September: Know Yourself Well

Can you remember who you were,
before the world told you
who you should be?

—Charles Bukowski

As a therapist, I am in the business of helping people get to know themselves better. It’s a favorite part of my job. And every day I am reminded why the enduring philosophical edict “know thyself” is the key to a happy life. I find that people who know themselves well feel more comfortable in their own skin. They’re more open hearted and loving to themselves and others, and are generally more at peace in the world.

In my twelve years of private practice, one of the best tools for getting to know ourselves that I have found is the nine-point personality typing system known as The Enneagram.

In their book The Wisdom of the Enneagram, Don Riso and Russ Hudson define the Enneagram as a geometric figure that maps out the nine fundamental personality types of human nature and their complex interrelationships. They describe it as a development of modern psychology that has roots in spiritual wisdom from many different ancient traditions. The word Enneagram comes from the Greek word for “nine,”—ennea—and “figure,”—grammos. The first evidence of this nine-pointed figure was found in the Coptic tombs of Egypt.

The Enneagram is highly accurate and enjoyable to use. Not only does it help us increase our self-awareness, it also helps us understand the people in our lives much better, as well.

Riso and Hudson say that the Enneagram can help us only if we’re willing to be honest with ourselves, and I think that’s true. Each personality type has its distinct motivations, fears, and behaviors, and it takes a fair amount of readiness and courage to look at and explore these aspects of ourselves directly.

The nine distinct personality types of the enneagram include: Type 1 (The Reformer, also referred to as The Perfectionist), Type 2 (The Helper/The Giver), Type 3 (The Achiever/The Performer), Type 4 (The Individualist/The Artist), Type 5 (The Investigator/The Observer), Type 6 (The Loyalist/The Skeptic), Type 7 (The Enthusiast/The Epicure), Type 8 (The Challenger/The Protector, and Type 9 (The Peacemaker/The Mediator).

I won’t be going into the specifics of each type here in this blog post, but If you haven’t discovered your Enneagram type yet, I think this website is a great place to start. If you don’t wish to pay for an assessment, I recommend checking out a book about the Enneagram from the library that includes a self-assessment (most do).

As I mentioned above, the Enneagram is a masterful tool for understanding our own and others’ motivations, fears, and behaviors. One way the Enneagram does this is through what it refers to as the instincts. The Enneagram teaches that we all have three basic motivating instincts: self-preservation, one-to-one (sometimes referred to as sexual), and social. 

Another way of describing instincts is that they are where our attention goes. Regarding the instincts, my favorite Enneagram teacher, Dale Rhodes, describes each of us as a three-layered cake. All three instincts are alive in all of us, he says, it’s just a matter of tuning into which layers are biggest and most important to us—which ones dominate our attention. 

To help us tune into our instincts, he uses the example of arriving at a party hosted by a close friend. What is the first most likely thing you would do when you arrive? he asks. What are the second and third things you might do? If the first thing I would do is find the host and give them a hug, that might mean my first instinct is one-to-one. If I would then get a snack and a drink for myself, my second instinct might be self-preservation. Third, I would mingle with the other guests, meaning my third instinct might be social. It doesn’t mean that I devalue socializing, it’s just that it’s slightly less important or motivating to me than 1) my one-to-one relationships and 2) self-care.

In using the Enneagram in my therapy practice, I’ve also gained insights about the instincts from clients over the years. Many people have mentioned that they believe their instincts aren’t fixed but change over time, based on circumstances and life stages. 

Another sub-teaching of the enneagram that I find quite helpful is what Enneagram trainer Suzanne Stabile calls the loops. The basis of this teaching is that we navigate and make sense of our inner and outer worlds through three processes: thinking, feeling, and doing.

In this wonderful interview, she describes how each of the nine types is likely to get stuck in a loop involving two of the three processes and how we can balance ourselves out by reaching for the third. For example, Enneagram twos are likely to get caught in a feeling-doing loop, where they feel an emotion and then act on it impulsively. This can result in embarrassment or shame and have unintended consequences. So, twos can benefit from reaching toward thinking, slowing down when they feel something and paying more attention to their inner worlds, carefully thinking through any external action before they take it. Conversely, fours tend to get caught in feeling-thinking loops, where they may spend hours or days in a seemingly endless cycle of a persistent feeling followed by thoughts about the feeling, which intensifies and complicates the feeling, which creates more thoughts about the feeling, and so on. This can lead to depression, anxiety, and obsessiveness. So, fours benefit from reaching toward doing to interrupt their thinking-feeling cycle. They might take some kind of external action like changing their environment, calling a friend, or going for a walk.

These two sub-teachings from the Enneagram—the instincts and loops—are so helpful and yield a great deal of personal insight and growth. They can even stand alone.

So next time you walk into a party or get caught in a loop, I invite you to bring a curiosity to your inner process. Where does your attention go? Do you tend to prioritize your relationship with yourself, other individuals, or groups? And when you’re caught in a tailspin, do you need to reach for thinking, feeling, or doing to balance yourself out?

As they say in the Enneagram world, where attention goes, energy flows. Follow the flow of that energy, and I promise you will discover an inner quest worthy of your greatest devotion.