(and Why I Sometimes Can’t Shut Up About It)
Let me just say it plainly: I am in a long-term, wildly fulfilling, occasionally exasperating, and at times, frustrating relationship with the Enneagram. Now, after years of deep and focused learning, and becoming a Certified Enneagram Teacher, we are going stronger than ever. However, it hasn’t been like that at the beginning. The Enneagram and I met around 2011, and for the first some years, we were in a non-committed relationship – primarily on my behalf. The Enneagram didn’t care much, and I simply thought of it as “yet another system that gives me a snapshot of who I am” that I can keep somewhere that I will quickly forget. What shifted it for me is my encounter with colon cancer, when I saw how my personality has been playing out and how this was a powerful and much-needed wake-up call. This is when our relationship has become committed. For life.
If you have never heard of the Enneagram, let me sketch a quick picture. Imagine nine core personality types – nine distinct ways of seeing, reacting to, and making sense of the world. Nine lenses, each tinted with its own gifts, struggles, blind spots, and soulful longings. The Enneagram isn’t just another personality test that spits out a result, gives you a nice label to impress your friends at the party, or worse – try to label others. It is a living, breathing system that invites you into radical honesty – and tender compassion – with yourself.
So… What is the Enneagram?
“The Enneagram model suggests that each individual views 360 degrees of reality through a narrow slice of perception based on early coping strategies that were used to adapt to the environment in childhood. These coping strategies grow into patterns of perceiving the world and shape what we pay attention to and what we don’t pay attention to.” – Beatrice Chestnut
The Enneagram is a map, though not “just” a map. It is rooted in a lot of ancient wisdom and sharpened by modern psychology. It describes nine archetypal energies – or types – each with its own motivations, fears, and habitual ways of being. But here’s the kicker: it’s not really about putting you in a box, which I have heard quite a bit over the years (e.g. “I don’t want to be placed in a box, or labeled.”) Honey, I have news – you are in a box already, whether you know it or not. Just like all of us. The Enneagram will show you, with uncanny and often brutal honesty, the exact box you have already been living in… and then hand you a key, or a crowbar, as a way out.
In the Enneagram circles, we call it “a psycho-spiritual map,” which means – it is a framework for self-awareness, and/or personal and professional development and growth. Yet, for the brave and the curious, it is also a spiritual compass, a relational decoder ring, and, frankly, a mirror that sometimes says, “Yeah, this is awkward, but you kinda do this thing every time you feel threatened. Wanna look at that?”
My Personal Enneagram Journey (aka: confessions of a recovering type…)
When I finally decided to commit to my relationship with the Enneagram and dive deep, it was like someone had been reading my diary. Not the public-facing, “I’m doing great!” diary. The real one – the one hidden under the mattress with all the pages crinkled from tear stains and late-night epiphanies.
Discovering my type felt equal parts thrilling and mortifying. I remember thinking, “Oh no. Someone sees me. Like really sees me. And also – wait a second – I do what when I feel unlovable or out of control?”
Over time, something beautiful began to unfold. The Enneagram didn’t just expose my patterns – it began to soften them. It gave me language for things I had always felt but couldn’t name. It helped me notice when I was spiraling into old stories or reacting from fear instead of presence. It taught me how to pause, breathe, and choose.
“The spiritual journey is not a career or a success story. It is a series of small humiliations of the false self that become more and more profound.” – Carl Jung
One of the many gifts for me was compassion. Through all my studies and practices with the Enneagram, I realized that – drums please – everyone has an Enneagram type, whether they know about it or not. I got to see that people act out when they are “under the influence” of their Enneagram personality type, gripping them in a tight fist of anxiety, anger, or fear (to name but a few possible options). The more constricted a person is, the stronger they act out. Opening up to this perspective, truly and experientially, allows me to be softer and gentler with others.
Why my Coaching Clients Swear by It (or at it, at first, before whispering their thanks)
When I bring the Enneagram into my coaching work, something shifts. People stop trying to “fix” themselves and start getting curious. They begin to see how their deepest longings – for love, safety, success, peace, belonging, connection – have been guiding their behaviours all along. Even the messy ones.
I have watched clients finally understand why they keep dating the same kind of person. Why they burn out again, even after promising they’d slow down. Why they can’t stop people-pleasing or why they bristle when someone offers help. And once they see it, everything changes. They soften. They laugh. They breathe a little deeper. There’s a moment I’ve witnessed many times – when a client recognizes their type’s core pattern and says, with a mixture of horror and delight, “Oh my god. That’s me.” And then: “Wait… that means I’m not broken. I’m just wired this way.” And then: “So I can change?”
That’s the gold.
Transformation, but Make it Gentle
The Enneagram doesn’t demand that we become someone else. It invites us to come home – to who we have always been beneath the defenses, deep-seated wounds, hurts, and coping strategies. It offers a pathway from autopilot to awareness, from shame to self-acceptance, from fear to freedom.
It’s not about perfection. It is about presence.
And let’s be honest – sometimes our Enneagram patterns are just hilariously obvious once we spot them. Like the Type 1 who alphabetizes their spice rack to soothe their existential dread. Or the Type 4 who can’t send a text without rewriting it twelve times for emotional nuance. Or the Type 7 who signs up for a silent retreat and immediately tries to plan a group hike.
It’s funny because it is true. And it is tender because we get it. We are all just trying to make sense of our lives the best way we know how.
“Most people feel the tug of two opposing energies within. On one hand, they are drawn to authentically express their soul’s higher qualities, such as inner strength, compassion, joy, gratitude, courage, or inner peace. On the other hand, they find themselves repeating familiar experiences that seem to pull them downward in the opposite direction. They act in ways that sometimes disappoint or embarrass them. How is it possible that we can experience such inner polarities?” – Roxanne Howe-Murphy
Why I Keep Coming Back
The Enneagram reminds me – often daily – that I am both a powerful, glorious, radiant being and also a slightly (OK, at times, more than that) ridiculous bundle of habits, blind spots, knee-jerk reactions, and hangups. And that’s okay. It keeps me humble. It keeps me laughing. It keeps me growing.
So, if you’re feeling stuck, lost, or just curious about what makes you tick (and what ticks you off), I invite you to explore the Enneagram. Not as a fix-it tool, but as a love letter to your soul. You just might find – as many have – that the journey inward is the most adventurous one of all. Mind you, it is not for the faint of heart, if one is to embrace it fully. Yet, incredibly fulfilling, if you are committed to a spacious, beautiful, and awakened life.
