by Jean Haner
First Number: Six
Father
Like the archetypal Father who’s in charge of the family, you are designed to be a natural leader who makes sure things get done and done well. With your mental clarity, you’re able to see both the big picture and the fine details in any situation, and you project into the future to anticipate anything that could go wrong and prevent it from happening. Your focus will be on the long view, on what’s most important, and you even have the potential to be quite a visionary in terms of helping us see the ideal life we should all aspire to.
The theme for the Six nature is also understood as representing heaven, meaning our connection with the Divine. You’ll feel drawn to living a sacred life, but not necessarily in terms of spirituality or religion. You will certainly feel called to do meaningful work and to live authentically. You may consider your time to be sacred and resist having to do things that are trivial or seem to be a waste of your valuable resources and energy.
As a Six, you have very high principles and excellent manners, and you’ll be bothered by people who exhibit a lack of awareness of others. It may drive you crazy at the grocery store when someone obliviously blocks the aisle with their shopping cart or carries on a loud cell-phone conversation in public, disturbing everyone around them.
Need to Achieve
Many Sixes end up holding power in some way, but even if you don’t achieve what’s thought of as a position of authority, you will need to feel proud of your accomplishments and respected by others. And while at times everyone ponders what their true calling in life might be, you could feel compelled to discover and fulfill your authentic purpose in order for your existence to feel worthwhile.
You care very much about the quality of your work and will tend to be precise and painstaking with whatever you do. However, you can also struggle with perfectionism. Because of this, criticism from others is almost too much to bear, and you may interpret a comment as critical even if it wasn’t intended to be.
This reminds me of what Claire, a student of mine, once shared with me about her friend Leslie, a Six. Leslie had been invited to be a keynote speaker at a major conference, which was a huge honor. Claire decided to attend the conference, too, to sit in the audience and give moral support.
Leslie worked extremely hard on her speech for weeks. When the big day came, she confidently sat on the podium with the two other speakers. The first one got up, gave a brilliant presentation, and received a standing ovation. But Claire noticed that he had covered many of the points that Leslie was about to make. Then the second presenter gave his speech, again to a huge response, but this man said almost everything else her friend was about to share! When Leslie spoke, it sounded as though she was just parroting what had already been said, although obviously she’d prepared her talk in advance. At the end of her speech, there was only feeble applause. For a Six, this was a nightmare—a public failure.
Claire leapt to her feet as the speakers came down from the stage, and started hurrying toward her friend to comfort her after this terrible turn of events. But as soon as Leslie got close enough to recognize the stricken expression on Claire’s face, she turned on her heel, walked away, and didn’t speak to her again for weeks. To this highly sensitive woman, the look on her friend’s face was unbearable. It was like criticism to her because it felt like an acknowledgment that she’d done something wrong.
The Influence of Sensitivity
You’re probably not that sensitive to criticism, but it may be true that you are in fact highly sensitive overall. For one thing, you’re hyperaware of details. You may be the one who immediately spots the typo in the letter or notices that the curtains aren’t the exact shade of blue that was ordered. If you do find something wrong with a project (and you will!), it will be difficult to hold back from bringing it to someone’s attention. It’s as if you can’t feel comfortable in your own skin until things are as perfect as they can possibly be.
Your body is also sensitive to subtle energy. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you can be physically affected by the energy of the people and places around you. You may feel stressed in crowded places—your idea of a nightmare might be the mall during the Christmas shopping season! It can even be uncomfortable if someone stands too close to you or if a stranger rushes up to give you a tight hug on your first meeting. If you have a little time to get used to their energy, then you’ll be fine, but in general you’ll feel better with a little more space than most people need. However, this can give others the impression that you’re cold or aloof, or worse, that you’re conceited and holding back because you think you’re better than they are. This is not the case; you’re simply trying to get comfortable with what you’re feeling.
It’s so important to recognize that when you walk into a room, you soak in a thousand times more information than most people do. You can be bothered by the details your five senses pick up: a picture is half an inch crooked on the wall, there’s a smudge on the window, and someone in the room is wearing strong perfume. But whether you’re consciously aware of it or not, you’ll also be affected by what your sixth sense tunes in to: the subtle energy that’s present. For instance, if someone is radiating stress or upset, you may begin to feel physically uncomfortable. At the extreme, some Sixes are so sensitive that if they walk into an empty room where an argument happened days ago, they’ll be affected by the residue of energy left by the intense emotions experienced in the space and can start to feel unwell.
It can be overwhelming at times to have this level of sensitivity; in fact, your energy can hover half in and half out of your body because it’s too much to come fully in and feel everything there is to feel. Other issues can be a struggle with anxiety, the need for a lot of time alone and away from the intensity of the world and the people in it, or a tendency toward allergies or environmental sensitivities. Sixes often have a highly developed sense of smell and can notice an offensive odor when no one else in the room detects anything.
Because of your sensitivity to both the visible and invisible in the world, you may need things just so in order to feel comfortable, and thus can be perceived by others as nitpicky or controlling. But this just stems from your attempts to manage your experience in life, which too easily sends you into system overload.
Please keep in mind that this sensitivity is actually a powerful gift. Because you’re so aware of nuances and subtleties, whatever you produce is perfectly done. You are also exquisitely attuned to other people’s energy and thus have the potential to become an amazing teacher, advisor, or healer because you can sense which slight shift is the perfect one to produce change. I can’t exaggerate what a positive and powerful presence you can be once you learn to manage your boundaries and not absorb everyone’s energy.
As a Six, you may very well need help to find your power within this sensitivity. Otherwise, you’ll always be caught up in the struggle to cope with what feels like a constant energetic assault from the world around you. Our culture doesn’t acknowledge the reality of this kind of experience, and therefore many Sixes blame themselves, thinking something is terribly wrong with them. Getting some training in breath work or energy work is often a life-changing experience.
Most Sixes deal with a constant undercurrent of anxiety and because of this need a predictable rhythm in life. They will place importance on being on time, will notice if someone is late, and will feel upset if they arrive late themselves. They will want to know as many details as possible in advance about an event so that they can prepare themselves, and some become quite rigid in their daily routines—for example, preferring to have the same meals at the same times of day because it’s calming to always know what to expect. Sixes do not need more stimulation!
Air of Authority
Father takes charge, and he doesn’t like to see his decisions questioned or his authority challenged. When Father says, “Get in the car, kids,” the kids know they’re supposed to drop everything and get in the car. They don’t whi
ne, “Why do we have to get in the car?” It’s Mother’s job to sweetly explain why we’re all getting in the car and add, “Be sure to take your jacket, and did you remember to go to the bathroom?” Father just expects to be obeyed without any fuss. So Sixes naturally project the energy of authority, and they don’t like to be argued with. There’s a joke that Sixes always think they’re right—and they are! It is usually true that because you so clearly see all the different aspects of the situation, your view is accurate.
In our culture, it’s easier for men to be Sixes than it is for women because the power they naturally project is more socially acceptable. We all read and react to each other’s energy, and when we feel the air of authority around a male Six, it feels appropriate because we’ve been socialized to expect men to carry themselves that way. But sometimes women who are Sixes report that when they walk into a room, before they even get a chance to say or do anything, they can feel people thinking, Who does she think she is?
If you’re a female Six, being aware that others can feel intimidated by you or react as if you’re putting on airs will let you compensate for that possibility early in the relationship. One way you can do this is to be very warm and gracious from the moment you meet someone and approach them rather than wait for the other person to reach out.
Most Sixes are gracious and accommodating, but some hold the energy of authority so strongly that they carry a sense of entitlement. One unemployed Six believed he shouldn’t have to interview for jobs because it was beneath his dignity—companies should just recognize his worth and offer him a position! One woman said that her Six husband never lifted a finger around the house despite the fact that they both worked full-time. And throughout five moves during their 15-year marriage, he always managed to be out of town at the time of the move, so she ended up having to take care of everything herself.
Dealing with Loss
A common emotional pattern for Sixes can be a sense of regret or fear of loss or lack. It may be that you hold on to grief, finding it difficult to let go and move on. It can even show up in minor ways, such as always turning to look backward, longing for the “good old days.” Or it can be that even though your current situation is painful, you’re afraid of change because what if you let go of this and there’s nothing there to replace it?
If you never come to accept loss, you can’t emerge into the next stage beyond grief, which is the discovery of what you gained through that experience and how you’ve been enriched by it. There’s a beautiful resolve that comes after that realization, and a higher level of awareness, if you can let go and trust the process. When you learn to navigate life in this way, you are in your power.
Careers
To determine the types of careers that align with your inner design, we need to consider the influence of both your first and third numbers, so be sure to read the description of your calling in Chapter 5 as well.
With your natural ability to hold authority, you can succeed in any career where you’re the one in charge. You can be a leader in business and politics, even quite a visionary in whatever field you choose. You’ll also do well in any career that requires exquisite attention to detail, such as surgeon, acupuncturist, or accountant. And because of your strong sense of the sacred, spiritual work can be very fulfilling. Many clergy members, spiritual teachers, and counselors are Sixes.
First Number: Seven
Artist
Charming, gracious, and very aware of what’s going on around you, you have a flair for creating beauty wherever you go. It may be that you create works of art, but it can just as easily be that you dress with style, design a lovely home environment, or give other people beautiful experiences because you’re an excellent communicator and make anyone feel at ease and welcome.
Because you have such a sensitivity to nuances, subtleties, and details, if you’re not an actual artist, you’re like the Artist in whatever you do. You always strive to refine things, to make them as perfect and beautiful as they can possibly be. To that end, a Seven who’s a highly respected therapist commented that she doesn’t see her work as being about helping people at all: “It’s an art form.”
You are very good at reading others and can be almost chameleonlike in your ability to shift your energy to match another person’s so that they feel comfortable and accepted. This is a lovely quality, but the problem is that if you go through each day constantly trying to vibrate at everyone else’s frequency, when do you get to be yourself? You may need time alone at the end of each day to recover from all the hard work you’ve been doing invisibly to accommodate everyone around you. You need a chance to just be yourself.
Getting It Right
Sevens can be perfectionistic and overanalytical in many aspects of their lives, always worried about being good enough, doing something well enough, anxious about getting every detail right. They can even be tentative about committing to a job or a person, for instance, for fear there could be something even more perfect around the next corner. Or they may commit and then back off, wanting more time to think things through. One woman’s Seven boyfriend proposed to her, and then two weeks later told her he needed to go away to give himself time to think, to be really sure this was the right relationship for him! He was so sensitive, he actually couldn’t even stay in the same city with her because her energy felt too close for him to be able to think clearly. After two months, he returned, saying he was now sure she was the one for him, but for the rest of their marriage she carried the hurt of feeling that if he really loved her, he would have been sure from the start.
An artist is concerned with how something looks, and for Sevens, that’s true in many ways. It’s interesting that the nature image for the Seven is of the surface of a lake—the smooth sheen that appears on a perfectly calm lake, not a ripple in sight. Some Sevens are very concerned with image and how things appear on the surface. If there’s trouble in their lives, they may act as if everything’s just fine; they can go into denial more easily than other people, trying to keep the surface of that lake looking perfect. They hope that if everyone can just agree that everything is pretty, then it will be—so please, let’s just not talk about it. They can do this in their own minds as well, not admitting to themselves that they have a problem, sometimes remaining in denial for years, hoping that somehow if they pretend things are fine, they will be.
Like Sixes, many Sevens can also physically sense when the energy around them is “off,” whether it’s the energy of the room they’ve just entered or of the people standing in it. But this is often not obvious to the outside observer because the Seven can maintain such poise. It’s only if things start to go wrong in ways the Seven can’t control that the ripples appear on the lake!
In those cases, the Seven’s charm can start to seem a little forced; they can appear a little too bright and cheery for the situation at hand, and people can think they’re insincere or even lying. This isn’t the case at all—they’re just doing the best they can to make things seem okay.
The Perfect Hostess and the Princess
I call the Seven the Artist because their attention always goes to making things beautiful. But this isn’t just in terms of appearances; they also strive to create beautiful experiences for others, which is why I also describe the Seven as the Perfect Hostess. They’ll do everything they can to make people happy and give them the very best experience possible—whether that’s just a 30-second conversation in an elevator or a 30-year relationship. This is a truly lovely quality, but taken too far, it can make them too much of a pleaser, and cause other challenges.
If you imagine the Perfect Hostess inviting 10 people to a dinner party but 13 show up, well, what does she do? She rushes off to the kitchen, where she rearranges the food and brings out 13 full plates. But then she sits down to an empty place setting herself, waving her hand and declaring that she’s had a late lunch so she’ll just sip her wine and enjoy their company—even though she’s actually famished. There’s a potential patte
rn of behavior in a Seven’s nature that centers around deprivation. They’ll deprive themselves in an attempt to make things as perfect as possible for everyone else.
This natural graciousness and artistic flair brings us to another nickname for the Seven nature: Princess. (This isn’t meant as a derogatory term; it’s representative of their charming nature.) The stereotypical Princess is a lovely girl whose life centers around glamorous parties and who lives in a beautiful palace—but she’s not the one scrubbing the floors! So in some ways, the Seven, while always kind and conscientious, is a free spirit who won’t seek out heavy responsibility in life.
Cynthia, a Seven who was a real-estate agent, struggled to earn enough—not because she wasn’t experienced and knowledgeable, but because she wasn’t willing to make the effort to sell herself to potential clients or go the extra mile to help out someone who might become a client in the future. She just didn’t want to work that hard.
Carrying Responsibility
The most unfortunate part of this equation is that if responsibility is given to Sevens, they can take it far too seriously and let it weigh very heavily on their shoulders. There’s a dual nature here: The Princess just wants a beautiful life, but if that isn’t possible, she seems to transform herself into Cinderella instead, going to extremes in depriving herself to try to make things lovely again.
The most dramatic example of this in my work was Kathleen, a woman who was caring for and financially supporting her elderly parents, both in their 90s, so they could stay in the family home where they’d lived for the past 60 years. She had two brothers, neither of whom was contributing. They wanted to move their parents to a retirement home and sell the house, using the profits to pay for the facility. But Kathleen knew it would be traumatic for her parents to be taken from their home; in fact, with her sensitivity, it was physically painful for her to imagine it. So she paid for all their needs. She’d work all day and then cook them a homemade dinner, clean their house, and prepare breakfast and lunch for the next day. She had no time for herself, but it gave her joy to know that her parents could stay in the home they loved.