A Glimpse of Starlight

For the past several months I’ve been exploring the Enneagram, a personality typing system that’s become super popular online recently. It actually has a complex history, parts of which stretch back to ancient times, but the modern version of it has been around for about forty years.

“A personality typing system” is barely a flake of snow on top of the tip of the iceberg and I’m sure Enneagram experts would cringe to read that way of putting it, but the point of this post isn’t to explain what the Enneagram is. I’ll list a bunch of resources at the end that give a far better introduction to it than I but basically: it’s one of many tools to help understand yourself better, and it’s been an immense blessing to me recently.

I am a type one in the system, and I wanted to record some thoughts about what it’s like to be that type. I’m hoping to make it a series, with my Enneagram thoughts sprinkled in among my other more normal posts. Some may be factual, others more like creative writing. We’ll see what it ends up looking like. Maybe it will help people who are trying to figure out what type they are, or maybe it will help people understand the type ones around them better.

Big DISCLAIMER: you absolutely don’t have to know anything about the Enneagram or what a type one is to appreciate these posts. They’re basically just journal entries, snippets from my many musings.

Okay, enough intro. Lez do this.

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 { what it’s like to be an Enneagram type one, part one }

A little girl in a wispy dress stands in front of a broken-down hotel.

A tall hotel. Stories upon stories, looming over her. Whole sections of walls torn away, as if gouged out by some monster’s hand. Wires and pipes spilling out like disemboweled guts, mangled and tangled. Windows with jagged teeth of shattered glass or completely empty, like the eyes of the dead.

The whole structure leans precariously. Maybe it will simply crumble and crush her.

But that’s not all. Inside? Inside, it’s worse. Dust clogging drains, mattresses torn apart, stuffing littering the floor, splintered chairs blocking doors, sinks so covered in rust you can’t turn the handles, curtains and sheets tangled together, heaps of broken wood and foul laundry and little bolts and screws hopelessly lost.

The floors sag in some spots. In others, actual holes yawn above piles of debris after one room’s content fell into another’s.

Maybe it was an earthquake. Maybe it’s a recently deserted war zone. That will have to be sorted out later. For now, the little girl stands before it.

In one hand, she holds a hammer. It is heavy for her, and her arm droops.

In the other, she holds a pile of nails. Maybe ten. Some are bent. Some are straight. It doesn’t really matter. Ten nails and two small hands are not nearly enough to make even one small dent in fixing this brokenness.

But she has to try.

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{ my favorite Enneagram resources }

Websites:

The Enneagram Institute (history, detailed type descriptions, overview of how the whole thing works)

If You’re Confused About Your Enneagram Type, Read This (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED—a great introduction and what helped me first realize I was a one)

Books:

The Road Back to You by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile (super funny and readable with tons of info on each type)

The Sacred Enneagram by Chris Heuertz (looking at the Enneagram specifically through the lens of prayer & the best way for each type to connect with God; some really great in-depth stuff but probably better after you have some familiarity with the system)

Podcasts:

Typology with Ian Cron; The Enneagram Journey with Suzanne Stabile; The Road Back to You with Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile (all of these feature interviews with people of each type)

The Sleeping At Last Podcast with Ryan O’Neal (Ryan is writing a song for each type and his podcasts explain both about that type and how he wrote that type’s song)

Other:

Beth McCord (@yourenneagramcoach) on Instagram (specifically Christian approach to the Enneagram; she picks one topic, like how to love well or what happens when you’re stressed, and does a separate post for each type)

I’m always up for a chat about the Enneagram, whether you know a lot or nothing about it, whether you love it or you hate it. =D 

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make my messes matter

make this chaos count 

~ “Jupiter”, Sleeping At Last

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