Do you like being shoved in boxes?
Do you enjoy it when someone labels you and considers it your entire personality?
When you feel like your labels are all you are and all you’ll ever be?
Believe it or not, I don’t like it either. Yet here I am, writing about systems designed to categorize people. If I really do hate being shoved in a box so much, then why would I accept– even enjoy– something that seems to exist purely for that purpose?
See the thing is Enneagram isn’t designed to put people in boxes. In the words of priest, writer, and Enneagram teacher Richard Rohr, it is designed to “let people out of their self-made boxes”.
The Enneagram consists of 9 subtypes (which can be further narrowed down into over 1,000 types). The goal? Breaking down everyone’s deepest motivations into the most basic form: one of nine “core fears”.
Fears are boxes that we put ourselves in. They’re fundamental to every decision we make in some way or another. Fears limit our decisions and narrow our mindsets, compelling us to remain in what is comfortable and familiar at all times– even if that’s not really what is best.
When you understand Enneagram you’ll be able to identify the box your fears have put you in and as a result, know how to free yourself from that box.
