The Enneagram #WriteMore

I love personality tests, but when I heard about the enneagram types last year, I didn’t have the brain space to investigative it fully. So, I put it in the ‘maybe one day’ pile.

But yesterday, while gardening, I decided to listen the to the Anatomy of Marriage’s enneagram episode Enneagram Part 1 with Justin & Meredith Boggs live from Chicago!. As they broke down the characteristics of each type, I wrote down which ones I thought I might be, and actively tried to forget which ones I was sure applied to Kyle. After all, this exercise was about self-improvement.

What I didn’t expect, however, was how much listening to the other types' definitions stirred up empathy in me for the struggles they must go through. For example, it’s made me switch from thinking “Person X is so annoying when they do this thing” to “man, maybe person X really struggles with not doing this annoying thing. That must be quite hard for them”.

Disclaimer, these thoughts are still relatively fresh, so I’m unable to flesh them out properly, or come up with real examples just yet.

Now many of you will want me to give you a rundown of what each number means, but that’s not my job. If you really want to know and are interested in using it as a tool, I encourage you to investigate it yourself. I’ve always believed that the best and only way I can improve the relationship I have with close ones is to work on myself. The more I know about myself, the better person I can become.

With only the podcast to go by, I’m leaning towards thoughts that I am an 8 and/or a 1 since I know I’m both a fighter/controller and a perfectionist/judge. I came into the enneagram test thinking that maybe it could give me a list of things to work on. But it turns out the “blind spots” for these two types are things I have been all too aware of, since there’s nothing quite like getting married to found out how crappy at relationships I am.

But one thing that has been life-giving are the gifts that come with various types. Seriously, the gifts that can pertain to each number makes my heart sore and praise God for the enormous variety of people there are in the world. If we celebrated each other’s gifts more, the world surely would be a better place.

According to Integrative 9, my possible personality types have the following gifts:

• Assertive: Confident and direct, say what they need to say and get on with things.
• Decisive: Quick to respond and willing to make decisions. They trust their gut instincts and will move things forward.
• Protective: Under their toughness, they are bighearted and take people under their wing. They protect the people and things they care about and will fight against injustices.
• Independent: Self-sufficient and dislike being dependent on others and maintain their autonomy.
• Influential: Have their own way of taking charge and influencing others, which includes the capacity to influence the bigger picture.
• Principled: Value integrity and want to lead by example. They stand for what is right and good.
• Objective: Able to see and judge details, people and situations objectively, without emotion.
• Conscientious: Reliable and responsible, they stick to their word and diligently see things through to the end.
• Structured: Enjoy opportunities to structure things and are naturally adept at organizing, prioritising and creating order.
• Quality-minded: Have a knack for detail and will pay attention to quality standards and the application of rules and procedures.

Words of affirmation are a big thing for me, so the idea that I can speak these words over myself feels so increadibly empowering and exciting. It makes me want to go and punch something with joy!

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