One of my ennegram sources made the point that for the types 5, 6, and 7, to have power they give it away. This makes a lot of sense to me.

This is my interpretation:
Picture a baseball diamond. At the pitcher’s mound stands a person and their power radiates from them equally in all directions. For their power to reach each base, it must overlap the lines between each base. If the baseball diamond is the limit of what they can actually do, then all the area outside the diamond but inside the circle is where they fail. And failure hurts.

To reduce the amount of failure to the least possible degree, the person can limit their power so that the circle extends to only touch the lines between the bases. This means the entire circle is within the diamond. But the space between the circle and the bases is wasted power. The person could have it but choose to limit themselves to avoid having places where their power wouldn’t work, thereby sacrificing power for a reduction in pain.

I think this relates to my concept of Deny before Denial. It hurts less to deny yourself something than to have it denied to you.

For those that are interested
8, 9, and 1s are Self deleting.
2, 3, and 4s are Self rejecting.
5, 6, and 7s are Self opposing.