I have known about the Enneagram for some time now. At least tangentially, almost more of a party-game trick, or perhaps like the placemats at so many Chinese food joints, where my birth year, 1969, indicates that I am a rooster.
In the more recent past many have labelled me as an 8 on the Enneagram, which is both cheeky and as it turns, correct. Last year I thought I might be a 7, but with further exploration, it does indeed appear that I am a solid 8 on the Enneagram.
You may be asking yourself at this point why any of this matters, and just two months ago, I would have been there right beside you on the sofa, chiding and mocking with the best of them, declaring that this mumbo-jumbo is nothing more than pseudoscience BS. But that was two months ago. Today, I find myself pretty solidly in the camp of those who are Enneagram enthusiasts and while I am still a neophyte in all things Enneagram, I am slowly starting to see the benefits of this supposed ancient system of archetypes.
I began to take the Enneagram more seriously as a tool towards nurturing a more cohesive team at Transcend. This past year has been one of the continued transitions and as I listened to some videos by Ian Cron about the utility of the Enneagram for organizational development, I was intrigued. Moreover, as my team completed their Enneagram assessments and began to review them, they were unified in their acknowledgment of how well the Enneagram described their key personality traits. Truthfully, this somewhat surprised me, and I now find myself leading a small group of individuals down a path of self-discovery and the beginning of a journey where we are collectively focused on becoming better versions of ourselves, which is never a bad thing.
While it is possible that the Enneagram is an elaborate placebo system, whereby the mere process of self-examination is the medicine, it appears to me that the system of describing how we as children adopt a certain way of coping with the struggles we face early in our lives seems to be Universal and alarmingly accurate.
In any event, I have decided, at least for now, that this system of describing personality types is useful in marking a path forward, with the ultimate destination of some better version of myself. During my most recent session with my therapist, where I mentioned the Enneagram, I wasn’t laughed out of the room. Although on second thought, any good therapist would restrain laughter regardless of their perspective on the matter.
What I do know about myself is that I am emotionally challenged. For as long as I can remember, I have had difficulty describing what emotions I feel (with the exception of anger) and the Enneagram at least offers me a pathway towards a more balanced existence.
At the ripe young age of 52, I have determined that it is about time that I acted my age. Being a grown-up, in the physical sense, and hopefully in the cultural and spiritual sense too, it is about time I enter into the role of being an elder, who can share wisdom with those younger than me. Sounds silly I know, but then, what is the alternative?
The goal in all of this? Well hopefully along the way, I discover a way to be more patient, more empathetic, less intimidating, less brash, more attuned to the needs around me, and less binary in my thinking. My family and those friends who have chosen to continue the journey with me, despite my many flaws, will undoubtedly applaud my aspirations.
Along the way, I will record my findings here, a way of documenting the journey, more for myself than anyone else, although hopefully, the byproduct of all of this produces benefits that will extend beyond my personal sphere. The jury is still out it would seem.