Twenty-six years of guiding Christian women on their individual journeys has revealed time and again that we women struggle with questions we want —even need —answers for, but are afraid to ask.

These concern our own personal human make-up or that of our spouse, children, immediate family members, friends, work colleagues and, sometimes, members of our faith communities.

I, and the Christian women I have guided over 26 years, have found the Enneagram to be a system that sheds powerful (and convincing) light on many quite personal human questions.

The enneagram provides a powerful affirmation of each woman’s true self   (the part of each woman where God lives and reigns), and at the same time shows a way to the healing of the false self, (the part of each woman that Paul the Apostle calls the ‘old self’, the part that still needs to be transformed into the Lord’s image).

It provides

• a way for understanding each individual woman’s psychological and emotional make-up
• a way for understanding each woman’s unique gifts as well as her weaknesses or points of suffering
• each woman’s path to spiritual healing/transformation into God’s image

It achieves this by enabling you to better understand your particular personality inclinations and the underlying reasons why you do the things you do and think the way you think.

It also helps to explain the personal suffering you unintentionally bring on yourself —and, quite often, on others.

But its exceptional usefulness doesn’t stop there.

The best enneagram teachers are those who honour the original spirituality aspect of the enneagram. They have provided us with a way to heal/transform into God’s image the ‘old self’.  

In other words, they combine the understanding of human psychology with prayer.

You see, the enneagram concerns itself, first and last, with each person’s connection to God.

Though many teachers/writers on the enneagram have taken the enneagram in a quite different direction, its original intention seems always to have been to connect people with God.

This is the way I was taught the enneagram.

This is the only way I teach the enneagram.

 My teacher back in 1984 was Patrick O’Leary, a Jesuit priest, who around that time co-authored the first book on the Enneagram to be written in the West, simply titled The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery.

This book sees the human person as a spiritual being with psychological giftedness and drawbacks, who thrives only with an ongoing intimate connection to God.

There was never any doubt in my mind that the Enneagram treated psychology and spirituality as part and parcel of the same thing.

As a result, I have never supported those who try to teach it simply as human psychology.

The Enneagram and Prayer, Discovering Our True Selves Before God, by Barbara Metz and John Burchill, is another book that honours the enneagram’s original intention of connecting people’s individual psychological make-up to God. It provides scriptures for each personality type to pray both when life is unusually tough and when it’s really easy and joyful.

I find this book extremely helpful, especially at those times in my journey with the Lord when I seem to get ‘stuck’ in a particular personality limitation/weakness of my own and am somewhat discouraged.

I’ve discovered that praying these scriptures is unusually powerful in 4 ways:

• all the scriptures used address very specific problems on your journey with God
• praying through these scriptures over time brings healing and gives you the needed hope and encouragement
• they bring you closer to God
• over time, these 2 things together help move you forwards on your journey with the Lord and bring you out of any spiritual ruts you might find yourself in

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Especially important, the enneagram reveals to women their areas of special, individual giftedness.

At the same time, it explains in a completely non-judgmental way your areas of weakness and limitation.

It 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.

In this way, it helps you avoid, and ultimately heal, the personal suffering that comes with a lack of awareness of these areas!

This allows you to grow gradually —but with consistency and certainty —into the woman God has always destined you to be!

The Enneagram demonstrates for each enneagram type her way to transformation into God’s image. 

For me, this is the unique, and great, gift of the enneagram.

It points us women to the way forward into greater maturity, showing us how to grow into more balanced and fruitful human beings. 

Growing into a balanced, fruitful woman is a fundamental goal of your relationship and walk with the Lord.

The enneagram also enables you to understand aspects of your personality that can hamper your inner peace and joy and negatively affect your spiritual, mental and physical health —and the personal suffering this causes you and the significant others in your life.

The enneagram also helps you to understand how to avoid burnout and dis-ease —very important considerations in the increasingly highly-stressed world in which we all live.

Understanding the enneagram system and taking full advantage of these benefits has a positive and immeasurable impact on

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

Wisdom for Family Relationships

The Enneagram helps women understand much better the individual personality make-up of their spouses, children, extended family, friends, co-workers, fellow-professionals, and members of their faith communities.

As you become familiar with the basic enneagram personality types, you gain unusual insight into all your personal relationships.

This provides you with the necessary wisdom for handling uneasy personal relationships in general, and for avoiding the blight of stress and suffering caused by unhappy, dysfunctional family relationships in particular!

Grasping the Enneagram can, therefore, be the difference between maintaining your peace and joy when having to deal with people and situations who drive you up the wall, and merely ‘tolerating’ such stressful situations stoically while getting increasingly depressed.

Who wants that?

In this sense, the Enneagram is an unparalleled, much-needed peace-and-health-making tool.

As such, it is a significant asset for any Christian woman’s journey with and to God and for her prayer life.

Special Note

Prayer of the heart, combined with knowledge of the enneagram, is always a ‘win-win’ combination. 

The Enneagram also empowers Christian women to understand, respect and honour the fundamental connection/interaction between their humanity and their spirituality.

This is a vital benefit, since many dedicated Christian women often try to separate their humanity from their life with the Lord. 

It goes without saying that to do this is always counter-productive.

It results in the worst of both worlds for these women —a watered-down spirituality and a compromised, unfulfilling experience of their God-given humanity!

The fact is that the Lord dwells not in one or the other but in both!

 

 But …Be Careful!

Though you can, and should, use the enneagram to understand other people, you should never make it your business to definitively TYPE anyone unless they ask you for that help!

And even when others ask you for help in identifying their particular type, you should make it clear to the person asking that this is only your opinion, and that your opinion is certainly never intended to, nor can it be, the final word.

Why is this so critical?

Because each type in the enneagram is identified by motivation, NOT by behaviour.

And only the individual person concerned knows her motivation.

Moreover, only God himself can judge another person’s motivation.

You and I cannot!

You might form a reasonably correct impression about a person’s personality type and motivation; but ultimately you can’t know for sure.

This is because the BEHAVIOUR of all the types can be very similar but the MOTIVATION behind that behaviour can be radically different!

 Note

When, therefore, a person asks you for help with identifying their particular type, please make it a point to explain this critically important fact to her or him.

Always remember that the primary goal of the enneagram is to help, not harm, others!

Never, therefore, make a practice of ‘labelling’ a family member, friend, or co-worker openly.

Instead, keep your impressions to yourself unless they specifically request your help in identifying their type.

Always remember that while your judgment of a person’s type might be right on target, it could also be wide of the mark —in which case it would damage, not help, that person.

History of the Enneagram

The enneagram system came to the attention of the western world informally through a variety of bits and pieces as well as more formally through some of its special distinguished teachers.

It seems that it was well-known in other parts of the world for quite some time before it arrived in the west.

The first book was published in the west around 1984. It was titled The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery, by Maria Beesing, Robert Nogosek, and Patrick O’Leary.

I was especially blessed. Around the same time as this book’s publication, one of the co-authors of this book, Patrick O’Leary, personally taught me the enneagram system at an introductory weekend workshop given to the Institute of Christian Formation of which I was a member.

This is how I came to learn the enneagram system 38 years ago.

As is often the case with ‘new’ things, not all enneagram books and teachers are equal!

Over the years, I have been able to select for my own study the books and video presentations of ‘quality’ enneagram teachers whom I consider the most capable and erudite teachers.

All are very clearly-presented and have been an unquestionable help in shedding light on my own Christian journey.

All these many years later, I still believe that, for Christians, The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery by Maria Beesing, Robert Nogosek, and Patrick O’Leary, 1984 is by far the finest introduction for those who know nothing whatever about this system.

I recommend it without hesitation.

It’s extremely valuable for use at any time; but particularly for times when you need special enlightenment on

• your particular gifts
• your limitations
• why your ‘compulsions’ cause you suffering
• a particular way of healing for these
• why other folk (your family, friends, and work colleagues) might do, say, and think as they do (VERY helpful for when you ‘simply can’t understand’ where other folk are coming from!)

 

My Approach to Teaching the Enneagram

In the 38 years since I first learned it, I’ve used this tool consistently to support me in my own walk with God, in my work of guiding Christian women on their individual spiritual journeys, and in my prayer life.

But I use it ALWAYS and ONLY in the context of a Christian woman’s relationship to God and in the context of her prayer life.

I teach women that the enneagram

• is only a system/theory, although —without question —a very true-to-life one
• should always be used as a highly valuable and desirable help to your personal relationship with God it, but never as a substitute for it
• is a way to better understand others, but not to label them in any definitive way
• that we humans can never be the judge of others or of what motivates their particular behaviour (a person’s motivations are the way you identify any particular type) which are quite different for each type
• that only God ever has the right to do so!

 

And I teach the enneagram

• in a non-judgmental way
• laced with a healthy sense of humour
• I don’t ‘label’ those I’m guiding, unless they themselves ask me for help in identifying their enneagram type —which I’m always happy to do

Resulting Freedom Experienced by Women

As a result, far from feeling that they are being ‘labeled’ or put down in any way, the women to whom I introduce the Enneagram feel that they are being finally freed from their shortcomings, not judged for them!

The enneagram frees them from a mistaken way of seeing themselves, God, and from the great personal suffering which this mistake brings. 

They come to understand that this mistaken way has often prevented them from seeing God, themselves (very important!), and others with the same exact unconditional LOVE that God sees them, and has for this reason negatively affected their own inner peace and joy.

This becomes an eye-opening revelation for them.

They come to understand the huge consequences this has for all their personal relationships (friends, work colleagues, faith communities), but especially for relationships within their own families.

Significant Benefits of the Enneagram

A basic understanding of the Enneagram helps a Christian woman get in touch with

• her unique gifts that help enrich not only the lives of others but her own life
• her weak areas, limitations, and temptations to sin
• her mistaken ways of seeing God
• the blocks that keep her from full intimacy with the Lord
• the compulsions that erect a barrier to experiencing love and peace and joy in her life and her relationships

 

The Huge Sense of Personal Freedom

That Comes with a Better ‘Self’-Understanding

The women I have accompanied over 26 years are invariably hugely grateful for their new-found freedom that comes with a deeper self-understanding and God-understanding.

This can only make the Lord’s heart sing!

This new freedom is experienced in

• a connection to the Lord that is much deeper, far more ‘real’, and extremely personally satisfying
• an ability to see God much more as He really is, and not in the mistaken way they imagined He was! 
• a new ability to love themselves just as they are
• a new ability to love others just as they are, without first having to change them!
• a new ability to forgive more easily those who have harmed them
• much healthier personal and work relationships
• the ability to sleep better at night

I can attest, hand on my heart, that my 26 years of experience in accompanying and guiding Christian women on their individual spiritual journeys has completely convinced me that women who know the basics of the enneagram system enjoy

• a far more ‘real’ and rewarding friendship with God
• a far more meaningful, real, relaxed and confident approach to their prayer
• far less stressful, and therefore far more rewarding, relationships with family, friends, work colleagues, and the wider community
• a far easier ride in life at home and at work

My Final Observation

When presented in the context of prayer, * the Enneagram is an unusually valuable, welcome and reliable tool for self-discovery.

This makes it a highly significant spiritual help to any Christian woman.

Why?

Because self-discovery is a fundamental part of your relationship with God and, therefore, of your spiritual growth and prayer.

 

* The only way I teach the enneagram!  

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