Three Ways to Use the Enneagram for Transformation
First came type. Everyone and their dogs flapping their gums about what’s your Enneagram type? Oh, and the memes that tell you how you take your coffee as said type. And don’t forget the Instagram reels boasting how to dress for success as your type.
If this gets old fast, it’s for a reason: most people don’t like being reduced to a number.
More recently, Enneagram teachers, myself included, have focused on going deeper, beneath the optics of type, to the ways in which we can practically apply the wisdom of the Enneagram. After all, knowledge is power but knowledge plus implementation is transformational.
So today, I want to share my favorite three ways to implement the Enneagram in our lives. In the Practice, my Enneagram-based self-care subscription program, I’ve set up a roadmap and support along the way to do this work in community and it’s been powerful. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the ways we’re practicing the life-giving work of the Enneagram.
Self-Observation. This is first base and a huge game changer if you’re new to the idea. Basically, we take the role of the student, the neutral observer of our own experience, and bear witness to our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, beliefs, and interactions. This is a powerful way of creating more space between the “stimulus and response” as Viktor Frankl said. It’s a way to bake in deeper self-awareness and understanding. And don’t be fooled if this sounds like a walk in the park—it’s actually quite difficult at first because we are so used to living on autopilot!
Vice to Virtue. Each type has a passion, or emotional habit that keeps us stuck in the pitfalls of our type. It’s like the catalyst for our habits of thought and emotion within our type structure. Each type also has a virtue, or a state of essential wholeness and receptivity. When we practice the vice to virtue movement, we become aware of how our passion operates in our daily lives and make the conscious movement from the vice, or passion, to the virtue, or state of open presence and the higher parts of our personality. This invitation is always waiting and always expansive.
Balancing the Centers. Last but not least, the Enneagram teaches we are three-brained beings as opposed to one. We have thinking intelligence, emotional intelligence, and instinctual intelligence. Every type operates dominantly out of one of these. When we work to bring balance to the centers, we practice becoming aware of the other two intelligences we tend to downplay and dial up our awareness with them so as to create more balance and increase a well-rounded, grounded experience in life.
So, are you ready to take your Enneagram practices to the next level? Join me in the Practice!