The Nine Types of the Enneagram
Assertive Types:
Type Three: The Achiever
As a type three, you have a hunger to be successful and lots of energy. You are competitive. You always want to be at your best.
If you are not competing with yourself, you are competing with those around you. You are always pushing yourself to do better and better.
As Type Three, you want to make a difference in the world. You make a great mentor for family, friends and colleagues.
You get into trouble when you start to believe that you need to be someone other than who you are to be successful.
When you pretend to be someone else, you begin to lose your real power because you are living a lie.
An excellent way to support a type three personality is to encourage them to slow down and smell the roses. Slowing down will help them to get in touch with their heart, which will help them to stay balanced.
Type Seven: The Enthusiast
As a type seven, you want to get the most out of life. You know you are here only for a short time, and you want to get the most joy out of each day.
You are playful, energetic and enthusiastic about life. You are always looking for new opportunities for fun and excitement. You are willing to try something at least once.
You are a big picture person. You can see how everything can come together for the good of all.
The challenge for you is that you can get bored quickly. You love to start new projects but can have a hard time completing them. It is crucial for you to find a way to make sure what you start gets completed.
To support a type seven, you can encourage them to slow down to get in touch with their emotional pain. The best you can do is to create a safe space for them to explore their inner world.
Type Eight: The Challenger
As a type eight, you have a commanding presence. You know what you need to do. You can feel it in your muscles and bones.
You are a mover and shaker. Some describe you as a bull in a china shop. You are not afraid to speak out. You will do what it takes to get the job done.
You always feel a sense of urgency. There is nothing worse than someone or a group of people trying to stop you. The more a person tries to stop you, the more determined you will be.
Many will be surprised to know you have a big heart. Over the years, you have built up a wall around your heart to keep you safe. People don’t realize how sensitive you are.
You have a passion for helping people who have been hurt and just had a lot of bad luck.
You get yourself in trouble when you become a workaholic. As you work harder and harder, you close yourself off from your heart, making interactions with the people in your life harder and harder.
To support a type eight, you can provide a safe space for them to explore their vulnerable side and sensitive heart. Slowing down can help all of us to get in touch with our emotions.
Withdrawn Types:
Type Four: The Individualist
As a type four, you are creative. You can be creative in many ways, such as home design, home decorating, fashion, graphic arts, cooking, baking, writing, dancing, acting, and more.
It is easy for you to move into despair because you doubt your ability to be authentic, and you will go to extremes to show how others how different you are.
You go between feeling like you want to be like everyone else and showing everyone how different you are. Feelings of shame can drag you into heavy disruptive moods.
You thrive on the heart to heart conversations with people you love and respect. You don’t have much time for polite talk about the weather.
For you to feel alive, you need to feel something tangible. The trouble begins when you escape to heavy dark moods that allow you to avoid what you are feeling.
To support a type four you can encourage them to focus on what they have rather that what they don’t. You can help them to differentiate between what they think they should feel verses what is true for them in the moment.
Type Five: The Investigator
As a type five, you are an excellent observer. You are curious. You love to learn, and many fives become great scholars.
Fives have a great desire to share the knowledge they learn with the world. They are hungry to make a difference.
If you have a spouse, it is essential for you to let her or him know what you are thinking, so there are not any big surprises. Even if you don’t have a spouse, please don’t wait until you feel you know enough to share it with your community. You may never feel like you know enough.
Fives get into trouble when you spend to much time in your imaginary world of academia. The problem is that the more you get stuck in your head, you forget you have a body that needs nurturing.
An excellent way to support type five is to help them to get back into their body so they can access their inner wisdom that comes from physical sensations.
Learning to notice what is happening in your body will help you to find the courage to show up each day and share their insights with the world.
Type Nine: The Peacemaker
As a type nine, you are a great observer too. You have the gift of understanding different people’s perspectives in a group.
You can help people understand each other, and you can help them to find a win-win solution that everyone can accept.
Having the gift of understanding can make it hard for you to make choices. It is hard because you can relate to all the different points of view.
The trouble starts from your fear that you are going to be abandoned by those you love unless you keep the peace. You will begin to appease at all cost.
The more you satisfy the needs of others without consideration for your well-being, the less time you will have for yourself.
The problem is that the longer you repress your own needs, the growing frustration and anger within you will eventually burst.
An excellent way to support a type nine is to encourage them to notice, name and express their own needs. We are all the better off when we take care of our individual needs.
Dutiful Types:
Type One: The Reformer
As a type one, you have a hunger to make the world a better place. You see the many ways the world can be improved. You intuitively know that there are better ways of doing things.
You are a great teacher and love to share your wisdom with others. You are a deeply spiritual person and feel a deep connection to everyone in the world.
You have high expectations of yourself, your family, friends and colleagues. You are probably the hardest on yourself.
The more you become fearful of not doing things correctly, the harder you get on yourself and the people around you.
As your inner critic takes over, you unconsciously show your love for others through criticizing them. Most people will not experience it as love.
An excellent way to support a type one is to encourage them to find some way to quiet their busy mind. As their mind quiets, they will be more forgiving of themselves and be open to hearing different points of view.
Type Two: The Helper
As a type two, you have a great desire to help others. You have the gift to discern what other people need. While no person can tell another person what they need, type two’s are the best at it.
You tune into each person you meet through their body language, tone of voice, and their energy. You know the right questions to ask to bring out what a friend, family member or even stranger needs.
At your best, you offer to help others without any expectation. You not only help others, but you can take good care of yourself.
The two gets into trouble when you start to fear that you are not loved or lovable.
As you move into fear, you start to manipulate people into needing you. You narrow your expectations of how people can show their love for you.
In the end, a person could do many things to show love, but if it weren’t what the type two was expecting, it would be like it never happened.
To support a type two you can encourage them to love themselves as much as they love anyone else. Help them to know that they are loved just for being themselves. You can encourage them take time out from their busy schedules to nurture themselves.
Type Six: The Loyalist
As a type six, you desire for everyone to get along together. You are concerned about your safety and the people close to you.
You can see problems way before they become serious. Having a six in your life can make it a lot easier because most issues are taken care of before they even happen.
At your best, you are gutsy and courageous. You are calm and relaxed. You have confidence in your abilities and can be a mover and shaker in the world.
Problems mount up when you are losing trust in your inner knowing which may have started from a traumatic childhood event. Don’t go looking for this even because it may have only felt traumatic in the experience of the child.
You can support a type six by encouraging them to find a way to quiet their mind through practices such as yoga, meditation, prayer, music and other tools.
You can help them to explore what is real in their lives. Often sixes get overcome by their fears that they are not able to see all the good that is happening within their lives. They are usually a lot stronger than they realize.
