🌊 The Plunge #11: Liberate Yourself with the Enneagram
Today’s clickbait: FREE Lamborghini inside!!!
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Last week, I introduced a beloved topic on The Diving Board: The Enneagram!
Using a most magical technology called video (it’s like writing but louder), I told you all about an incredible personality map for self-awareness and development.
I asked you what you already knew about The Enneagram, and here’s what you shared:
I proclaimed that the Enneagram helps you make the unconscious more conscious and gives you more choices beyond your default settings. I said it can help you bust out of the limiting box called your personality. I said, without a hint of melodrama, that it just might set you free.
So, let’s get liberated. Here’s how.
You Are a Lamborghini
Imagine the most exquisite, most powerful car you’ve ever seen. Close your eyes and picture it - a marvel of modernity, a thing of beauty, a truly astounding machine. My mind’s eye shows me this:
This Lamborghini was created to:
Soar at 217 mph
Blast from 0-60 in 2.9 seconds
Make jaws drop and fingers point
Possess exploding-star energy in its supercapacitor (I had to look this word up, but it sounded freaking cool, and it is.)
Now imagine that the engineer who designed this car prioritized safety above all else. A sampling of its safety features:
Engine restraint activates above 30 mph
Automatic brakes kick in when another car is detected less than 50 yards ahead
Steering wheel locks if sharp turns attempted
Airbags deploy when bugs hit the windshield
[Sad trumpet goes whomp-whomp]. The car would still drive, but at only a fraction of its potential. Sure, the safety features would protect it from accidents, but at the cost of the car’s very soul. The Lamborghini can’t even Lamborghini.
Well, guess what? You are the Lamborghini.
And your personality is a safety feature that is, in all likelihood, over-functioning.
Your Personality Is a Safety Feature
You were born into the world with an essential nature that was purely YOU – whole, unadulterated, and trusting. Your “True Self”.
Inevitably, the world proved itself untrustworthy early on. If you’re lucky, these letdowns came in the form of a too-wet-for-too-long diaper or a parent who couldn’t attune to you perfectly 100% of the time (read: all parents). Many of you experienced far worse letdowns in the form of trauma, neglect, abuse, illness, injury and more.
In any case, you interpreted those danger signals through the lens of your Enneagram type, then developed a set of strategies to stay safe and get your needs met. Maybe your strategy was being extra helpful, or asserting your dominance, or making others laugh. Your particular strategies formed your personality.
The personality is a protection mechanism. That’s a really good thing! We need our personality, and it’s especially important in our childhood and young adult years.
Your Personality Is Not You
However, your personality is not YOU. It’s a “False Self” – one that you’ve gotten so used to living as that you’ve lost contact with that “True Self” you were born to be.
In adulthood, the personality still helps us, but it also limits us. When it rules us, it makes us smaller, more constrained.
The Enneagram invites you to unhook from the “False Self” – to see the personality for what it is, to appreciate its protective function but not be bound to it all the damn time.
The Enneagram invites you to hit the road, push the pedal to the metal, zip blissfully around hairpin turns, and feel the wind in your axles.
The Enneagram invites you to be the liberated Lamborghini you were born to be.
(Told you I’d offer a FREE Lamborghini in this post. Made good on my promise, didn’t I?)
My Type 3 Journey, or “I 😍 Trophies and Microphones”
As a tiny tot, I figured out that when I did impressive things in public, I got beaming looks from my father and proud encouragements from my mother. As a budding Type 3 (3’s feel safest when they are admired), I misinterpreted these very normal parental behaviors to mean: more accomplishment = more love and safety.
And so, I spent my childhood performing, competing, excelling, and yes, impressing.
My personality served me well – it still does. It’s the fire that keeps me hustling. It’s also the fire that burns me out and leads me further and further away from who I really am and what I really want.
In my early 30’s, I discovered the Enneagram and became uncomfortably aware of how much I was doing for the sake of my image, for the eyes of others. Suddenly, I understood why I felt so BUSY all the time: because I had committed myself to an endless series of accomplishments and ways to look important.
My safety features were on overdrive. They were a False Self, overriding my True Self. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
I’m still a Type 3. I always will be. I’m still image-conscious, obsessed with productivity, and worse.
But what’s changed is that now I know those traits aren’t me, they’re just a part of me. I can notice the compulsion but not be quite so ruled by it. My safety features have relaxed some, and I’m slowly, slowly learning who I really am, living as my True Self a little more each day. I’m getting set free.
Safety Features of the 9 Types
That’s my story, but how does the “personality as safety feature” work for the other Enneagram Types?
In last week’s videos, I shared a slide showing the Core Motivations of the 9 Types. Here, I’ll build on that by showing the safety features, or Key Strategies each type uses to ensure those Core Motivations are fulfilled, keeping you safe and cozy.
How to Get Liberated
So how can you become a fully expressed Lamborghini? It’s a lifelong journey, and it always involves the following.
Grow Your Awareness. Study your Enneagram type. Catch yourself falling into your default type patterns. Don’t judge, just notice. “Oh, there it is again.”
Reflect on the Why. What are your safety features trying to protect you from? Uncover unconscious fears and assumptions.
Make Conscious Choices. Use your personality strategies when they’re helpful, but don’t allow them to run you on autopilot. You take the wheel. Expand your range of how you think, feel, and act to experience more balance.
This is not a linear process. It’s a virtuous cycle, always in motion. As you make more conscious choices, awareness grows, you can reflect more deeply, and the cycle continues.
Maybe the journey isn’t about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.
- Paulo Coehlo
Keep Learning
Is your curiosity piqued?
Join me and some Diving Board pals to learn more about how to get liberated with the Enneagram! This is my first-ever live event through The Diving Board. I’d love to see you there!
Can We Talk (about the Enneagram)?
Tuesday, July 30th 12:00-1:00 CT
Join me and other curious learners to chat about The Enneagram, a personality and personal growth map I swear by. After a brief overview of the system, you’ll hear from one of my former coaching clients about how the Enneagram has changed her life. You’ll learn how to accurately identify your type and how to use the Enneagram for personal growth for years to come. About half our time will be open Q&A and conversation, so bring your questions, doubts, and more!
Recommended Resources
Read about the 9 Types here
My recommended Enneagram Assessment (but it’s just one data point!)
Books:
The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up: a great starting point for understanding your type and how to use the Enneagram for growth
The Wisdom of the Enneagram: a comprehensive reference guide for deeply understanding the Enneagram system
Enjoy the joy ride.
What safety features are you aware of in yourself? What questions do you have about The Enneagram?
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Very much appreciate the creativity along with the vulnerability in telling us about your journey. But mostly I appreciate the Lamborghini analogy because I've always wanted one and now I do.