target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_af7b4312-82b5-5d0b-9278-edaeebf77e71.png" alt="check"/> Determining what a good questionnaire looks like
This chapter spells out an aspect of the Enneagram that will undoubtedly stimulate your imagination: getting to ask the question “Which type do I have?” Yes, the typology of the Enneagram does stimulate the imagination, but the goal here isn’t just to find your type. Rather, it’s to become more self-aware. Determining your type on your own is the way to go. The moment you recognize yourself in a type, you have already gained self-awareness. You can use some additional methods, such as various questionnaires, to help in this search as you determine your own type. In this chapter, you can find out everything you need to know in order to discover your own type, including information about type interviews and other aids for self-exploration.
Why Type Yourself?
Imagine a youth scouting group performing an outdoor exercise. The group has been dropped off in a wildlife area and have to find their way home. They have various aids for this purpose, including nine maps of various regions, and they first have to find out which map represents the surrounding area. The scouts initially study Map 1 for certain landmarks and then try to find them nearby. Map 1, however, is a nautical chart, so it isn’t the one they need. Maps 2 and 3 depict cities, and the scouts are in the woods. After completing this initial process of elimination, four maps remain, all of which represent rural regions. Eliminating the first five maps in this example is the easy part; now the second (and more difficult) round begins. The scouts now have to examine the nature areas on the maps and compare them with what they see nearby. In the end, they determine that one map fits their surroundings exactly. Using that map, they can quickly find their way home.
When you’re looking at the right map, you can find your way much more quickly and easily. With the Enneagram, you distinguish nine different personality structures, each with its own development path. A characteristic that one type should deal with — a habit that should be acquired or discarded, for example — doesn’t necessarily fit with another type. When you find your type, you also gain a valuable guide to what you personally should focus on.
Working with Types
At the point where you know which type you are, someone always asks: “Is it true that you have only one of these types?” Indeed, some Enneagram movements and trainers believe that each person has several types. They back up this belief with the logic of the quote “[N]othing human can be alien to me,” borrowed from the Roman poet and dramatist Terence (195-159 BC). I'm inclined to share this opinion: Whatever emotion humans can experience internally — fear, anger, love, and joy, for example — are ones that I have also experienced, and you probably have too.
Other Enneagram authors believe that people can have several types because they’re capable of developing the strengths of all types internally. I also share this positive perspective. People can learn about all this and develop it, yet such an expansive view isn’t the essence — the crucial analytical level — of the Enneagram. Humans carry only one personality structure inside them that’s at the level of the type mechanism.
For example, although I have occasionally experienced fear, I’m definitely not someone whose entire personality structure is built on fear and how to handle it. I experience true fear maybe once or twice per year. I remember an incident, some time ago, when someone suddenly stepped on the brakes on the expressway in front of me and I panicked.
For someone whose interior structure is based on fear, the fear and how to deal with it are daily companions. Fear is the essence of that person’s pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. The fact that I too occasionally feel fear is different from having this type structure. For many people, the belief that they simply have to have more than one type stands in the way of their development. My colleague Hannah Nathans responds to this belief this way: “My eyes have only one color and I’m a woman (and not also a man), and if I don’t dye my hair, it has one color for an entire lifetime. The truth is, the way that nature made us consists of limitations.” Personally, I’m glad that I have only one type, because developing myself with the weaknesses of this type is already enough of a challenge. But I think it’s nice that I can very well practice and develop the strengths of the other types.
As you soon realize when you meditate, your attention can always be directed toward only one thing at a time. Humans unconsciously have a dominant preference for certain objects that draw their attention. This is the foundation and essence of the type mechanism.
The fact that you can develop all strengths inside yourself — that you have a development prospect, in other words — says nothing about your Enneagram type or where you're coming from. All types can certainly learn just about anything, but each type still has different things to learn. So the fact that you can learn something says nothing about the strengths you carry inside based on your type. Learning things doesn’t turn you into another type. You still retain your own type mechanism, but continue to develop and, as a result, you don’t let your type box you in.
“Nothing human can be alien to me” means that people can experience every human impulse. And it’s true. All Enneagram types can experience anger and become angry, for example. But this isn’t what the type mechanisms or the differences between the individual types are about.
In the end, imagine that the scout group would try to find their way home using only three maps. Would this lower number of maps help them? Would it be quicker? The essence of the Enneagram consists of making the development path more efficient.
Knowing which type you have
I certainly believe that you know best which type you have. After all, only you can look inside yourself. Only you can observe what you think, feel, and experience, for example. You might not yet know all about the Enneagram and the nine types, but when you receive the information you need, from this book or from a study course, you’re sure to find your own type.
Finding your type isn’t difficult. The Enneagram offers nine templates that you can use as a mirror. You look at every template and then ask yourself whether this might be the mechanism you recognize in yourself. So you move from one map to the next and determine which map fits you best. You observe yourself and ask, “Which part of this do I recognize in myself?” Then you begin a discussion with yourself, using the inner dialogue, or self-reflection. The Enneagram makes a point of offering many guidelines for self-observation and reflection because, when you start on the journey of discovering your own type, you also immediately start training and encouraging these two important skills on the way to further development. Maybe this inner dialogue already helps you discover the Enneagram type in which you see yourself reflected more than in the others. When you recognize yourself, you'll know your Enneagram type, yes, but more importantly, you'll have discovered and experienced things about yourself. You'll be more conscious of certain aspects of yourself and will have gained self-awareness.
Finding your own type means becoming active yourself
