The Empath and the Fan-Hero Family System: Empath as Archetype, #5

DEDICATION

To Grant:  I am so lucky to get to spend this beautiful life with you!

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I acknowledge all the Empaths and their spouses who shared their astonishingly similar stories with me.  This book is a compilation of the challenges and the healing work my clients have gone through in breaking free of an unhealthy Fan-Hero Family System. 

1 Introduction

All human beings come into the world within a family system.  The family beliefs travel down the generational line, reinforced by family members’ behavior within their roles.  Sometimes these beliefs are so strong the outcomes of interactions are predictable—the family system can guide individuals that absolutely.  Many times an individual thinks he is in charge of his life but in reality the family belief system runs his life but is hidden from him.  If we become aware of our family beliefs we can make sure that we keep just those beliefs and gifts that serve us while shedding the rest that does not.  I assume that the reader has studied the first four Volumes in this series, The Empath as Archetype, especially the fourth volume, The Empath and Shadow Work.  In the Fan-Hero Family System book we focus on the Shadow of a family that appears to function well, but at the expense of the inner world of some of its members.

The typical Empath tends to feel abandoned, alone, and misunderstood.  The longing to be part of a family can be very intense for Empaths.  Joining a family that is closely bonded can be very seductive, even when family members might be unhealthy.  The Empath’s tendency to create connection, intimacy, and safety with others can lead to wounded family members confiding in the Empath.  These members can project their Shadows onto the Empath as we saw in the Empath and Shadow Work.  The Empath may not understand the projections that can happen or how to protect herself.  Usually once her own wounds are triggered the common outcome for the Empath is to leave the group.  Thus the Empath reinforces her belief system of abandonment and of being an outsider.

While it is certainly possible for the Empath to form her own healthy family and connections, it is important that the Empath address her wounds first.  The Empath needs to focus on healing the wounds that led to the belief system of abandonment and rejection because our beliefs manifest these outcomes in the external world whether we want them to or not.  When we do our personal work, the external world changes with us.  Then manifesting the loving, supportive family and community that we long for becomes possible.

In the following essays, the family in question is very tight knit and looks great on the outside, but has a big Shadow, which means that any negative aspects have to be ignored or pushed into the unconscious.  This is the most confusing and dangerous group for an Empath to join because the Empath will see all the hidden Shadow that everyone else works hard to ignore or to deny.  The Empath will then react to the hidden instead of the literal, which can be very confusing for the Empath when no one else in the system sees her point of view.  In such systems, Empaths tend to become emotional and psychic garbage pails for everyone else.  Because Empaths take the hidden world into account but others within such a system will not, the Empath tends to grow more and more isolated within the group, becoming the black sheep or even the scapegoat if she insists on her perspective. 

I call this example family system the Fan-Hero Family System.  The combination of the Fan, the Type Six on the Enneagram, and the Emotionally Dissociated Hero, the Type Three, create a stable family in which roles and appearances are most important to maintain.  We will see how Ivy the Classic Empath interacts with a Giving Persona, a female Hero, a male Hero, and two Fans.  At first Ivy very much longs to marry into this family.  In the end, Ivy wants to escape this family.  I hope these essays help the Empaths reading this book understand how a family system has a life of its own, and how to avoid the pitfalls of becoming caught in a system that focuses only on the Literal in order to avoid the discomfort of the Shadow.

2  THE GROUP-ORIENTED PERSON—THE FAN

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I was surprised to discover that most of my Empath clients who are Type Fours on the Enneagram had Fans as mothers.  Hence it is important for Empaths to understand this Archetype given that most Empaths and their mothers, especially when their mother is a Fan, tend to have love/hate relationships.  It can be a challenge to describe the persona of the Fan, which is closest to the Six on the Enneagram, without describing the people that the Fan relates to in her life since the people in her life are her life.  The Fan is in charge of her group, of protecting the group, of maintaining the group, of acting behind the scenes for the group, and of being the social glue of the group.  In most cases the group is family, but the Fan’s group can be an organization as well.  When healthy, the Fan is a wonderful gift to the group—she holds the family together, loves each member of the family for the individual that they are, and she creates a sense of safety, belonging, and harmony.  The healthy Fan includes everyone because she has an open and welcoming heart.  These are the people who offer hospitality even to those who don’t like social gatherings or who have social phobias.  The healthy Fan discovers what is important to the people that she loves, and that becomes important to her as well.  The environment that the Healthy Fan creates is a place where all archetypes can thrive, but for the Empath, this environment is almost like a dream come true.  The healthy Fan can offer an Empath that place of belonging and acceptance that the Empath has always craved.

The Fan, like the Giving Persona or Type Two on the Enneagram, can focus so much on others that she leaves herself out of the picture.  The difference between the Fan and the Giving Persona is that the Fan’s motivation is to cultivate the happiness and the wellbeing of the group so that she will feel safe and secure, while the Giving Persona is usually concerned with making everyone as individuals happy so he’ll feel like a worthwhile person.  The Fan tends to define her self-worth by how her group is doing rather than how she is doing as an individual.  In fact, her definition of self is intertwined with her group members.  When unhealthy, she can become confused about her own needs and boundaries versus the group’s needs and boundaries.  If someone in her group decides to leave, she can feel vulnerable and exposed to a hostile world, unsure of who she is without that person.

The Fan feels safest when she is inside a stable structure.  This leads to her managing her group and its group members to make sure that the group is stable and not likely to disappear on her.  Because she likes structure and predictability, she’s more likely to marry someone who will provide that sort of security.  One common pairing that works well is the Fan and the Hero.  The Fan bolsters and supports the Hero’s goals and career, and the Hero provides the space for the Fan to tend her group.  Both the Fan and the Hero feel comfortable within roles and rules.

The Fan wants avoid feeling fear and anxiety, so she creates the group structure.  Within this structure she feels strong and independent.  Ironically, she is dependent on the structure; she is not confident in herself as an individual, but this is hidden from her when she focuses on the group.  In contrast, the Empath feels unique and cannot escape her individuality.  While both the Empath and the Fan can be intuitive and creative, the Empath knows at her core that she is different and outside the norm.  The typical Fan feels safe only within the group’s norm.  So, the Fan feels strong enough to voice her opinions from the power-base of her group.  Without that backup she comes into contact with her anxieties and fears.  The more unhealthy she is, the more hidden these anxieties are.  If anyone within the group disagrees with the Fan, the Fan is likely to feel insecure and doubt herself.

The feeling of insecurity leads to feeling helpless, which in turn can lead to feeling like a Victim.  Fans, therefore, can get stuck in Dramas easily, especially since they tend to overrun the boundaries of others within their group and interfere when what is transpiring is not their business.  Healing for the Fan comes from realizing that the security and safety that they crave is all around them—the Universe is a benign place.  They don’t have to earn or manipulate others to get that safety; it will come naturally as they become comfortable with their individuality.  Once they allow themselves to be exposed as lone individuals and they experience surviving without the group, they can then cultivate and maintain their groups without the hidden agenda of their own security depending on the group’s success.

Linda, a Fan, went on a journey from being a typical Fan to becoming a somewhat healthy Fan.  Like most healing journeys, her journey required a loss of identity.  Linda and Steve, a Hero, had married after college, had three children, and had established a very nice life together that looked very good on the outside.  Linda’s life revolved around her husband and her children.  She and Steve had traditional roles:  she was the homemaker and he was the provider.  Both their personas fit well into these roles; as a Fan, taking care of her family and home came naturally, and as a Hero, Steve excelled in his career.  Linda had a strong family belief in place that family was paramount, and that being good, loving, and successful was important, too.  Both Steve and Linda used positive reinforcement in the raising of their children and in the running of Steve’s company with great success.

One of the key qualities of the Fan is her loyalty to the group and its members.  The Fan can make a powerful advocate for the members of her group.  Unlike the Giving Persona, she does not care if she makes someone outside the group unhappy; she is willing to be considered obnoxious and unreasonable if her group member benefits.  Linda’s son, Ron, who had been born with a birth defect that needed several surgeries to correct, required more care than most young children.  Linda advocated for him during his hospital stays so that he could arrive for surgery in the morning instead of being forced to stay overnight, which the doctors would have preferred because it was convenient for them.  Linda did not want her son exposed to more trauma than was necessary, and insisted on what was best for Ron without any hesitation, especially since Ron did not want to stay in the hospital longer than he must.

From Ron’s older sister, Pam’s, perspective, it seemed like Linda gave Ron more attention than her.  Pam, to compensate, took on a Hero’s persona, earning attention and love through achieving.  Linda valued achievement and she used positive reinforcement, so she encouraged this type of behavior in all her children, unconsciously reinforcing a very strong Hero persona in her daughter.  Given that Steve was also a Hero, it was very easy for Pam to model Hero behavior, too.  It’s important to note that Linda would have loved her daughter without her achieving but the behavior and belief system of the Hero, which says, I will be loved if I earn approval by achieving, took hold in Pam nonetheless. 

For Linda, life was good.  She had the family she wanted, she loved her children dearly and was involved in their lives, and she maintained close ties with extended family, too.  Everything looked good and was going well on the outside.  But as with most Fan-Hero Families, what was actually happening on the inside did not match appearances.  Linda’s husband was unhappy and dissatisfied with their life together.

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The Hero, Midlife Crisis, and Fulfillment

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Like most unhealthy Heroes, Steve based his happiness on achieving the next big goal.  But, because these goals had little to do with Steve’s Soul and more to do with what he thought should make him happy and what others thought should make him happy, he was never fulfilled.  Fulfillment was always illusive and out of reach in the future.  A typical thought pattern of Heroes is Once I achieve this goal, then I will be happy.  Instead of looking within for the solution to his unhappiness, Steve, like most Heroes, looked outside himself for the cause.

The easiest target to blame for his unhappiness was Linda and their marriage.  The connections that Steve had made to others were only as deep as the connection to his Heart.  Because he was an emotionally dissociated Hero these connections felt hollow.  He felt only dissatisfaction, which was actually an opportunity to move into and through his feelings of emptiness and back into his Heart.  Steve instead chose to believe that his marriage was holding him back from experiencing true happiness.  On one level, Steve’s conclusion made sense; like the typical Fan and Hero, Linda and Steve related to each other more from their roles rather than from their individual hearts.  After more than twenty years of marriage, they did not know how to relate as connected individuals.

Linda in response did all she could to make Steve happy, including changing herself repeatedly to suit him.  The happiness of her husband was very important to her, but she was doomed to fail in this case because Steve had to make himself happy.  After years of both trying and failing at making Steve happy, Steve asked for a divorce.  For a Fan, this is devastating not just because of the end of the marriage but because of the end of the family structure as well.

The intention had been to wait until all their children were in college, but Steve found the wait too unbearable.  They divorced when their older daughter was in college.  However, leaving his wife and breaking up his family did not make Steve happy or set him free like he had expected.  He now had a very angry ex-wife blaming him for wrecking the family, and Steve continued to look for happiness outside himself, this time in a new relationship, without success.  But Steve was doomed to be unhappy until he could look at his Hero belief system and see how he and he alone was creating his unhappiness.

Linda lost a large portion of her identity with the breakup of her family.  She did not know who she was without the family image