The Enneagram was mentioned in grad school, but I never looked much into it. When I started interviewing for positions in Nashville, I had several interviewers talk about how Enneagram being a language for many Nashville clients and had a friend from here recommend I learn it before I start working! This was confirmed for me when I attended Sage Hill Training during my interview process with Sage Hill and was waiting in line in the bathroom after a teaching and heard three different conversations going on about how they resonated with Chip Dodd’s teaching according to their “type.”

The Enneagram has helped me understand my anger better, which has helped me better utilize those feelings for good and to have compassion on myself for feeling that often. It’s helped me put words to explaining my emotional self to others who are close to me and have experienced me as “cold,” and ask for their help in inviting those feelings to be expressed and to help give me the space to know they’re safe to let out.

It’s helped me acknowledge and pursue change in my unhealth with fixation on image and explore beyond how that is wired in me through my personality into how it was first developed and reinforced in my family of origin. Finally, it’s helped me learn how to relate to others with more grace, empathy, and realistic expectations.

There are many questions I have found that the Enneagram cannot answer. Why certain “one” tendencies come out only in certain settings. Why God created me the way I am and how he wants to utilize that for good. Why I’m so obsessed with dark chocolate and why the Office is seemingly the only comedy that can make me life.