Week 2: Where does my type come from? How does it work?
In the second week of Enneagram 101, we endeavored to understand how our types were formed in response to messages we received explicitly or implicitly in childhood and get a deeper understanding of how our types work. If you weren’t able to join, but are still interested in learning about the Enneagram and your type, try out these 2 steps below. It will take approximately 30 minutes. If you take on the homework assignment, it will take approximately 45 additional minutes.
1. Read the childhood wound for the type(s) you most identify with and think about these prompts:
Personalize the childhood wound description. What did this look like, sound like, and feel like in your experience?
What connections can you make between the childhood wound description and your type as your understand it? You might consult the Enneagram Type Chart and type descriptions from the Enneagram Institute website (see week 1 below for links).
2. Become aware of God’s presence and spend some time journaling in response to 1 or 2 of these prompts:
What have the limitations of your type cost you?
How has your type impacted your relationships to yourself, to others, to God?
What compassion can you access for your childhood self that understood these harmful messages?
Ask God what God thinks about all this.
If time permits, and you want to learn more about your type, try out our homework assignment from week 2: Listen to another podcast episode about your type. How does it help you better understand your motivations, typical patterns, and conditioned responses? Some podcast you might check out include:
Enneagram 2.0 with Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes (Apple) (Spotify)
We Can Do Hard Things, Episode 226: "Why You Are the Way You Are with Suzanne Stabile" (Part 1) (Part 2)
In our final gathering for this series, I want to equip you with some resources and practices that can help you experience greater freedom within your type. I hope you can join us on June 1st!
Week 1: What is the Enneagram? What is my type?
In the first week of Enneagram 101, we got oriented to the Enneagram tradition and took some steps toward identifying our types. If you are interested in learning about the Enneagram and your type, try out these 3 steps below. It will take approximately 45 minutes. If you take on the homework assignment, it will take approximately 45 additional minutes. Orient to the Enneagram tradition by reading “How the Enneagram System Works.”
Use this Chart of Enneagram Types to try and identify the 1-2 types that most closely match you.
Once you’ve narrowed down the list of potential types, read about those 1-2 types using these descriptions from the Enneagram Institute to try and get closer to your type.
If time permits, and you want to learn more about your type, try out our homework assignment from week 1: listen to an episode of a podcast about the type that most resonates with you. This can help you confirm whether you’ve identified your type or not. There are lots of great enneagram podcasts out there. One I recommend is The Road Back to You. Here are several episodes you could check out:
I hope you’ll join us on Sunday, May 18 after the worship service when we’ll go a little deeper. We’ll seek to answer the questions, where does my type come from? How does it work?