Viva la Difference - An Enneagram Guidebook

I just returned from a working vacation in France. As always, when I travel to an unfamiliar land, I tried to learn as much as I could to honor the culture I was visiting. That wasn’t too difficult in the case of France, since I am an avid Francophile. It’s a little harder when I travel to a place that I have little in common with or know little about.

Relating to another personality type is much like visiting another culture or country. The Points on the Enneagram are like Nine different countries, each with its own worldview, values, and belief systems. In order to communicate with or visit one of these “countries,” we need to learn a little about the language, customs, and cosmology. We must discover and enter the prevailing culture of each type. Only then can we begin to honor one another’s unique differences and celebrate our human diversity.

Suppose you are to visit Thailand. You’ve never been there and you’d like to experience the culture. You begin by obtaining and studying a detailed map: a guidebook. You learn a little about the geography and beauty of the land. You might learn a little of the language and some of the customs and taboos. You discover that you must never point your foot at a Thai person, or touch them on the head, as these gestures are considered rude and insulting in the extreme. As a visitor to the culture, you want to be sure to honor the Thai people.

Yet even if you were to read every Thailand guidebook in existence, you would still know only a very little bit about any individual Thai person. The rest of your experience of this unfamiliar culture would best be served by attentive exploration with an open heart and mind.

If we approach our interactions with others as a journey to a new culture, with much to offer and teach us, we truly find a path with heart. The Enneagram map acts as a travel guide to assist us in our exploration.

Let us start our guidebook with some generic “Travelers Hints” to prepare our minds and hearts for open exploration. These hints may help us to leave behind the cultural bias of our own Enneagram type long enough to truly appreciate another worldview. We’ve learned through work in self-development with the Inner Observer how to recognize and stand back from our automatic mode. This creates an “open space” in our internal landscape where learning and appreciating another culture can take place. Our first step is to let go of what we know.

“Travelers Hint # 1: There is no such thing as “Objective Reality”

Each of us is so used to living in our own culture, our own personality that we have come to believe this is reality. All nine worldviews are equally entrenched in believing they know the truth of objective reality. A Six “knows” that the world is an inherently dangerous place, and that vigilance and plans are your best chance of attaining security. A Nine “knows” that good things come to those who wait; most things work out for the best anyway, so why worry and rush around when it feels so much better to be peaceful. An Eight “knows” that only the strong survive in this jungle we call life and that the truth will out in a good fight. A Four “knows” that authenticity is only to be found in deep feeling and intense emotional connection. Reality is colored and created by our perceptual bias. In fact, we actually sort information to support our worldview, ignoring or filtering out contradictory evidence.

When solidly fixed in our own Enneagram point of view it can be difficult to remember that a person inhabiting another type has a separate but equal “objective reality.” For this reason, it is important that we continue to step back from our default mode, and question our own perspective. We attribute feelings and thoughts to our others based on the cues we observe from them. Yet these cues are nearly always filtered through our habitual personality or worldview. As we endeavor to communicate with and honor others, we can enlist their aid in corroborating or correcting the assumptions of our worldview. We can notice how often we are off the mark, and begin a process of inquiry to learn another’s “objective reality.” More Traveler’s Hints will be offered in the next blog entry. (material partially adapted from “The Everyday Enneagram” by Lynette Sheppard.)

Discovering Your Subtype or Instinctual Type

Just when we may be getting a handle on watching ourselves vis a vis our Enneagram point, we find an additional wrinkle to complicate and enrich our journey.. Each of us in addition to our Enneagram type manifests three “Subtypes”, more accurately designated the “Instinctual Types”. These instinctual types reflect the basic human instincts of self-preservation, social standing in relation to the herd or group relating, and the drive for one-to-one relating (also referred to as sexual subtype or instinct by some Enneagram authors.) Each of us has all three instincts programmed into us. The Enneagram “subtype” is the main instinctual arena (or arenas) where the underlying drive is channeled or played out. The underlying drive for each type (lust for the Eight, Sloth for the Nine, Anger for the One, Fear for the Six, etc.) might be likened to a river of energy. This current branches off into three separate areas that represent the instincts of self-preservation, social, and one-to-one relating. The strength of each instinct, that is where attention habitually goes, will determine the amount of flow down each branch of current. It is completely individual and varies person to person. Often one instinct or branch is very large, with less flow down the other two. Occasionally there are two large flows, with a mere trickle flowing down the third. Rarely, an individual is automatically balanced among all three.
To use myself as an example, I have habitually focused very strongly on the one-to-one relating instinct. Much of my attention focused on my intimate relationship. I have focused some energy on self-preservation, ( eg. I never travel without my own coffee and portable coffeemaker.) I generally spent very little attention on my social standing within a group; although I participate in groups. So my river of attention would have had a large flow down the one to one tributary, a moderate flow down the self-preservation tributary, and a trickle down the social tributary.
Ideally, we would like have three fairly balanced tributaries. We would like to attend equally to our natural human instincts. Yet, when we are unconscious of them, we are often driven by one to the detriment of others.

Exercise: Discovering Your Subtype

Reflect where your attention seems to be directed. Are you most concerned with survival issues - food, shelter, safety, taking care of yourself and family self-preservation issues?
Are you most concerned with social issues - with attention to group activities? (It may not necessarily be that you are drawn to be in a group - some social subtypes have strong antipathies against being part of a group. However, their attention is still drawn to groups.) They can focus on several people at a time. People with a common cause or who share common interests.
Are you most concerned with one-to-one relating? Do you prefer a small number of very close friends or your significant other to relate to? Do you feel like going deeply into conversation with one person when in a group or party?
Often we have blind spots regarding which instinct our attention is most concentrated. Ask your spouse or a close friend where s/he feels you focus your attention most often.

Why might it be important to know our instinctual type? Certainly this knowledge can help us improve our functioning in the least exercised arenaa, in order that we may be more balanced human beings. An even stronger reason to know your unconscious instinctual bias surfaces in the realm of intimate relationship. I see far more couples encountering clashes related to differences in subtype or instinctual type than related to Enneagram type. Stay tuned for more about instinctual types and relationshp in the next blog entry.
(Adapted from “The Everyday Enneagram, A Personality Map for Enhancing Your Work, Love, and Life...Everyday”. by Lynette Sheppard.)

Enneagram Matches: Finding A Mate

After “How do I find my type?” the question I hear most is “What Enneagram personality type is best for me to be with? What type goes best with a One? Or a Five?”

Here’s the skinny: I’ve seen all the combinations of type work together. I’ve seen the same combinations become total train wrecks. We can’t match people by personality type, anymore than we can state that certain personality types will be drawn to particular cultures or countries. I’m drawn to Bali and the American Southwest. Another Seven might feel closest to the forests of Canada or the moors of England. We look for a resonance and we look for qualities important to us. In my search for a mate, I realized that I was looking for a man who was sensitive, not afraid to share feelings, on a spiritual path, and more committed to truth than comfort. What Enneagram type would match that? Luckily, I didn’t use the Enneagram to even narrow my search and found all these qualities - in a Three! Had I been looking for a specific Enneagram type to embody these virtues, a Three would probably have been last on my list.

Yet who can blame us for wanting to make sense of relationship and finding a mate? We want an answer: who should I be with? Who am I simpatico with? How can I find someone to accompany me on that path with heart? Although we know deep inside that there is no easy answer, we keep hoping to narrow the field when we are searching for someone to share our life.

Vanessa, a Three, is a good friend of ours. She felt that Dewitt and I had the ideal relationship Although she knew better (she is an Enneagram teacher), she decided to look for a Seven to share her life, hoping to duplicate that Seven-Three combination. Despite initial attraction and seeming compatibility, the relationship was filled with turmoil and difficulty. It ended with bad feelings on both sides. “I got hammered,” says Vanessa morosely. “I know I’m not supposed to find a type. I just thought that maybe.....”

We cannot choose a mate on the basis of their Enneagram type. Human beings are much too complex for that. We can look for qualities that are important to us. We can choose a partner willing to undertake the journey of self-exploration and commitment to learning and sharing together. And we can choose to honor the culture and reality of the person who becomes our mate.
(Material adapted from "The Everyday Enneagram" by Lynette Sheppard)