Thoughts on Enneagram: Discovering My Type

I’ve been spinning on Enneagram off and on for around two years now. I’ve written two articles on my experience, one when I was first starting out and a second after about a year of study. (If you’re interested in checking those out in chronological order, read Enneagram vs. the 16 Types and then Thoughts on Enneagram.) Throughout the process, I switched between a few different types, never fully satisfied with each. Recently, however, it all clicked into place for me.

Obviously, this blog is still a cognitive functions blog, and I’m no Enneagram expert. But, since it seems like nearly everyone into the 16 personalities is also into Enneagram, I thought I’d share my up-to-date perspective on the subject, and the realizations that led me to my final conclusion. If Enneagram isn’t your thing, don’t worry. We’ll return to business as usual come next article.

Discovering My Enneagram Type: Thoughts and Realizations

When learning personality theories, my first order of business is always to find the critical data points. With Enneagram, I quickly locked onto the core fears as the root of the theory, followed by the coping mechanism that the core fear prompted. Unfortunately, from that point on, a bit of confusion ensued. I eventually learned a few important things, which I’m going to summarize below in hopes that someone else might find it useful. (Some of these I probably touched on in the previous articles, but others are new realizations.)

1. Core fears are not always conscious

People do say this, but to be honest, I initially rolled my eyes at it, because of a certain theme I was seeing amongst Enneagram enthusiasts. Namely, the claim that most people are not self-aware enough to type themselves. Anyone who struggles to type themselves often gets automatically labelled as an attachment type, under the premise that they are incapable of seeing their own type clearly. To be honest, I find that entire concept to be insulting. So, when reading that core fears are not always conscious, I dismissed the idea, because it felt like the same exact thing. (IE: You can’t identify yourself; only random strangers on the internet can.) However, I admit now that I was wrong. Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to…

2. You can’t be afraid of a possibility that you don’t know exists.

In other words, if you haven’t had a significant enough trauma in your life to manifest your type’s core fear, you will essentially not yet have that core fear. Instead, you will instinctively protect yourself against that potential vulnerability, via the coping mechanisms defined by your type.

3. Focus on the theme in each Enneagram type description

The Enneagram profiles are excessively detailed, which can make it difficult to discern which one you fit. To pull in Myers-Briggs, it’s almost as if each Enneagram type gets specifically written for a certain subset of the 16 personalities. For instance, many 7 descriptions sounds like the stereotypical ENXP. It’s important, though, to focus on the general pattern if you look at all the behaviors as a whole. Why are they happening? How does it tie back to the core fear and coping mechanism? Ultimately, the type descriptions are useful for demonstrating how each type reacts in opposition to their core fear. (I personally think the type descriptions should be dialed back a bit, to focus more on potential manifestations given different levels of health, rather than making all the traits sound mandatory.)

No one can relate to every little characteristic. There will always be some little discrepancy here or there, because no one person is exactly the same. Thus, it stands to reason, that no single profile can be exactly correct. However, you should relate to the overall idea, or recognize that pattern playing out in your life. (Granted, some descriptions are better than others, but most follow the same general pattern for each type.)

4. Your Enneagram type should describe a problem, a hole, or an imbalance in your life

I’m in no way claiming that you can’t be a healthy version of your type, but we all go through ups and downs. During the downs, we react, or cope, via our Enneagram type’s coping mechanism. That’s what you’re looking for in the Enneagram type descriptions. Which ones lines up best with your preferred means of coping? Remember, the Enneagram personality theory focuses on negatives. You will look more like your type when you are not at your best, because whatever healthy balance you’ve managed to achieve will likely disappear in favor of your coping mechanism.

(Of course, during an extreme down, you might disintegrate to an entirely different type, but I’m not addressing that scenario at the moment.)

5. Look at the big picture

Each enneagram type has an associated sin, fear, desire, fixation, trap, passion, and virtue. Theoretically, you should recognize your Enneagram’s type version of these elements playing out in your life. Of course, you may not recognize every single one, like the fear as I just mentioned above. However, these elements define the pattern for each Enneagram type. See which fits you best.

6. Some people will be ashamed of their type, but some won’t.

I saw many people claim that if your type doesn’t make you feel ashamed, you’re mistyped. That’s probably true of certain types, like maybe those in the shame triad, or perhaps those who generally lack self-awareness. However, if you’re self-aware, than Enneagram might not actually reveal anything new to you. Similarly, those who are healthy may feel no need to be ashamed, since they’re not often allowing their negative tendency to control them.

7. Double-check your instinct

The instinctual drives flavor each type, producing variations. Unfortunately, most enneagram descriptions don’t account for this, and end up describing the variant with the instinctual drive that is most similar to that enneagram type’s innate characteristics. This can be confusing, because sometimes an instinct seems to go against an enneagram type’s primary drive. (No, I’m not necessarily talking about countertypes here.) Personally, I latched onto a specific instinct very quickly, only to recently realize that I was mixing up my instinct with my enneagram type. Sure, I always related to (what ended up being) my core type, but there were some discrepancies that my instinctual drive accounted for, which helped lock that type in for me.

8. Wings do NOT overrule your core type

Your ability to cope with the innate struggles that your Enneagram type defines does not magically get better because you have a particular wing preference. In the past, I’ve seen people try to account for the absence of their Enneagram type’s flaw by stating that their wing balances it out. That’s not how that works. Your core is your core. Your wing flavors it, not fixes it. If you can’t relate to your core, without added wings and instincts, you’re mistyped.

9. Isolate your Enneagram search from other personality systems

In other words, don’t make your Enneagram type dependent on your Myers-Briggs type. Research it in a completely isolated fashion. You don’t need to know which Enneagram types are most common for your Myers-Briggs type. It’s irrelevant. Sure, it might provide you a shortcut. Maybe. But, it also opens you up to a bunch of other problems, such as not giving outliers enough consideration or basing your Enneagram type on how it flavors your Myers-Briggs type. In either situation, especially the latter, mistyping occurs. In addition, when you’ve based your Enneagram type on your Myers-Briggs type (or vice versa), if you end up mistyping in one system, you’ll inevitably realize that you’re mistyped in both. (I see this happen way too often.) If certain type combinations are truly incompatible, an unbiased, thorough analysis will not allow you to come to an impossible conclusion.

In Conclusion…

I’ve seen people claim that certain personality theories are objectively better than others. I personally think statements like that are made in ignorance. Certain systems will be more useful to certain people, depending on the situation. After all, the goal of personality theory is to help you grow in your understanding of others, grow in your understanding of yourself, and/or develop into a more balanced person. If Enneagram does that for you, awesome. If Myers-Briggs or some other variant of the 16 personalities theory does that for you, that’s great, too. Each system is focusing on slightly different things, and defining slightly different things. Find which works for you.