The Styles on Display
Experiencing the Enneagram Through the Liberal Arts
If you are a complete beginner to the Enneagram, I refer you to the type descriptions in the rest of this site. For instance my page, The Nine Styles, has quick, but essential descriptions and a visual for each style. You may even recognize yourself or someone close to you.
Introduction
If you know a little about the Enneagram I offer you my approach to deepening your understanding. I specifically want to help you emotionally and aesthetically vicariously experience the various styles. To help you "feel" what other Enneagram habits other than your own, I will use movie clips, poems, songs and stories to communicate the style. I have the Seven Enneagram style so I tend to blur the line between information and entertainment.
Let's begin with the understanding that our Enneagram style is a habit. It is something we DO. That's why I use examples of people doing their style in a variety of circumstances. The way characters act in a move, are depicted in literature or how they reveal their inner self in poetry reveals their style effectively.
A habit has two obvious characteristics. It is a trance. What we do by habit, we do with minimal awareness. We are only peripherally aware of what we are doing. This is why we may exercise our habit for reasons buried in the past in circumstances wildly different.
A habit is also a skill. What we do often and what we count on to move through life effectively is what we get good at. This is important for those of you using the Enneagram as a coaching tool. Our educational system usually has us do more of what we are not good at. If we are weak in math, we're given remedial math. Same for reading or music or chemistry.
Coaching can be the opposite; often we have clients do more of what they do best. In either case, it is helpful to be clear about what our central habits are, especially our deepest habit, our Enneagram habit.
