Self-Preservation Instinct
Our beginning series is Introducing the Instincts. Many people are familiar with their Enneagram type but may not be familiar with what some refer to as subtype, instinctual variants, or instinctual bias. ⠀ ⠀ The first instinct that we’ll talk about is the self-preservation (or self-prez) instinct, which is our drive to preserve and sustain our foundations for life. These foundations include: physical health and wellbeing, home and domestic affairs, and monitoring resources such as energy, food, time, sleep, and money. ⠀ ⠀ The terrarium is a helpful metaphor because it shows how the self-prez drive creates a contained and self-sustaining eco-system of sorts, where it regulates the existing resources to support life. Self-prez is also constantly monitoring the body—doing a kind of scan—to identify needs.⠀ ⠀ The terrarium is also a useful visual because the glass of the terrarium is a good metaphor for creating boundaries, which is the intelligence of self-prez: to know/sense what one needs and when and to separate from what’s happening in order to meet those needs.
