Discovering Your Personality Type

1. The Enneagram: A Powerful Tool for Self-Discovery and Personal Growth

"The insights the Enneagram gives us can change our lives, and those who have gotten to know it cannot imagine how they once got along without it."

A comprehensive personality system. The Enneagram is a geometric figure that delineates nine basic personality types and their complex interrelationships. It offers a deep understanding of human nature, helping individuals recognize patterns in their behavior, motivations, and emotional reactions.

Beyond simple categorization. Unlike other personality systems, the Enneagram doesn't merely label people. It provides a dynamic framework for personal growth, showing how each type can develop towards health or deteriorate towards unhealth. This makes it an invaluable tool for:

• Self-awareness and introspection
• Improving relationships and communication
• Personal and professional development
• Understanding others' perspectives and motivations

A path to presence. Ultimately, the Enneagram's goal is to help individuals become more present and aware, breaking free from the automatic patterns of their personality type. This leads to greater freedom, authenticity, and the ability to access the positive qualities of all nine types.

2. Nine Distinct Personality Types: Understanding Your Core Motivations

"Always remember that the Enneagram does not put you in a box—it shows you the box you are already in (but don't know it) and the way out!"

The nine types, briefly:

1. The Reformer: Principled, purposeful, self-controlled
2. The Helper: Caring, generous, people-pleasing
3. The Achiever: Adaptable, excelling, driven
4. The Individualist: Creative, sensitive, withdrawn
5. The Investigator: Perceptive, innovative, isolated
6. The Loyalist: Committed, practical, anxious
7. The Enthusiast: Spontaneous, versatile, scattered
8. The Challenger: Powerful, dominating, self-confident
9. The Peacemaker: Receptive, reassuring, complacent

Core motivations. Each type is driven by distinct core motivations, fears, and desires. Understanding these underlying drives provides insight into why people behave the way they do, even when their actions seem counterproductive.

Not just behavior. The Enneagram goes beyond observable behavior to reveal internal thought patterns, emotional reactions, and unconscious motivations. This depth allows for a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of oneself and others.

3. The Levels of Development: Navigating Health and Unhealth Within Your Type

"The Levels account for differences between people of the same type as well as how people change both for better or worse."

A spectrum of functioning. Each Enneagram type has nine Levels of Development, ranging from highly functional and integrated to average to unhealthy and disintegrated. This continuum explains why people of the same type can appear quite different.

Key aspects of the Levels:

• They show how traits can deteriorate from healthy to average to unhealthy
• They explain how people change over time or in different contexts
• They provide a roadmap for growth and development within each type

Practical implications. Understanding the Levels helps in:

• Recognizing when you're moving towards health or unhealth
• Identifying specific areas for personal growth
• Appreciating the complexity within each type

4. Wings and Triads: Exploring the Nuances of Your Personality

"No one is a pure personality type: everyone is a unique mixture of his or her basic type and usually one of the two types adjacent to it on the circumference of the Enneagram."

Wings add depth. Your wing is one of the two types adjacent to your core type. It adds important, sometimes contradictory elements to your personality. For example, a Type Two may have either a One-wing or a Three-wing, resulting in notably different expressions of the Helper personality.

Triads reveal core issues:

• Instinctive Triad (8, 9, 1): Deals with anger/rage
• Feeling Triad (2, 3, 4): Grapples with shame
• Thinking Triad (5, 6, 7): Struggles with anxiety

Understanding your triad provides insight into your core emotional challenges and how you typically process information and experiences.

5. Stress and Security Points: How Your Type Shifts Under Different Conditions

"Different situations will evoke different kinds of responses from your personality. You will respond or adapt in different directions, as indicated by the lines of the Enneagram from your basic type."

Dynamic shifts. Each type has both a stress (disintegration) point and a security (integration) point. Under pressure, you may take on negative qualities of your stress point. In times of growth or security, you may embody positive qualities of your security point.

Examples:

• Type One in stress moves to Four (becoming moody and irrational)
• Type One in security moves to Seven (becoming more spontaneous and joyful)

Practical use. Recognizing these shifts helps you:

• Identify when you're under stress or feeling secure
• Understand seemingly out-of-character behavior
• Cultivate growth by intentionally embodying security point qualities

6. The Three Instincts: Balancing Self-Preservation, Sexual, and Social Drives

"We each have all three of these instincts operating in him or her, our personality causes us to be more concerned with one of these instincts than the other two."

Primal motivations. The three instincts represent fundamental human drives:

1. Self-Preservation: Focus on personal survival and comfort
2. Sexual (One-to-One): Emphasis on intense experiences and connections
3. Social: Prioritizes group belonging and adaptation

Instinctual variants. Your dominant instinct combines with your Enneagram type to create a more specific personality profile. For example, a Self-Preservation Four will have different concerns and behaviors than a Social Four.

Balancing act. Personal growth often involves developing your non-dominant instincts to create a more well-rounded approach to life.

7. Practical Applications: Using the Enneagram in Relationships and Business

"The key to success in any venture is the ability to communicate with others, to inspire them to share your vision and goals, and to provide clear direction and keep things on track through clear feedback."

Relationship insights. The Enneagram offers a framework for understanding:

• Communication styles and needs of different types
• Potential areas of conflict and compatibility between types
• Each type's approach to intimacy and commitment

Business applications:

• Team building and conflict resolution
• Leadership development and coaching
• Employee selection and placement
• Marketing and customer service strategies

Universal tool. Beyond relationships and business, the Enneagram can be applied to:

• Parenting and education
• Therapy and counseling
• Spiritual growth and development
• Creative pursuits and artistic expression

By understanding the diverse perspectives and motivations of the nine types, individuals and organizations can foster better communication, empathy, and collaboration across all areas of life.

Last updated: October 18, 2024