Enneagram
"The Enneagram describes our gifts and attendant blind spots, ruts and self-defeating tendencies that plague us at times. More important, it points to a central energy that is at the origin of these tendencies—an energy we tend to overuse. Our gifts can become liabilities and sometimes our downfall. A theater director who prides herself on spontaneity may try to run a production with a series of improvised decisions that create chaos. An executive whose competitiveness led to a promotion may find that morale problems caused by his style now threaten his hard-earned success." Mary Bast, Executive Coach
How to escape the patterns, habits and blind spots that limit us? The Enneagram is an effective tool for gaining self-awareness that empowers expanded options for thinking, feeling and behaving. Those who use it often have an "aha" recognition of themselves that they find powerfully inspiring and motivating.
At first glance, it may seem to reduce human behavior to just a few limited categories, like other personality typologies, but this is not an accurate assessment. One of the gifts of the Enneagram is that it celebrates innumerable variations in the expression of human nature; it does not box you in but rather propels you out of limitations. Enneagram teacher Richard Rohr explains that "the Enneagram contains an inner dynamic that aims at change. ...It confronts us with compulsions and laws under which we live—usually without being aware of them—and it aims to invite us to go beyond them, to take steps into the domain of freedom."
The Enneagram offers a way to manage personality through the practice of self awareness. What is useful about understanding our Enneagram types is that we gain so much information about our patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Identifying these patterns empowers us to choose otherwise; we can make more conscious choices about which attitudes and behaviors serve us and which do not.
In other words, the aim of the Enneagram is to help us stop the automatic reactions of the personality by becoming aware of them. We can observe and let go of the habits that trap us. As we gain awareness of our own long-held patterns, defensive reactions and blind spots, we become more flexible and skillful with the people in our lives.
At the beginning level of the Enneagram, there is a short list of suggestions ("notice when this happens") which can improve our daily functioning, our performance at work and our communication with others. At a deeper level, the Enneagram provides a map to profound psychological and spiritual growth. It helps us become more present to our “true selves,” thereby generating more authenticity and choice in our lives.
Curious about how the Enneagram might free you from old patterns?
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The image above comes from the cover of A. H. Almaas's book, Keys to the Enneagram.
