I’ve got your number

by nance In Listen 5 Comments

April 4, 2017

Our community group this year is listening to various podcasts and focusing on the meditation and reflection sparked by those podcasts.  If you’d like to follow along with us, you can check out my notes here on the blog each week.

Annnnd… I guess we wouldn’t be a progressive Christian group if we didn’t devote at least one week to the Enneagram!

^ She’s a 3, btw.  She figured it out so we’ll keep her 🙂

This all came about sort of accidentally.  I mentioned in Cgroup a few weeks ago that I’d been doing some exploration of my enneagram number (5 FTW) and what I’d been learning about myself in the process.  This generated quite a few questions (ranging from what’s the enneagram to you’re a 5?  I’m definitely a 2) and the topic came up in the group again because Jason had since figured out his number as well (SO MUCH 1) and more questions and interest followed.  Folks were asking for information, how to figure out their number, what books did I recommend reading, etc.  So much so that we decided we’d just take a week to completely geek out about it.

Figuring out your number

So, here’s what we had the group do…

  1. Take this assessment (it’s a not a guarantee that you are the number it gives you after you finish the assessment but it will at least give you somewhere to start.  And it’s usually right).
  2. Listen to this (insanely long) podcast.  Not an exhaustive look, by any means, but they cover every number and it’s a good overview).
  3. Check out these descriptions

As a group we discussed what we had discovered about ourselves,  the possible pitfalls of a personality assessment, and the various ways we felt helped and/or hindered by knowing our enneagram numbers.  There was a lot of laughing last night and I have a feeling the enneagram jokes will abound aplenty now that we know each other’s numbers.  Ahhh Brian, such a 7. 

Bear in Mind

If you are interested in figuring out your number as well, here are a few things to note…

  • It’s not as much about the behaviors of each number as it is about the motivations/fears of each number.  For example, I definitely have some of the behaviors of 6’s but the motivations/fears of 6’s did not resonate for me whatsoever.  The motivations/fears of 5’s hit the nail on the head for me.
  • Your number does not put you in a box.  This is a common concern (with the enneagram and all personality typing).  According to Cron & Stabile (who speak on the podcast and wrote a great book on the Enneagram), knowing your number can actually free you from the boxes you/your family/culture/church have constructed for you.
  • Each number has what’s called a wing.  A wing is one of the two numbers that flank your number.  I’m a 5 so I can have a 4 wing or a 6 wing.  Jason is a 1 so he can have a 2 wing or a 9 wing.
  •  Each number moves toward a certain number in stress.  And toward yet another number in strength.   5’s, for example, move in the direction of healthy 8’s when they are thriving and strong.  But when a 5 is stressed, they move toward the unhealthy aspects of 7’s.
  • Your number doesn’t change.  You have always been the number you are — your behavior changes but your number does not change.

Information is not transformation

My favorite book on the Enneagram so far is Road Back to You by Cron & Stabile.  It’s short and concise, easy to understand and follow along.  I laughed out loud several times when I read the chapter on Fives because it really did feel like they were reading my mind and Jason felt the same as he read the chapter on Ones.

One of the things they stress in the book is that information does not equal transformation.  Simply knowing your number does not lead to transformation.  It takes work and effort to be transformed.  It’s hard.  To that end, at the end of each chapter in Road Back to You, there is a list of 10 paths to transformation for each number.  We shared these with the group and finished our discussion deciding which ones we would each work on.

 

 

5 thoughts on “I’ve got your number”

  1. OH MY GOSH I LOVE ALL OF THIS! I tried reading Richard Rohr’s book on the Enneagram and I couldn’t buy into it, but after listening to the Liturgist podcast and some of the “Road Back to You” podcast episodes, I read RBTY and loved it. I cried when Michael Gungor described being a five and how every interaction costs something – I felt so KNOWN.

  2. Right? I laughed out loud more than once reading the chapter on Fives in the RBTY. Described me so well. I kept thinking “Oh! This is a THING. It’s not just me being a total weirdo. I’m normal! For a Five, anyway.” Then Jason read the book, got to the chapter on Ones and was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s like they are READING MY MIND. Wait, doesn’t everyone want to load the dishwasher properly?”

  4. Oh, I’m so glad you think I did ok with it! When I sat down to write this, I was sort of stumped. How to explain this thing?! It’s complex! And it’s taken me several months of reading and researching (like a true 5 🙂 to feel like I have a grasp on it. I’m curious to hear more about your experience as a coach. I’ll keep my eye on your blog 🙂

  5. It’s definitely complex, which makes it very hard to explain. But you seriously did a great job! I’m just getting started as a coach, but I would love to share my experience. You can definitely keep an eye on the blog for some insight!

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