Reading People

by Anne Bogel

  Nine: the Peacemaker (the need to avoid). Nines devote their energy to maintaining harmony, both internally and externally. At their best, Nines are true peacemakers, but unhealthy Nines would rather ignore conflict than deal with it. Nines automatically seek to gain love by blending in—substituting others’ needs and priorities for their own—instead of trusting they’ll be accepted and appreciated for who they are.

  This chapter serves as a brief introduction to the Enneagram. If you explore this framework further, you’ll learn about the wing types; arrows of integration and disintegration; the head, heart, and gut centers; and much more. Refer to the Recommended Resources for further reading.

  A Better Version of Yourself

  Growth is a multistep process, but it is an actual process. Spiritual formation isn’t quite as slippery as some make it out to be. The first step is to crack ourselves open to see what we’re hiding, either deliberately or inadvertently, and to drag what is in the dark into the light. This is the process of self-discovery and self-awareness.

  The goal of the Enneagram is to get the “yuck” out of the way so we can be more ourselves, getting us closer to our true identities and purposes. The Enneagram helps us confront who we really are, what’s going on beneath the surface, and what’s motivating our behaviors instead of just polishing a shiny, happy facade. It also gives us the tools we need to examine whether change is happening only on a surface level or becoming deeply ingrained in our habits (which would be a good thing). We don’t want to change only our behaviors, although we do want those to change. We want lasting change that goes to the heart of who we are. The Enneagram doesn’t capture all of who we are; it shows us a mere sliver. It’s not the whole truth, but if it can offer us even a glimmer of truth about ourselves, it can empower us to change by first showing us what needs changing and then gently pointing us in the right direction.

  While our type doesn’t change, the Enneagram helps us work with our personalities to become better versions of ourselves, to attain a greater level of health within our type.7 The Enneagram helps us imagine what that better self might look like and recognize how we might get there. It also underscores that growing as a person won’t in any way “neutralize” our personalities. The goal is, as always, to become more ourselves—our true selves—instead of getting tripped up by the stumbling blocks that tend to befall each personality type. Personal growth takes us out of unhealthy reflexive actions and enables us to be more fully ourselves, more present, more aware, and more intentional.

  The Enneagram is nuanced and complex, but you need to understand only a few basic concepts to get started. It’s more than okay for your knowledge of it to grow while you’re using it. You learn by experimenting with the system and with yourself and seeing how your type plays out day by day—both when you’re by yourself and when you’re interacting with others.

  The only requirements are that you have to start where you are and you have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

  Putting This Information to Work in Your Own Life

  “Starting” the Enneagram means figuring out your type. Some people are able to nail down their type right away; for others, it’s far from a straightforward process. (I belong to the latter group. More on that later.)

  There are tests and quizzes, of course, and some are available free online. The highly respected Enneagram Institute publishes a short, free assessment as well as a longer assessment for a fee.8 My favorite self-test is in The Essential Enneagram by David Daniels and Virginia Price, which presents you with short, one-paragraph descriptions containing snapshots of each type. You choose the three you most identify with and take it from there.

  These assessments are good starting points, but I recommend determining your type by cozying up with the type profiles. Choose a comfy chair, because this could take a while. As you review the type profiles, pay attention to what resonates. Ask yourself where you best fit. No one description can comprehensively capture your personality, but one type will—as a whole—fit you better than any of the others.

  After spending some time thinking it over—and this could mean anywhere from half an hour to a year or more—you’ll identify which type suits you best.

  Some people, including me, recommend that you wait to dive into the Enneagram until your late twenties or even age thirty because your personality, character, and way of approaching life should be developed before you set out on this journey. This doesn’t mean your younger years won’t hint at what your type will ultimately become. (For more about the Enneagram and children, especially as it pertains to parenting, I recommend The Enneagram of Parenting by Elizabeth Wagele.)

  First, You’ll Be Miserable

  The rule of thumb for Enneagram typing is this: when the yucky stuff resonates, you know you’ve nailed your type. If you read a description of your Enneagram type and feel exposed, as though you just got caught doing something really embarrassing, that’s a sign you typed yourself correctly.

  Many years ago, my husband and I hosted his side of the family for a big family get-together. Will and I had just bought a house, and he wanted to give his family—all of whom live out of town—a tour. Everybody piled into cars for a field trip. I stayed behind at the old house to finish the meal prep. (As an introvert, I didn’t mind a little alone time, either, as much as I enjoy my husband’s family.)

  With the house to myself, I cranked up the latest U2 album and got to work heating up dishes, chopping lettuce for salad, filling up glasses with ice. I sang as I worked, because the work goes better that way. At some point, I realized I’d left my water glass in the living room, where we’d been visiting. When I ran in to get it, I discovered my brother-in-law sitting on the sofa, smirking. He’d been there the whole time. Did I mention I am not a good singer? I still thank my lucky stars I was wielding sharp knives and fragile glasses that afternoon, or he might have seen me dancing too. This happened fifteen years ago; I think it took me until the ten-year mark to stop turning red when I remembered that moment I realized he’d been there the whole time. And that moment is pretty much what figuring out your Enneagram type feels like. Exposed and embarrassed.

  As Richard Rohr is fond of saying, the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.9 And, whoa, confronting my type certainly made me miserable.

  What My Type Identification Process Looked Like

  My friend Leigh first piqued my interest in the Enneagram. She sent me some links, recommended a few books, and I rabbit-trailed from there. The first time I read through the Enneagram type profiles I suspected I was a Nine: the peacemaker, healer, reconciler, utopian. But I wasn’t certain. This type is motivated by the need to avoid. They fear conflict, aren’t great at articulating their wants or needs, and are flexible to a fault. This sounded like me . . . mostly.

  Over the months that followed, I returned occasionally to the profiles. I read through the probable suspects again—for me, that meant types One, Five, Seven, and Nine—trying to decide once and for all which type suited me best. I couldn’t do it. But I continued to pay attention.

  My Enneagram indecision ended the day I had to make a choice that, by its very nature, involved disappointing a lot of people. You’re probably imagining a truly epic decision right now, but let me assure you that most people wouldn’t have considered it a big deal. Boatloads of people make similar hiring-and-firing-type decisions—the type with clear winners and clear losers—every day. What was a big deal was the way I felt absolutely broken over the disappointment I was causing. I was sick over it. I kept leaving my house to pace on the little shaded path by my house because I couldn’t stop thinking about the people I had disappointed.

  I had experienced these emotions before, under similar circumstances. But something was different this time. Thanks to my relatively new knowledge of the Enneagram, I had the self-awareness to realize that while my reaction was pretty extreme, it was normal for a Nine. In that instant, I knew my type. For certain. Through the f
ramework of the Enneagram, I could perceive what was driving my behavior: the fear of separation, the yearning for peace of mind, the motivation to avoid conflict at all costs, the need for harmony. Of course I’m a Nine, I thought to myself. Who else reacts like this under this kind of stress?

  This was not a fun realization. It didn’t make me feel lovable and unique; it made me feel like a basket case.

  But even while I was feeling terrible, I found it enormously helpful to know that because of my type, I was going to feel terrible in this moment. The way I was feeling was totally normal—for my Enneagram type. It’s how I’m wired. Realizing this made me feel better instantly. Instead of freaking out about why I was feeling drained and borderline depressed, I acknowledged what was going on and why. Conflict makes me crazy. Disappointing people makes me irrational. My reaction was extreme, but I understood that it would fade. I hadn’t done anything wrong; these things are just hard for me. My self-awareness freed me to focus on moving forward in a healthy manner (walk, breathe, keep my mouth shut) instead of obsessing about whether I was losing my grip.

  The circumstances vary from person to person, but my experience highlights an important point. It’s often our glaring weaknesses that confirm our type.

  Understanding Your Type

  Since I first learned my type, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe it in action, both in my past and in my present.

  Let’s revisit the nutshell description of a Nine.

  Nines devote their energy to maintaining harmony, both internally and externally. At their best, Nines are true peacemakers, but unhealthy Nines would rather ignore conflict than deal with it. Nines automatically seek to gain love by blending in—substituting others’ needs and priorities for their own—instead of trusting they’ll be accepted and appreciated for who they are.

  Before I knew my Enneagram type, I knew conflict made me uneasy. I knew I could put people at ease. But I was blind to my tendency to blend in, to substitute other people’s priorities for my own.

  This strikes me as ridiculous now, because examples from my own life are everywhere, and they go way back. Like that time in college I had a friend in my dorm review a paper I’d written for government class on developing nations. He returned my draft covered in notes about how one country in my paper operated like the Death Star and another operated like the Millennium Falcon. He’d given me all the notes I needed to turn my paper into one giant Star Wars analogy and convinced me this would elevate my paper from adequate to amazing. Despite my apathy for anything Star Wars (minus the Princess Leia Halloween costume I wore when I was eight because that was cool), I—and I hate to admit this because it seriously feels worse than getting caught breaking out my Beyoncé moves—incorporated his edits. I incorporated his edits. I was a good student who could stand on my own feet, yet I substituted someone else’s interests and priorities for my own. Classic Nine. I also got the worst grade of my academic career. (I’m going to go hide in the closet now.)

  I could also tell you about when I was a young parent and it was vitally important to me that my friends agreed with the choices I was making about the things new parents get uptight about. Eating and sleeping are the big ones, but I wanted reassurance on everything. I was willing and eager (I’m cringing now, remembering how true this was) to react and adapt to other people’s wishes, opinions, and priorities. Classic Nine.

  If healthy boundaries have always come easily to you, that’s great. It really is. For me, this healthy boundaries thing is possible today only because of a whole lot of hard work and practice. I’ve gotten much better at it over the years, but it’s been a slog. I still need to remain vigilant so I don’t forget just where I end and someone else begins.

  I don’t enjoy recognizing that I behave this way, but doing so makes it possible for me to dial it down. For years, I felt like a nail-biter who’d shellacked her fingernails with one of those foul-tasting polishes that helps her quit biting them because every time she starts to mindlessly chew on her nail, the awful taste screams, “Stop, you’re doing it again!” She wears the polish so she can realize when she’s lapsing into her bad nail-biting habit.

  The Enneagram works similarly to that nasty polish—it helps us fight bad habits. We can learn to put practices in place that will help us realize when we’re falling into familiar unhealthy patterns so we can instead learn to choose better ones.

  And what does that path of improvement look like? It’s unique to each type, but it always begins with awareness.

  The Right Questions for Your Type

  All of us are inclined to slip up in predictable ways. Because my inclination as a Nine is to be lazy about my boundaries, my goal is to pay particular attention to my propensity to “merge” with others. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to move the marker a little closer to the “healthy” side of the spectrum by following a process tailored to my type. I’ve gotten into the habit of noticing when I’m being particularly indecisive (a red flag for me) or when I’m getting sidetracked by other people’s priorities and have learned to pause before acting on my (often misguided) impulses. First, I ask myself what I want before acting. (Yowzers, did this feel strange at first.) And now I wait before reacting to other people’s wishes. I also set my own priorities—on purpose. I screw up a lot, but I at least know what I’m supposed to do.10

  My behavior may seem crazy to you because these things come easily to you. While I grow by asking myself about my boundaries, you may grow by asking yourself how loud your inner critic has been this week. Or how often you’ve been feeling disappointed lately about what’s missing in your life. Or if you’ve been escaping the potentially painful stuff by focusing on the new and shiny. These are different questions suited to different Enneagram types; they’re designed to probe what’s going on beneath the surface for you.

  These self-care steps aren’t exactly easy—for any of us. But I’d rather know what to do for myself—even if it’s hard—than not know. Even if it makes me miserable for a little bit.

  The Path to Improvement That Is Right for You

  How does change actually happen? I’ve personally found two models to be especially helpful.

  I’m a huge fan of the late, great Dallas Willard, whose works have been influential in my personal and spiritual journey. In his wonderful book Renovation of the Heart, Willard lays out a model for spiritual growth that he calls the VIM model, named after its three steps: Vision, Intention, Methods.11 If you’re a Willard fan or want an explicitly Christian approach to personal growth and spiritual formation, I highly recommend investigating this model, which lends itself to working in conjunction with the Enneagram (although I can find no evidence that Willard did so himself).

  The second model is from David Daniels and Virginia Price’s book The Essential Enneagram. They call their model the 4As, named after the four things we need to do to make lasting changes in our lives: awareness, acceptance, action, and adherence.12 Because the 4As were developed specifically to work with the Enneagram, that’s the model we’ll focus on here.

  The 4As Growth Process

  Step 1: Awareness

  Step 1 on the personal path to wholeness is to figure out what we’re dealing with, and the Enneagram excels at delivering this awareness. Until we learn to pay attention to our own patterns of behavior, we are powerless to change them.

  Many people are afraid this introspective “navel-gazing” is narcissistic or indulgent, but I don’t see it that way! It’s brutal and necessary work if we truly want to see personal and spiritual growth.

  Ironically, learning to see ourselves clearly helps us forget ourselves so we can focus on what matters instead of continually tripping ourselves up. Again, growth of any kind requires us to be honest with ourselves above all. Mindfulness doesn’t mean looking for what we want to see; it means watching for what is.

  Step 2: Acceptance

  The next step in the 4As is acceptance. If we want to change, we have to be mercilessly h
onest with ourselves. Acceptance means acknowledging that it is what it is, and we are who we are. This doesn’t mean just the bad stuff. True acceptance means seeing the whole of ourselves: the good parts and the ugly parts. We’re the whole package.

  According to Riso and Hudson, before change is possible, we have to believe we’re worth the effort to get to know ourselves as we really are.13 Doing this acceptance step well means showing ourselves compassion as we acknowledge the good and (especially) the bad about ourselves. It means accepting what we find inside ourselves while being gentle and patient with ourselves. (You’re not the only person who’s going to need compassion, gentleness, and patience for this step.)

  This step seems so obvious: yeah, yeah, don’t beat yourself up. But remember all those years ago when I went back to counseling? I was so hard on myself, week after week. My therapist, Patty, exasperated, finally called me on it and gave me a mental trick that has helped me ever since. I was talking to her about something that happened when I was sixteen, so she asked me if I knew any sixteen-year-old girls. I did. Then she asked me to imagine a sixteen-year-old girl I knew in the same situation I had been in. How did that make me feel? I realized immediately that no sixteen-year-old should have to deal with that crap. My heart went out to my sixteen-year-old self right then. Cultivating compassion for myself isn’t always so easy—unfortunately, I still get in plenty of not-great situations, even as an adult—but some variety of that mind trick tends to help.

  Acceptance does not mean agreeing with or condoning every behavior—whether our own or others’. But when we see what is truly happening, we are empowered to take action to change it.

  Step 3: Action