9
Confront Your Junk

the enneagram

I was thirty-one, and I’d decided to go to counseling.

I called the counselor’s office—the one provided by my husband’s employer—and briefly explained the reason I wanted to see someone. Although, looking back, I can’t imagine there was anything “brief” about it. I’m sure I rambled on and on, apologetic and embarrassed, doing my best to explain why I was calling, feeling like an idiot the whole time. It was bad. I told myself that mine surely wasn’t the worst phone call she’d had all day. Probably. Hopefully.

The receptionist put me at ease by saying, “I think you should see Patty. She’s really good with boundary issues.”

I was taken aback. Nowhere in that whole conversation had I used the word boundary. I’d never thought of my situation as a boundary issue. What had I said to the receptionist that had made her see it as one?

That phone call was the beginning of a long journey. (I feel as though that’s a euphemism. Maybe I should throw the word painful in there to give you a better idea of what you’re in for with this chapter.)

Years later, I understand every bit of that conversation perfectly. I get why the receptionist heard my request and thought boundaries. I can clearly see the work I had to do—on myself, I mean—and why. I can see why the receptionist matched me up with Patty (which you and I both know isn’t her real name). I can see how I’ve come a long way and how I still struggle with this stuff occasionally. Okay, regularly, but not as regularly as I used to.

Looking back to that time, I can see I was about to get comfortable with the Enneagram (pronounced any-uh-gram), a tool that helps unlock the murky parts of our souls. Like any good personality framework, the Enneagram fosters the self-awareness and self-examination necessary for personal and spiritual growth. It is known for emphasizing each type’s negative qualities, which makes it strikingly different from the other frameworks in this book. Exploring our glaring weaknesses and constant stumbling blocks can be a big downer, so please remember as we move forward that this uncomfortable first step flings the doors to positive change wide open.

It took me a long time—a year or maybe more—to become clear on my Enneagram type. I remember the exact moment it clicked for me. But we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s talk more about the Enneagram’s origins.

What You Need to Know about the Enneagram

Like other personality frameworks, the Enneagram serves as a map that helps us better understand ourselves, the people who are important to us, and the groups we’re involved in. Its exact origins are murky, but we do know it’s been around a long time.

According to Catholic priest Richard Rohr, the roots of the Enneagram’s nine types stretch back to a fourth-century Christian monk, Evagrius Ponticus, who listed eight (or nine, depending on the text) vices that impede the way to God. These are anger, pride, vanity, sadness, envy, avarice, gluttony, lust, and laziness.1 Two hundred years later, Pope Gregory I used these nine vices as a template for the Catholic Church’s seven deadly sins. The Enneagram has been used in monasteries for centuries, although it can be and is used by those with different doctrinal beliefs.

While the Enneagram’s origins are unclear, we do know that Ivanovich Gurdjieff is responsible for bringing the Enneagram symbol to the modern world, although he didn’t go so far as to teach the personality types.2 Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo are responsible for the Enneagram of personality types in use today.3 Helen Palmer, Don Richard Riso, Russ Hudson, Elizabeth Wagele, and Richard Rohr have also contributed to the theory.

The Enneagram is represented by a circle with interior lines connecting the nine types.4 The nine points on the circle represent nine personality types that interact with the world in their own unique ways. Think of each type as seeing the world through a unique pair of glasses. These glasses sometimes bring us clarity, but they can also distort our vision in big and small ways.

Using the Enneagram, we can look at our glasses and understand how they affect the way we see and respond to the world instead of just experiencing the world through them without realizing there are other ways to see. The Enneagram can be misused, but when we use it correctly, it can bolster our self-awareness and understanding of the factors at play in our relationships.

Many people say that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator excels at highlighting our strengths, while the Enneagram unmasks our weaknesses. This isn’t exactly true. When I quizzed my friend and Enneagram enthusiast Leigh about this analogy, she corrected me. The Enneagram pinpoints not our weaknesses but our motivations—the underlying reasons that drive everything we do. These motivations can be so much a part of us that we don’t even think about them or realize they’re driving our behaviors. This is why it’s difficult to type someone else on the Enneagram; our type is based not on external traits but on underlying motivations. The external traits are only partial giveaways.

Our motivations are rarely pure. Some practitioners, such as Rohr, even call our persistent driving forces “root sins.”5 The Enneagram relentlessly focuses on the brokenness of our human motivations, our core struggles, our fatal flaws. It shows how we’re inclined to go off the rails in specific, predictable ways.

Discovering our central weaknesses won’t make us feel warm and fuzzy. Nor should it. The idea is not to lock us into certain types of behaviors but to pinpoint these behaviors to gain freedom from them. Naming any behavior pattern is the first step in loosening its power. For this reason, the Enneagram has been called a negative system. It’s about exposing the bad stuff within us—the things we’d rather not think about or maybe would like to just pretend don’t exist.

The Enneagram helps us confront our junk by first showing us what kind of junk we’re dealing with. Exposing that hidden stuff we would rather keep covered up is no fun, but it’s better to expose it—even though it’s painful. Think of it as the diagnosis that comes before the cure.

If you ever hang out with writers, you’re sure to hear them say at some point that they hate writing but love having written. (If you know a writer who claims to enjoy the process, tell them to keep their thoughts to themselves, please.) Writing is hard and messy and painful; few writers relish the process. But having written is something else entirely. In the same way, Enneagramming is brutal. But having Enneagrammed feels pretty great. (Those aren’t real verbs I just used, but you get my point, right?)

Once we’re ready to Enneagram (the verb), the first step is to decide which of the nine types we most identify with.

The Nine Core Types in a Nutshell

Each Enneagram type has its own basic fears, desires, motivations, and core needs. There is nothing wrong with any of these; the problem is the unhealthy ways we try to dodge our fears, chase our desires, act on our motivations, and fulfill our needs.

It’s normal to see a little bit of ourselves in each of the nine types, but according to the Enneagram, we all have one core type that doesn’t change. However, each type contains a spectrum of emotional health: a person can be emotionally healthy, average, or unhealthy. These levels fluctuate. We tend to go up and down the levels of health on a day-to-day basis. Some moments we’ll be average, some moments we’ll be healthy, and some moments we’ll dip into the not-so-healthy range. Our current level depends on our self-awareness and progress in our personal growth. Please note that for these purposes, “average” is not “healthy.” Pretend you’re back in school; “average” doesn’t sound so bad, but would you want to bring home a C? Probably not. Most of us have a lot of work to do to achieve emotional health.

The types are called different things depending on the author or resource. The labels I’m using below are from Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, founders of the Enneagram Institute and authors of The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

Here’s a nutshell description of each type:

One:	the Reformer (the need to be perfect).6 Ones have high standards for themselves and others and a strong sense of right and wrong. Healthy Ones are conscientious and discerning and strive to make things better in appropriate ways. But when Ones go off the rails, they are likely to be critical, resentful, and inflexible and to repress their anger until they explode. Ones naturally seek to gain love by doing things perfectly.
Two:	the Helper (the need to be needed). Twos are caring and helpful, inclined to gain love by being indispensable. It’s easy for women to mistype themselves as Twos because they’re socialized that way; mothers of young children are especially liable to make this mistake because helping their children is such a big part of their lives in this stage. Unhealthy Twos repress their own needs to tend to the needs of others, but at their best, Twos delight in appropriately caring for others and loving them unconditionally.
Three:	the Achiever (the need to succeed). Threes are ambitious, achievement-oriented types who put their energy into getting things done. They are competitive and image-conscious. Unhealthy Threes, driven by a strong need to be recognized, will take these qualities to the extreme. Healthy Threes can strive to perform well without tying their self-image to the results. Threes naturally seek to gain love by being successful.
Four:	the Individualist (the need to be special). Fours often focus on what’s missing from their lives—or what they’re missing out on—instead of what they actually have now, in the present. At their best, Fours are idealistic, empathetic, and highly creative, but when unhealthy, they verge into self-pity and despondency and can’t stop longing for what they feel is missing.
Five:	the Investigator (the need to perceive). More than any other type, Fives want to live in their minds, where they store up knowledge so they can competently face any challenge. They are brilliant analysts and intellectuals, driven to be independent and self-sufficient. At their best, they are perceptive and open-minded visionaries, brilliant trailblazers who seem to notice and understand everything and know what action to take in response. But when unhealthy, they wall themselves off from others entirely, sunk by feelings of inadequacy.
Six:	the Loyalist (the need for security). According to Rohr, a full half of the population may be Sixes. Because they are prone to view the world as a dangerously unpredictable place and focus on what could go wrong, these cautious types crave security. At their best, Sixes are responsible, loyal, and trustworthy, but unhealthy Sixes disproportionately perceive the negatives in any situation and doubt themselves excessively.
Seven:	the Enthusiast (the need to avoid pain). Sevens are gluttons for the good stuff of life, whether that’s interesting ideas or exciting experiences. They want to experience life to its fullest, so they throw themselves into everything they do, which is why this type is sometimes called the Enthusiast. While healthy Sevens do this in a positive fashion, unhealthy Sevens seek these experiences to numb their pain or distract themselves from the unpleasant aspects of life.
Eight:	the Challenger (the need to be against). Eights are powerful, dominating types who aren’t afraid to assert themselves; they downright fear being weak or powerless because they’re under someone else’s control. Healthy Eights can be effective crusaders for the causes they believe in, but left unchecked, this same underlying quality can make them aggressive and power-hungry.
Nine:	the Peacemaker (the need to avoid). Nines devote their energy to maintaining harmony, both internally and externally. At their best, Nines are true peacemakers, but unhealthy Nines would rather ignore conflict than deal with it. Nines automatically seek to gain love by blending in—substituting others’ needs and priorities for their own—instead of trusting they’ll be accepted and appreciated for who they are.

This chapter serves as a brief introduction to the Enneagram. If you explore this framework further, you’ll learn about the wing types; arrows of integration and disintegration; the head, heart, and gut centers; and much more. Refer to the Recommended Resources for further reading.

A Better Version of Yourself

Growth is a multistep process, but it is an actual process. Spiritual formation isn’t quite as slippery as some make it out to be. The first step is to crack ourselves open to see what we’re hiding, either deliberately or inadvertently, and to drag what is in the dark into the light. This is the process of self-discovery and self-awareness.

The goal of the Enneagram is to get the “yuck” out of the way so we can be more ourselves, getting us closer to our true identities and purposes. The Enneagram helps us confront who we really are, what’s going on beneath the surface, and what’s motivating our behaviors instead of just polishing a shiny, happy facade. It also gives us the tools we need to examine whether change is happening only on a surface level or becoming deeply ingrained in our habits (which would be a good thing). We don’t want to change only our behaviors, although we do want those to change. We want lasting change that goes to the heart of who we are. The Enneagram doesn’t capture all of who we are; it shows us a mere sliver. It’s not the whole truth, but if it can offer us even a glimmer of truth about ourselves, it can empower us to change by first showing us what needs changing and then gently pointing us in the right direction.

While our type doesn’t change, the Enneagram helps us work with our personalities to become better versions of ourselves, to attain a greater level of health within our type.7 The Enneagram helps us imagine what that better self might look like and recognize how we might get there. It also underscores that growing as a person won’t in any way “neutralize” our personalities. The goal is, as always, to become more ourselves—our true selves—instead of getting tripped up by the stumbling blocks that tend to befall each personality type. Personal growth takes us out of unhealthy reflexive actions and enables us to be more fully ourselves, more present, more aware, and more intentional.

The Enneagram is nuanced and complex, but you need to understand only a few basic concepts to get started. It’s more than okay for your knowledge of it to grow while you’re using it. You learn by experimenting with the system and with yourself and seeing how your type plays out day by day—both when you’re by yourself and when you’re interacting with others.

The only requirements are that you have to start where you are and you have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

Putting This Information to Work in Your Own Life

“Starting” the Enneagram means figuring out your type. Some people are able to nail down their type right away; for others, it’s far from a straightforward process. (I belong to the latter group. More on that later.)

There are tests and quizzes, of course, and some are available free online. The highly respected Enneagram Institute publishes a short, free assessment as well as a longer assessment for a fee.8 My favorite self-test is in The Essential Enneagram by David Daniels and Virginia Price, which presents you with short, one-paragraph descriptions containing snapshots of each type. You choose the three you most identify with and take it from there.

These assessments are good starting points, but I recommend determining your type by cozying up with the type profiles. Choose a comfy chair, because this could take a while. As you review the type profiles, pay attention to what resonates. Ask yourself where you best fit. No one description can comprehensively capture your personality, but one type will—as a whole—fit you better than any of the others.

After spending some time thinking it over—and this could mean anywhere from half an hour to a year or more—you’ll identify which type suits you best.

Some people, including me, recommend that you wait to dive into the Enneagram until your late twenties or even age thirty because your personality, character, and way of approaching life should be developed before you set out on this journey. This doesn’t mean your younger years won’t hint at what your type will ultimately become. (For more about the Enneagram and children, especially as it pertains to parenting, I recommend The Enneagram of Parenting by Elizabeth Wagele.)

First, You’ll Be Miserable

The rule of thumb for Enneagram typing is this: when the yucky stuff resonates, you know you’ve nailed your type. If you read a description of your Enneagram type and feel exposed, as though you just got caught doing something really embarrassing, that’s a sign you typed yourself correctly.

Many years ago, my husband and I hosted his side of the family for a big family get-together. Will and I had just bought a house, and he wanted to give his family—all of whom live out of town—a tour. Everybody piled into cars for a field trip. I stayed behind at the old house to finish the meal prep. (As an introvert, I didn’t mind a little alone time, either, as much as I enjoy my husband’s family.)

With the house to myself, I cranked up the latest U2 album and got to work heating up dishes, chopping lettuce for salad, filling up glasses with ice. I sang as I worked, because the work goes better that way. At some point, I realized I’d left my water glass in the living room, where we’d been visiting. When I ran in to get it, I discovered my brother-in-law sitting on the sofa, smirking. He’d been there the whole time. Did I mention I am not a good singer? I still thank my lucky stars I was wielding sharp knives and fragile glasses that afternoon, or he might have seen me dancing too. This happened fifteen years ago; I think it took me until the ten-year mark to stop turning red when I remembered that moment I realized he’d been there the whole time. And that moment is pretty much what figuring out your Enneagram type feels like. Exposed and embarrassed.

As Richard Rohr is fond of saying, the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.9 And, whoa, confronting my type certainly made me miserable.

What My Type Identification Process Looked Like

My friend Leigh first piqued my interest in the Enneagram. She sent me some links, recommended a few books, and I rabbit-trailed from there. The first time I read through the Enneagram type profiles I suspected I was a Nine: the peacemaker, healer, reconciler, utopian. But I wasn’t certain. This type is motivated by the need to avoid. They fear conflict, aren’t great at articulating their wants or needs, and are flexible to a fault. This sounded like me . . . mostly.

Over the months that followed, I returned occasionally to the profiles. I read through the probable suspects again—for me, that meant types One, Five, Seven, and Nine—trying to decide once and for all which type suited me best. I couldn’t do it. But I continued to pay attention.

My Enneagram indecision ended the day I had to make a choice that, by its very nature, involved disappointing a lot of people. You’re probably imagining a truly epic decision right now, but let me assure you that most people wouldn’t have considered it a big deal. Boatloads of people make similar hiring-and-firing-type decisions—the type with clear winners and clear losers—every day. What was a big deal was the way I felt absolutely broken over the disappointment I was causing. I was sick over it. I kept leaving my house to pace on the little shaded path by my house because I couldn’t stop thinking about the people I had disappointed.

I had experienced these emotions before, under similar circumstances. But something was different this time. Thanks to my relatively new knowledge of the Enneagram, I had the self-awareness to realize that while my reaction was pretty extreme, it was normal for a Nine. In that instant, I knew my type. For certain. Through the framework of the Enneagram, I could perceive what was driving my behavior: the fear of separation, the yearning for peace of mind, the motivation to avoid conflict at all costs, the need for harmony. Of course I’m a Nine, I thought to myself. Who else reacts like this under this kind of stress?

This was not a fun realization. It didn’t make me feel lovable and unique; it made me feel like a basket case.

But even while I was feeling terrible, I found it enormously helpful to know that because of my type, I was going to feel terrible in this moment. The way I was feeling was totally normal—for my Enneagram type. It’s how I’m wired. Realizing this made me feel better instantly. Instead of freaking out about why I was feeling drained and borderline depressed, I acknowledged what was going on and why. Conflict makes me crazy. Disappointing people makes me irrational. My reaction was extreme, but I understood that it would fade. I hadn’t done anything wrong; these things are just hard for me. My self-awareness freed me to focus on moving forward in a healthy manner (walk, breathe, keep my mouth shut) instead of obsessing about whether I was losing my grip.

The circumstances vary from person to person, but my experience highlights an important point. It’s often our glaring weaknesses that confirm our type.

Understanding Your Type

Since I first learned my type, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe it in action, both in my past and in my present.

Let’s revisit the nutshell description of a Nine.

Nines devote their energy to maintaining harmony, both internally and externally. At their best, Nines are true peacemakers, but unhealthy Nines would rather ignore conflict than deal with it. Nines automatically seek to gain love by blending in—substituting others’ needs and priorities for their own—instead of trusting they’ll be accepted and appreciated for who they are.

Before I knew my Enneagram type, I knew conflict made me uneasy. I knew I could put people at ease. But I was blind to my tendency to blend in, to substitute other people’s priorities for my own.

This strikes me as ridiculous now, because examples from my own life are everywhere, and they go way back. Like that time in college I had a friend in my dorm review a paper I’d written for government class on developing nations. He returned my draft covered in notes about how one country in my paper operated like the Death Star and another operated like the Millennium Falcon. He’d given me all the notes I needed to turn my paper into one giant Star Wars analogy and convinced me this would elevate my paper from adequate to amazing. Despite my apathy for anything Star Wars (minus the Princess Leia Halloween costume I wore when I was eight because that was cool), I—and I hate to admit this because it seriously feels worse than getting caught breaking out my Beyoncé moves—incorporated his edits. I incorporated his edits. I was a good student who could stand on my own feet, yet I substituted someone else’s interests and priorities for my own. Classic Nine. I also got the worst grade of my academic career. (I’m going to go hide in the closet now.)

I could also tell you about when I was a young parent and it was vitally important to me that my friends agreed with the choices I was making about the things new parents get uptight about. Eating and sleeping are the big ones, but I wanted reassurance on everything. I was willing and eager (I’m cringing now, remembering how true this was) to react and adapt to other people’s wishes, opinions, and priorities. Classic Nine.

If healthy boundaries have always come easily to you, that’s great. It really is. For me, this healthy boundaries thing is possible today only because of a whole lot of hard work and practice. I’ve gotten much better at it over the years, but it’s been a slog. I still need to remain vigilant so I don’t forget just where I end and someone else begins.

I don’t enjoy recognizing that I behave this way, but doing so makes it possible for me to dial it down. For years, I felt like a nail-biter who’d shellacked her fingernails with one of those foul-tasting polishes that helps her quit biting them because every time she starts to mindlessly chew on her nail, the awful taste screams, “Stop, you’re doing it again!” She wears the polish so she can realize when she’s lapsing into her bad nail-biting habit.

The Enneagram works similarly to that nasty polish—it helps us fight bad habits. We can learn to put practices in place that will help us realize when we’re falling into familiar unhealthy patterns so we can instead learn to choose better ones.

And what does that path of improvement look like? It’s unique to each type, but it always begins with awareness.

The Right Questions for Your Type

All of us are inclined to slip up in predictable ways. Because my inclination as a Nine is to be lazy about my boundaries, my goal is to pay particular attention to my propensity to “merge” with others. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to move the marker a little closer to the “healthy” side of the spectrum by following a process tailored to my type. I’ve gotten into the habit of noticing when I’m being particularly indecisive (a red flag for me) or when I’m getting sidetracked by other people’s priorities and have learned to pause before acting on my (often misguided) impulses. First, I ask myself what I want before acting. (Yowzers, did this feel strange at first.) And now I wait before reacting to other people’s wishes. I also set my own priorities—on purpose. I screw up a lot, but I at least know what I’m supposed to do.10

My behavior may seem crazy to you because these things come easily to you. While I grow by asking myself about my boundaries, you may grow by asking yourself how loud your inner critic has been this week. Or how often you’ve been feeling disappointed lately about what’s missing in your life. Or if you’ve been escaping the potentially painful stuff by focusing on the new and shiny. These are different questions suited to different Enneagram types; they’re designed to probe what’s going on beneath the surface for you.

These self-care steps aren’t exactly easy—for any of us. But I’d rather know what to do for myself—even if it’s hard—than not know. Even if it makes me miserable for a little bit.

The Path to Improvement That Is Right for You

How does change actually happen? I’ve personally found two models to be especially helpful.

I’m a huge fan of the late, great Dallas Willard, whose works have been influential in my personal and spiritual journey. In his wonderful book Renovation of the Heart, Willard lays out a model for spiritual growth that he calls the VIM model, named after its three steps: Vision, Intention, Methods.11 If you’re a Willard fan or want an explicitly Christian approach to personal growth and spiritual formation, I highly recommend investigating this model, which lends itself to working in conjunction with the Enneagram (although I can find no evidence that Willard did so himself).

The second model is from David Daniels and Virginia Price’s book The Essential Enneagram. They call their model the 4As, named after the four things we need to do to make lasting changes in our lives: awareness, acceptance, action, and adherence.12 Because the 4As were developed specifically to work with the Enneagram, that’s the model we’ll focus on here.

The 4As Growth Process

Step 1: Awareness

Step 1 on the personal path to wholeness is to figure out what we’re dealing with, and the Enneagram excels at delivering this awareness. Until we learn to pay attention to our own patterns of behavior, we are powerless to change them.

Many people are afraid this introspective “navel-gazing” is narcissistic or indulgent, but I don’t see it that way! It’s brutal and necessary work if we truly want to see personal and spiritual growth.

Ironically, learning to see ourselves clearly helps us forget ourselves so we can focus on what matters instead of continually tripping ourselves up. Again, growth of any kind requires us to be honest with ourselves above all. Mindfulness doesn’t mean looking for what we want to see; it means watching for what is.

Step 2: Acceptance

The next step in the 4As is acceptance. If we want to change, we have to be mercilessly honest with ourselves. Acceptance means acknowledging that it is what it is, and we are who we are. This doesn’t mean just the bad stuff. True acceptance means seeing the whole of ourselves: the good parts and the ugly parts. We’re the whole package.

According to Riso and Hudson, before change is possible, we have to believe we’re worth the effort to get to know ourselves as we really are.13 Doing this acceptance step well means showing ourselves compassion as we acknowledge the good and (especially) the bad about ourselves. It means accepting what we find inside ourselves while being gentle and patient with ourselves. (You’re not the only person who’s going to need compassion, gentleness, and patience for this step.)

This step seems so obvious: yeah, yeah, don’t beat yourself up. But remember all those years ago when I went back to counseling? I was so hard on myself, week after week. My therapist, Patty, exasperated, finally called me on it and gave me a mental trick that has helped me ever since. I was talking to her about something that happened when I was sixteen, so she asked me if I knew any sixteen-year-old girls. I did. Then she asked me to imagine a sixteen-year-old girl I knew in the same situation I had been in. How did that make me feel? I realized immediately that no sixteen-year-old should have to deal with that crap. My heart went out to my sixteen-year-old self right then. Cultivating compassion for myself isn’t always so easy—unfortunately, I still get in plenty of not-great situations, even as an adult—but some variety of that mind trick tends to help.

Acceptance does not mean agreeing with or condoning every behavior—whether our own or others’. But when we see what is truly happening, we are empowered to take action to change it.

Step 3: Action

Step 3 is action, but the funny thing about the Enneagram growth process is that if I was watching you work through this step, I might not even realize anything was happening.

This step is actually more similar to a sequence. First, to avoid an unhealthy knee-jerk response, we have to pause. Then we have to ask ourselves what’s really going on. The goal is to identify what’s going on in the moment—what’s driving our behavior. In this stage, we’re trying to notice our natural reaction and figure out why we’re responding that way, whether we’re displaying anger, fear, sadness, tears, or whatever. We want to probe beneath the surface, to uncover the thoughts and motivations driving our behavior.

The third step in this action sequence is to move forward consciously instead of out of bad habits or instinctive reactions. Eventually, we want our actions to spring from a healthy place, but that will come with practice, time, and lots of adherence.

Step 4: Adherence

The final step in the 4A growth process is adherence, which simply means sticking with it. Adherence means practicing the 4As over and over and over again, until we begin to replace our old, unhealthy habitual responses with more healthy ones. It’s similar to building muscle. The more we practice, the easier it gets.

Some people naturally adopt a much more unconscious approach to examining their type or call this process a different thing, such as the spiritual discipline of self-examination. Regardless of what we call it, this is an area in which persistence and discipline will be rewarded.

The process gets easier, but it’s never going to be easy, and nobody is ever going to do it perfectly. But with time, you’ll get better.

Just a Tool, but a Helpful One

The Enneagram is just a tool, yet it remains useful for discovering the mystery of who we are and understanding others around us. As Riso and Hudson point out, “Individuals are understandable only up to a certain point, beyond which they remain mysterious and unpredictable. Thus, while there can be no simple explanations for people as individuals, it is still possible to say something true about them.”14 Paul writes in Ephesians 5:13, “Everything exposed by the light becomes visible—everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” It’s uncomfortable to dive deep into the darkest parts of ourselves, but it’s how we bring those parts into the light.