How the Enneagram Can Guide Us To Wholehearted Living

If you are here, you’re probably familiar or curious about the Enneagram, or at least know it’s a personality tool. Maybe you’ve seen this unusual symbol and thought “What’s all the fuss about?”  Maybe you noticed it looks like a compass, or maybe it takes you back to 9th grade geometry class with all the lines and angles (don’t panic, there isn’t a pop quiz!). 

I like to think of the Enneagram as a tool that helps cultivate your inner landscape, impacting your home, work, and relationships.  How? The Enneagram can help you understand why you think, feel, and behave the way you do. Within the framework of the Enneagram you can understand more of your personal narrative. 

So how can it help?

Self-awareness  

Our outer lives bloom from our inner landscape. The Enneagram can help bring clarity to this inner landscape. This clarity fosters awareness and understanding of protective strategies you implement, messages you’ve internalized and paradigms you’ve adopted. It helps you identify how you respond in stress, and behavioral growth patterns for your particular personality type.  The simple skill of objectively looking inside yourself, seeing what is there and why, can foster growth and positive change. Self-awareness is a key aspect of emotional health.

Regulation

I don’t know about you, but as a wife and working mom of three, I have found it’s easy to let the pressure filled emotions of responsibilities, family, and everyday stressors derail me.  It’s easy to let these emotions dominate. If these feelings are left unchecked, this can be a disempowering cycle. So how does knowing your type help? Understanding how you experience the world through the lens of the Enneagram expands your ability to self regulate, allowing you to name your emotions and objectively work through them. If naming your emotions is difficult for you, check out this cheat sheet to help.

Relational Connection

The human heart desires connection. When you become aware of your type and begin to understand other types, you can grow in compassion and empathy. Compassion and empathy are catalysts to healthy connection. The desire for connection is God-given, making it a worthy pursuit. 

These are just a few ways the Enneagram can help you live wholeheartedly and grow into the thriving and fulfilled woman God designed you to be!