The Enneagram for Black Liberation

1. The Enneagram: A Map for Black Liberation and Collective Wholeness

I believe wholeheartedly that when Black women are free, we will all be free.

Beyond self-help. The Enneagram for Black Liberation reclaims this ancient tool, moving it beyond commodified self-help to serve as a profound map for collective freedom. Author Chichi Agorom, a Black immigrant woman and Enneagram teacher, shares her personal journey of rediscovering her "three-year-old self"—a state of inherent joy and worthiness—to illustrate that liberation is a birthright, not an earned status. This book centers the experiences of Black women, recognizing their unique struggles and the universal truth that their liberation paves the way for everyone's freedom.

Wellness is collective. True wellness extends beyond individual self-care to encompass personal, relational, and collective needs, making justice an inseparable component. In a society that often promotes individualistic "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" narratives, this book emphasizes that our healing is deeply intertwined with the healing of our communities. It challenges the notion that wellness is merely "love and light," especially for those consistently harmed by systemic oppression.

Fighting from worthiness. The book distinguishes between fighting to prove worthiness and fighting from a place of inherent worth and dignity. When our activism is grounded in knowing our value, we can choose rest, ease, and joy, rather than carrying the fight as another form of armor. This perspective allows for thriving, not just survival, even amidst ongoing struggles against white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism.

2. Your Enneagram Type is Armor, Not Your True Self

But the Enneagram invites us to consider that the patterns we have utilized to avoid pain might not actually be the fullness of who we are.

Survival mechanisms. The Enneagram describes nine distinct personality archetypes, each formed subconsciously in response to early life pain, rejection, or disconnection. These patterns become our "type structures" or "ego structures," serving as armor to protect us from perceived threats and secure love, belonging, and safety. This armor, while useful for survival, often leads us to confuse our personality with our true, essential self.

Beyond behavior. Unlike other personality tests, the Enneagram focuses on core motivations—our deepest needs, desires, and wounds—rather than just observable behaviors. Two people might exhibit similar behaviors, but their underlying motivations for those actions can be vastly different. Understanding these core motivations is key to recognizing how our type functions as a protective layer.

A one-sided story. Our type structures tell a singular, often limiting, story about who we must be to be okay, dismissing or ignoring parts of ourselves that don't fit this narrative. This creates an "imitation" of love and security, as it's based on performance rather than inherent worth. The Enneagram's purpose is to help us see this constricting story and access a fuller, more expansive truth about ourselves.

3. Reclaim Your Essential Self Through Conscious Awareness

Our essential selves are who we have always been, the purest, truest essence of being that we were when we entered this world.

Inherent worth. The essential self is our true nature, untouched by life's pains, akin to the uninhibited joy and curiosity of a toddler. This inherent goodness, worthiness, and lovability never disappears; we simply lose contact with it as we adopt survival patterns. Reconnecting with this essential self is the core invitation of Enneagram work.

Holy Ideas. Each Enneagram type is sensitive to a specific "Holy Idea"—an objective, expansive perspective on reality that is unfiltered by personality. When disconnected from their Holy Idea, individuals mistake their type's subjective filter for the whole truth. For example, a Type Nine's Holy Idea is Holy Love, the knowing that everyone inherently belongs.

Body wisdom. While our minds may forget our essential nature, our bodies hold these memories. Somatic practices are crucial for reconnecting to this essence, as our habits and patterns are deeply embedded in our physical being. By listening to our bodies, we can access a deeper, more integrated understanding of who we truly are.

4. Cultivate Freedom by Creating Space Between Self and Armor

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

The power of pause. Our type structures often react automatically to perceived threats, driven by deeply ingrained bodily patterns. The practice of "notice—pause—allow" is fundamental to creating space between these automatic reactions and our conscious choice. This pause allows us to observe what's happening within our bodies without immediate judgment.

Guides for transformation. This practice is guided by:

• Compassion: Embracing our humanity, flaws and all, without shame. Shame hinders growth; compassion fosters it.
• Gratitude: Acknowledging the protective role our armor has played, even as we seek to transcend it.
• Curiosity: Asking "what is this feeling connected to?" or "why is this thought here?" to understand our reactions without judgment.

Beyond information to wisdom. Simply knowing your Enneagram type is information; true transformation comes from integrating this knowledge with lived experience, leading to wisdom. This requires engaging our heads, hearts, and bodies, moving beyond mere intellectual understanding to embodied awareness and conscious choice.

5. Power and Vulnerability: Growth Differs for Marginalized Identities

It is extremely privileged to define the healthy life as one without armor.

Context matters. The concept of "vulnerability" as a universal path to growth is critically re-examined, especially for marginalized identities. For those in centered positions (e.g., white, cisgender, male), setting down armor and embracing vulnerability can be transformative. However, for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, whose vulnerabilities are often exposed and targeted by systems of oppression, armor is a necessary survival tool.

Real vs. imagined threats. The book highlights the difference between imagined threats (e.g., a white woman's fear of Black men) and very real, ongoing threats faced by marginalized bodies (e.g., police brutality, racial gaslighting). Asking those facing real harm to simply "lay down their armor" without addressing systemic inequities is not only privileged but also dangerous.

Strategic armoring. For marginalized individuals, the work is not to discard armor entirely, but to build awareness of the self separate from the armor, allowing for conscious choice. This means knowing when to wield armor for protection in unsafe spaces and when to set it down in truly safe, loving environments. This strategic approach enables healing and rest without demanding further exposure to harm.

6. Integrate Head, Heart, and Body for Holistic Transformation

An integrated life requires balance between awareness, receptivity, and somatics.

Three centers of intelligence. The Enneagram map is divided into three centers:

• Body Center (8, 9, 1): Focuses on personal power, control, worth, and belonging. Core emotion: anger.
• Heart Center (2, 3, 4): Focuses on love, approval, affection, and connection. Core emotions: panic, shame, grief.
• Head Center (5, 6, 7): Focuses on safety, security, certainty, and predictability. Core emotions: fear, anxiety.

Familiar suffering. Each individual overuses their dominant center, leading to a "familiar suffering" where they habitually gather and process information. The goal is not to eliminate one center but to bring all three into balance, harnessing the wisdom of each for a more integrated life. This holistic approach moves beyond purely cognitive understanding to include emotional and somatic knowing.

Beyond binary thinking. The Body Center, for instance, tends to sort information in binary ways (good/bad, right/wrong), making it difficult to explore nuance. Integrating the other centers helps to move beyond these rigid perceptions, allowing for a more expansive and fluid experience of reality. This balance is crucial for meaningful transformation and a deeper connection to our essential selves.

7. Unpack Your Type's Defense System: Idealization, Avoidance, and Mechanism

The defense system contains three parts, all essential for the continued functioning of our type structures.

The armor's components. Each Enneagram type's armor is maintained by a defense system comprising three interconnected parts:

• Idealization: Who we believe we must be (e.g., adaptable, strong, successful) to secure love, safety, or belonging. This is often a natural attribute that the type structure rigidly clings to.
• Avoidance: The opposite of the idealization, representing what the type structure pushes into the subconscious as a threat (e.g., conflict, weakness, failure).
• Defense Mechanism: The subconscious "enforcer" that snaps us back to the idealized story whenever we lean too close to the avoidance (e.g., numbing, denial, identification, projection, rationalization).

Unconscious operation. These defense systems operate largely subconsciously, making us unaware of how they perpetuate our type's limiting stories. For example, a Type Nine's numbing mechanism keeps them from acknowledging their anger, reinforcing their idealization of being peaceful and adaptable. Bringing awareness to these mechanisms is the first step toward conscious choice.

Befriending the shadow. Integration involves moving towards what scares us and befriending our shadow selves—the parts we avoid. This process allows us to loosen the tight grip of our subjective stories and embrace the fullness of our humanity, recognizing that our worthiness, lovability, and security are not threatened by our perceived "flaws" or the parts we've tried to hide.

8. Each Enneagram Type Wields Unique Armor Against Core Fears

Our work is to create space between who we are and the armor we carry so that within that space we can find freedom, choice, and expansion.

Type-specific survival. Each of the nine Enneagram types develops a unique armor to protect against a specific core fear:

• Type Nine (Adaptability): Fears separation, avoids conflict, numbs self.
• Type Eight (Strength): Fears powerlessness, avoids weakness, denies vulnerability.
• Type One (Goodness): Fears worthlessness, avoids mistakes, uses reaction formation.
• Type Three (Success): Fears failure, avoids feelings, over-identifies with roles.
• Type Two (Helpfulness): Fears rejection, avoids own needs, represses self.
• Type Four (Exceptionality): Fears abandonment, avoids ordinariness, introjects external views.
• Type Six (Vigilance): Fears helplessness, avoids uncertainty, projects fears.
• Type Five (Knowledge): Fears depletion, avoids not knowing, isolates self.
• Type Seven (Optimism): Fears deprivation, avoids pain, rationalizes difficulties.

Beyond stereotypes. While each type has common characteristics, the book emphasizes that individual experiences, cultural context, and intersectional identities shape how this armor manifests. For instance, the "strong Black woman" trope aligns with Type Eight armor, but its necessity for survival in a racist society adds a crucial layer of understanding.

Path to integration. For each type, the path to integration involves recognizing their specific Holy Idea (e.g., Holy Love for Nines, Holy Truth for Eights), cultivating their unique virtue (e.g., Right Action for Nines, Innocence for Eights), and consciously working with their mental and emotional habits. This journey allows individuals to access greater freedom and choice, moving beyond mere survival to a life of thriving.

Last updated: August 23, 2025