#enneagram system

Just some enneagram notes. Not an expert. May change later.

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Enneagram system

Some sources

Enneagram types overview/basics

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

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Other lists:

MBTI Notes

Starting a series based on the typology system Enneagram. I've had this idea in my head for awhile so I'm finally starting on it 👍👍 My design and take on enneagram 1

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One of the first encounters I had with my now boyfriend was through the offering of a book.  He encouraged me to read a book that talked about discovering the souls potential through the Enneagram system.  Not familiar with the Enneagram System?  Neither was I, and I am still no expert today.  I wouldn't even define myself as a true believer.  But there is one concept in particular that has changed my ability to understand my being and thus relate to others in a more concrete way.  The Enneagram System (as I understand it) basically states this: you have one dominate personality type that is defined by the interplay of three centers- the thinking center, the feeling center, and the doing center.  For each type there is one center that guides and forms the way of being.  For example, I am predominately a feeler, with strong thinking tendencies and not so strong doing tendencies.

  This information, however biased I am, is important because it allows me to explain where I have been with this internship, and life, for the past few weeks.

  Because I feel so strongly I "be" and am guided by my feelings.  I react and respond based on the way things feel.  But it is not just my feelings that guide me.  For me, the feelings of others are just as important, and sometimes more important than my own.  I am constantly checking feelings when I make decisions.  I will feel through options and let those options sit until I know which one feels more right.  I want to be very clear though, these feelings are not just emotional feelings.  They are the head, heart, and gut feelings that make up my core, my conscience, and my being.

  It doesn’t stop there because my thinking center is also pretty strong.  This means that I take those feelings and internalize them.  So while I am feeling my way through experiences I am also processing, brainstorming and thinking about what this means for my life, my faith life, and the life of, drum roll please, the church.  What I know to be true is that my thoughts run wild and travel down, what I think to be, every highway, avenue, and back ally possible.  I have an ability to think through situations from a variety of angles and come to many, many different conclusions.

  But I often get trapped because I talk to make my feelings and thoughts (I started to write the word “real,” but that would diminish the “realness” of these feelings and thoughts that exist inside) concrete.  When I don’t have an outlet to express my insides I am in a constant cycle of feeling and thinking, thinking and feeling.  I end up in these cycles a lot because of that not so strong doing center.  Because I am driven by my feelings and then my thoughts, the desire to externalize them comes from my weaker doing part that is commonly trumped by the feelings and thinkings of my neighbors.

  I commonly describe my situation as, a great lover of my neighbor and a poor lover of myself, and forget that in order to love my neighbor I must first love my self.  (When I speak of love I am speaking to all forms of it as well as understanding, taking care of, etc.)

  Thus I rely on those I am closest to, when I’m not pushing them away, to be those outlets of non-judgmental support and to be natural mirrors reflecting my soul.  But I often come to those people long after I am stuck and then must work backwards first in order to regain a sense of homeostasis.  I always remember a little to late, that we do not live in a world of one. 

  The most recent experience of this self-knowing occurred over the past few weeks.  I hit a wall with, for dramatic effect and what seemed to me, to be, everything. 

My boyfriend and I are so close to being finished with long distance that with each day it gets harder and harder. 

I am an outsider within my internship.  I am not a member of the church I am working with, I am not a direct member of the recovery community, and I have been asked to establish a Resource Center cataloguing a community of which I do not belong.  My desire to form relationships between the three areas I do not belong and will be leaving at the end of the semester has been snuffed out numerous times by the preexisting structures that exist when working with a community that wishes to remain anonymous.  I have felt like my role is viewed as “The Superstar” (DeVries) instead of a passionate college kid eager to discern living faith.  The hardships have outweighed the celebrations and the pressure I have felt has been great.

My grandfather is sick.

My dog is on her last leg.

I am not doing well in Planetary Geology, and it is not from a lack of trying.

I have had a hard time finding research materials for my internship.

It’s hard to live with five other women.

I miss the changing of the seasons.

Hurricane Sandy had me worried. 

Money is tight.

My internship drive sucks.

And blah, blah, blah.

  Even though many of these things are out of my control my feeling and thinking centers were overwhelmed because of my lack of doing, and thus I was overwhelmed. There was a moment last Thursday where I was just mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted.  I felt like throwing in the towel a saying “the heck with everything.”  But I didn’t and instead I was greeted with a friendly reminder to pull the wood out of my own eye.

  I have been particularly saddened by references to “the dying church” and more specifically this “dying congregation” that I slipped out the phrase, “they aren’t dead yet” in a conversation with the Pastor last week.  As soon as I said it I wanted to stick my foot in my mouth.  “They aren’t dead yet,” had been the eruption brought on by a semesters worth of excuses.  “They aren’t dead yet,” had been my way of releasing all the overwhelming feelings in one short Spirit infused breath.  The words, “They aren’t dead yet,” were not my words, they were Gods. 

  I have often untrapped myself with moments like these where I say something without feeling or thinking it first and it is as if I am hovering above myself, watching the words just fall out of my mouth.  In those moments of release my doing center is leading because God is moving. 

  So upon reflection (and conversation with my advisor) of “they aren’t dead yet” I was able to realize that I also am not dead yet.  I am tired and worn out and at the end of my rope, but I am not dead.  In my experience of being not dead I have remembered that I am a believer of the resurrection.  I believe that through Jesus Christ, God showed the world hope.  I believe that God lifted Jesus in Jesus’ time(s) of distress and in the mysterious ways in which God works, affirmed for Jesus that he (Jesus) wasn’t dead yet.  I may also just believe that God is still reminding Jesus that he isn’t dead yet.

  In my humbling experience of “they aren’t dead yet” I have been able to think about Scripture and Jesus' journey (my journey, the journey of those in recovery, etc.) as one with many trials (Matthew 26:42, Mark 14:36, Luke 22:42) and I have been able to feel Jesus’ resurrection within me.