Don't know your Enneagram Type?
Click here to take our Enneagram Test
To help you understand your type in more depth we have put on this
site a sample of the material from our
Enneagram books. By using the Enneagram as a guide to observing
yourself from moment to moment and from day to day, you will have
a method of personal development that will eventually be personally
and spiritually transformative.
The degree of awareness that you are able to bring to yourself
as you "catch yourself in the act" and see your personality patterns
at work is the degree to which your personal growth will occur.
You actually do not have to "do" anything: just show up and become
aware of yourself and your personality's habitual routines—without
acting them out, of course.
To benefit fully from the following recommendations for personal
growth for each type, be sure that you have typed yourself correctly.
You can take the independently scientifically
validated Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI, Version
2.5) here.
We recommend the following tools for personal development. This
material has been taken from our book, The
Wisdom of the Enneagram (Bantam, 1999, pages 345-347).
Seven Tools for Personal Growth
To use the Enneagram for personal growth, we need more than interesting
information about the nine types. This map of the soul can become
useful for us only when we combine it with key personal growth techniques.
To this end, we offer seven tools that we have found indispensable
for spiritual development.
- Seeking Truth
If we are interested in personal growth, no element is more important
than developing a love of truth. Seeking the truth means being
curious about what is going on in ourselves and around us, not
settling for the automatic answers our personality feeds us. If
we observe ourselves, we will see that many of the stock explanations
that we give ourselves for our behavior or for the actions of
others are a form of resistance. They are a way of avoiding seeing
more deeply into our current state. For example, one stock answer
might be, "I am really angry at my father," but a deeper truth
might be that I really love him and desperately want his love.
Both levels of truth might be difficult for our personality to
accept. It could take a long time to admit that we are angry with
our father—and even longer to acknowledge the love beneath
the anger.
As we learn to accept what is real in the present moment, we are
more able to accept whatever arises in us, because we know that
it is not the whole of us. The truth encompasses both our
fearful reactions and the greater resources of our soul.
While our automatic reactions can derail our search for the truth,
acknowledging their presence brings us closer to the truth. When
we are willing to be with the whole truth—whatever it is—we
have more inner resources available to deal with whatever we are
facing.
- "Not Doing"
The process of spiritual growth sometimes seems paradoxical because
we speak of struggle and effort as well as of allowing, accepting,
and letting go. The resolution of these apparent opposites lies
in the concept of "not doing." Once we understand "not doing,"
we see that the real struggle is to relax into greater awareness
so that we can see the manifestations of our personality.
By neither acting on our automatic impulses nor by suppressing
them, we begin to understand what is causing them to arise. Not
acting on our impulses creates openings through which we can catch
glimpses of what we are really up to. Those glimpses often become
some of our most important personal growth lessons.
- Willing to be Open
One of the primary functions of the personality is to separate
us from various aspects of our own true nature. It causes us to
limit our experience of ourselves by blocking from awareness any
parts of ourselves that do not fit our self-image. By relaxing
our bodies, quieting the chatter in our minds, and allowing our
hearts to be more sensitive to our situation, we open up to the
very inner qualities and resources, which can help us grow.
Every moment has the possibility of delighting us, nurturing us,
supporting us—if we are here to see it. Life is a
tremendous gift, but most of us are missing it because we are
watching a "mental movie" of our lives instead. As we learn to
trust in the moment and to value awareness, we learn how to turn
off the internal movie projector and start living a much more
interesting life—the one we are actually starring in.
- Getting Proper Support
The more support we have for our personal development, the easier
our process will be. If we are living or working in dysfunctional
environments, personal growth is not impossible, but it is more
difficult. Most of us cannot leave our jobs or our families so
easily, even if we are having difficulties with them, although
we can seek out others who give us encouragement and act as witnesses
to our growth. Beyond this, we can find groups, attend workshops,
and put ourselves in situations that foster our real development.
Getting support also entails structuring our days in ways that
leave room for the things that nurture our souls.
- Learning from Everything
Once we have involved ourselves in the process of personal growth,
we understand that whatever is occurring in the present moment
is what we need to deal with right now. And whatever is arising
in our hearts or minds is the raw material that we can use for
our growth. It is an extremely common tendency to flee from what
we are actually facing into our imagination, romanticizing or
dramatizing our situation, justifying ourselves, or even escaping
into "spirituality." Staying with our real experience of ourselves
and our situation will teach us exactly what we need to know for
growth.
- Cultivating a Real Love of Self
It has been said many times that we cannot love others if we do
not love ourselves. But what does this mean? We usually think
that it has something to do with having self-esteem or with giving
ourselves emotional "goodies" to compensate for our feelings of
deficiency. Perhaps, but one central aspect of a mature love of
ourselves is caring about our growth sufficiently not to flee
from the discomfort or pain of our actual condition. We must love
ourselves enough not to abandon ourselves—and we abandon
ourselves to the degree that we are not fully present to our own
lives. When we are caught up in worry, fantasy, tension and anxiety,
we become dissociated from our bodies and our feelings—and
ultimately, from our true nature.
True love of self also entails a profound acceptance of ourselves—returning
to Presence and settling into ourselves as we actually are without
attempting to change our experience. It is also aided by seeking
the company of people who possess some degree of this quality
themselves.
- Having a Practice
Most spiritual teachings stress the importance of some kind of
practice, be it meditation, prayer, yoga, relaxation, or movement.
The important thing is to set aside some time each day to reestablish
a deeper connection with our true nature. Regular practice (combined
with participation in some kind of teaching or group) serves to
remind us over and over again that we are hypnotized by our personality.
Spiritual practice interferes with our deeply ingrained habits
and gives us opportunities to wake up from our trance more often
and for longer periods of time. Eventually, we understand that
every time we engage in our practice we learn something new, and
every time we neglect our practice we miss an opportunity to allow
our lives to be transformed.
A major obstacle to regular practice is the expectation of the
personality that we attain specific personal growth results, and,
ironically, this is especially true if we have made significant
breakthroughs in our spiritual growth. The personality seizes
on breakthroughs and wants to recreate them on demand. This is
not possible because breakthroughs occur when we are completely
open to the present moment, while anticipating a certain payoff
distracts us from experiencing how we actually are. In this moment,
a new gift or insight is available—although most likely not
the one that was available last week. Furthermore, the personality
uses our breakthroughs as justifications to stop practicing saying,
"Great! You've had a breakthrough! Now you're 'fixed' and you
don't need to do this anymore."
Along with our regular daily practice, life presents us with many
opportunities to see our personality in action and to allow our
essential nature to come forth and transform our personality.
But it is not enough merely to think about personal development
or to talk about it or to read books about it. Procrastination
is a great defense of the ego. The only time to use the tools
of personal growth is now.
For each of the nine Enneagram types we have assembled five individual
recommendations for personal growth. These are part of the ten recommendations
that can be found in the second edition of Understanding
the Enneagram (Houghton Mifflin, 2000, pages 327-354). Six more
recommendations for each individual type can be found in The
Wisdom of the Enneagram.
Keeping these recommendations in mind can serve as a "wake up call"
to you to help you identify your major personality patterns, to
suggest what you can do to avoid their pitfalls, and how you can
become more aware and awake in your daily life and relationships.
Personal Growth Recommendations by Enneagram Type
Remember that there are more, completely different type-specific
recommendations for growth in Understanding
the Enneagram and in The Wisdom
of the Enneagram. You might also want to use the type-specific
"releases and affirmations" found in Enneagram
Transformations in your daily practice and reflection. Remember
also to take our validated RHETI Enneagram
Test to discover or confirm your personality type, or to help
you type someone else.
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