What is the enneagram?

The Enneagram is a way of understanding nine basic types of people. It

explains what motivates us at the deepest level and so helps us to understand why we behave the way we do. But it doesn't stop there, for it points to specific directions for individual spiritual growth. It can help you to understand and improve your relationships with friends, yourself, and God. As Christians, we should constantly be examining ourselves in order to see where we fall short of Christ's ideal. 'Sin' is a lot bigger than 'naughty things which we do'. It really is about how our outlook on the world, and the way we therefore relate to the world, gets between us and God.

The enneagram works by helping us to understand what the main driving

force in our lives is. It works on the principle that each of us tends to err in one way more than others. For some it is envy, others pride, others gluttony, or sloth and so on. Each 'sin' is connected with a personality type, eg helper, etc. As babies we came into a world that felt very secure to begin with. Sooner or later, however, it became less centred around us. We had to earn approval and love. Because everyone is different, we each learnt to cope with this 'imperfect' world by developing a strategy based on our natural talents. This was necessary in order for our child to grow socially. However, by our thirties these strategies have outgrown their usefulness and have instead developed and hardened into a sort of caricature of themselves. Often others see it long before we do.

We've all heard of the person "who was so kind and helpful - you could always

tell who she'd helped by the hunted looks on their faces". That poor woman may be a Helper. Her problem is that she is also making herself unhappy because her kindness so often meets with lack of appreciation from her 'helpees'. As 'helping people' has always helped make her feel good about herself in the past, she keeps finding new persons in need of help. She has become a compulsive helper, and is in a vicious cycle which is leading to exhaustion for her and everyone around her.

Every one of us has over the years become in a way addicted to a certain

type of behaviour which makes us feel better - much as an alcoholic has become addicted to alcohol. But the paradox is that that way of being doesn't help in the long run, and we become shackled by it rather than saved by it. Like alcoholics we must recognise what is at the root of all our mistakes (eg pride, etc) so that we can turn from it (repent) and thereby find redemption.

The information in the enneagram affirms you as you are - this is very

important. But it also helps you to pinpoint areas in your life where your own

behaviour causes you pain. And the best bit is that it gives you signposts to enable you to defuse the compulsions you've got yourself into so you can lie back and enjoy life more. I would like to emphasis that it is NOT about pigeonholing people. It is not possible to explain in detail why here, but suffice it to say that we are all a mixture of all nine types!

The Enneagram is an tool which has rapidly gained popularity amongst convents and monasteries! It is adapted to modern self-understanding and spirituality. The workshops are designed both for those completely new to it, as well as for those with some previous experience. They will include talks and individual and group exploring and sharing of experience of living in today’s world.”