earlier, our greatest gift is to give who we are to the world .
Do you want to know more about energy psychology and its energy types?
Here you can buy the book : Energy Psychology – Your Energy Types – Your Psychological DNA
Here you can read the in-depth article about Energy Psychology.
Du er et ordnet og struktureret menneske!♡
Tak skal du have 🙂