Imagine you’re out hiking and you realise you’re lost. You’re deep in the woods and you have no idea where to go. You look at your phone and you have no signal or internet. You also don’t have a walkie-talkie to communicate with anyone. You look for any sign that will tell you where the path is and you start to panic a little.
Suddenly, you notice that a few meters away, at a crossroads, there is a sign.
As you get closer, you realize that the sign is actually a map of the area. You get to the sign and notice that on the map there is a red dot accompanied by the text “You are here.” That map has most likely saved you several hours of wandering around in circles with no idea if you are going in the right direction. It may even have saved your life.
That’s the Enneagram.
The Enneagram is a map. A map of personality and human behavior that is extremely detailed and precise. An internal map that tells you about yourself and tells you where you are and what different paths you can choose based on who you are and where you are.
The Enneagram is an ancient wisdom that proposes that there are 9 personality types or Enneatypes . Each of them is different from the others because they have a specific wound, and they see the world through that wound. These wounds, in Enneagrammatic language, are called passions. And the passion of each of these Enneatypes is the emotional dysfunction from which we react.
Enneatype 1: Passion of Anger. Most commonly, they repress it and express it through perfectionism. For these people, there is always something that could be improved (about themselves or others).
Enneatype 2: Passion of Pride. They see themselves as overabundant. They position themselves above others and focus on wanting to give them what they consider the other is missing. They hide a great lack, since they need others to need them.
Enneatype 3: Passion of Vanity. They seek triumph, success, brilliance and applause, not for who they really are, but for the image they project to the outside world. They shape their emotions and their way of being based on where they are or who they are with. They deceive themselves and believe the role they are playing, which in many cases has nothing to do with their true self.
Enneatype 4: Passion of Envy. They position themselves below others. They compare themselves with other people in order to lose out, which generates a constant feeling of internal dissatisfaction.
Enneatype 5: Passion of Greed. They mostly accumulate knowledge. They need to understand the world from logic and reason because they tend to see it as a hostile place. They find it difficult to take action and put this knowledge into practice. They also don’t like sharing it (and sharing themselves) with others.
Enneatype 6: Passion of Fear. This fear is usually expressed through a lack of confidence in themselves and/or others. They need to anticipate events in order to plan solutions in advance for everything that could go wrong.
Enneatype 7: Passion of Gluttony. They tend to be cheerful and fun people who seek to be constantly stimulated with new plans and experiences, which they get bored of easily. They avoid anything that could cause them pain.
Enneatype 8: Passion of Lust. They want it all and they want it now. They seek intense emotions and power and control. They have great difficulty connecting with their own vulnerability.
Enneatype 9 : Their passion is Laziness. They disconnect from their inner self and their own needs and focus on living for and by others to maintain their false inner peace. They adapt extremely to what others want and have great difficulty setting boundaries and saying no. They flee from conflict.
And you, which of these wounds or passions do you identify with the most.