When you know your Enneagram profile you have a simple and powerful tool for discipleship to Jesus and enjoying and sharing God’s grace. Its history goes all the way back to the Christian Father Evagrius in the 4th Century. There’s a wealth of spiritual and psychological understanding from diverse cultures and religions that’s gone into this theory of personality.

TO LEARN YOUR ENNEAGRAM TYPE: 

Take an Enneagram test. Try the RHETI at EnneagramInstitute.com (small fee).

Read your report. It provides point values for all nine types. Often the top score is not actually your type! Consider the two to four highest scores as possibly your type.

Read the descriptions for your possible types in an Enneagram book or website. Pay attention to which one you most relate to. (Rather than identifying with two or three types, It’s best to eventually land on one type that best fits you, especially who you were at about age 21.) You should relate to a type’s healthy and unhealthy aspects.

Consider the Enneagram “map” for your possible types. See which best fits you. Your map includes your:

• Root sin to overcome and virtue to develop
• Intelligence Center: body, heart, or head
• Basic Emotional Posture: anger/resentment, shame/depression, or fear/anxiety
• Wing(s) next to your type (usually people have affinity with a type on either side; the Enneagram is not “boxy.”)
• Stress point (in difficulty you tend to become like the unhealthy version of this type — it’s your false consolation)
• Growth point (at your best you’re somewhat like a healthy version of this type)

Be patient. It takes time to understand your type. This theory of personality is different than the typical view. The Enneagram idea is that personality is a defensive “ego” orientation or false self that denies our sin and pain, cutting us off from God’s presence. To know your type you have to get out of denial and admit to your tendencies that hurt you, other people, and God. Through reliance on God’s grace and self-understanding, you can grow into a healthy version of your type.

“Try on” an Enneagram type that seems to fit you. It helps to memorize a type’s general characteristics and its map and then observe yourself in daily life to see if it holds true. Once you find the type that fits you, learn it and its map, and journey with it over time to keep re-orienting yourself to enjoying and sharing to God’s loving presence.