The Enneagram commonly known as a system of nine personality types, can be used as a nine- phase model of living Systems, including humans evolve and grow. It shows we evolve from one level of homeostasis to a higher and more complex level of organisation and homeostasis. NINE represents homeostasis and the process moves around the circle clockwise from ONE. The more people are caught in the compulsion of their type, the more they resistance moving through cycles of change and limit the realisation of their potential.
Personality Masks True Nature
The habitual ways we struggle against reality form the compulsions of personality. The word personality (from the Greek, persona), translates as mask. A mask is used to hide our true self and enable us to play a role. In order to fit into a world where most people are acting as if the masks they wear and the roles they play is all there is, we all learn to adopt a persona in order to fit in. We become so identified with the mask that we lose touch with our true nature.
Being trapped in the compulsions of personality is to be overly identified with the Essential Quality, Developmental Task, Basic Function and PsychoLogical Network of one phase in the process of change. Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The more compulsive we are with our grasping and aversion, the further down the scale of psychological health we digress, and the more psychologically disordered we become. The DSMIV categorizes the NINE styles of ‘insanity’ in terms of various personality disorders and other psychiatric conditions.
Everyone has a personality type, which means we automatically favor those qualities associated with one phase of the Enneagram. Like the rest of creation, we flow through all the phases. It’s just our way of being in the world is colored by those qualities. We identify more strongly with the associated qualities and spend more time and energy in that phase when going through changes. The more psychologically healthy we are, the more we are allowing of our wholeness and tend to be more internally (and usually externally) well-rounded. As our psychological health slips towards being more disordered, we become increasingly fixated around one point. As the stress of this vicious circle intensifies, there is tendency to slide into the dysfunctional process associated with the stress point (direction of the arrows) on the Enneagram.
At most stages, our ego mind perceives evolution as a threat because it requires the dissolution of (or at least disillusion with) our perceived identity (ego death). Our lives are ongoing, overlapping cycles of change in which our self-limiting identity regularly dissolves and is reformed in richer fuller and less deluded ways. The more our ego mind attempts to maintain the perception of a separate solid self, the more disordered or stagnant our lives become. The more we try to cope with escalating external chaos or stagnation in the usual ways, the more we suffer psychological disorders.
No matter what phase of the Enneagram our personality identifies with, that identification eventually causes us to suffer. Instead of merely coping in our habitual ways, every time we become aware of suffering we have the opportunity to free ourselves from limiting habits and embrace the essential wholeness of our evolving nature.
Realising Potential and Playing our Part in Evolving Creation
The more people trust their essential wholeness, the more easily they flow through the phases of change. Through accessing the full spectrum of human qualities, their personality type becomes less and less obvious. At the same time however, everyone has resources associated with their Enneagram type and a role to play within the larger ecology of the communities and organizations suited for their particular strengths.
So NINEs will help maintain systems and mediate conflict.
ONEs will raise awareness of the need for reforms.
TWOs will support those in power to try to address the needs of those in need.
THREEs will work hard to optimize success of the organization.
FOURs will see in inadequacies of the existing structure and find creative ways of addressing deeper values.
FIVEs will be good at developing deeper understanding of how things work and what is and isn’t essential.
While SIXes can be loyal participants who can also trouble shoot possible pitfalls and question old paradigms.
SEVENs will tend to be the new ideas people who can help with experimenting with new possibilities.
And EIGHTs will tend to fall into leadership roles and help make things happen.
Essential wholeness, then, is found in us individually and collectively.
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This blog is largely excepts from Essential Wholeness, Integral Psychotherapy, Spiritual Awakening and the Enneagram
