Starting point

I have heard the Enneagram described as a personality typology system but this reduces and misses the point of it. It is a developmental system which acknowledges that our developmental pathway depends on where we are starting from - and that the starting point is our personality. So discovering our Type is not the goal but the starting point. Once we have correctly identified our Type, the awareness that goes with that sets us off on the developmental journey of expanding our experience of ourselves, of recognising that there is more to us than our personality, a recognition of gifts we have that we may not have fully realised before and ways to deal with our challenges. It is really an 'opening up' of the box we have put ourselves in (as we all do in life).

The problem with seeing the Enneagram merely as a personality typology system, is that finding your Type becomes an endgame, not the starting point. Which means that, instead of liberating us from the box we have put ourselves in, it actually reinforces it. We use our Type as an excuse for why we behave as we do instead of using it as a portal for greater awareness through which we can grow, expand and transform. We often wish we could change but change requires awareness of self. It requires the ability to learn from ourselves and our experiences in order that we can move beyond repetitive attitudes and behaviours that we habitually fall into and which keep us where we are. As the saying goes 'If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got'. And, I would add, 'you'll always be who you always are'.