Evert7h, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
These days one can’t cruise social media without seeing an enneagram reference. It’s everywhere! But what is it, and why is some guy writing about it on his Disney blog?
A few years ago I was first introduced to the enneagram by a good friend and spiritual director. While getting his Master’s degree in Spiritual Transformation at Biola University he devoured everything Richard Rohr had to offer. Richard Rohr is pretty amazing for a great many things, not the least of which is his body of lectures on the enneagram. In fact, the rediscovery of the enneagram in America is largely attributed to him! Recently Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile further popularized the system with their book The Road Back to You.
“Okay, we get it - a Franciscan monk and a Nashville author and podcaster made it popular… but what IS it?”
Simply put, the enneagram is a personality type system wherein nine specific and unique personalities are described, explored, and linked to each other. Every person who ever lived, is alive today, or ever will live falls into one of these nine types. One’s type is established during childhood, with specific events, relationships, and genes working together to form a person’s identity, forming the ways they relate to the world around them.
Each type is given a number, and, unlike other common personality typing tools, one’s enneagram number does not change. If you’re born a two, you die a two. As we dig into our numbers, our thoughts on our type may change, but the number itself never will. In fact, I’m in the middle of this process now, perhaps changing some pretty key assumptions I’ve made about myself! Some dispute exists surrounding the creation of the enneagram, with some attributing it to the early church fathers of the third and fourth centuries CE, and other attributing it to early islamic teachers. Either way, this thing is ancient, proven over many centuries, and a fantastic tool to understand how we process the world.
Okay, so, let’s get to why you’re reading about this on a Disney blog. Last year as I was preparing to do some yard work, my wife mentioned Jen Hatmaker’s new podcast series called For the Love of the Enneagram. (If you haven’t checked out her For the Love podcast, go check it out!). Each week she interviewed someone with a different enneagram number. After an introduction to the enneagram from Suzanne Stabile, her first number-specific guest was Richard Rohr, so, of course, I was hooked. Her guest for the week of the six was Ashton Brye, who just happens to break a former Disney cast member. My ears perked up, and the wheels started spinning…
What if each enneagram type visited the Happiest Place On Earth? What would a two’s favorite ride be? Where would an eight head for dinner? Would a seven just stand and watch the fireworks night (as if that weren’t the case for all of us!)? Over the next nine weeks we’ll take a fun, facetious look at each type’s Disneyland visit. We’ll get a little enjoyment, and, hopefully, learn a bit along the way!
To learn more about the enneagram, check out The Enneagram Institute.
To learn more about Cron and Stabile’s book The Road Back to You, head here.