The Enneagram Circle as a Symbol of the Spiritual Journey

A previous version of this article appeared as a blog post entitled “The Enneagram as a Symbol of Transformation”.

The path around the circle of the Enneagram symbolizes the spiritual journey of transformation. The spiritual journey and your particular Enneagram “type” are not directly related; all of us must pass through and experience all points on the Enneagram when we walk this path. Your Enneagram personality type will affect the way you approach the journey of spiritual transformation, but each step of the journey has its own sets of descriptions that draw on the Enneagram symbol.

A Journey of Transformation

With the Enneagram as a template, what would a journey of transformation around the circle look like?

Personal Spaces

Spaces One through Four on the Enneagram are considered the personal spaces. The work you do in those spaces is primarily concerned with your own growth.

One

One holds the starting or initiating energy of a process. There is a nagging sense of something “off” or “not-quite-right”. Or a new idea sparks your attention. There is a reason to move from where you are; this gives the initial push or pull to start the next phase of growth or begin a new project. This is a place of excitement and optimism.

Two

At Two, you must assess your needs and set priorities. What is required for this quest, in terms of energy, material, skill, and effort? What do you personally need to be healthy and focussed throughout the implementation of the new change?

Three

At Three you remember your dreams, draw on or acquire skills, and create strategies to move forward. This is a place of great creativity. Movement at Three often requires an external shock – a job loss, divorce, or death, or just some right word said at the right time.

Four

At Four, you put your own stamp on the project; what makes it unique? You may encounter difficulties or opposition, question your own motives or the forces that started you on this quest. It is important to own all aspects of your experience, positive and negative, and learn from what you encounter. This is a common place where new projects abort; the temptation is to give up and wait for something else to spark your interest.

The Void

If you give up here, you can get stuck in an endless loop from One through Four and back to One. To get beyond this involves crossing the Void, the empty space on the Enneagram symbol between Four and Five. This is the point of unknowing – the dark night of the soul.

Impersonal Spaces

After crossing The Void, you find yourself in the realm of the impersonal, communal, or societal spaces. You no longer work alone, but with others.

Five

Five is the first place where you encounter others in your journey. People whose personality type is Five can exhibit a difficulty engaging with others, but in the spiritual journey this is the place of companionship. (Both are different approaches to the same question: “How do I meet the other?”) At Five, you engage with and listen to others and draw on them to continue your project. The temptation is to go it alone when you encounter resistance from others or even just a difference of opinion. This is a mistake. Being open to the voice of others, especially oppositional others, will give you valuable guidance.

Six

At Six, on the other hand, you must take responsibility for your own experience. Listen to others but give weight to what you know to be true. Believe in your own inner authority. Give and receive support within your community. Allies will work with you to advance your new aims. At Six, an internal shock, some psychological or spiritual crisis, may propel you forward. Six is also the place of contemplation, a relaxed and alert acceptance of the present reality.

Seven

At Seven, the place of hierarchy, you seek to establish your own place in your new situation. Rather than chasing after the next distraction, you are able to discriminate and place goals and actions in order of importance. Be present to the new environment. What is your true place where you can be most effective?

Eight

At Eight, you try to make a difference in the new situation within your own understanding of your culture, conduct, and ethics. What is the right thing to do? How do the old standards still apply? What new standards must come into being? Be open to the new and draw on what you already know. You exercise your faculty of Will — the freedom to choose and the power to act — to propel you forward into the new situation.

Nine

At Nine, the place of right action, you adapt to a new rhythm that allows you to contribute from where you are, as you are, with the resources you have. When you stop what you are doing and honestly listen, you will know what to do and action flows as the obvious choice. The essential question at Nine is, “Will you or won’t you do this work that is set before you?” There is a sense of completion that lasts long enough for the change to become the new normal.

Of course, this is never static. Inevitably, a new push or pull will arise; the Enneagram is constantly in motion. Upon reaching Nine, you can be sure that a new initiating force at One will send you for another spin around the circle. Your free choice is whether or not to accept this invitation.

Journey of Transformation as Circle of Choice

Judee Regan used this model of growth to illustrate the steps one might follow in a career path in her book, Meaningful Work the Entrepreneurial Way: Your Integrated Guide to Career and Personal Life Management (Regan 2003). The book never mentions the Enneagram, but it is the underpinning of the pathway she names the Circle of Choice. Once around the circle is not a complete journey; the path continues on with renewed growth. Regan lists out the steps in her Circle of Choice as follows:

1. Clarity of Intent
2. Priorities and Choices
3. Vital Strategies
4. Obstacles and Commitments
5. Interaction and Exchange
6. Taking Responsibility
7. Knowing Your Place
8. Making a Difference
9. Meaningful Action

Completion of these steps is not a how-to of career management, but rather a description of what you can expect on a journey of growth and transformation.

Journey of Transformation as Intercultural Intelligence

My wife, Joan, adapted these ideas for a curriculum unit on intercultural intelligence for a class of middle-school English-language learners. The unit was intended to help new immigrants to Canada in their adjustment process. These students often were unable to actively choose to move to Canada; they moved because their families moved or for more difficult reasons, such as war and poverty.  Adjustment to a new place was difficult for many of them. Joan’s list of steps is similar to Judee Regan’s, but adapted to a different audience:

1. The Move to Canada – Push and Pull Factors
2. My Needs
3. Dreams and Skills
4. My Experience
5. Other People and Me
6. Stick With It – Responsibility and Support
7. Knowing My Place
8. Culture and Conduct
9. A New Rhythm

Both of these implicit uses of the Enneagram recognize the need to work through and process certain things before it is possible to move ahead.

Heuristic Cycles

If we learn from our journey around the circle and accept the invitation to continued growth, the circle becomes a spiral, with each turn advancing us along our spiritual journey. This path is also called a heuristic cycle, meaning a cycle which can help us to learn from past experience. (The word “heuristic” is related to the word “eureka”, which means “I’ve found it”.)

 The spiral from One to Nine sometimes seems to have a very fine pitch; a few times around doesn’t feel like it gets you much further along. Keep at it! With continued work, you will eventually find that you begin to receive the transformative energy in your grounded soul.

Your personality, your ego, your “Enneagram type”, will begin to transform and take its rightful place in your being, as a functioning part of who you are, not as the part that thinks of itself as your whole self. It is then that the virtues of the Enneagram begin to manifest in you and lead you to your best way of being of service to the world.