My Enneagram Journey

How I was mistyped, experienced an existential crisis, discovered my Enneagram type, and rediscovered hope.

I first learned about the Enneagram when the church where I worked held a day long seminar going through all the types. To prepare for the seminar, we each took the RHETI Enneagram typing test and brought our results with us. My top scores were Type 2 and Type 3.

I had no idea what that meant.

As the teacher explained Type 2, it did not resonate. Type 3 did. Hard working (adjectives used to describe my work ethic since I was 8), high achieving, high performing. I nodded along and developed a pit in my stomach because these were things that were ultimately tearing me apart. I was so stressed out and exhausted from trying to prove my worth at every turn.

My boss, upon hearing these descriptors said, “And that’s why I hired her. Because she will get it done.” I felt good for being affirmed for all that work.

“It” worked. I was acceptable. And stressed beyond my capacity.

Then the teacher explained Type 4 and it resonated at such a deep level I felt a longing in my soul to be recognized as a Four. But I didn’t test as a Four so I didn’t think I was one or could be one. (As a coach now, I would say listen to that longing, it is telling you something!)

After our meeting, I went to a park with our Enneagram book and read all about Threes. There was a section on handling stress and I cried and cried. I underlined everything. I decided to go a little easier on myself.

And then I barely thought about the Enneagram again.

…

Five years later, my husband and I decided to move our family “back home.” So we packed up our house and left our community in Colorado to live in Minnesota. Closer to family. Closer to water. Better schools. It was all what I had longed for for at least 6 years. I thought we would be happy.

On the steps of our Colorado home, the morning we moved away.

It is very difficult to start over.

I’m not even sure how to describe what happened next. I was recovering from secondary trauma and burn out after working at a church where the staff talked in terms of “triage” and “emergency care.” I was trying my hand at writing a book and building an online platform. I began selling Trades of Hope to help pay for groceries while my husband worked as a mechanic at a local shop. Our kids went to school at our neighborhood public school.

I thought we were finding our rhythm.

But the work was not sustainable for my husband. He was in pain, exhausted, and depressed. One day he told me he did not think I would publish my book and asked me to get a normal job.

I was crushed.

I began to apply for a lot of youth pastor positions, a couple of campus pastor positions, the odd associate pastor position, and every time I got an interview but every time I was not hired. My sense of self, my confidence and belief in my own calling was precarious.

I felt like my husband stopped believing in me and I did not realize how much I depended on his courage in me. I did not understand my own behavior. I had never been so depleted by someone’s words. I had never given up on myself so quickly.

I kept thinking of Paul’s words to the Romans:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 8:15)

All my life I had struggled to believe I was good enough and in the face of that message I proved to the world through my hard work and achievements that I was. But for the first time I couldn’t do that. For the first time, it seemed as if the world was telling me my inner critic, the voice of shame inside me, was right. I wasn’t enough.

I despaired. I gave up. I stopped trying.

…

Friends online had been talking about the Enneagram for awhile. I still had two books on my shelf from the Enneagram training at work years before. I picked up Richard Rohr’s book The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective and learned two things from the intro:

1. The best way to determine your type is to read about all of the types. Assessments and tests can be wrong.

2. “If you don’t sense the whole thing as somehow humiliating, you haven’t yet found your number. The more humiliating it is, the more you are looking the matter right in the eye.”

Swimming in shame at the time, this made sense to me but I couldn’t bring myself to read his entire book to find my type.

On Facebook someone recommended The Liturgist Podcast’s episode on The Enneagram with Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile, authors of The Road Back to You. In less than two hours they covered all 9 types. I still remember the part of the yard I was mowing when they described Type Four and I knew that was me. I knew my type. I purchased The Road Back to You and read it cover to cover. I felt seen, heard, known in a way I had never experienced before:

• My desire to be significant.

• My fear of being average or ordinary.

• My massive withdrawal as a coping mechanism for dealing with pain.

• My constant draw to the creative.

• My ginormous feelings and sensitivities that both brought me great joy in beauty and great pain in loss.

• My sense that something was wrong with me.

It was all laid out by the Type Four descriptions.

I began to think maybe I’m not totally flawed and hopeless but maybe I am just like others with the same struggles.

The sense of common humanity that the Enneagram taught gave me hope that I could get through my struggles. It showed me that everyone has fear. Everyone has a desire. And we are each created to be so much more than what we believe we must perform, project, and pretend to be.

The Enneagram confirmed that growth and healing is possible. We are not plastic but elastic, able to move, stretch, and grow. Though we may feel stuck we can move in and through our difficulties.

We can become and we are becoming our truest selves.

And it is that teaching, that we meant to be healed and whole, that brings me back to the Enneagram time and time again.

I look forward to sharing more.

Next time…

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It is very common to struggle to find your Enneagram Type. Even though they are usually helpful, many people have trouble with Enneagram Tests mistyping them.

I have also heard stories of people resonating with one type only to realize years later that they were another type.

As we grow in self-awareness, we begin to see ourselves more clearly.

And the Enneagram is complicated. Two types may seem so similar but as we continue to dig and learn we begin to see how the main motivations underlying so much similar behavior is completely different.

That is why an Enneagram Typing session with an Enneagram Coach (like me) is helpful for many people. If you’re curious to hear more, I always offer free Enneagram Coaching Consultations so we can meet, discuss your needs, and you can decide if a Typing Session or meeting with an Enneagram Coach (me) is right for you.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Leah