My 2021 relationship with the Enneagram
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I'm currently teaching the Enneagram through Yoga Farm Ithaca in their powerful, deeply transformational online Yoga Teacher Trainings (200 and 300). I cannot express what joy it is for me to take part in their programs, which are brimming with excellence and integrity. Besides the Enneagram, they feature Kundalini Yoga spearheaded by Jeannie O'Neill, Awareness Keys for exceptional living from Daniela Hess, Ayurveda (with Kimberly Wilcox Beekman), and Moon Goddess work (with Zahra Haji) to support living in sync with feminine body cycles, and more.

Perhaps more exciting than this amazing teaching gig, I'm a student in a yearlong intensive training with Russ Hudson and Jessica Dibb with the Shift Network. All of this accounts for why I've trimmed down my client load. See Kelli Younglove's Ennegram Meets Coaching story below and my hearty recommendation of her as a spiritually oriented life coach. I also love to send people to Evangeline Sarat (a 7 type who embodies integration to 5, dropping into the silence like nobody's business).
Kelli's Enneagram-Meets-Coaching Tale

Jaya, Let me begin by stating the obvious: Before we met, I didn’t realize I was a Two. I had never heard of the Enneagram or the Helper personality type and just assumed I’d been brainwashed by Christianity into being a weak, wishy-washy servant to the entire human race.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always appreciated my empathetic nature. I just hated the suffering that came with it. Because saying no was just so HARD. I would make myself sick with guilt, wringing my hands for days at the thought of disappointing or upsetting anyone.

And I resented this pain, blaming everyone else for causing it. I mean, I’m such a caring and thoughtful person! Why wouldn’t others go out of their way to reciprocate—giving me permission to do what was necessary for my own health and happiness?

I vacillated between loving others and being angry with them. And this hurt. Literally. My inability to express my own needs festered into one physical illness after another.  

And thank God!  Because there’s nothing like suffering to get a girl’s attention. I became driven to do my own inner work. I spent the next 12 years on a path of self-discovery that eventually led me to you, Jaya.

By the time we first spoke, I was already a practicing coach. I had not only learned about boundaries, I was teaching them to others. 

And yet, I still hadn’t gotten to the root of my own people-pleasing ways. I knew that my religious training had created very strong neural pathways of “you’ve gotta be nice,” but I was unaware of the personality type underneath, which you recognized immediately.

After our first session together, I took the Enneagram test and confirmed your hunch. I was a Two. A Helper. Fuck.

Deep down, I had a belief that “I’m ONLY okay if I’m in a loving relationship with others.” Which really meant, I only felt worthy if people liked and approved of me. Which REALLY meant, my happiness depended on pleasing others.

This explained why, after all my years of work, I still felt deeply wounded when people weren’t nice to me. In my mind, they HAD to like me or I wasn’t okay.

I began to see how often I manipulated people (or situations) to force others to love me. Fuckity-fuck.

Understanding my Two-ness has meant observing my own behavior very closely, becoming aware of my motives.

  • Why am I complimenting this person?
  • Why am I apologizing?
  • Why am I giving a gift?
  • Why am I smiling?

If the answer is anything other than “for the pure joy of it”—I stop. This has helped me reach a new level of freedom and authenticity that I haven’t been able to reach in the past.

And the best part? I still get to be my amazing, loving, generous self! I get to bring beauty into people’s lives.  I get to be an up-lifter, splashing lovely bits of sunshine all over the place. I get to be lavish with love.

My Two-ness isn’t a curse. As long as I’m not contorting myself to get others to love me, it’s a sweet-peach of a gift ... not just to myself, but to my little piece of the world.

Thank you.

— Kelli Younglove, Consciousness Coach
http://www.kelliyounglove.com/
​Kelli is a coach I often refer people to.
Since we trade sessions, I know directly the power of her nurturing presence and her genius in managing a session as she flows in pure presence with whatever comes up for the client. She can support you with all struggles related to boundaries, getting out of people pleasing, healing bad experiences with fundamentalist religion, knowing and following your guidance system, and more.

GIFTS OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING
​(AND REALLY GETTING OTHERS)

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The Enneagram is one of my great passions. It's a beautiful, ancient, and complex 9-point personality typology system. Unlike most such classifiers, it's not a series of discrete types, but a "map of consciousness," as I once heard it put by Russ Hudson (a primary elucidator of the Enneagram and co-founder of the Enneagram Institute).


But I don't fit into a single type ...
Ultimately, we're all the whole Enneagram, but everyone has a primary type and a wing, so the wing you have (and how strongly you have it) informs your particular expression of your type. The wing will be one of the neighboring numbers—I, for example, am a 4 with a 3 wing; another 4 might have a 5 wing. The two wings make for very different presentations of the type. And then there's your point of integration and your point of disintegration, addressed just below. And there's your instinctual variant, or subtype, which I just won't get into here. ...
​About those cool lines in the Enneagram diagram
Each type has a point of integration—that is, the type whose good points you exhibit when you're healthy and thriving or moving along in your evolution; and a point of disintegration—the type whose negative traits you start acting out when you're under stress or duress. Your shifting relationship with those two points, over time, greatly affects how you present. And depicting these connections makes for this lovely diagram.
Online Enneagram typing tests

My favorite free online test is the classical version from Eclectic Energies.
  
For a fee of $12, you can purchase the RHETI test, or the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator from the Enneagram Institute.

    Please note that if you're over 30, you'll do best to answer the questions the way you would have at 25. You'll get better results because that's when you are the purest expression of your type. As you go along in life (assuming healing and evolution), you present as an increasingly balanced expression of not only of your core type, but of the whole Enneagram.
    Look up types you test into or are curious about on the Enneagram Institute's site. The write-ups are rich and full. If you don't want to take in everything offered for a type, do scroll all the way down to check out the Recommendations for Growth at the bottom of each type's page. If they're for you, they'll resonate. They're also likely to describe the growth you've already experienced.
    When you're clear about your type, it's supremely helpful to look through that lens at your tendencies (both the lovely and not-so-delightful kinds). Your core issues and the thing that makes you tick will align with your type (I haven't yet seen it fail). I like to think in terms of both honoring your type (that's your style for navigating this life—go with it!) and trumping it or going against tendency where it would serve your growth to do so.
    When you're unsure of your type, any exploration that serves self-awareness and brings you to greater presence is worthwhile! I recommend signing up for a time for two types (that's the max) to receive daily Enneathoughts for further musing. If you're getting the right ones for you, they'll resonate!
You don't need me to explore the Enneagram and start to experience the gifts it might have for you. I invite you to check it out for yourself and see where the exploration takes you.
Again, here's the link for the free online test (use classical version on top). If you're over 30, answer as you would have at 25 (when you were a purer version of your type; while you'll typically balance out over time, your core type won't change).
My core type is 4. The positive side of Four supports my coaching beautifully:
  • I'm deeply empathetic and attuned to other people's emotions
  • I'm comfortable with their suffering and love to meet them there
  • Fours thrive in translating their personal struggles into some universal expression that touches other lives—which may sum up most of my work as the Trust Coach​
Want to experience how the Enneagram meets coaching?
For the curious and hopeful, I offer a free 30-minute consultation by zoom. If you want the Enneagram to figure in that first conversation, simply take the test before we're scheduled and send me your results! Email me at jaya@jayathetrustcoach.com.
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