My Enneagram Journey

Make it stand out.

I’ve come to find that my discovery of the Enneagram is extremely common. Several years ago, an Enneagram enthusiast mis-typed me based on how they perceived my behavior in a specific context. I happen to know that they had also brought deep wisdom to many with their knowledge of the system in an appropriate context, but they told me my type without asking for my input. (I have to admit, I’ve done this too many times. Recognizing how powerful the Enneagram can be makes it hard not to want to share it widely. In his book The Enneagram of Discernment, Dr. Drew Moser includes an appendix on the Nine Stages of Enneagram Learning, from Stage 1 “Confusion” to Stage 9 “Growth”. Stage 6 is “Evangelism”.)

The person who told me my type got it wrong. I was a bit intrigued, looked it up, didn’t really “get it”, and set it down for a couple of years. Then it made its way back to me at the perfect time, by way of synchronicity. I was in my final months of graduate school, struggling with one of my life’s biggest themes: “What the fuck am I going to do once school [or insert any structured environment] ends? I’m not ready for this. I still don’t know what I want.” I had started therapy to find more clarity and learn ways to better manage my anxiety. On my way to therapy, I was listening to a podcast where the guest was talking about the Enneagram. She talked about using it with her therapist, how helpful it was for understanding her life and the people in it, and gushing about the major transformations it had brought into her life. Several minutes into my session, my therapist casually mentioned: “There’s this tool I sometimes use with clients. It’s called the Enneagram. Are you interested in exploring it?” Resounding YES. She read out some adjectives associated with a type. I agreed that maybe ⅔ of what she read out felt accurate to me. “Someone told me once I was a 6,” I said. She eyed me cautiously, then read out those characteristics. Maybe half of them resonated. A familiar wave of feeling misunderstood, unseen, and somehow different from others washed over me. She moved on to another type. Within a few words, I was nodding. This one. I continued to listen. Tears spilled over. “Yeah, that’s me. That’s totally what I do.”

That day, a door opened. I started reading all about my type. I didn’t fully connect with everything written about it, but it was closer than anything else I had found. I engaged with the Enneagram in the safe environment of therapy, with my partner, or with my sister, who I suspected was the same type as me (okay, I’m guilty of telling her her type). This new-to-me tool brought up questions I hadn’t really sat with before. How did I experience anger? How did I relate with my body? My intuition? I had often dismissed these kinds of questions with simplistic answers:

“I don’t really get angry.”

“I’m pretty out of touch with my body.”

“I’ve never understood what people mean when they say ‘trust your gut’.
I don’t feel like I have one.”

Over time, my answers have deepened. I’ve been able to explore areas of myself I never knew about, let alone acknowledging their major influences on my day-to-day life and decision-making.

Seeing the power of the Enneagram in my own life made me want to understand how I could bring it to others. Even though I was in a helping profession, I wasn’t sure how to apply it to my work. In the field of social work, I was trained to look at a person in their environment, and the Enneagram looked so deeply at the individual (though now I see the direct relationship to their environment). Plus, I was working with kids, and typing kids is a generally a no-no - they’re still developing their identities in so many ways. I read books and devoured podcasts, found workshops, and shared the language enough with my close friends to talk about the Enneagram. A lot.

Eventually I started working with adults, where patterns were sometimes glaringly obvious. I privately used ideas from the Enneagram to guess at their motivations or to try different approaches. I still hadn’t figured out how this hobby fit into my professional life, but started getting an inkling that it could. Interested friends would ask me to help them understand and reflect back that I would light up when doing so. I eventually hired an Enneagram coach that articulated the importance of taking an intersectional approach - acknowledging race, culture, and family dynamics as integral to understanding how someone may play out their type.

I’ve now undergone training through The Narrative Enneagram, which understands the Enneagram as a system that highlights the psychological, spiritual, and somatic domains. The focus is on working with and learning about the Enneagram through people sharing their direct experiences. Each person’s lens, though it does align with their type, is unique

I’ve come to find that my discovery of the Enneagram is extremely common. Several years ago, an Enneagram enthusiast mis-typed me based on how they perceived my behavior in a specific context. I happen to know that they had also brought deep wisdom to many with their knowledge of the system in an appropriate context, but they told me my type without asking for my input. (I have to admit, I’ve done this too many times. Recognizing how powerful the Enneagram can be makes it hard not to want to share it widely. In his book The Enneagram of Discernment, Dr. Drew Moser includes an appendix on the Nine Stages of Enneagram Learning, from Stage 1 “Confusion” to Stage 9 “Growth”. Stage 6 is “Evangelism”.)

The person who told me my type got it wrong. I was a bit intrigued, looked it up, didn’t really “get it”, and set it down for a couple of years. Then it made its way back to me at the perfect time, by way of synchronicity. I was in my final months of graduate school, struggling with one of my life’s biggest themes: “What the fuck am I going to do once school [or insert any structured environment] ends? I’m not ready for this. I still don’t know what I want.” I had started therapy to find more clarity and learn ways to better manage my anxiety. On my way to therapy, I was listening to a podcast where the guest was talking about the Enneagram. She talked about using it with her therapist, how helpful it was for understanding her life and the people in it, and gushing about the major transformations it had brought into her life. Several minutes into my session, my therapist casually mentioned: “There’s this tool I sometimes use with clients. It’s called the Enneagram. Are you interested in exploring it?” Resounding YES. She read out some adjectives associated with a type. I agreed that maybe ⅔ of what she read out felt accurate to me. “Someone told me once I was a 6,” I said. She eyed me cautiously, then read out those characteristics. Maybe half of them resonated. A familiar wave of feeling misunderstood, unseen, and somehow different from others washed over me. She moved on to another type. Within a few words, I was nodding. This one. I continued to listen. Tears spilled over. “Yeah, that’s me. That’s totally what I do.”

That day, a door opened. I started reading all about my type. I didn’t fully connect with everything written about it, but it was closer than anything else I had found. I engaged with the Enneagram in the safe environment of therapy, with my partner, or with my sister, who I suspected was the same type as me (okay, I’m guilty of telling her her type). This new-to-me tool brought up questions I hadn’t really sat with before. How did I experience anger? How did I relate with my body? My intuition? I had often dismissed these kinds of questions with simplistic answers:

“I don’t really get angry.”

“I’m pretty out of touch with my body.”

“I’ve never understood what people mean when they say ‘trust your gut’.
I don’t feel like I have one.”

Over time, my answers have deepened. I’ve been able to explore areas of myself I never knew about, let alone acknowledging their major influences on my day-to-day life and decision-making.

Seeing the power of the Enneagram in my own life made me want to understand how I could bring it to others. Even though I was in a helping profession, I wasn’t sure how to apply it to my work. In the field of social work, I was trained to look at a person in their environment, and the Enneagram looked so deeply at the individual (though now I see the direct relationship to their environment). Plus, I was working with kids, and typing kids is a generally a no-no - they’re still developing their identities in so many ways. I read books and devoured podcasts, found workshops, and shared the language enough with my close friends to talk about the Enneagram. A lot.

Eventually I started working with adults, where patterns were sometimes glaringly obvious. I privately used ideas from the Enneagram to guess at their motivations or to try different approaches. I still hadn’t figured out how this hobby fit into my professional life, but started getting an inkling that it could. Interested friends would ask me to help them understand and reflect back that I would light up when doing so. I eventually hired an Enneagram coach that articulated the importance of taking an intersectional approach - acknowledging race, culture, and family dynamics as integral to understanding how someone may play out their type.

I’ve now undergone training through The Narrative Enneagram, which understands the Enneagram as a system that highlights the psychological, spiritual, and somatic domains. The focus is on working with and learning about the Enneagram through people sharing their direct experiences. Each person’s lens, though it does align with their type, is unique