Welcome to week #6 of our 8-week series on Grace in Awareness.
Recently in our series on self-awareness, we ventured into personality type with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the #1 most popular personality test on the scene.
This week we’re hopping back on the personality-type train in looking at personality according to the Enneagram.
“What in the world is the Enneagram?” you ask. Here’s a description from this week’s featured article:The Enneagram could easily be described as the the newest and oldest personality test to hit meteoric stardom in the last couple of years. An amalgam of ancient theories and ideas, the popular modernized version breaks them down into 9 primary personality types, each assigned a number.
– Erin Bartel | The Enneagram & Motherhood: How Your Type Affects Your Parenting Style
Why is this helpful to moms?
Enneagram expert and YouTuber, Abbey Howe, says the Enneagram helps us identify “how we communicate, make decisions and solve problems.”
I feel confident declaring that if moms always effectively communicated, made decisions and solved problems, the bonbon industry would skyrocket.
Has anyone actually eaten a bonbon? And where did that notion come from… that any mom has time to sit around eating bonbons? This Enneagram 5: The Investigator is curious! I digress…
On a serious note, most moms feel chronically challenged by motherhood and oftentimes overwhelmed by communication, decision making and problem solving.
So gain awareness around your Enneagram type and add it to your tool box. If it helps you to be even a slightly better communicator, decision maker or problem solver, you can count it as a mom win!
Proceed with caution (and common sense).
The source behind this week’s quiz on personalitypath.com reminds us that “when you start your journey with the Enneagram, one of the first things you should know is how to use the Enneagram responsibly… As soon as you start going deeper into the Enneagram, you will notice that it can improve your life and other people’s lives dramatically. But when used irresponsibly, the Enneagram can do more harm than good and become pretty toxic instead of helpful.” So, don’t do that! 😉
Another thing the gurus recommend against is typing your kids. Bummer, I know. It was my first thought. A post on enneagrampaths.com entitled, “Enneagram Parenting: DON’T Type Your Kids, DO This Instead…” suggests this:First, we focus on our personal Enneagram journey. This will help us better understand how we’re wired to act and react in our relationships with our children. Self-awareness and Enneagram work reveals the ways in which we move about in the world, and helps us grow into healthier, more expansive people—which directly affects our parenting styles.
So, take the quiz and find your number, then use the resources below to learn about your type and use it as one of your supermom superpowers!
Take the quiz…
Interesting, go on…
Our featured podcast episode – on this week’s Grace in the Race Podcast Playlist – is from Tess O’Driscoll, aka, The Enneagram Mom, who reminds us that “there are no bad mom enneagram numbers, each one of you has the power to teach your children and it’s helpful to know how you teach them.”
This was helpful because when I first discovered my ‘type’ I was a little disappointed. Amanda felt the same way. You can read about our respective journeys with the Enneagram in the ‘curious’ section below. Plus, we’ll be chatting about motherhood and the Enneagram in this week’s community call. We meet on Zoom each Friday at 2pm ET. Get the details below and join us!!
Additionally, this week’s featured video comes from Enneagram expert, Abbey Howe. In just 4 minutes, she highlights 6 easy steps for understanding your enneagram type. So, once you have your number, you’ll know what to do with that information.
Intrigued?
🎬 Watch the video:
📖 Read the article: “The Enneagram & Motherhood: How Your Type Affects Your Parenting Style” by Erin Bartel | Witchita Mom
🎧 Listen to the podcast episode: 14: Motherhood | The Enneagram Mom in the player below then…
👩🏽💻 Join us for our weekly community call this Friday at 2pm ET in The Grace Lab on Zoom.
We’ll be chatting about the featured podcast episode (noted above) as well as your quiz results and we’d love to have you!
Want a reminder for the community call? Enter your name and email address below and click the red button. We’ll send you an email reminder an hour before the Zoom (along with the link to join the call).
🎙 Enjoy this week’s Grace in the Race Podcast Playlist while you get your ship together! Select an episode below to listen on Spotify.
🤔 Curious how Amanda and I fared on this week’s quiz and what we’re doing with that information?
Amanda is a 6.
Two years ago I took an Enneagram quiz and I was a 1…. The Reformer… aka The Perfectionist. I was disappointed. I related to it, but I didn’t want to. Over the last couple of years I have apparently chilled out a bit because I am now a 6. I still have 1 tendencies, for sure, but I feel a 6 is more “me”. Here are some of the things I resonate with…
Enneagram 6 strengths:
- Reliable & loyal
- Persistent
- Problem solving before there are problems!
- Planning and executing
Enneagram 6 weaknesses:
- Worrying!
- Being a constant devil’s advocate
- Trusting people
As an Enneagram 6 mom, this quote says exactly how I feel:
I have come to realize that I do not need to be embarrassed when my friends (who are not Sixes) poke fun at me for being prepared for anything. I keep up with appointments and am never late. I love to plan and think about every last detail. I am not late for deadlines or events. My laundry is always caught up, and because I buy clothes ahead of the seasons, when my kids grow out of one size, I have the next size ready to go. I find comfort in being prepared, and am teaching my boys the same. Just don’t look in my closets or drawers. Our drawers are all disastrous, even after Marie Kondoing them.
Amy Foster, The Enneagram and Motherhood: “The Loyalist” (Type 6) | The Witchita Mom
Rachel is a 5.
I also took the Enneagram for the first time two years ago. When I read about all of the types, I thought, 3. I bet I’m a 3. I want to be a 3.
I’m not a 3. I’m a 5.
This was disappointing at first because my impression of a 5 was that they (we) are withdrawn and detached. That sure doesn’t sound very welcoming.
Then, the pandemic hit and the 5 in me was undeniable. This article from personalitypath.com, “What It’s Like To Be An Enneagram 5” helped me see it for what it is…
“Fives (unconsciously) believe that they can only fully join the world once they have figured out how to do things from the safety of their minds. They feel they only have limited resources to spend on social interactions and other people’s needs. So they ration their involvement and try to put as much distance between them and the world as possible, as soon as they feel their resources dwindle.”
Fives believe we can only fully join the world once we have figured out how to do things from the safety of our minds? GULP!
I spent a full year never able to access the safety of my mind because there were no good answers when it came to Covid; no good resolutions. And so I retreated and distanced myself from everything and everyone. I rarely left my home or interacted with anyone outside of my immediate family.
I was stymied by own inability to feel safe. And I know what you’re thinking – we all were! But I was shocked by how long I stayed there even after the rest of the world started coming out of it.
The article goes on to define unhealthy 5s vs. healthy 5s…
Unhealthy Type 5s
Unhealthy Fives become isolated inside their head and fixated on their own thoughts. Instead of trying to solve the anxieties that prevent them from engaging in life, they obsessively keep collecting and developing the ideas they believe will make them competent – or get lost in completely trivial rabbit-holes of knowledge. Unhealthy Fives start neglecting real life, their relationships, and sometimes even their health and hygiene.
Healthy Type 5s
Healthy Fives lose their fear of engagement and give all the brilliant stuff they’ve collected in their minds back to the world. But not only that, they also become comfortable to share themselves – their feelings, their time and their resources – without fear of being drained. With their hard-working minds and their desire to go beyond the boundaries of established knowledge, Fives at their best often become visionary pioneers in their field of expertise.
I love this version of 5s. I am indeed a 5 and have come to recognize and appreciate myself a such. I now realize I need to actively work to stay a ‘healthy’ 5 and while that’s not always easy, I’m grateful for the awareness.
😘 And finally, because life’s too important to be taken seriously, we leave you with this…
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” – Socrates, Enneagram 8
At Grace in the Race, our mission is to help moms do what they can with the time, energy and resources they have; all while believing that’s enough.
How Well Do You Know Your Family?