Why know Your Enneatype ?
As a wonderful gateway to self-knowledge, it helps to understand the mental “filters,” recognize repetitive behavioural patterns, and perceive unconscious motivations (beliefs, values).
From there, each person can begin a true personal development journey, respecting all aspects of personality : instinctive, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
Our value system is linked to our perception of the world from childhood. A child is born into an undifferentiated, unstandardized, uncoded state. That allow a free access to all possible behaviours. It is in our early years, when we confront the world, that we develop the so-called protection mechanisms; strategies to best adapt to our environment.
As these mechanisms become more familiar and thus more reassuring, we choose to repeat them, to the detriment of other possibilities. This recurrent behaviour is our personality or persona (mask), not our true self.
The Enneagram1 allows us to discover and understand the ”game” of roles between our persona and our true nature, freeing us from false beliefs and fears, leaving room for unexpected strength and radiance.
Indeed, as soon as the Enneastyle is identified, the transformation can begin. This involves self-observation “Am I on autopilot mode (a hostage to my personality/ego) or am I in phase with my true nature?”
Current research on the Enneagram suggests that our thought patterns consume most of our daily energy, distancing us from understanding our true nature.
Once this transformation work is realized, alchemy can take sit permanently to our greatest happiness.
For me, the Enneagram has been a tremendous revelation and confirmation that knowing our true nature is an essential step for elevation.
Combined with the benefits of professional support, understanding the secret alliance of our Persona (mask) with our nature, provides valuable tools for a successful and lasting transformation.
As a certified practitioner by the CEE led byÉric Salmon2,I escort to determine your Enneatype and its arrows (sources of stress or development), to identify your areas for growth.
The support also includes identifying your subtype, an essential element of each Enneatype.
Enneagram vs. MBTI
The Enneagram focuses on a person’s values by providing insights into the “why”, illuminating “why I behave this way. Why do I act in such a manner?”
These two models are highly complementary, providing information on the reasons behind our choices and behaviours and how to express them, for perfect and complete self-knowledge.
- The Enneagram refers to a personality interpretation grid that dates back to the Palo Alto movement in California in the early 1970s.
Since then, the Enneagram has continued to be used in companies and prestigious universities in English-speaking countries and French Canada-speaking , however is little used in France, where it is the subject of much controversy.
Its lack of academic recognition gives free rein to the sometimes “far-fetched” assertions.
In addition personal discernment is essential when choosing a support professional, I would therefore strongly advise to find out about the seriousness of the training organization (certification authority & label) authorized to award the title of Enneagram Practitioner.
https://cee-enneagramme.eu/enneagramme/ ↩︎ - Éric Salmon, founder of the CEE (Centre d’Études de l’Ennéagramme) in 1995, has trained nearly 15,000 people in about thirty countries. Éric Salmon worked at HEC Management for fifteen years in the “managerial responsibilities training” program.
The CEE upholds the French tradition of the Helen Palmer and David Daniels school. Daniels was a medical specialist in neuropsychiatry, a doctor of experimental biomedical sciences, and a specialist in nuclear medicine. He taught at the University of Liège and was the referent doctor of the Memory Centre and Neuropsychology Unit at CHU de Liège. ↩︎