An Invitation to Explore Your Enneagram Type

September 1st, 2021 | 2 Comments

We’ve been through a lot of challenge and change over the past year and a half, both individually and collectively. The outer changes in our lives and circumstances are easy to see, but we’re experiencing internal shifts as well. It helps to have some guidance as we tend our inner lives, and the Enneagram is an invaluable resource.

Enneagram Symbol made with Lavender

The insight of the Enneagram has allowed me to understand myself better, and helped me to navigate changes during this challenging time. Over the past several months I’ve deepened my understanding of this powerful map of the human psyche while working toward certification as an Enneagram teacher in the Narrative tradition. This fall I’m excited to be starting a new group for learning the Enneagram.

The Enneagram describes how, in one of nine different ways, our inner habits of thought and attention shape our outer experience. It shows how our well-worn emotional buttons influence who we believe ourselves to be. Yet we are more than these learned behaviors; life is more than these patterns we’ve adopted for coping with the world. Within us is an authentic self who is wiser, stronger, and more loving than the habitual identity we’ve learned to wear.

The Enneagram holds vital insight for connecting with this essential self and living a fuller life. The Enneagram shows us the habits that take charge when we aren’t paying attention. It names the things we do to try to keep ourselves safe—things that eventually work against experiencing the security, worth, and connection that we most long for. Learning to recognize and relax these automatic patterns helps us show up with a clear mind, loving heart, and grounded presence for whatever the day may bring.

The Enneagram also helps us appreciate how others experience the world. Certainly the pandemic has demonstrated that people are very different in how we see and respond to the world. Learning about the different Enneagram types helps us understand how people differ in what we pay attention to, what we’re sensitive about, and what motivates us. It teaches compassion for ourselves and others, and helps our relationships to flourish.

Maybe you’ve reached a place where you want to understand yourself and others better. Perhaps you’re exhausted from spending energy in a way that doesn’t seem to move you forward. Possibly you’re tired of meeting internal demands that no longer serve to make life better. The outer changes of the past year and a half may have shown you the value of exploring inner growth and change. Or perhaps life is nudging you to get support in finding a new approach to the patterns you’re ready to outgrow.

Whether you want to deepen your understanding of the Enneagram, or learn about your type for the first time, I invite you to be part of a new Enneagram learning group that I’ll be leading via Zoom beginning this fall. We’ll meet monthly, 6:30-8:00 p.m., on the second Wednesday evening of the month. There will be an introductory meeting on Wednesday, September 8, at 6:30. It will be a chance for you to hear about the group and ask questions, and for me to get a sense of the group and how best to proceed with planning the year. We’ll meet for nine months (October through June), focusing on a different type for each meeting, along with discussion relevant to all types. The cost to participate for the year will be $180.

If you’re interested in attending the introductory session and/or being part of this group, just send a quick email to susan@mildlymystical.com. It’s a great time to explore this life-giving tool.

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Attending to What Matters

June 19th, 2021 | 2 Comments

A strong thunderstorm blew through the neighborhood a few days ago. It felled a massive maple tree that had offered shade on my regular walking route for years. But I’m just a newcomer. That maple had been part of the landscape for generations.

The huge tree seemed solid and enduring. The strength and stability amassed during all its years of growth appeared unassailable. But the power of the storm revealed otherwise. Its heartwood was rotten, and the appearance of strength belied the tree’s ill health.

The house beneath the tree was spared, fortunately, because of the direction of the wind. When the trunk splintered several feet above ground, it fell toward the street. Had it toppled in the other direction it would have crashed through the roof.

Now that the broken remains of the trunk are exposed to the light, it’s easy to see that the tree should have been removed years ago. But it would have been difficult to muster the will to remove such a magnificent presence. The branches offered welcome shade in the summer and glorious foliage in the fall. There must have been signs that the tree was unhealthy, though I certainly didn’t notice. It’s easy to let such things go for another week, another season, another year. Surely it will be ok a little longer. Until it isn’t.

Was it unimaginable that such a tree would violently break? Certainly not, though apparently the owner of the property didn’t see this coming. Or didn’t want to.

One of our most powerful resources is our attention. Where we direct our attention influences how we use our energy. “Where attention goes, energy flows.” What we pay attention to, and what we ignore, shapes our lives. We can choose what we will attend to, or allow our attention to be directed by longtime habits of thought, emotion, and behavior, along with the urgencies of daily life.

Internally, the things we habitually focus on (and ignore) compel us to keep repeating the same old patterns. Externally, all kinds of voices clamor for a foothold in our minds. Our wiser self knows what we need to pay attention to, but it takes real effort to hold on to that awareness. We need some kind of daily practice to stay connected to what our best self knows.  

When we’re not paying attention to our lives, we miss what’s really going on. We overlook the new growth asking to be cultivated, and ignore the danger of familiar but rotten practices whose time is finished.  

In order to be present to our lives we must be present to ourselves. There is no clarity about what’s happening in our interactions with others or in the events of our days unless we’re also aware of what’s going on within. Attending to our inner self allows us to see more clearly and respond more effectively to what’s happening in the world. It makes us less susceptible to manipulation, and frees us from the patterns that confine us.

Life is all about change. It’s easy to miss those changes unless we can be fully present, receptive to what’s really going on. Bringing our attention to what’s happening in this moment, rather than getting caught in our familiar thoughts and emotions, allows us to see what’s in front of us more clearly.

Maybe there’s something we need to do differently. Maybe there are aspects of how we live that were once solid but now need to be removed. Showing up fully, with the courage to pay attention, is an act of love. It’s when we’re truly present that we can perceive accurately, respond appropriately, and do what needs to be done.

Susan Christerson Brown

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The Enneagram and Forgiveness

June 7th, 2021 | Click to Comment

Forgiveness is a balm that restores our hearts and our relationships. Sometimes we experience pain, sometimes we inflict it upon others. The healing power of forgiveness is part of living a full and abundant life.

We can learn to give and receive forgiveness when we learn to see ourselves and others with more clarity, and less judgment. Engaging with forgiveness depends on bringing compassionate presence to what hurts—to our own wounds as well as the wounds of others.

When we’ve been hurt we need to respond, and our emotions give us energy and information about what to do. But when chronic anger and pain take over, they drain our life force. Keeping the old story of those episodes going requires a lot of energy and claims much of our attention. Ruminating and replaying is a response to being harmed that can cause us further injury. It’s like continuing to pump a spinning top. Perpetuating that circular movement is mesmerizing, and there’s a satisfying sense of balance from seeing the world spin ‘round and ‘round that same axis even if it doesn’t get us anywhere.

Learning to recognize such unhelpful patterns allows us to break free of them. The Enneagram is the best way I know for making our way along that path. It helps us become aware of our blind spots, and to appreciate the motivations behind the actions of other people in our lives. Learning to recognize our habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior allows us to notice when they’re taking over, pause instead of automatically reacting, and allow whatever arises in us without being driven into our habitual behavior. These intentional actions create the space for choosing our response rather than reacting automatically.  Our patterns can keep us stuck; relaxing them allows us to see more clearly and respond more effectively.

The Enneagram teaches that we rely on three basic kinds of intelligence—mental, physical, and emotional. All three of these centers of awareness inform our ability to give and receive forgiveness.

In our mental awareness we hold onto particular ways of remembering and interpreting our experience. Our patterns of thought (including our critical, judging minds) influence how we understand our lives and where we focus our attention.

Physically, we carry not only bodily injuries but emotional traumas. They are stored in the tissues of the body and embedded in our nervous system. It affects what we find ourselves doing, as well as our physical health.

In our heart we carry the emotional pain and distress of what happened. When the pain is too much, we harden our hearts to avoid feeling it. This cuts us off from feeling connected to life and to other people.  

This mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering becomes chronic tension in the body, which blocks our life energy, distorts our ability to see clearly, and causes further injury. These maladies are eased as we grow beyond them and find ourselves able to forgive.

But trying to forgive too quickly, avoiding the pain of what happened, is more of a spiritual bypass than authentic, healing forgiveness. There is often something to be grieved in the process of forgiveness. To forgive because we think we should is the act of an ego determined to do the right thing. Forgiveness is more like finding out that we can release what we once believed held us tightly in its grip.

When we can forgive, we stop magnifying the wrong. We stop giving the one who wronged us so much power.

Forgiveness grows naturally as we develop compassion and understanding. Forgiveness is not an act of egoic will; it’s an opening of the heart that allows forgiveness to unfold. When we’re trying to manage our lives according to the defenses and fears of the ego, we aren’t able to extend forgiveness—to others or to ourselves. As we relax the type patterns of the ego, we make space for a genuine sense of connection and trust and belonging. The simple practice of bringing our attention to what we’re grateful for helps in making that shift.

C. G. Jung observed that we don’t so much solve our problems as outgrow them. This can include our ability to offer or receive forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not condone the wrong. Forgiveness does not say it’s ok, or that it didn’t matter. Forgiveness acknowledges the harm and grieves its cost. It means finding a place to stand apart from the emotion and pain. Forgiveness involves holding our suffering with the stronger, wiser, and more loving arms of our higher Self. Or put another way, allowing our hurting self to be held in the loving arms of God.

When we experience how much more we are than our wounded selves, we have a chance to see how the other person is more than the wounding agent. In offering forgiveness we see the other person with the eyes of compassion; we see them as more than an agent of pain. When we are the ones who cause the wounds, we learn to show ourselves that same compassion; we hold tenderly our own suffering as well as that of others.

Either way, we see the damage that results when we’re caught in our own drama, flailing in a way that vectors pain. We can ground ourselves in the truth that our life is bigger than this difficult part of our story, and we can let that top spin down.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Working with Anger using the Enneagram

April 27th, 2021 | Click to Comment

Fire is such a natural metaphor for anger they’re woven together into our language. Fire can “rage.” We “burn” with anger. Fire, like anger, can catch without warning and blaze out of control. Or it can smolder unnoticed, waiting for enough fuel and air to make itself known.

Fire is also a life-giving element. It brings warmth and light. It transforms food into nourishment. Fire makes it possible for metal to be shaped by the smith.

Likewise, anger has life-giving qualities. It brings information, showing us when an important line has been crossed. The power of anger plays a role in our survival. It generates the energy we need to counter a threatening force, whether the danger is to our safety and survival, our sense of justice, or our sense of worth.

But when anger takes over it means we’re no longer in charge. The anger of others easily triggers that response in ourselves. Our instinctive reaction of fight, flight, or freeze is revved up, and we don’t get to choose how to respond. Instead, we slip into unconscious automatic patterns that formed long ago. For some people, anger brings on a volcanic eruption that drives others away. For others, the pattern ignites a backfire that depletes the available oxygen.  

The Enneagram is the most effective tool I’ve found for growing beyond our habitual reactions. Learning our Enneagram type helps us become aware of our pattern and recognize when we’re caught in it. Rising anger is instinctive, and our reaction to it becomes wired into our nervous system from a very young age. The body experiences anger before the mind has a chance to process it. Anger-driven reactivity looks very different for each Enneagram type, but being caught there is to give up control and choice.  

Being caught in our type pattern means we’re not free. It also means that our view of the world is distorted. Our lives and our relationships suffer for it. But if we can learn to recognize what’s happening, we can respond in a way that serves us better. We can use the energy and information anger brings, while choosing our response with more wisdom and skill.

This begins with noticing when anger begins to ignite our automatic responses, and allowing a counter-intuitive pause. Take a deep breath. Our nervous system gears up as if we don’t have time to think, as if our survival is at stake. It takes a few moments to process the reality that we have a choice. Pausing creates a space in which we can decide how best to respond.

We need the clarity and power that anger brings. Yet it raises internal alarms because anger and danger look and feel similar. It takes practice to discern what’s really happening, calm the alarm, and respond in a more effective way. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

That this is possible at all feels miraculous. Practicing the pause makes new options available. It grants us more freedom in how to live than we might ever have imagined.

David Daniels, cofounder of The Narrative Enneagram school where I did my training, has written about anger and the enneagram here.

Susan Christerson Brown

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In the Heart Space

August 1st, 2019 | Click to Comment

Sometimes the only writing I accomplish in a week happens with my writing group, when we spend a few minutes responding to a common prompt. Balance, Not About Me, and What’s Difficult were three of the possibilities to get us started last week. The writing is done quickly to get past the inner censor, and it’s infused with the energy of the conversation we’ve shared. This is what it sparked from me:

The Three of Swords from the Rider-Waite tarot deck

Not only is it not about me, I don’t even know where I am. So that’s an indication of my Enneagram type structure showing up. It means I need to go into the body, find what’s present there. And what I find is a heart that feels assaulted by the realities of this world and its leaders, by the ways people run over others, by the trauma each of us has lived through, endured, survived, and risen above. We move forward even if parts of ourselves were left behind in those devastating places, wounded and powerless, split off from the self that had to keep going.

I feel all of that as a sensation of weight and constriction in my heart. This sense of a heavy heart seems to be both for myself and for others. I asked for an open heart earlier this morning, and confessed in conversation that this is my work, my growing edge, the center of knowing I need to explore. But it hurts, and everything about me doesn’t want to hurt. I want to shut that pain down.

But I’m not able to just move on from it, and I don’t want to deaden it (mostly) because to do that is to deaden myself. So I sit here with this felt sense that sounds like a country song, like my heart was run over by a Mack truck. It brings to mind a song title, “You Done Tore My Heart Out and Stomped That Sucker Flat.” And somehow this, this makes me smile.

This calls for the laughing barrel that Maya Angelou describes, leaning into the barrel to let loose with the laughter forbidden to slaves, the laughter that says this world is f*ing crazy, these circumstances are absurd, but here we are and we’re alive. Alive! And the life showing up in us is bigger than the rules, or the hurt.

There’s a power, a life force holding all of this. Something bigger is at work. And yet my life and yours, my pain and yours, are not less than any other part of it all. I matter. So do you. I’m not separate from the flow of all that is. I’m in it.

What was God thinking, making this world with so much energy unleashed in ways that allow people to hurt each other? It’s like giving a toddler a sharp knife. Who does that? And yet here we are with our knives and our wounds, the cuts we make and the cuts we bear, the scars where we have healed, marking what we’ve learned, the compassion it has taught us, and the tender places we protect.

Hendree—my priest, my friend—says Love is All. He dwells in the heart space and he is my teacher. Maybe all heart types are my teacher. It’s the knowing that feels farthest from me. Grief at the loss of connection drives that space on the map of the Enneagram. Earning back the connection in different ways is what happens there. In my space it’s impossible to believe I can earn that connection, but maybe I can invite it.

For me, opening the heart means being undefended, allowing what messes with my sense of peace and harmony. What makes that ok is remembering and trusting that I’m held, that we’re all held, by Love bigger than anything I can try to recreate on my own.

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Why I Work with the Enneagram

May 14th, 2019 | Click to Comment

When I began studying the Enneagram, it was to understand more about myself and others. The Enneagram is great for making sense of why we do what we do. But figuring out our type is only the beginning of what is possible. I continue working with the Enneagram because it offers a path toward transformation.

Diagram of the Enneagram

To briefly explain, the Enneagram (from the Greek ennea, meaning “nine”) names nine basic types of people, with nine different essential gifts and inherent challenges. We have access to all of these human traits, but our Enneagram type colors how we process our experience. Our type is the lens through which we view the world.

Understanding our Enneagram type makes possible a new level of self-awareness. Appreciating the basic human longings that motivate the nine Enneagram types naturally cultivates greater compassion for ourselves and others.

But it’s important to remember that our essential self has no Enneagram type. Our type is the coping mechanism we formulated long before we were conscious of what we were doing. Our type is the way we found to make our world ok when our essential well-being felt threatened. 

Our type structure helped us when we needed it. As life unfolds, the consciousness and self-awareness that makes us human also gives rise to a sense of self-doubt and disconnection. As we grow up, there comes a time when we lose our natural connection to the joy and vitality of being alive. Or to put it more poetically, we inevitably experience being expelled from the garden.

When that happens we work to overcome what we perceive as our shortcomings, and we do this in the nine basic ways named by the Enneagram. We reach for our strongest gift, believing it’s up to us to create or earn a sense of connection, safety, or worth.

Understanding our Enneagram type helps in those moments when those deeply ingrained automatic patterns show up. We begin to notice when habitual impulses try to take over, and we learn to pause. In the space created by that pause we can be more perceptive. We can consciously choose what to do. This is the path toward transcending our type structure and becoming free.  

In this way, noticing our type structure in action comes to serve as a bell of mindfulness. When we realize we’re being driven by old patterns, we can learn to respond differently. Instead of automatically following our habitual escape patterns, we cultivate the ability to stay present. In doing this we lay down new neural pathways and begin developing responses that we consciously and freely choose.

Working with our type patterns helps us to wake up. We learn to see more clearly and act more effectively. We experience how the divine life force sustains us. We learn to differentiate between our true self and our conditioned responses. We become less susceptible to toxic influences, whether in the form of external situations or internal patterns. Instead of relying on unconscious coping mechanisms we learn to be present to ourselves and to the situation as it is, and to act from a place of higher wisdom.

I haven’t mastered all of this, of course, but I’m grateful to be on the path. Working with the Enneagram has placed me into the flow of life in a way that brings a new level of beauty, meaning, and connection.

I’d love to serve as your companion as you make your own Enneagram journey. Write to me at susan@mildlymystical.com with your questions or to schedule an Enneagram typing interview. I’m happy to meet you at my office in Lexington, Kentucky or online via Zoom.

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