Enneagram is a personality typing tool. It’s rooted in ancient knowledge traditions. It’s been around since about 330 AD. I think it’s really rooted in some of these ancient traditions and things, like mindfulness.
The word itself, Enneagram, means a nine-sided figure. It comes from a Greek word. The figure that we’re talking about here is a circle. There are nine types, numbers one through nine. They’re next to each other on the circle as you go around. The Enneagram is such a great tool for understanding our motivations, what drives us, our strengths, of course, also pitfalls, how we can be at our best, and be most present.
Because with Enneagram, one of the things I love, it doesn’t pigeonhole you. It doesn’t say you act this way because you are this type. It says this is your home base. This is what you have most at your core. But when you’re at your best, when you’re present, you have access to the best of most of the types or all of the types. When we’re stuck in our personality and gripped by it, that’s when some of those pitfalls start to come out
Many think with Enneagram, I should be able to go out there, take the test, and it tells me my type for sure. And that’s not really how it works with Enneagram. When you take an assessment, it’s an indicator assessment. It indicates to you, based on your responses, the most likely types.
But in truth, it’s all about what motivates you, what drives you internally. It’s not about what behaviors you display. We can all display similar or the same behaviors for different reasons.
Really, what you have to do is take those top few types that are indicated, go read, listen, learn about it, and really understand what resonates with you and what sounds right. What sounds like your core, your home base, and we all only have one core or home base.
Some of the types are, type five is the investigator, type six is the loyalist. Type seven is the enthusiast, type eight is the challenger, type nine is the peacemaker. Type one is the reformer. Type two is the helper. Type three is the achiever and type four is the individualist.
The reason why I’m so passionate about the Enneagram and why I love it so much is because it’s so useful on two fronts. One is a self-exploration and understanding tool. I gained so much self-awareness, things made sense, things that I thought about my personality, my whole life that were “different” and made me me.
They all tied together and made sense under the themes of my Enneagram type. And the more I learned and the more I read and the more I interacted on it, the more I felt like I could understand myself and be able to articulate that to others, to share more about myself, and be vulnerable.
Additionally, as an interpersonal tool, it can be so incredibly valuable to understand one another’s types to be able to understand, where we are coming from, what’s motivating us, how might likely to respond, and how we can adapt ourselves to bring out the best in each other.
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