In 2014 I was early in my journey of setting up a business, but I was struggling. I came across a free ebook that described the nine personality types of the Enneagram in terms of being a business person. I printed off the ebook and started reading through the descriptions starting with ‘type 1′. When I got to ‘type 5’ — the investigator — I was blown away. I read about aspects of myself that i had felt were what was wrong with me — the things I’d felt ashamed of, like holding back, being a loner, endlessly studying and searching .. and realised I wasn’t alone — that there were huge numbers of people who thought and felt like I did.
This was the start of a deep journey in which I learnt about all of the types and for the first time I started to understand people. As I lay in bed at night, thinking about all these types, and piecing together a lifetime of interactions and confusion, I felt like my life was a massive puzzle that was falling into place.
One of the biggest gifts of learning about the Enneagram was that, in understanding myself and others more clearly, I could feel love and appreciation for what each person, including myself, was experiencing.
What followed was a journey back to the world, as I had removed myself from the world and ‘society’ to an extreme degree.
The best way to learn about the Enneagram is, much like I did, to read the descriptions of each of the types and to see what resonates.
The Enneagram describes a path of spiritual evolution.
In the past year I have started to learn a completely different way of understanding the Enneagram that precedes the personality structure approach. This is Fourth Way teachings and the Enneagram describes a process of evolution which I am beginning to study as ‘an objective way of awakening’.
This ancient symbol has a lot of depth and is something I expect I will be studying my whole life.
Anyway, this is a very simple (overly simple) introduction. I LOVE the Enneagram and I recommend it as a powerful tool for self awareness and guidance.