Water

You are Water!

Water is the element of calm, kindness, and insight. Water is known as the element of calm, balance, kindness, peace, compassion, harmony, and empathy. Its mere presence is a calming and healing influence. It is fluid, having a balance between the stability and practicality of the concrete and the intuition, imagination, and idealism of the abstract. Water has great clarity of insight, often easily seeing to the core of the issue. It is also generally a very good judge of character. Water is also known for its subtly determined nature. Instead of trying to break through barriers, Water finds another way. Physical water always flows. Even when blocked, it flows around boulders, through piles of debris, over dams, and even through the smallest cracks. When it finds such small opening, it rushes through that weak-point, making it wider and wider. In this sense, Water can be seen as opportunistic since it never lets any opportunity go to waste. Water is adaptable. Rather than try to force the world to conform to itself, it bends and moves to suit the circumstances. It watches and learns to see what form it should be in order to succeed. It can be cold, hard, and strong as ice; warm and soothing as bathwater; deep, powerful, and wise as the ocean; mysterious and inscrutable as mist and fog; or show the surprising ferocity of scalding steam. Family, friends, and romantic relationships are all very important to Water and it cherishes these connections for their deepness rather than their number. Water has a sensitive conscience and feels guilty easily; yet that same conscience gives it great strength and determination when it believes it is doing the right thing. Water is idealistic, always dreaming of a better world. This can make it very hard on itself or very pessimistic about the world, but it also ensures that Water is always looking to grow, learn, and improve. Water’s main weaknesses relate to its tendency to avoid direct conflict as well as the great gulf between its sky-high ideals and the regrettable state of the real world. Water can become depressed, pessimistic, passive, indecisive, self-loathing, overly cautious, unsocial, shy, or withdrawn from reality.

Intellectually, Water seeks understanding. Water always asks “why.” It is the most holistic of all the elements and sees everything in the universe as being connected with everything else. As such, it isn’t one subject, one area, or one line of reasoning that interests Water - it’s everything. Water is drawn to everything deep, abstract, and complex. It intuitively sees the connections between ideas and between cause and effect. It builds up complex networks of information with each bit connected in its mind with all the other bits that compare and contrast with it. It is also known for its creativity and love of the arts. Its weakness is its tendency to become lost in its own mind. This can be due to going down rabbit trails on related subjects, getting distracted, or simply getting so absorbed that it never even gets to make the decision in question. However, no element is more intelligent than any other. It is merely a different pattern of thinking.

Emotionally, Water is introverted and complex. Water has strong feelings and generally understands emotions very well, but tends to suppress emotions it sees as “harmful.” This is due to its desire for peace and harmony. So Water is perfectly comfortable expressing happiness, confidence, sadness, or loneliness, but it strongly suppresses anger, hatred, and harsh feelings in general. This can cause Water to bottle up hurt and anger, appearing calm and unbothered, then eventually releasing days, weeks, or even years of frustration all at once. Water’s wrath is rare, but terrible - especially if Water believes the object of its anger deserves it. However, sadness is the negative emotion Water shows the most. This is due to its kind, empathetic nature and its keen awareness that life is never what it should be.

MBTI: INFP and ISFP are ideal examples, as well as Idealists (NF) in general. INTP (Water/Fire or Ice), INFJ (Water/Earth), ENFJ (Fire/Water), ENFP (Air/Water) and ISFJ (Earth/Water) can all work as water to some degree. Water tends to be introverted, adaptable, and highly feeling.

Functions: Introverted Feeling, Extroverted Feeling, introverted intuition, extroverted intuition, introverted thinking

Enneagram Types: 1, 2, 4, 5, 9

Platonic Solid: Round (Icosahedron)

Aristotelian Environment: Cool and Wet

Temperament: Phlegmatic/Melancholic

Cardinal Virtue: Wisdom/Caution (Prudentia)

Yin-Yang: Full Yin

Opposite Element: Fire – while Water is wise, cautious, calm, innovative, and harmonious, Fire is brave, willful, lively, inventive, and visionary.

Core Strengths: Water is calm, kind, compassionate, empathetic, imaginative, wise, patient, adaptable, flexible, balanced, observant, artistic, idealistic, and insightful

Possible Weaknesses: When immature, Water might be depressed, pessimistic, passive, indecisive, self-loathing, overly cautious, unsocial, shy, or withdrawn from reality.

Possible Traits (overlap with other elements): honest, loyal, orderly, stable, rational, practical, dependable, strong, fair-minded, respectful, generous, forgiving, socially skilled, and excellent at thinking out-of-the-box and multi-tasking.