This article is an adjunct to Part 5 of my personal Christian testimony. 

It introduces you to the Enneagram.

The Enneagram is a unique system/theory of human personality and personal transformation and healing.

It enables Christian women to understand clearly their individual personality’s make-up. It explains for them their unique gifts as well as their weaknesses and limitations.

It sheds important light on those aspects of their personality that can become real barriers to their overall health and wellbeing and to their genuine transformation into God’s image!

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The very first thing I wish you to know out about the Enneagram is that it should NEVER be used as a substitute for your relationship with God.

I say this because the Enneagram is so deeply insightful that the temptation can be to treat it as a ‘god’.

This would be to seriously mis-use it!

From its ancient beginnings the Enneagram’s purpose has always been to strengthen, deepen, and transform our relationship with God.

Some current Enneagram teachers seem to present the Enneagram as a system of human psychology only.

But many people, myself included, honour the Enneagram’s original intention, which was, and remains, to connect us to our God-centre.

This represents the Enneagram at its best.

This is the way I myself was taught the Enneagram 42 years ago.

And this is the way I myself have always taught, and will continue to teach, the Enneagram.

My teacher in 1984 was Patrick O’Leary. He was one of the early teachers of the Enneagram in the West and co-authored one of the very first books on the system to appear in the West: The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery ** (see the end of this article).

O’Leary and his 2 co-authors see the human person first and foremost as a spiritual being who can thrive only with an ongoing, intimate connection to God. 

In my 38 years of both learning from and teaching Enneagram fundamentals, I have found this particular system of human personality to be outstanding in many ways.

This is why I wrote an article  3 years ago explaining how the Enneagram could answer the many 'personal' questions Christian women have but are typically apprehensive about asking. 

But the Enneagram’s unique and most important contribution is that it demonstrates clearly the link between a person’s individual psychological make-up and a person’s God-given soul and spirit —and vice versa.

This insight helps you understand much better how your individual psychological make-up directly affects…

• your relationship and friendship with God

• your prayer 

• your Christian journey 

In this way, the Enneagram helps us women move forward into the spiritual, psychological, and emotional maturity and health that God has planned for each one of us.

It can help you chart a specific, practical path towards healing your inner hurts and wounds.

It therefore helps to ensure your development into a more balanced and fruitful woman.

And the more balanced and fruitful you become the more inner peace and joy you possess.

Which of us wouldn’t want that?

The Enneagram Explains Your Gifts as well as Your Areas of Weakness and Limitation:

How This Helps You Heal

Your Unique Gifts

The Enneagram explains clearly for you your unique gifts.

In times of discouragement, brokenness, trauma or crisis, when you feel vulnerable and are experiencing your human fragility, the fact that you KNOW that you possess YOUR OWN UNIQUE GIFTS helps greatly to provide the moral and spiritual support you need.

In this way, the Enneagram can encourage and facilitate your HEALING!

Your Areas of Weakness

In a completely non-judgmental way, the Enneagram also explains clearly your areas of weakness and limitation.

In this way, it helps you understand those aspects of your personality that hamper your inner peace and joy and negatively affect your spiritual, mental and physical health.

This is important for your overall wellbeing/healing because these ‘blind spots’ are often the cause of significant suffering not just to you yourself but to others also! 

The Enneagram empowers you to bring healing to those areas of your life that work AGAINST your wellbeing e. g. your inability to fully accept yourself just as you are, warts and all, without guilt, and to accept all others in the same way!

It helps you avoid the inevitable personal suffering that comes with a lack of awareness in these areas!

The Enneagram also helps you understand how to avoid burnout and ‘dis-ease’ —a hugely important consideration in the increasingly high-stress world in which we all now live.

I find the Enneagram extremely helpful at those times in my journey when I seem to get ‘stuck’ in a particular personality limitation or weakness of my own, and so become discouraged.

Healing Scriptures for Your Particular Enneagram Type to Pray

The Enneagram and Prayer, Discovering Our True Selves Before God, authored by Barbara Metz and John Burchill, honours the Enneagram’s original intention i. e. connecting people to God.

This book provides scriptures for each woman’s personality type to pray both when her life becomes unusually tough AS WELL AS when her life is easy and joyful!

When Times are Tough

I’ve discovered that praying these scriptures can be unusually healing in specific ways:

• the scriptures offered address very specific problems in your journey with God

• they bring you closer to God

• they give you the needed hope and encouragement that brings healing when you need it 

• over time, they bring you out of any spiritual rut you might find yourself in

• they provide you with a way to move forward in your journey with the Lord 

• they underscore your gifts 

• they boost your confidence and rekindle hope when life is tough 

• they shed light on those areas in your make-up that need a bit more conversion! 

• they help you see that in the Lord’s eyes you are, in fact, a far more rounded and balanced person than you might previously have given yourself credit for!

 I trust that you are beginning to see that the Enneagram can impact positively and immeasurably… 

• your relationship with God 

• your relationship with yourself 

• your relationship with all other people, but especially with the significant people in your life —your spouse, children, parents, extended family, work colleagues, friends, and members of your faith communities

The Enneagram Can Help You Heal Relationships within Your Immediate Family and All Other Personal Relationships

The Enneagram can provide helpful insights into ALL personal relationships. But it’s particularly helpful when you wish to heal close family relationships that might have ruptured.

BUT … A Word of Caution Re. Typing Others!

BUT… here’s a word of caution…

Don’t be tempted to make a priority of typing another individual to her/his face!!

Keep your opinion about his/her type to yourself, unless they specifically ask for help in typing them.

Why is this so important?

It’s important because in order to establish another person’s specific type you need to know the person’s MOTIVATION for their particular behaviours.

And only GOD —NOT you or anyone else —can know this for certain!                                                   

In other words, you could be WRONG!

And if you are, this would only cause trouble all the way round!

That said, however, an EDUCATED GUESS (that you keep to yourself!) at another person’s type is most certainly in order.  

In fact, it can go a long way in 

• helping you to understand and accept the ‘impossible’ people in your life 

• healing those particular personal relationships that are presenting problems for you

… especially your relationships with individuals with whom you spend a great deal of time every day, such as your immediate family members and work colleagues.

Just always remember, however, that this is only an educated GUESS!

** Here is my #1 recommendation book for beginners. It lists the characteristics of each Enneagram type.
It is an excellent introduction to the Enneagram! 

Maria Beesing, Robert Nogosek, and Patrick O'Leary: The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery, 1984 

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OTHER BOOKS on the Enneagram that I particularly recommend:

1. Enneagram and Prayer: Discovering Our True Selves Before God Paperback – January 1, 1987
           By Barbara Metz 

2. Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery, 1996
            By Don Richard Riso

3. The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective Paperback – September 1, 2001
            By Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert 

4. The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life Paperback – April 12, 1991
           By Dr. Helen Palmer

YOUTUBE VIDEOS on the Enneagram that I particularly recommend

1. Enneagram Types 1, 2, 3, & 4 - Richard Rohr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olOfYBeYsOQ

 

2. Enneagram Types 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 - Richard Rohr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCrfzcDwUzI

Disclaimer

No content on this website should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified health professional or
clinician

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Watch out for Part 6: Was There Ever a Time When My Faith was Tested So Profoundly that You Thought of Giving it Up?

 

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