Why the Enneagram is the Ultimate Personal Growth System
It’s so much more than identifying your type.
I have been involved in some kind of personal growth work for most of my adult life, starting in graduate school at the age of 23. I have done many years of psychological work with individual therapists, couples’ counselors, and family systems. I have also done some spiritual work as well. I really believed I had done some good work to become a (relatively) healthy and self-aware person.
Then in 2017, I went through a humiliating failure, financial loss, and a life reboot after my startup imploded. I was in debilitating burnout and enduring all kinds of emotional and physical after-effects. (Thankfully, Big Self School is the happy byproduct of that downward spiral.)
It was during this time I was reintroduced to the Enneagram. I discovered the work of Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes (now my teachers) and knew immediately I had to study under them. It was clear. A deep knowing I couldn’t quite explain.
It took a life and career heartbreak for me to be open enough to look for new answers. Even after decades of psychological work, there were still parts of my personality that remained confusing and embarrassing to me. And, as I’m learning, completely hidden from me.
People often ask me what are the benefits from knowing their Enneagram type. What exactly is the point in doing all of this Enneagram work? I think this is a fair question and I wanted to address it.
The Enneagram has been transformational for me, but I can understand why some people may not immediately understand its power. So here are a few reasons it’s been so powerful for me and why I think it can be for you, too.
It creates a system for personal development
One of the things I’ve learned about myself over the last couple of years is that for me to achieve any goal, I need a system that supports my momentum toward that goal. In Atomic Habits, James Clear says “people don’t rise to the level of their goals, they fall to the level of their systems.” This is true for me. If my goals don’t have a system to scaffold my work, they will not be accomplished.
Exercise never stuck until I joined a group training program that meets three times a week.
Productivity and efficiency always evaded me until I started using the Full Focus Planner system.
I couldn’t stop biting my nails until I made a monthly manicure part of my routine.
People like routines. We need an easy-to-implement system in order to achieve what we want in life. If you want to grow as a human, you need the Enneagram. It’s magic for understanding yourself, how to change the things that sabotage you, and how to have more empathy for people you don’t understand. It’s hard to accomplish all of this haphazardly. The Enneagram gives you a sequential roadmap for doing it.
It unlocks unconscious patterns of behavior that years of therapy didn’t uncover
Personal growth and inner work have always been important to me. But it was relegated to psychotherapy for most of my adult life because I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve had some amazing therapists and effective counseling through the years, but most of my inner work was emotional and psychological growth only. It didn’t include very much spiritual growth or bodywork or any other number of ways we can grow as humans. My self-development didn’t feel whole. It was very helpful and important, but fractured and incomplete.
Learning (and now working with) the Enneagram has unlocked a whole portal to deeper and more holistic inner work. It’s a map — one I didn’t realize I was craving — for understanding myself at a deeper, more unconscious level.
I’ve been repeating the same pattern for as long as I can remember. I find an activity, interest, job, or project and throw myself headlong into it. I expect more from myself than is humanly possible, neglecting my own needs, unable to admit my own limitations, only to end up in a heap of exhaustion, indifference, and resentment. I strive for more and better, constantly unsatisfied with what already is.
During that same bout of burnout in 2017, I sat in my therapist’s office reeling from a deep sense of shame from a failed startup. I felt “duped” (I used that word) into believing I could pull it off, risk so much financially, sacrifice so much for something doomed to fail.
What was behind this need to be better than I am? Why did I feel this drive to keep pushing myself so hard, and work tirelessly to ensure that everyone is happy with me and proud of me? I couldn’t figure it out. I could see the pattern, one that started when I was a young child, but I couldn’t understand it or how to change it.
The pattern didn’t begin to weaken until I discovered what was behind it — pride. With the passion of pride, I have an all-consuming drive to be better than I am. And underneath the pride is a core fear that I have to earn love from people by doing things for them because I’m not lovable as I am.
This pattern is now very clear to me, and I have an antidote for changing it.
It’s called humility.
When my instinct is to puff up or bow down, I lean into true humility to find my stable center. Humility forces me to be anonymous, not small. Humility requires my truth — “I am as good as anyone but better than no one.” I heard this saying from my Mamaw and Papaw and it’s now my morning mantra. It speaks to my Two heart perfectly. (Maybe Mamaw & Papaw saw something in me I couldn’t?)
Humility allows me to unhook from both praise and criticism (and my ever-present ego) and see myself a little more clearly and with a lot more compassion.
It shows you where you most need to grow and what to work on next
When I identified my type + subtype (I’m a Self-preservation Two), it became crystal clear what my blind spots are and how to work on them.
Let me be clear — I did not want to be a Self-preservation Two. They are known to be child-like and to play “small.” They often give off a vibe that they need to be protected (even though we feel extremely independent). Self-preservation Twos believe they are privileged and manipulate with charm so that others will meet their needs. Ugh. This sounds awful and incredibly embarrassing. But if I’m honest with myself and look back over my entire life, this “privileged” throughline has been there.
The combination of my dominant type (Type Two) and my dominant instinct (Self-preservation) gives me a clear path for the work I need to be doing. It’s a mash-up of practicing humility while also owning my power and allowing discomfort and expecting love — in all its forms — to show up for me.
Unless you are a Self-preservation Two, you will have a different path. Maybe yours is being less confrontational or more confrontational, taking better care of yourself, being more focused, encountering deeper emotions.
It doesn’t matter what your path is, the Enneagram will reveal it and help you along the way.
It reveals your deepest wound
One of the most sobering and heartbreaking moments of my Enneagram journey so far has been realizing how surprised I am when people seem to like me. I’m genuinely surprised. I don’t expect it because I don’t trust it.
I grew up hearing messages that I was too emotional and sensitive. It was apparent that there wasn’t a lot of space for expressing feelings. And I learned to either repress my emotions altogether or turn them into something more useful — helping other people. Helping other people became a strategy for getting what I most needed — love. And because love felt so scary to ask for or expect, I was willing to accept a pseudo-love in the feelings of being needed or valued or liked. But those things aren’t love. They are replacements for love. Replacements I’ve mastered the art of manufacturing.
This is the core wound of type Two. The lingering message is that we’re not lovable for just being who we are. We have to earn love. We have to do things for others. Listen to their problems. Make them feel special. Take them a meal. Bake them a cake. Help them figure out a solution to their problems. (Psst — all this helping and doing and listening is exhausting for us.)
Whatever your Enneagram type, you have a core wound. Because we all inhabit an imperfect world with imperfect families, we have stress fractures in our hearts. Your type will show you the way to make sense of your suffering, and more importantly, the path forward.
You don’t have to keep up the shenanigans of managing an image or living in a psychic straightjacket, pretending you don’t suffer. We all do.
Let the Enneagram show you the way to your healing and growth.
To explore how to grow beyond your personality type, download our free guide: How to Unlock Your Potential with the Enneagram. bigselfschool.com/enneagram
