Enneagram

Something I came across on the internet recently led me to discover the 9 Enneagram personality types, and this has become something of my latest obsession. I feel like we’ve all heard about zodiac signs & Myers Briggs, but Enneagram? Maybe I’m just the odd one out, but this was totally new to me and I love it.

Before I dive in, I want to put a little perspective on where I’m coming from. First, let’s chat Zodiac… I’m a Scorpio, which I only know because I was asked recently and had to go look it up yet again. By that you may infer that I don’t think to much of the Zodiac, and you’d be 100% right. Tying my personality to the date I was born just feels a little to ridiculous to me. Do I see things in me that match Scorpio traits, and is it fun to talk about? Sure. However I can read any of those profiles and can see bits of myself in all of them. While I’m all for a bit of fun, I can’t take this seriously. (No offense intended to those of you that do.)

The Myers Briggs types were a big thing a while ago, and I remember taking tests several times through my younger years. Funny thing about that though is that while I’m pretty clearly an introvert, and the match is consistently a bit more slanted toward Judging than Perceiving, I’m much more borderline on the other two and have tested differently for Sensing/Intuition & Thinking/Feeling at different times. This certainly feels a bit more accurate than that Scorpio label, but it is also not very clear or helpful (perhaps with the exception of understanding introversion).

So I approached this Enneagram thing with much curiousity, as I think this stuff is cool and kinda fun, but also didn’t expect it to be anything more than a point of curiousity. Instead, I’ve found it not only fascinating, but incredibly informative and helpful. I honestly didn’t need a test to tell me which type I was. It was relatively easy to self-identify, once I actually read descriptions of all the types.

I started out on the Enneagram Institute’s Type Descriptions page. I am not a huge fan of this particular site, but it’s a good starting place. After diggin in a bit, I think these word labels that they’ve put on the types are a little narrow and misleading, not to mention subject to a lot of value judgements that might steer someone astray.

Looking into these, my first thought was that I was a Type 2 Helper, both because I have a tendency to get caught up in helping others (sometimes to my own detriment) and because I think of myself as a people pleaser (just tell me what to do to make you happy and I’ll likely do it). I also feel like I can be rather possessive, but I’m not sure these things are really the heart of who I am. Also, the motivation of “Being loved” while not feeling entirely alien to me doesn’t feel very true or authentic either. In fact, I think that I actually expect not to be loved. While some of the behaviors seem like a match, for Type 2, the motivation feels wrong. Some of my friends were a bit skeptical on this match up too.

The Enneagram connects Type 2 with 4 and 8, so I checked those out next. Type 8 did not really resonate with me at all. The Challenger label is pretty off-putting to start, as I’m not particularly confrontational. I’ll go there, but it takes A LOT to push me there. I am also not self-confident, strong, or assertive, and while I can be protective, straight-talking, and decisive at times, I am not domineering, though surprisingly (to me at least) I can be intimidating. I do like feeling in control of things, but honestly I am also pretty good about going with the flow, especially if it requires less effort. As I said, not a good match for me, but I do think I know a type 8 and I don’t think I would have identified that from this description either…

Anyhow, 2’s are also connected to 4’s which they labeled as the Individualist. I dug into this one next. Similar to my initial take on the Challenger I didn’t expect to see myself in here. They are initially described as expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental - none these are words I would have chosen to define me. However, reading a bit more I came to words that fit at least a little better such as self-aware, sensitive, reserved, emotionally honest, creative, personal, moody, and self-conscious.

What really peaked my interest in Type 4 was when they called out their drive “to find themselves and their significance”. I really identified with that. I am intensely preoccupied with the idea of “finding myself” and wanting/needing to have some significance in this amazingly huge universe of space/time, even if it is an itty-bitty, little one. Their description of the “Levels of Development” also hit home too well, especially in the lower levels.

However, I wasn’t really sure this was a match for me either, as a lot of the other stuff on the Enneagram Institute site about Type 4 didn’t feel like a fit. Specifically the stuff that I took to mean a type 4 thought of themselves as different or special in a sense of being above others. They also stress that Type 4’s feel like there is something inately missing inside of them. That makes it seem like I’d have to see myself as inferior in some way or defective and I bristle at that in the same ways as I did at that idea of being special or above others.

While not the best resource, the Enneagram Institue site left me curious enough to dig a little deeper. I found things that I identified with in several of the types, including 5’s and 3’s as well as 9’s. Since the types descriptions on the site really left me a little lost, I ended up ordering one of their books with a test in it from amazon. However that hasn’t arrived yet. The thing that really intrigues me, and that I hope will be helpful is that 9 tiered “Levels of Development” that is called out for each type, as well as the discussion on how these types respond and behave under stress and that opposite perspective on how they might also challenge themselves to grow.

While on amazon looking at the Enneagram books, one of the recommendations that stood out to me was for The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Self Knowledge. This happened to arrive much more quickly than the used test book, and I’ve spent a good chunk of the weekend reading about some of the types. I think this an an absolutely amazing book. It’s a tough read to go cover-to-cover (which was my initial intent), however the intro is a solid and interesting read, and the personality type chapters are also easy to read through and digest, though I found my interest waning if I couldn’t identify the type with a person I knew.

The little bits of background and history throughout the book were really interesting to me, and I love the connections to older tales meant to inform and grow. She makes connections for each type to both Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno which maybe feel a little dark or insulting at times, but also I think give an interesting historical perspective and authenticity to the vices and virtues of these types.

That said though, I think that vices/virtues bit is the part I do struggle with the most in the book. I find the labels for them to be a bit off-putting, though if you can push through that and read what lies behind that word or label, there’s helpful and insightful stuff there. If for example the vice is “laziness” and you’re thinking about someone you see as pretty active, it feels like a mis-fit, but if you can look beyond the initial word and read all the words you might see that laziness in physical activity doesn’t fit, but laziness in some other aspect - attention to detail, cleanliness, or something else - does.

So, for the moment, this is just a kinda cool discovery, but I expect to talk more about it as my Enneagram curiousity gets fed further, and my little self-growth mission continues.