more about the Enneagram

To give a brief description of what the enneagram is for those who have not heard of it before: the enneagram is a personality type system that uses 9 unique personality types for the purpose of understanding one's own and other people's personalities. At its best, it is not a way to categorize people, but a way to uncover the automatic patterns we all have in terms of relating with and understanding the world, and giving us useful self-knowledge that can be used to change our experience.

When I talk about the enneagram I like to use the metaphor of wearing a particular pair of colored sunglasses all our lives. We view and interpret the world through these glasses, and by learning about the enneagram we can discover what color our own glasses are, and what color other people's glasses are. The enneagram is not a fixed system, rather it is continually evolving as our understanding about it evolves. It is not "scientifically proven;" however, I have found it to be one of the best personality self discovery tools that I have learned about so far.

The more we can understand how our personality functions, the more we can mentally disengage from it when we view ourselves, seeing ourselves more objectively rather than being continually caught up in our own experience. By hearing about, or reading about, the different trends that each personality type tends to follow, we can recognize more and more how we follow patterns of thinking and acting, and start to see beyond the patterns in a way that allows us more autonomy over our own behavior and functioning. Our experience becomes less and less scripted, and we have more freedom over how we develop ourselves, our lives, and our relationships.