The Enneagram is not your average personality test.  In fact, that’s not even how it was originally intended to be used.  There have been evolving iterations of this powerful tool.  Some say it goes all the way back to the 4th century.  Whereas there is some controversy over the exact conception of the Enneagram, I think we can all agree that it is pretty dynamic—providing endless opportunities for personal growth and development.  

Especially the modern Enneagram of personality, the system we know and love today.  It helps us identify our personality type (1 of 9 core types) so that we can learn and understand the inner workings of our patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior.  It doesn’t just leave us wanting for more, cold and hungry, on the doorstep of personality type.  It goes much deeper, inviting us into the warmth and shelter of deeper self understanding and compassion.  It leads us into wholeness, mapping out a distinct route for holistic well-being—and greater freedom.  

How does it do all this? 

In many ways, but the easiest and most accessible for you and I at every given moment is this: simply by bringing balance where there is imbalance.  

The Enneagram teaches that we are dynamic, three-brained beings.  You heard me.  We have brain cells not only in our brains, but in the lining of our hearts and stomachs.  That said, we have more than one center of intelligence and depending on what your Enneagram type is, you connect most readily to one of those intelligences.  Eight’s, Nine’s, and One’s are in the body center, Two’s, Three’s, and Four’s are in the heart center, and Five’s, Sixes, and Seven’s are in the head center.  

This translates to holistic well-being in that when we discover our type, we also discover our dominant center of intelligence so that we can bring more balance into our everyday experience by turning up the other two. 

For example, as a type 4, I am very well acquainted with my emotional landscape.  Perhaps too well acquainted!  My job isn’t to turn down this accessibility, but to dial up the others.  To connect more to an analytical, cognitive, fact-checking intelligence as well as a body, instinctual, doing intelligence.  I like what Helen Palmer said, (though perhaps a bit simplistic):

Body types need to get into their hearts, heart types need to get into their heads, head types need to get into their bodies.  

Bottom line, we all need to balance out our relationship to all three!  And this is the ongoing, self-awareness work of the Enneagram.

Want to go deeper?  Check out the Practice, my Enneagram-based self-care program!