Of What Use is the Enneagram to a Hurting World?

In a world consumed by pandemic, racial inequality, and climate crisis, of what use is the Enneagram? Honestly, as of late, I’ve questioned the importance of my work with the Enneagram. While I still believe in the benefits for personal and relational growth, when I consider the weight of current issues, it feels inconsequential and less important.

As I pondered this, I had an amazing realization. I believe the Enneagram has the potential and the audacity to bring about a fundamental change to our world. With the ability to bring people closer together in understanding and compassion, it has the capacity to speak to the social maladies and injustices of the world. When we start with the Enneagram as a tool for change in the deepest places of our hearts, it has a subtle, yet powerful ripple effect outwards from our lives. And I think it has the potential to eventually reach and change the social climate of the world.

Shalom and the Enneagram

I’ve been reading a book called Shalom and the Community of Creation, An Indigenous Vision by Randy S. Woodley. It’s a fitting book for our time and has nothing to do with the Enneagram. But it’s radically changed my view of what the Enneagram can be. Shalom is a Hebrew word, often translated in the Scriptures as “peace”. But this peace is not a watered down, pie in the sky concept. This is a peace that permeates the whole. It’s all-encompassing. Wholeness and completeness might better capture the essence of shalom. Other words related to shalom include health, welfare, safety, soundness, fullness, rest, and harmony.

Woodley argues that the entire Biblical narrative supports the idea that Shalom is God’s vision and dream for the world. This dream, that the world, and all creation, would live at peace and in harmony seems like a cup of cool water for our drought stricken world. If we’ve ever needed shalom, it’s now.

As I explored Woodley’s concept of shalom and contemplated my work with the Enneagram, I realized that the Enneagram promotes shalom in ever-increasing circles of influence. The Enneagram starts with inner work, bringing the mind, body, and heart into alignment. It promotes wholeness, balance, and freedom so we can break free of the default settings of our personalities. It promotes greater harmony in our relationships. The Enneagram brings greater understanding to marriages and friendships, partners and teams, in the workplace, the community, and at home. When diverse people with diverse gifts learn to work together and live together in harmony, shalom is in play. But this is where most Enneagram teachers stop short in their applications of the Enneagram. I believe there’s so much more.

Without neglecting the inner work of the Enneagram, or the interpersonal implications, we can apply the Enneagram to systemic and societal problems as well. The Enneagram is more than a personality system. In fact, the personality framework that we know as the Enneagram today is actually only 50 years old, while the Enneagram itself is ancient. There are many other uses and applications for it, many of which have not been explored in our modern time. Simply studying the Enneagram symbol can give us a framework for seeing how it might usher shalom into our world.

The Enneagram Symbol Teaches us Shalom

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The Enneagram symbol itself reflects an ideal of shalom. Each part of the nine-drawing (Enneagram literally means, “nine drawing”) has significance and reflects truth of the natural order of the world. When you look at the symbol, notice that all the interconnecting lines within it are held together by a circle. While seemingly unimportant, the circle’s significance is simply and profoundly that everything in the circle belongs. When thinking of the Enneagram as a personality framework, we can recognize that all types belong and have gifts and strengths that enhance the well-being of our lives and the world.

But what if we extend this concept beyond personality, for instance, to diverse cultures or various elements of creation? The Enneagram reminds us that every. thing. Every race, every animal, every organism, every geographical place and climate, all the diversity of what God has made belongs to the whole. Not one thing is meant to be excluded. This facet of Enneagram wisdom that lies largely dormant these days reflects the concept of shalom. It teaches us that all things, with its own part to play, are meant to live in harmony and balance within the circle of life.

When we examine the lines, notice that there are arrows. The lines are in motion, moving us towards one another in compassion and understanding. As we make our way around the Enneagram of personality we develop a greater sense of belonging within the human experience. If we take that same compassion and understanding that the Enneagram teaches with our personality types and apply it to others who view the world differently be it through a different political lens or a different racial/cultural lens we might see that we all belong. We each have our part to play.

When we expand the wisdom of the Enneagram beyond personality bounds, we can apply its truth in a broader way to the larger context and diversity of our world. Maybe then we can begin to make more room and compassion within ourselves to hold the things that feel foreign and difficult for us. Perhaps the Enneagram can teach us how to bring everything living together in harmony and balance.

Applying the Enneagram to Social Issues

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (see Ch. 12:12-27) speaks to the same concept. He speaks of diversity within the church and likens different spiritual gifts to various parts or functions of the body. He writes that the church needs to learn to work together, to value each part, and reminds us that each part has an essential function. Just as each part is different and has a different function, the body needs all parts to function optimally. There is no greater or lesser in the grand scheme. All have a part to play. Whether you apply this teaching to spiritual gifts, or Enneagram types, which have inherent spiritual gifts built in, the idea is that each gift, each type, belongs. The diversity enhances the whole.

Both Paul’s teaching and the Enneagram can be applied to the way we think about the social issues of this time. When thinking about the racial justice movement, instead of pitting one race or culture against another as greater or lesser than, more deserving or less deserving, what if instead we began to ask ourselves how each culture and race brings its own particular gift to the world? What can we learn from them? How can we facilitate curiosity and compassion to see as another sees? How can we make space to learn from them and to value them as a part of the collective whole? How can we lift up the marginalized and see them as a part of us that needs attention and care?

The Enneagram and this concept of various parts belonging to the whole causes us to ask new questions. It causes us to see things anew and to ask different questions. It fosters a collective sense of community within the world and within creation. We begin to see that people are more than issues and that political solutions must be multifaceted and take complexities into account rather than spit out one-size-fits-all band-aids.

Americans are notorious for thinking there are only two sides to every issue: blue or red, right or wrong, for me or against me. In these days of COVID-19 it’s, mask or no mask? Conspiracy or real? Economy or health? This is called dualistic thinking and it’s extremely toxic. This is something I think the Enneagram helps us grow out of because we realize that it’s not my way or the wrong way, that there aren’t just two ways, but multiple ways, multiple perspectives and circumstances that all must be taken into account. We all belong to each other and there is no one size fits all solutions for everyone. But the hope is that we would get to know each other, hear each other’s experiences and try our best to facilitate the best for all. We’re all in this together.

Shalom from the Inside Out

The Shalom of the Enneagram starts inside us. It’s like a small seed that first transforms us in the dark inner spaces of our lives. It brings healing and allows us to become more fully ourselves. But it also carries us beyond ourselves.

Allowing Love in for ourselves translates to a greater love resevoir for others. With more compassion for ourselves, we learn to cultivate compassion for the faults of others. We become more curious about how others see the world. We begin to recognize the complexity, the beauty, and the diversity in others. We make room for them. It brings us more peace between our family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

As there is more room in our hearts for the differences of our closest others, we begin to see that the issues of our time are not so cut and dry. We can make space to listen to those of a different type, a different color, a different experience and together, discover solutions that benefit the whole, not just the powerful or elite or me. We begin to care more about the marginalized, the oppressed, the environmental disasters of our planet. What if this effect was multiplied through people and cultures and a new uprising of shalom caught fire. What if doing the work of the Enneagram really can heal a hurting world? Starting from the inside out.