Understanding

How We Work Inside

The Enneagram describes the inner motives and habitual responses that strongly influence our character.

The Enneagram really describes what might be called our personality trance. We all know people about whom we say "we can't tell them that - they'll never hear it." They don't hear because they're in a trance - as you and I are. We filter out information, we have a set of habitual responses, we cherish a set of opinions and we excited by or depressed by some things in a fairly predictable fashion.

These habits of perception and reaction are just below our usual level of attention, but when we are told what they are, we look and see them. They're real, we've always "sort of known" they were real and now we see with a new clarity. The Enneagram does not really tell us what we think, but it describes with unnerving accuracy at times, the processes by which we arrived at what we think. The Enneagram doesn't predict how we will act, but it does describe how people with our style frequently act, and that is enough to raise our awareness of our real behavior.

The Enneagram is a brilliant diagnostic tool that describes how we work inside.