Enneagram with Janet: essay

REFLECTIONS ON THE ENNEAGRAM 

Janet Johnston

Enneagram:  A graph of nine.  

The enneagram:  A map of the human condition intended to help us wake up to our true nature.  

My introduction to the enneagram began fourteen years ago.  My husband and I were divorcing, my daughter had gone off to university and I had a serious illness that forced early retirement from a job that I loved.  This trifecta of losses left me stunned and wondering who I was. 

My therapist recommended that I read, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson. She explained that the enneagram is based on nine personality types but is also a tool for personal growth.  

During my career as a psychiatric nurse, psychology interns honing their craft had given me every psychological assessment from the Myers-Briggs to the Rorschach. The results were dry and left me feeling pigeon-holed and directionless. So, I wasn’t interested in another personality assessment tool, and besides, the word enneagram was off-putting.  It sounded like a combination of enema and telegram. What I wanted was useful information about myself and how best to build reliable self-worth and wisdom. 

But I respected this therapist, so I bought the book and settled onto my sofa with a mug of coffee, and began reading. 

“We have come into this exquisite world to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom and light.”—Hafiz (1315-1390) Persian Poet

The first thing I noticed was a shift away from the clinical, pathology-based tone I was used to. The book melded modern psychological language with the age-old quest to understand our human nature and its relationship with Source.  I appreciated the grand historical context; the reminder that humans have been seeking a way to be reunited with their whole selves for millennia.  This is the heart of all wisdom traditions, and I promised myself that I would return to the history and spirituality of the enneagram at some point. But at that moment, I was lost and hurting and needed practical help.  

My therapist thought I might be a Type Four on the enneagram, so I read the chapter on Fours and found some affinity but no real fit.  Then I took the enneagram assessment and scored high on Point Nine.  

I read a description of what Nines are like when they’re at their best. The description rang uncannily true. I’d known glimmers of that but they always ran ahead to a shimmer in the distance.  

Then I read about Type Nine in the average to unhealthy ranges.  There I was, in depth—what I cared about, what I was trying to avoid and how I was maneuvering through life. My strategies laid bare, I suddenly felt seen which was both comforting and uncomfortably personal. I returned to the description of the very healthy Nine. And even though I only had glimpses of that state, it felt true to who I was.  My heart opened to longing for a sustained experience of this truer self.  And I wondered why I’d lost it to begin with.   

                                                            ***

Do you have a personality, or does it have you?—Russ Hudson, The Enneagram Institute

The enneagram teaches that all nine types have a particular twist on the granddaddy fear of them all—that we’re not inherently lovable. We humans have a way to go in the evolution of our consciousness, and life is painful at times.  Even children from the healthy families encounter traumas that affect them.  The greatest of which is the integration of the belief in separation from the ground of Being. Each generation is born into this experience of perceived separation which a child cannot help but integrate.  Like the Borg from Star Trek, resistance is futile.  One problem with this is the personality self can’t actually know itself as loved. 

The ego, an important part of being human, becomes our dominant experience but it can only create a kind of faux version of the true self. By the time we have acquired language, we already think that we are the personality self.  In the meantime, Source abides in our heart, waiting for longing to bring us home to the experience of Oneness and love that is our birthright.  The longing we feel calls us to remember our whole selves as expressions of the Divine. We go through life sensing that something is missing because, of course, it is. 

Each of the nine personality types, copes with the perceived loss of union in a particular way. The enneagram teaches how to recognize our particular pattern of self-forgetting as well as ways of becoming present to our true nature so that we can tell the difference and begin to reclaim awareness of the whole self that is our birthright.     

When I read about the pattern of point Nine, my mouth literally fell open.  I finally understood why I stayed in unhealthy relationships longer than necessary, why I discounted my own needs and opinions and why I had so much fear of my own anger.  My mind was spinning with the question, Why after all the therapists I’ve seen, am I learning this from a book? But I felt so grateful that I wept.  This was the practical psycho-spiritual information I had been seeking.  

The enneagram helps us on our quest for our essential self in two fundamental ways. The first is by providing psychological information particular to our personality type.  The second is by teaching the art of becoming present to our true nature.  If we only learn the typing information without incorporating the practices, we don’t benefit and, in fact, end up reinforcing our egoic notion of ourselves in greater detail.  “That’s just me being a Three!”  

Knowing our type gives us a detailed view of ourselves, making it much easier to recognize when our defensive, ego patterns are running the show.  The enneagram view is not that the personality self is bad or should be eliminated but that it is a construct, an auxiliary aspect of the whole self.  Personality is needed and can be enjoyable and instructive but letting it be in charge is like handing the car keys to a three-year-old. 

The enneagram is a living map of the human condition.  The embodied mindfulness practices help us return to the present moment where we can experience our Creative Self or True Self—in other words, the whole self in coherence with the Divine.  Each moment, with presence, is always the perfect starting place.  As we return to the breath and sensations, our true nature unfolds within us.  The enneagram also teaches that we are all connected energetically. As we learn to return to our whole selves we support the interconnected evolution of human beings. 

***

It’s interesting to note a major, mainstream study of child temperament done at New York University in the 1980’s by the research psychologists, Thomas and Chess. After several years of studying babies they found that there are nine basic temperaments.  Dr. David Daniels, a professor and enneagram teacher, who taught at Stanford University was able to demonstrate that these nine temperaments correspond perfectly with the nine enneagram types.  This research is being expanded by Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director or the Mindsight Institute.  

Underlying all the enneagram practices are compassion and respect for each person’s pace.  In fact, master teachers encourage us to take our time.  The enneagram is fascinating, but intellectual mastery is less beneficial than practice that leads to a new experience of ourselves as present to our body, heart and mind. 

“When we are Present, “something” happens that feels compassionate and strong, patient and wise, indominable and of great value.  This something is who we actually are.  It is the “I” beyond name, without personality—our True Nature.” 

—The Wisdom of the Enneagram, Russ Hudson and Don Riso

Fundamental to the enneagram teachings is the idea of experiencing the three basic centers of intelligence: the body/instinctual center, the heart center and the head center.  These centers are parallel with the chakra system but consolidated into three main centers. When we’re only in contact with one or two, we’re not balanced. Besides, if we have three centers why not use them all?  

As months of study and practice reacquainting myself with these centers progressed, I began to have a richer experience of myself.  At first, this felt counterintuitive because I was pretty disconnected, but I kept at it and it has paid off as my ability to be present and to feel more alive has gradually increased.

For me, the enneagram was like the magic wardrobe in C.S. Louis’s, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  I discovered a doorway to another more meaningful landscape and recognized myself as the protagonist in my own hero’s journey.  Later, I learned that Homer’s Odyssey parallels the enneagram. Many feel they are truly on their own hero’s journey when they use the enneagram for self-growth.

As we practice being present to whatever is arising in us, we gradually experience more grace, resilience and creativity.  Source intelligence becomes palpable within us and we have more opportunities to shift the personality into its proper perspective.  From presence, our choices are fresh and alive rather than scripted by inherited “shoulds”. 

Growth is not a linear process and using the enneagram doesn’t preclude having challenges in life but the depth of understanding supports our psychological growth and the presence practices support our spiritual growth.   

As for learning to choose relationships wisely, I’ve developed the most important relationship I could have—the one with myself.  I continue to heal from the dissociation of my Type Nine pattern and to deepen my relationship with the Beloved.  I have no doubt that my enneagram work was preparation for my work with with Paul Selig and Natalie Sudman.  Because of all of these teachers, I have developed loving relationships I couldn’t have imagined when I began this journey.