Understand Yourself with Enneagram

Some excerpts from my current explorations of the Enneagram- these have informed my understanding of my Type and added great richness to the way I approach tapping, especially for problems/versions of problems that seem to recur in my life.

These quotes are all from Helen Palmer‘s book

The Enneagram is part of a teaching tradition that views personality preoccupations as teachers, or indicators of latent abilities that unfold during the development of higher consciousness.


From this expanded psychological perspective, our neurotic trends can be seen as teachers and as good friends who lead us honourably toward our next phase of development.


…learning to be aware of the thoughts and other “objects of attention” that arise within yourself…the initial experience is always that of recognizing your own mechanical, or habitual patterns, and the tenacity with which certain preoccupations recur within your mind.


The Passions…these emotional habits …could also be called the passions of the emotional shadow that stem from the need to cope with early family life.


Intuition can best be understood as the emerging side effect of the withdrawal of attention from habitual thoughts and feelings.


Using Enneagram with EFT

Every day, I spend some time developing new ideas for growing my business. Today was no different. In addition, today I have been exploring the Enneagram and looking further into my Type’s habitual tendencies and thought patterns.

That gave me the idea to use the default weaknesses of my Type to specifically tap of the deeper underlying patterns in my life and personality. That got to the heart of the issue really quickly. It led to a wonderful session of tapping and a very deep SEEING and release of some old habitual beliefs and patterns. It unearthed much rich material for further work too!

I primarily used Beatrice Chestnut’s body of work on the Enneagram as well as a little bit from Don Riso and Russ Hudson‘s books, particularly Enneagram Transformations as it has very helpful, evocative statements for each type.

Here are the details of todays #InDepthEFT:

I had an idea for a new curriculum for my coaching program. After the fun of the initial burst of ideating. all these blah feelings (“tailenders” in traditional EFT) took over in the background and I found myself thinking:

What’s the use

I won’t do it anyway

What if it fails

That drove me to look up some of the things I had been reading about my Enneagram Type and its habitual fears and responses to uncertainty. That unleashed a flood of very deep, rich material to tap on. Immediate intensity spike- everything resonated about these old patterns and how I use them as defenses when I feel insecure.

BOOM

A very satisfying session.

I should say right at the outset, in Blog Post #1: this is what I believe about EFT- it is very synergistic with any other systems I explore. It deepens my exploration, application and results from the system; at the same time, every new body of work I am impacted by adds new layers to explore in my EFT sessions.

If you haven’t done this already, experiment with ways you can get Tapping and the new system/subject to “talk to each other”. Build tapping round around that, add language from that into your tapping scripts…fun fun fun!

Anyway, I digress. Back to today’s #InDepthTapping session:

I looked at the page with the ideas and tapped on the thoughts and feelings that came up, while also including the key “pinchy features” of my Ennegram Type:

Even though I am so afraid of humiliation…

Even though I’d rather package this idea and sell the glossy packaged thing than show up for real and potentially be challenged…

Even though this might expose my incompetencies…

Even though it’s always tempting to exaggerate…

Even though my first instinct is to hide…

Try it for yourself! Take an online test or explore it from a book deeply. The key piece for me about this is that becoming more aware of the habitual fixations of my Type has given me PAUSE.

It has helped me to see in all the million issues the patterns underneath that are in common and running everything. This has made my tapping richer and more fruitful by making blocks visible and helping me have patience with myself as I understand myself better and change.

Further Resources:

Alina Frank has a post on using EFT for Enneagram here

My two favourite takeaways from her post:

  • The Enneagram’s insights can be processed effectively and transformed beautifully with the use of EFT. 
  • The more you can begin identifying how these modes of behavior served you in the past, and what your core issues are as they relate to your type, the more you can release the compulsion to exist the same old way. Use EFT to find and then release those key events. By using EFT to collapse these patterns, not only do you succeed in breaking free of these habitual limiting operating systems, but become a more expanded version of your authentic self.

Heather Step’s article in EFT International titled EFT, Enneagrams and the Roots of Self-Sabotage might give you some more ideas for exploring this in your own Tapping Practice. It also has a full case example that you can read.