Understanding Enneagrams

If you want to understand your consciousness and your destructive behaviors, using enneagram’s can help you. If you are suffering and you need freedom, this is one way that you can figure out your real identity. Enneagram’s are not just positive and negative traits that a person has but they are also able to tell you the needs and the qualities that you have that make you who you are. Are you someone that is shameful, fearful or you get angry easily? You can find out why by looking at your enneagram.

What is an Enneagram?

The enneagram is something that will show you beyond your mind who you are. It is an understanding of your inner self and even though there are thing that you want to ignore about who you are, using enneagram’s can help you to see the accuracy of who you are and can help you if you need to have some kind of inner workings.

Everyone has a certain type that they are, and this never changes. It doesn’t mater how old you are, the range of behaviors and whatever motivates them, are part of the type of enneagram that you are. There can be two people that have the same type, but it doesn’t mean that you will be like them because this type can manifest in ways that makes you not like anyone. The core type that you are is different and that will mean that your personality is different including the drives that you have, wings, tri-fixations and more.

Where Does Enneagram Come from?

Enneagram is a word that means “nine” in the Greek language. It is a symbol that has nine different points and a circle. The points are connected by lines to the other points in this geometric symbol. It was first made by G.I. Gurdjieff who has since passed away but his teachings at first had nothing to do with how this worked with personality. It was Oscar Ichazo that used Gurdjieff’s diagram to figure out that there is more of an understanding of how people act based on the chart than was previously known.

Gurdjieff’s Personality

Gurdjieff’s enneagram wasn’t at first referred to as something with the personality and he would only teach a relationship between personality and essence. This means that when someone talks about someone else having a personality type, we think that they are talking about their characters that the person has. The enneagram says though that there are more specific things than just a generic personality and this is how your temperament and heredity shows the patterns and how they keep getting reinforced.

When you look at your consciousness, you can see that there are habits and automatic actions that help to say who you are. You can identify your personality based on what your fears are, the desires that you have, motivations and other things and some people actually lose sight of what their identity is and how it isn’t a pattern. The personality that you have isn’t just your ego, but it is the identity of your personality.

Gurdjieff looked at essence and said that it was the characteristics that we identify with that was part of our spiritual self, not the soul, so to say, but the idea of having a soul. The essence is the way that you can awaken your conscious mind and figure out who you are. It means that you have to develop and mature in order to see this happen. This is the inner work or the shadow work that has to be done.  This means that you have to be present in what is going on in your life such as doing things like meditating so that you can show that you are interested in being awakened.

In order to be present, you have to learn to figure out your patterns and the habits that you have more than worrying about what kind of personality you have. The enneagram is one that shows that you aren’t overcoming the transcendence of your personality but instead you are looking at why you are who you are and that you see the structure of your behaviors. You can change how you identify with your personality by being more aware and sensitive to essence.

Essence isn’t something that means that you are lacking things, it can mean that you are accepting the different qualities of essence, and this can be like being present, experiencing new things, finding out what your real meaning and values are and knowing that these things aren’t fixed, and they can change.

Numbers and Essence of Enneagrams

Here are what the essence means:

• Essence One

This means integrity and it is how you look at your experiences and how you put order in things.

• Essence Two

This is love. This is an experience that you cherish and someone that you care for.

• Essence Three

This is value. This is when you see value in yourself and other things.

• Essence Four

Essence four is depth. This is when you see a mystery in life.

• Essence Five

This means insight. This is a perception that shows you to live in the now and to see things moment by moment.

• Essence Six

Essence six is truth. This is when you know that you are real and authentic.

• Essence Seven

This means freedom. This is not something that is conditional or based on what is going on.

• Essence Eight

This is the essence of power. It means being alive and vivid.

• Essence Nine

Essence nine means harmony. This is a part of you that expresses who you are, and it is something that the ego has a hard time seeing.

When a person is present and they are centered, they can look at the qualities of this and they can see that they can keep living a better life. Most people though are only really present for short periods of time, and this means that people overlook essence and then the ego takes control over and over again.

You can look at the enneagram and see that it makes an impression on essence and quality and instead of making a connection by working on being present, the best thing that you can do is to notice when the ego is there and when it is trying to guide you the wrong way. This is how you work through your goals and your desires. The ego is there to try and get essence to be asleep and to not understand yourself. This can leave you feeling upset and frustrated and wondering why you are always stuck.

It is important to be part of the world but not to let the world consume you. You have to deal with your life each day and you need to pay attention to essence as you go. Learn to be deeper and to be present and remember what you need to do and what essence is important for.

Body, Soul, and Mind

When you want to understand enneagrams, the best thing that you can do is to try self-remembering things. This is having intelligence in your body, soul, and mind. This is the center of who you are and the way that you perceive things and how you know who you are. As you experience the world around you, you will see that there are different enneagram types that come from different centers and different configurations. These are all representative of a certain kind of theme.

There are three enneagrams that are found in the body, three found in the soul and three found in the mind. This means that there is energies that come around these things that are rooted in the centers.

Body Types of Eight, Nine and One Enneagrams

This is when someone focuses on the strengths and weaknesses that they have related to their body. This shows how alive someone feels, their psychological blocks and how they feel that they are worth and what kind of space they feel that they take up in the world.

As a person looks at their body, there are different sensations that they will feel. This makes people more aware of their energies or their life force. When they use the body to help them, they will feel grounded and vital. The somatic wisdom that someone has is part of what shows us what is happening in the present.

If you are someone that isn’t in touch with your body, the ego will cause you to have boundaries that allow your anger to be at the forefront. This can make you act compulsively and the type Eight for example, is a dissociate while type Nine is tense and stops you from moving forward because of frustration.

Heart Types of Two, Three and Four Enneagrams

Most people think that the heart is the place where the feelings are. This is where the heart center is, and it is the place where we find our identity and values. This is how you can be authentic and true when you talk to other people.

You might behave in a certain way depending on whether you are aligned or out of alignment and this can cause you to compromise your values and to push people out of your life because you aren’t listening to your sense of self. You can look at the words of the heart and you can find that you will come to a place where your heart will know things. It can help you to find your value and your identity.

If your heart is empty and you aren’t in touch with it, it can cause you to have shame. It can cause people to be narcissistic and to put yourself in a position where you are connecting with your authentic self and identity. It can also cause you to be extreme in how important you see yourself or your own self-derision. Type two can come, and it can cause you to put your energies into how you want people to value you, but it might cause you to only feel this way based on how you feel about yourself. Type Three can make you feel preoccupied by your identity and rejecting the world around you.

Mind Types Five, Six and Seven Enneagrams

Mind types help you to see the gifts in the mind. This has a lot to do with your spiritual thoughts and it is a time where you think about what your mind is really about. When you look at your mind and you are consciously and unconsciously deciding on who you are and you want to look at things in a different perspective, it can help you to make discernments. This can help you to make models in your mind.

When you aren’t being present though, your mind will have mind chatter, and this will cause you not to be able to connect with reality. When you are compulsive, it can cause you to connect with other parts of the mind that are just as loud. This can cause you to have anxiety and distorted thinking though.

You need to deal with this kind of anxiety, and this can cause you to be angry. The ego will leave when your mind tries to deal with anxiety and when this happens, type Five can mean you are too diligent, and you are depending on people outside to help you and type Six can say that you are wanting to escape the future possibilities in front of you.

Using the Body, Soul, and Mind

There are different values in the types of enneagrams that you have. This is what can bring you inner change and can help you to center your body, soul, and mind. You can find out what types you identify with and which ones you neglect. Always notice the sensations and feelings that you have and the patterns.

You can be present with what is going on around you and the patterns in your personality can change with time. It can cause you to center yourself and it can cause you to have an inner freedom that you might not otherwise feel.

You can go back to who you are by paying attention to what is going on in your body and you can use the feelings to help you be more aware of the things that you see. The centers of your body, soul and mind can be aligned and this can cause essence to be still. It can help you to not be full of fears and ego.

Passion and Fixation

There are types of things that you need to understand, and this is the type that is referred to as passion. This is also considered suffering. There are passions that are emotional engine types, and this means that when you go through something, you have an emotional reaction to it. It can mean that you have a loss of qualities.

Passions are there for a reason and as you invest in your ego and your identity, you will see that you won’t suffer and that you can be strong and deal with things that happen in your life. As you fight with your ego, there are things that you can specialize in that will meet your passions.

Presenting the passions means that you are suffering in your mind and that there are direct ways that can make you connect better with essence. There are nine passions that are sometimes referred to in part as the “Seven Deadly Sins” because they come from a place of tradition, and they cause people to pay their attention to other things and other people.

The passions that are there can cause someone to suffered in their heart and this can cause them to fixate on things. This is when suffering can be stronger and the passion that the mind shows you can cause you to have narratives that are part of your enneagram type.

The idea of passions and fixations are part of the Enneagram Institute and were from co-founders Don Riso and Russ Hudson.

Enneagram Types

Once you understand that there are different enneagram types, you need to see that they are grouped differently. Each type is characterized by health or are there to wake up the essence. The ego will be a structure that helps to separate the essence and helps there to be passions that can become fixations.

Body Enneagram Types Eight, Nine and One

Here are the body enneagram types:

Type Eight

This is a person that is willful, and they are knowledgeable of their body center. They are often assertive and show themselves strongly. The Eight is one that is confident in what they do, and they are resourceful. They are sensitive and can use their strong presence when doing something, but they are also very loving and caring. They have a lot of energies, and they will change the lives of everyone they meet.

Eights are able to resist things that they feel are too powerful or things that are trying to control them. They fear being controlled and Theon they will shut down their heart and they will protect themselves. They will be authoritative, and they will be concerned with their independence more than anything.

The energies that they have will be natural, but it will cause them to be compulsive and they will be fearing of being taken advantage of and they will push people away because of this. They will interpret things that people do and in return they will manipulate them and if distressed or upset, they will be very controlling.

• Passion

Their passion is lust, and this isn’t sexual. This is a reaction to the heart not being alive and to hiding themselves form others and pushing others away. They will be numb to who they are and intense. They will feel that they are strong, but this will be a false sense.

• Fixation

Their fixation is objectification. This means that they are not real to themselves or others. They will create a sense of self that pushes other people away and pushes them into other things.

This number will go back to essence when they realize that they need to take their energy and their intensity and stop being so hard and numb. At first, this might cause them to move further away from who they are because of feared. They might feel that their heart is not strong enough for this and it might cause them to have essential power and substance which will cause them to be touched by all the centers.

Type Nine

These are people that are grounded and connected to their Body Center. They are homonymous and are normally empathic. They are holistic people, and they accept and receive thoughts and ideas. They are very creative and smart and sensitive, and this means that they get overwhelmed easily.

This number knees to have stability and they need to make connections that can help them to put their physical energies somewhere that will help them. They need to allow themselves to be present and to express themselves. They need to say what they value and what they need.

Nine’s often lose themselves and feel that people are neglecting them. When life gets hared, they will get stubborn and will be passive and aggressive. They will disagree it others and they will put their energies into things that bring them comfort for a temporary time. They will be fearful of expressing who they are, and this can cause them to be angry and to take it out on others.

• Passion

The passion of the nine is being a sloth. This isn’t being lazy, but it is the idea of not showing up and not reaching their full potential because they neglect themselves. It can cause them to resist and disengage and to not fully live their life. They feel that they don’t matter.

• Fixation

This is rumination and fantasizing. This is someone that looks at their imagination and they focus on what is going on around them. They lean to others, and they neglect their values. They create a false harmony in themselves, and they have a hard time connecting. They use their minds to escape and to dream.

There are nines that will find their way to essence by noting that their personality shows that if they want to be harmonies, they have to put part of themselves away. They will need dot look at their feelings and will need to be solid and not cut themselves off from everyone. They need to learn to show up and to accept their own emotions and reactions. This can cause them to have essential harmony.

Type One

This is a type that has a lot of integrity and someone that aligns themselves in their mind and body. They are someone that is concerned with living their best life and being good. They have strong virtues and a sense of purpose. Most of the time they know their mission and they set themselves at a high standard. They want to be fair, and they have strong ethics and intelligence.

This number lives up to the ideas that they have but they will fear their intuition sometimes. They will feel that they are flawed, and they have a hard time criticizing themselves. Once they feel responsible for who they are, they will sometimes judge others and not mean to, but the ego will take over and this can happen. It can cause them to be angry and to be intolerant.

• Passion

The one’s passion is anger. This is frustration when they feel that they are at a loss and when they look and see that the world isn’t always good. This causes them to grieve, and it can cause them to be angry as well.

• Fixation

They fix themselves on their anger and they see that reality can cause them to be broken and to need improvement in their lives. This number will live with a mission as long as they don’t get frustrated and angry.

They are able to find essence when they get rid of the tension that they are feeling, and they allow themselves to grieve but then they move past it. They have to get past their fixation and their own perspectives and see that there are imperfections in the world, and this is okay. Essential integrity can happen when they live out of judgement, and they aren’t living up to their own standards.

Two, Three and Four Heart Types

These are the heart types of two, three and four:

Type Two

This is when someone is in personal conflict of their heart. They are loving and they are humble and sensitive to the needs of others. They are attentive and they are kind and have good energies in relationships.

Two’s can feel that they have to be good to be loved and sometimes their standards are too high. They try to do whatever they can to gain the love of others. They feel unworthy of love, and they will let fear come in to play. They are often selfish acting.

They fear that they aren’t worthy of love, and they have hope that they can get a deceive love, but they don’t feel lovable. They overlook their own interests, and they have a hard time meeting their needs and looking at their self-image. They are often manipulative and impulsive, and they have a low self-image even though they normally have good intentions.

• Passion

The passion of the two is pride. They are prideful because their heart feels rejected, and they sometimes become possessive. They don’t feel worthy of love, and they deny themselves this. They are selfish with their feelings because they push them on others.

• Fixation

The fixation is ingratiation, and this is when they see love that comes from others, and they will take their energy and put it into others such as in their relationships. They will do this so that they can win love and they can keep the attention of others focused on who they are.

These types can find essence by figuring out how to take their energy and directing it back to themselves instead of giving it to others all the time. They have to recognize that they have emotions and needs and even if they are complicated, they have to take things less personally. When they are looking at their personality, whatever happens, they need to look at their life and respond to it so that they can give to others. This helps them feel essential love when they are learning to love themselves unconditionally.

Type Three

This is a number that means that someone has a good connection with their heart and their identity. This type of person has value and can see potential in who they are. They are full of gifts and have a lot of energy that brings them talents that are important.

Three people are motivated, and they have skills that help them to see what values are needed to be successful. They love their family, and they do things to show that their culture is important. They live up to their values and they use their heart to show their real feelings.

For them to be able to function right, they have to listen to what is in their heart and find out who they really are. They are successful but they can become fake when they feel that they need to compete with others. They also will sometimes hide their feelings and are fragile.

• Passion

The passion of the Threes are vanity. They take their own self-image, and they will not express it and they let their ego take control. They develop themselves but they let their ego seem valuable even if it means being fake in their heart.

• Fixation

The fixation here is deceit. This means that they look at who they are, and they think that they are living their true life, but they are really doing what they can to create a value for themselves. They look at their goals and they try to let their goals dominate how they think.

The Three’s will get their essence back by taking time to slow down and being patient with who they are. They will need to look at themselves and will need to give themselves space for their heart to let them connect with others and with their own purpose. They will have to look at who they are and will need to awaken themselves. They have essential value, and this means that they are present and that they will connect with things around them.

Type 4

This type of person is one that has a lot of heart, and they are very creative and artistic. They know things and they base their identity on being independent. They don’t let external things hold them back. They are their own through and through. This is a type of person that is introspective, and they will look at things that are symbolic.

They want to express themselves as an individual and they are able to understand their own moods and what they want and express themselves. Sometimes though, they become self-absorbed, and this can limit them and make them feel at odds with their inner mind. They are sometimes shallow, and they identify with images. They can become moody and frustrated at life and they can get to a point where nothing seems meaningful to them which can lead them to even hate who they are.

A four is someone that indulges in themselves, and they find themselves to be very important. They can be hatful to those that love them and if they don’t meet their needs then they can be angry.

• Passion

The four’s passion is envy. This is a sense of lacking and it causes them to envy how other people are. They are individualistic and this can cause them to feel rejected and to be frustrated when people don’t focus on what they need.

• Fixation

Their fixation is melancholy. They can become envious, and it causes them to be disappointed in their own selves. IT can make them feel that there is no hope. They can have dark thoughts that set them up to be emotionally charged and it can cause them to make up things in their mind that make them feel flawed. This inner idea causes them to not be practical and to feel hopeless.

The four is one that can find their way back to their essence by being grounded and this will help them to get out of their emotions and to be in touch with their own physical self. It allows them to have a basic sense and to find contact outside that doesn’t make them feel alienated. When they add physical things to what they do, they can find their essential depth, and this means they won’t push everything away but will be present.

Mind Types Five, Six and Seven Enneagrams

There are type five enneagrams that show visions and insight of the mind. This is a number that concentrates well and that is creative. They are complex and they are curious and interested. No matter what kind of focus they have, chances are that they are high strung. They need to set boundaries and can feel overwhelmed by things that they are dealing with. They will get distracted and sometimes this makes them unbalanced.

They are fearful of not getting the things demanded on them down and this can cause them to withdraw. They are not spontaneous, and they have to think about everything before they ever make a move. They are emotional and often need to defend themselves. They get overwhelmed and fearful, and they can shut down and become schizoid.

• Passion

The Five’s passion is greed of who they are. They feel that they aren’t capable of doing things and this can cause them to be egotistical. This isn’t anything to do with material things. They often have fear of being out of control and they give their attention to things that give them insight.

• Fixation

Retention is their fixation, and this means that they will take the knowledge that they have, and their skills and they will be preoccupied with them. They want to have a sense of being, but this can cause them to be overwhelmed. They might not be able to focus on everything around them.

They can get back to their essence when they allow themselves to engage in things to find new things. This means that they will know things, but they don’t have to know it before they try it. The can learn to trust and have confidence in their own life. If they do, they can go through their awakening and reach their essential insight through knowing and seeing.

Type 6

This number type is one that believes in truth, and they are awakened. They have a gift for seeing things and they are full of intuition. They are fun to be around, loyal, and sometimes they are rebellious. They have real discernment, and they are clear in their mind.

This is a person that has a strong sense of being responsible and will support the people that they care about. They will be loyal, and they will be so strong in their loyalty that they will keep their attention to those that they love. This can make them vulnerable.

When they are searching for happiness, they look to their minds to find reasons to solve problems, and this can cause them to overthink the things that they do. This can turn into convictions and will cause them to miss out on the support that they need in order to embrace their beliefs. They are often anxious, and they are people that will overthink things. They look at their beliefs and they see them as extreme, but they make them feel certain. Sometimes when they are unhealthy, they will be defensive and paranoid.

• Passion

The passion of the number 6 is fear. Fear doesn’t mean that they are a coward, they are just fearful of being abandoned or that the world will get out of control. They sometimes don’t have the confidence that they need, and this makes them lack independence which causes anxiety.

• Fixation

The fixation is worry. They get preoccupied with things and they are often so mistrusting of others that they figure something is going to go wrong and they feel unsecure. They overthink and doubt things and this causes them to try to organize things so that they don’t have to feel threatened, and it leaves them guessing their choices.

The number six will be people that can find their essence if they relax, and they become courageous in what they handle. They can learn to trust their inner self and to get guidance that they need to relax and to face up to their actions. Even the mistakes that they make can help them see life the right way. They can align with essential truth and can express it.

Type 7

This is a type of person that is free, and they have been through their awakening. They are full of adventure and, they are positive. They have love in their heart, and they want to look at all of the possibilities that they have. They are full of energy, and they love experiences.

They put pleasure on the front line, and they will do what it takes to get past things like grief or sadness. They don’t like to e bored and when they are, they get anxious. They can avoid these anxieties by facing whatever comes to them.

As this number gets unbalanced, they will not be in touch with who they are. They will not be able to anticipate what is going to happen and this makes them impatient and restless. They will get addicted to new things, and they will make crazy and big plans so that they can experience wild things. They do what it takes to avoid pain and they are fearful that they will miss out on something that will make them happy. This causes them sometimes to be callous, reckless, and indulging.

• Passion

The passion of the seven is gluttony. They do this in a way to try and satisfy themselves, but it never works. They use their ego to fill the emptiness that they feel, and they will do whatever it takes to make their heart happy. They will do what they can to digest things and to feel patient without being frustrated.

• Fixation

Their fixation is anticipation. They will use this to convict themselves and this can cause them to feel excited, but it is false because they are really fearful of being deprived of things. They will occupy their mind to bring distraction by staying busy and multitasking.

These sevens are able to find their essence when they see that they are trying to not miss out on things, but they are missing out on the important things that are part of the experience. They need to release the anxiety that keeps them in their mind, and they can do this by looking at their heart and shifting what it means to experience something new. When the heart comes in to play, the person can feel satisfied. This allows them to experience things and to see how they experience things. Essential freedom is when they look at the events happening around them and they use them to make things work.

Understanding Enneagrams

The above has so much information that you have to learn to understand and be patient when you are trying to learn enneagrams. Life has you set to a point where you want to process things and where you have to be humble in order to really get the courage to learn. Once you take an enneagram test, you can find out what type you are. This can be a layered type and some people have different types depending on their personality. Knowing your enneagram can help you to see if you are lost in who you are. This can mean that you have to do some kind of inner work in order to figure out who you are and to awaken your conscious thinking. As you grow, your mind will grow, and you will see that you are reaching your true self. Using enneagrams is one of the best ways that you can find out about who you are.

Most people don’t want to focus on things in their body and they will go just to their emotions or feelings. But when you are just engaged in your mind, you miss out on the habits and patterns that your body is doing. You need to learn who you are and learn to have compassion for yourself and to be willing to look at the parts of yourself that you might not like so much. This can be things that aren’t healed and things that might be embarrassing to you.

Enneagram’s teach you to look at where you are and to wake up from sleeping in your ego. If you don’t have a problem with awakening, you need to put effort into understanding your body, heart, and mind. This can help you to see if there are problems or if you are “asleep.” Find out what needs to be awakened and work to reaching those goals.