Host: How could I identify all the areas in my personality, where these pressures show up?
Chris Wright: It‘s important to be able to identify where all these pressures show up in your personality, in your expectations, in your attitudes, your behaviors, your belief systems, so that you can take responsibility for them, own them and come in to balance, do something about it. That‘s really the value of the Enneagram Personality System. I mean, this ancient system is very coherent, very accurate, and it’s easy to grasp, once you find your type and your wings and lines, it’s easy to make sense of and relate it to your life. It’s going to show you all these pressure. It’s going to show your strengths, your gifts as well as your challenges.
That’s going to show you your blinders, so it’s important to sort of study your profile and gain awareness of all these dynamics in your personality. When you do that I want to recommend that realize that the writers who write about sixes, let’s say for example, they tend to show the whole range of ways, the sixth need shows up, but it may not show up in all those ways in your personality. I do that and I do that but I don’t do that, and I don t do that, it doesn’t mean you’re not at six, it just means that the way you were brought up, which has had an influence in your personality. These are the ways that it tends that need of a six tends to show up, and if have a line to three, them I’m only drawing these certain qualities from three, I don t draw all of them but these are the qualities or needs that affect my personality.
So it’s important to study that and become aware of it. The advantage of knowing this in the Enneagram, if its objective, it’s not personal, this is just how you are wired, there s no shame in having these needs, there s no shame in having these pressures inside. The shame comes from when you’re not being aware of these, when you have no awareness at all, and you act them out freely, that’s when other people have a sense of having to adapt around you.
So really by studying the Enneagram, you are becoming aware of what other people wish that you were more aware of, what they talk about behind your back, because they can sense that you are not aware and then it would make a big difference in the relationship, if you were.
You can also, it’s really effective to find out from your partner, because they are certainly aware of all these, where these imbalances show up, and where they create conflict in the relationship. Maybe you could give your partner the materials on your profile, of your type and your wings and lines and ask your partner to wade through them and underline the specific areas that they feel create conflict in this relationship where they’ve wasted you had more self-awareness. And of course, you can do the same thing for your partner.
Most couples though find that they really need to learn, how to establish safe framework? How to create emotional safety for them to be able to have these discussions together? It’s important to do so, but to take safety because these areas are connected to fragile areas inside yourself. So you want to create a sense of honoring and safety when you discuss them with your partner.
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