What is the Enneagram? An overview for PsychicSource.com

I wrote this overview of the Enneagram for Psychic Source that is both succinct but in depth. Needless to say, the images are not mine: Enneagram Types And The Wisdom Of The Enneagram

Here’s a preview:

”Enneagram Type 8

Enneagram Type Eight most exemplifies the willfulness and vitality of the Body Center. They are bold, assertive, and have a strong presence. The awake Eight has a confidence and intuition that allows for an incredible resourcefulness and drive. Eights are surprisingly sensitive and can combine their strong presence with a loving heart. They have abundant energy and use it to enact change or leave an impact on others. There’s an expansive quality to Eights.

Eights resist anything they perceive as potentially having power over them, and gradually begin to fear being controlled. In response, they shut down contact with their heart, prioritizing self-protection. They become more authoritarian while over-concerned with self-sufficiency and independence. Their natural energy turns into compulsive pushing against things. They become fearful of being taken advantage of and can become confrontational, interpreting everything as a test of wills, and manipulating others. Distressed Eights become controlling, domineering, and ruthless.

Passion: Lust - Lust is not sexual lust; instead, it is chronic intensification. Lust is the reaction to a sense of deadening of the heart experienced by shielding oneself from contact with oneself or others. Unable to make vulnerable contact of the heart, pushing for intensity becomes the antidote to inner numbness. Amping the intensity of our interactions with the environment and others provides a false feeling of being strong and real.

Fixation: Objectification* - Lust results in Eights being unable to experience the depth and realness of themselves and others. Objectification creates a sense of the self as being merely an object pushing against other objects, rather than real experiences or people.

Type Eights find their way back to essence when they recognize how their attempts to bring energy and to escalate intensity are actually creating hardness and numbness, which alienates them further from the vitality they seek. By seeing that nothing is genuinely reaching them and that this stems not from strength but fear, they can allow themselves to feel the toll this takes on their hearts. Gradually, they can trust that their own being has the Essential Power and substance to be touched by their experience in all three centers without being harmed or disempowered. 

Enneagram Type 9

Enneagram Type Nines most exemplify the groundedness and connectedness of the Body Center. They tend to be harmonizers and are naturally empathetic and holistic thinkers. They have a quality of acceptance and gentle receptivity but may also have a strong creative or intellectual bent. Their deep sensitivity, however, means they are easily overwhelmed both by others as well as by their own internal states.

In seeking stability within and among their connections, they can resist the arising of visceral physical energies and giving attention to their own preferences. This means they don’t allow all of themselves to be fully engaged and present, repressing aspects of their self-expression and disconnecting them from the full expression of their needs, preferences, and personal value.

In these circumstances, a Nine inevitably begins to “lose themselves” and can feel neglected by others. Life comes to be seen as demanding, and to resist being tossed around, Nine's become stubborn, passive aggressive, and going along with things they may not agree with. They resist their own inner drives and passions and direct more energy toward fantasy, temporary comforts, and distractions. At the same time, they can become fearful of expressing their own powerful rage, which can boil over. As they become more fixated, they become repressed, numb, and seemingly catatonic.

Passion: Sloth - Sloth refers not to laziness, but to a resistance to fully showing up, to fully accessing one's vitality and potential as a kind of self-neglect. It manifests as resistance and disengagement - trying to stay unaffected and diffused, unable to fully engage with one’s vitality and life, a sense that there is no one home in one’s own center. The core of sloth is a feeling of "I don't really matter."

Fixation: Rumination/Fantasizing* - Nines withdraw into their imagination, escaping engagement in the world by focusing on philosophies, fantasies, distractions, nostalgia, or leaning on others to give them direction and preferences while neglecting their own value, preferences, and significance. This can create a false sense of harmony and connection while actually having little relationship to reality, like escaping into a dream.

Type Nines find their way back to essence by recognizing that their personality believes that to participate in harmony they must suppress and compartmentalize parts of themselves. If they can see this, they can practice feeling and sensing their physical presence, becoming more solid in the body, and they can see how they’ve been cutting themselves off from the connections they seek by only showing up partially. They can begin to accept and allow all their own reactions, emotions, and feelings that they previously felt would prevent them from connecting to a larger whole which can provide a direct sense of Essential Harmony.

Enneagram Type 1

Enneagram Type One most exemplifies the integrity and alignment that comes from being present in the body. Ones tend to be principled and concerned with matters of integrity, goodness, excellence, and virtue. Most Ones have a sense of purpose or mission, and they generally have a high standard of excellence, which can be standards of ethics and fairness, but can apply to aesthetic or intellectual excellence.

But in pursuit of living up to their ideals, they begin to fear their own gut impulses might reveal that they are flawed, even corrupt. As they become less balanced, they become more rigid, self-controlled, and self-critical as well as more critical of others. Ideals become standards by which to judge others, and the distressed One comes to feel they're the only responsible person. Opinions become judgments that unconsciously support the One’s sense of ego boundaries. They increasingly become frustrated, even angry, that things are not as they think they should be, becoming intolerant, perfectionistic, and punitive.

Passion: Anger - Anger is a frustration and resentment that things are not as they ought to be which stems from a deeper grief over a perceived loss of goodness or sacredness in the world. As an alternative to collapsing in grief, the One charges themselves with anger. It ultimately amounts to resisting reality by standing too firmly in one's positions and opinions, reinforced with anger and outrage, and “arguing” with the way the world is.

Fixation: Judgment - Ones come to believe in their anger, and as a result convince themselves that reality, themselves included, is broken and in need of improvement and redemption. Ones will then live from a sense of mission, only to find reality won’t conform to their ideals, thus becoming angrier and more frustrated.

Type Ones find their way back to essence when they can relax some of the tension in their bodies. This allows them to get in touch with the grief and sadness that’s under their frustration. By allowing themselves to grieve, they can get in touch with a sense of inner spaciousness through which their fixed perspectives can see a bigger picture and their grief can be transmuted into a mercy for all the imperfections. This aligns them with a sense of their own innate goodness, Essential Integrity, rather than living their lives out of judgmental reactions to whatever is failing to live up to their standards.”