Something You May Not Know About the Enneagram

In my new self-care Enneagram subscription program, The Practice, I teach people to use the Enneagram as a holistic tool for self-care—one that cares for the whole person: mind, body, and heart.  

This may take you by surprise.  If so, you’re not alone.  The ancient wisdom of the Enneagram suggests that we are three-brained beings.  In fact, modern neuroscience is finally catching up to the wisdom of the Enneagram that suggests we have neural cells in our brains as well as the lining of our stomachs and hearts.  That said, we have three centers of intelligence.

Why is this important to us as we practice self-care? 

I thought you’d never ask.

There are two big reasons this is important.  

First of all, it’s necessary to bust the myth that our most important intelligence is our thinking mind.  Whereas your brain is literally a genius and a highly elevated source of intellect and functioning, we must understand that living from the neck up, as we do so often, isn’t the only way.  

In fact, we overemphasize this capacity and as a result, experience an imbalance as it pertains to our other centers of intelligence, equally as powerful: the body and heart.  

I believe self-care is bringing balance where there is imbalance in our experience.  And so, part of the invitation as we learn to apply the Enneagram for self-care is to balance out our relationships to all three centers.  Essentially, to integrate into more wholeness.   

Secondly, the nine types are housed in three triads that correlate to these three centers of intelligence.  As a type four, I experience the world most readily through the lens of emotional intelligence.  Why? Because Enneagram 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s are in the heart, or feeling triad.  

This helps me cultivate a more specific self-care regimen because it tells me I need to dial up my relationship with my body center—learning to drop deeper into my instinctual capacity as well as being mindful to create structure and analysis where feelings tend to run the show.  

In a way, understanding the Enneagram as a holistic tool is necessary for building out a more whole and compassionate relationship with self.  

P.S. Want to do a loving thing for you and go deeper into your very own self-care prescription?  Sign up for The Practice today.

Still Confused About Your Enneagram Type?

Do you go back and forth between Enneagram types?  Perhaps you’ve taken a few online tests and they’ve given you different results.   The first one pegged you a seven.  But it was neck and neck with type two.  You waited a couple months and took another one only to learn you’re now a nine?  Wha?  You’re confused and little pissed off because you had to pay for that last version.  

HELP!?

First off, don’t be discouraged! This is totally normal and you’re not alone!  

The human personality is not static.  It’s constantly vacillating between healthy, average, and unhealthy levels (hopefully not too unhealthy the more self-aware we are!) throughout our days, weeks, and months. 

Online assessments can’t measure how tired, stressed, or emotionally aware you are.  They also can’t determine mood or how many cups of coffee (or glasses of wine) you’ve downed before taking them.  

Sure, they’re a helpful jumping off point.  (Some more than others!)  Yet fully knowing and understanding your Enneagram type requires a bit more digging.  In fact, I believe it’s part of its effectiveness.  

There are dozens of personality tests out there:  MBTI, StrengthsFinder, DISC, to name a few.  I love them all, too!  However, the Enneagram is unique in that it goes deeper than surface, personality-driven behavior.  Sure, that’s part of it, but the Enneagram also helps us understand the “why,” or story, behind our thoughts, feelings, and resulting behaviors.   Online tests simply can’t explain the sacred nuance of your story.  

However, doing the deeper self-study required to fully know your Enneagram type can.  

After all, we make choices, big and small, based on the story we’re living out of.  If we’re suffering, we must change more than surface tactics or behaviors.   In order to heal and transform, we’ve got to get to the root of the problem—we’ve got to understand our story.  

Self-discovery is a winding journey, not a mere moment in time.  It’s about deepening knowledge and understanding.  In fact, it’s really about self-befriending.  

If you’re on the fence about your type, good!  I believe it’s an invitation (and excuse) to deepen this beautiful self-friendship you’ve already started.   

So how?

You’re already further along than you think! 

I’ve got a helpful next step for you.  Scheduling a typing interview is incredibly helpful in fully unpacking your story and discovering your type. It’s some of my favorite work to do with clients. Basically, it’s a detailed inquiry process steeped in the Narrative Enneagram tradition that provides your top 2-3 probable types.  This allows some direction and margin for clients to then read up on those possibilities and live with them a bit before making a hard decision.   

We do this in a creative, collaborative way with clear next steps mapped out.   Best part? It’s really fun!   

Spoiler alert: you are not a pure type.  No one is!  You lead with a primary type, yet you have a bit of all nine in you.  We are complex and glorious creatures, remember?  The Enneagram has the dynamic infrastructure to meet and guide this complexity into greater understanding and opportunity.

I’m convinced your story is far too stunning to be put in a box.  Perhaps it’s time to take it out?

Curious about an Enneagram typing interview?   Sweet! Let’s talk. 

5 Mistakes to Avoid with the Enneagram

Do you have a funny taste left in your mouth with regards to the Enneagram?  I’m not going to lie, with its rise in popularity and the obsession with it in Instagram culture, I fear it has become something of a caricature of itself.  If I see one more meme about type, I may just boycott it altogether.

Ah, but that’s not the response of a self-aware, evolved, and gracious person living in wholeness is it? No, it’s not…

The Enneagram teaches us to grow beyond reaction and choose from a place of responsiveness—and power.  

I do, however, want to point out 5 mistakes to avoid when using this tool for life and relationships.  So here goes:

1. Don’t type other people. This is a biggie. The Enneagram isn’t just about the optics of our personality. It’s about the story, or motivations and beliefs that fuel our patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. So unless you are familiar with the deeper aspects of someone’s core belief system and narrative, avoid typing them.
   

2. Don’t indulge your type. In other words, don’t use your type for an excuse for bad behavior. i.e.” I’m going to let her have it when I see her. She’ll never want to cross me again. I’m an 8 after all!” We identify type in order to better understand ourselves and grow beyond our personality tactics.
   

3. Don’t stereotype others based on type. Again, this is such a rookie move. To judge someone and make assumptions based on their type is a big no-no. Just as there are about 100 unique shades of white, not all persons in a type show up the same. Especially when you factor in subtypes, you can actually have two people who are the same type look nothing alike.
   

4. Don’t force it on others. Even though the Enneagram is a powerful, transformational tool, not everyone is willing or interested to subscribe to it. The worst thing we can do as Enneagram advocates is to force it on others, no matter how much it has helped us. We must learn to trust others’ process.
   

5. Don’t stay on the surface. Even though it’s incredible fodder for coffee shop or cocktail party conversation, the Enneagram is meant to be applied to our daily lives, not just talked about. Knowledge without application is, well, just knowledge.

P.S. If you’re in the market for a way to learn and apply the Enneagram, you’re in the right place.   Check out my brand new Self-Care & Enneagram subscription program called The Practice!

The Enneagram and Your Ticket to Self-Understanding

Turning 30 and then eventually, 40 (gasp) really didn’t phase me. I like to joke around with people who ask how it feels by saying, “It’s glorious. I feel like my age is finally catching up with my soul.” As an old soul since the womb, this really does feel accurate. I’ve always felt a kinship with those older than me. As a kid, I used to hang out for strangely long stretches at the dinner table to listen to conversations my parents would have with their dinner guests. They seemed far more interesting than the make-believe dialog happening in the playroom. When given the choice to linger at the adult table or play with barbies amongst the other youngsters, 11 times out of 10 I’d choose the first.

This balances out nicely when you’re a bit older and have the freedom to hang with whomever you choose, but in grade school and adolescence, it’s brutal. I perpetually felt misunderstood, alone, and longing for something deeper.

Enter Enneagram.

When I first discovered the Enneagram 14 years ago, I felt a massive wave of relief wash over me, explaining answers to angry questions I’d been asking God for a long time. Why did I do the things I did? How could I learn to make peace with the complex and often terrorizing crew of emotions always up loud? Could anyone explain the inadequacy and longing raging deep inside?

When I read about the character structure for the Enneagram Type Four, or Individualist, I quickly discovered the foreign language I’d been speaking all along was not what was wrong with me, but what was right with me. In fact, there were others who spoke this language and an entire road map dedicated to us who felt all the same feelings and needed all the same help. I wasn’t, in fact, underdressed and a day late to the ball. (God forbid ever showing up underdressed to a party. My Mama taught me better.)

Do you long for a deeper sense of self-understanding? Perhaps you’ve been asking yourself “why?” for quite a while now and are ready for some answers.

If so, I want to invite you to join me this month in the Practice, my monthly self-care & Enneagram subscription program, where we deep dive into new Enneagram depths. You’ll get  a front-row seat to my interview with Beatrice Chestnut, best-selling author of The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge and subtype guru. You’ll also receive meditations specific to your type and a brand new online Enneagram assessment created by Beatrice. Sign up here today.

I believe the Enneagram is much more than a personality test. It’s an open-ended invitation to embodying the truest version of you. Now that’s a party we don’t want to miss.

It’s also a gentle and wise companion for your everyday experience.

Trust is built over time and baked in safety. We’ve come a long way together. I can’t wait to write this next chapter of the story together.

Self-Care for Your Enneagram Type

In order to truly care for ourselves, we must understand what we’re about, and what we need. The Enneagram can help us do just that. It can help you unpack the story you’ve been living out of for a long time and begin to discern if it’s even true.

As I mentioned earlier, most of us are at the mercy of an old narrative that’s played over and over unconsciously for a long time. The first step in any self-care plan is simple: to wake up to what’s not working. Because many of us spend more time and energy taking care of other people and what they need, this wake-up call is often forced. Our health starts to suffer, our relationships fail, we experience depression and anxiety—or great loss. Oftentimes, a crisis happens to wake us up to the reality that we are failing the most important relationship we have: the one with our self.

So, today, I want to give you a little self-care nudge and tailor it to your dominant type.

Type 1: We all know you are master improvers. Yet this superpower can often get in the way when it’s your total sum of attention. Soften this tendency as you practice acceptance as opposed to fixing or resisting. Practice noticing what is right in the moment.

Type 2:  Spending time alone to develop independent interests and greater autonomy is incredibly life-giving for Type 2’s. This allows time for deepening your understanding of what you are passionate about, desire, and ultimately need apart from being needed and helpful to others.

Type 3: At the hub of the self-care wheel for Type 3’s is simply this: SLOW DOWN. Type 3’s move at light speed and get so fixated on the path to success, they miss out on tons of life happening around them that can add to their overall quality of life and the creativity they are made to bring forth.

Type 4: One of the most important postures of self-care we can practice as fours is to separate our self-worth from the propensity to show up as special or extraordinary. When we fixate and strive in this direction, we miss out on the rest of what life wants to offer us. The most special and extraordinary gift we can give to the world is our authentic, essential self who is at rest with themself.

Type 5: A helpful awareness is to recognize how you detach from emotions and resort to the thinking mind. Staying present with feelings when they arise just two minutes longer each time brings balance for Type 5’s.

Type 6: When you go to worst-case-scenario, balance that out in your thoughts by also giving the best-case-scenario equal air time. This challenges the habit of constantly expecting the other shoe to drop by flirting with the idea that it might actually go really well.

Type 7: Becoming grounded in the present is everything for Type 7’s. Because your attention is constantly going up and out, noticing when you are doing this is major. As type 7’s have an uncanny curiosity, wielding this superpower to explore the present moment is very powerful.

Type 8: Journal around your perceived difference between weakness and vulnerability, unpacking your own timeline of having to be strong and in control for protection.

Type 9:: As Type 9’s natural tendency is to fall asleep to their own desires, needs, and the actions involved to get these met, it becomes necessary for you to find a way to cultivate structure and practices that support the achievement of your goals.

P.S. Want to take the guesswork out of self-care? I’ve got a program just for you. Check out the Practice.