Essence of Type Three – Value, Preciousness
Imagine that we each come from one of nine lands, the land where the essential quality to which we are sensitive reigns supreme. For Threes, this land is one of value and preciousness.
Type Three is called the “Achiever.” In their souls, Threes are sensitive to the inherent value and preciousness of Being. Preciousness refers to the great intrinsic value of every being in creation. Above all, Threes want to live in a land where every being is valued, and the inherent preciousness of everything that exists is recognized.
To enter Three Land, imagine a Garden of Eden where everything in creation is valued and known to be precious. Your soul knows you are part of this magnificent creation and that you are a precious Being.
To understand the experience of Threes in the world, imagine the “fall” from this Garden of preciousness, the impact of encountering worthlessness and fakery everywhere, of being born into a world where your value is unseen. For type Three, expulsion from Paradise feels like being cast into a world where inherent value is lost or unrecognized and worth must somehow be earned.
Now contemplate the incredible number of times and ways such natural processes happen according to their own laws. Miraculously the sunflower produces seeds, the seeds spread, new plants are created, these plants grow and produce more seeds - this cycle happens over and over. And it happens for every kind of flower, every plant, every species.
Understanding The Essence of Preciousness
Life is precious. We are each precious by virtue of being born, our worth is innate to our existence. Value is not something we have to earn. The quality of preciousness or essential value is an aspect of Being.
We may understand we have innate worth in theory and recognize the preciousness of life, but in practice our sense of value is usually more conditional. We tend to define value in relative terms.
The dictionary definition of value reflects this ordinary understanding - “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something” (note the word “deserve”). And the dictionary definition of preciousness is similarly relative - “the quality of being very valuable because of being rare, expensive, or important.”
We usually experience value being conditional and relative as “reality,” and this is reinforced by our upbringing. As children, we are trained to perform and measure our value and we lose contact with our inherent worth. Was that an “A” or “C” on your report card? Does your work “need improvement?” Looking outside at the world, we compare and evaluate, one thing has more value than another. A rock is not as precious as a diamond. Of course, this relativity is true from one perspective - no one would say that Hitler “equals” Ghandi. But at the level of essence, precious value is innate and unconditional. It can’t be measured or improved.
We also usually experience value as something that we must earn or work to create. We lose sight of the natural process of creation which literally explodes with value. We humans have learned to plant the seed so we can eat the fruit. We come to believe that the real value is in the fruit and that this is the outcome of our labour. But if we stop for a moment, we can appreciate the preciousness of the seed and the whole cycle of growth involving the wind, the rain and the sun. When we notice there are natural laws that govern all this dynamism, we see that we are simply participating. At the level of essence, precious value is in everything, always, and we are not the source.
Contemplate the caterpillar, the chrysalis, the butterfly - each precious and each stage of development truly amazing. Focusing on the end result misleads us.
The essence of Three recognizes the magnificence of this natural profusion and manifestation, and the preciousness of everything created.
This magnificence is what we sometimes call the Glory of God or the Glory of Being. Glory moves us to praise, honor, and give thanks - we have a sense of wonder. When we are moved to give praise, we recognize that we are not the creator or source of all this magnificent value.
So, we are closer to the essence of Three, true value and preciousness, when we reflect on all this magnificent manifestation, how dynamism and natural laws operate without our effort, and appreciate the wonder and glory of creation. We are participants in all of this and we are precious Beings.
How else can we connect to the essence of Three? Recognizing preciousness outside of ourselves is not that hard for us. We may begin with really noticing something special and precious such as a baby, a child, a pet, a flower, a piece of music, a crystal, then extend our observation more generally. You probably have precious objects in your space for this reason, to enjoy their beauty and special value to you. Extending our awareness of preciousness bit by bit can give us the flavour of essential value - we can notice the value that is everywhere and in everything. Then we want to sense this about ourselves.
It is usually more difficult for us to appreciate preciousness in ourselves. Witness the prevalence of affirmations and methods to help us believe in our worth. To know our value in this way, we are trying to overcome a personal history of being unseen, shamed or devalued, and this is good work. But we can also practice directly sensing the essence of our personal preciousness.
Our bodies can help us connect to this essence. When we are present, we can sense into our own Being, our physical existence as a person. We may sense this by becoming grounded, feeling our arms and legs, contacting our bellies, sensing the “fullness” of our Being - here and now. Staying with the sensation of fullness of our Being, our existence as a person in this body, we may notice the quality of preciousness, the miraculous, preciousness of our Being.
The essence of Three lets us realize that we have essential value as precious individuals. Yes, we are only a small drop in the ocean, but we exist as our own drop. We are here to live our life as a real, authentic, precious human being. Our spiritual journey is not one of trying to disappear into the ether.
