Context is all, too

When we are isolated, our Enneagram styles get worse. A brilliant but lonely style Five up in Canada taught me that. Now Fives love privacy and solitude – most of the time. But as she struggled to find community, it became clear to both of us that part of the problem was her self-isolation and part was the structure of North American society. Other than sports, church and our work, we don’t have many satisfactory structured communities. Support groups are a response to the hyper-individualism of industrial society. (Every motivation speaker promises “independent” wealth. I’ve never heard one talk about belonging to a wealthy community. I heard a number of graduation speeches and they were all addressed to the individual as individual).
So if your Enneagram style is keeping you stuck, it may be because you’re trying to help yourself. Perhaps a good way to help yourself is to find/join/create/enrich/belong to a community.
I’ve coached a large number of married couplesĀ  and almost without exception, marriages in trouble do not have a support community, either of extended family or real church membership. (Going to a suburban church with 500 people you don’t know doesn’t help much).
Every Enneagram style is a younger part of our self and I think it takes a village, not only to raise a child, but to help the child within us grow up.

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