Guest Post: The Enneagram as Entertainment, as Information, and as Transformation
by Leslie Hershberger
This article is based on a series of Twitter posts and is shared with Leslie’s permission. You can read the original tweets here.
The Enneagram as Entertainment
Last night, someone tagged me in a blog written about best books for each Enneagram type. I liked it better than I thought I would. It was good Enneagram entertainment.
I’ve not seen so many mistypings in my 20 years of working with the Enneagram as I did in that blog. It has something to do with the entertainment piece and people typing people based on outside-in Enneagram. Don’t go to entertainment for good Enneagram info. Go to it for entertainment.
The Enneagram as Information
There’s good Enneagram info out there; there was so little when I started working with the Enneagram. I’m a big fan of solid lineage. I chose Helen Palmer as my teacher because she’s grounded in Enneagram lineage and her teaching emphasizes psycho-spiritual integration. The @EnneaWorld community is grounded in that lineage.
The Enneagram was always (and was originally taught as) a tool for psycho-spiritual integration. Enneagram INFORMATION is focused on the psychological structure of your type. If you learn it well, it’s a stellar starting point. (And it’s still just a starting point).
The Enneagram as a Tool for Transformation
Enneagram TRANSFORMATION takes a lifetime. The more you’re working with transformation, the less you’re focusing on the Enneagram. The greater focus is on cultivating RECEPTIVE spiritual presence. Spirituality isn’t about religion (although good religion can be supportive).
Spiritual presence is about connecting to ultimate values that relate to meaning. Compassion. Inner knowing. Shared vulnerability of being human. Surrendering to something more expansive than your small self. Your type is your obstacle to the spiritual values. But it’s not all of you.
Spiritual Practice
The surprising moment of spiritual connection can’t be forced…it’s a sort of happy accident. Spiritual PRACTICE makes you accident prone.
And after the ecstasy of spiritual connection, it WILL go away. It’s that elusive. Life will hit you. But you’ll remember it. (Helen used to say the moment she’d come out of a spiritual experience, she’d sometimes doubt it like a good 6. You’ll always have your type.)
I look at it this way…my type is my humbler. It’s what gets my ass in my chair to do spiritual practice. After all these years, my type is still there. But my spiritual practice is, too. The memory of spiritual experience doesn’t go away. It lives in me and is there when I work with clients.
When you sit in spiritual practice, trust me…your type will be there with you. For instance, if you’re a 4, your attention WILL go to what’s missing. It will make you anxious to sit. Keep practicing. Your longing will be your portal of entry into the spiritual experience of equanimity.
As a 7, my attention always goes to my mental habit of planning. When I notice it, it’s my meditation bell back to spiritual presence and the spiritual experience of constancy and Holy Work. It’s how it works. Your Enneagram vice IS the energetic contraction that also carries your virtue.
Leslie Hershberger is an Enneagram teacher, coach, consultant, and spiritual guide based in Cincinatti, Ohio. She works in the Narrative Tradition of the Enneagram and has studied extensively with Helen Palmer and others. You can read more about Leslie on her website and follow her on Twitter @LeslieHersh.