chess pieces on board

Enneagram Styles and Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are used by our ego to maintain our self-esteem. They automatically keep out of our awareness any parts of ourselves that might damage our good reputation as well as keeping our offensive ego-dystonic parts out of sight of the judgmental eyes of others – not to mention our own. Freud and his daughter Anna catalogued many of these defensive maneuvers and Claudio Naranjo arranged some of them around the Enneagram circle. So, while one of the defenses might be congenial to a particular type, we certainly have all of them at our disposal. Defense mechanisms in the service of the ego distort reality and limit us; defense mechanisms in the service of the self may actually help us expand beyond ourself and get somewhere. Is there something redeemable about defense mechanisms if we can use them consciously and conscientiously?
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Enneagram Styles: Resilience, Eustress, And Distress

The right amount of stress, excitement, and arousal (eustress) leads to optimal functioning. Too much or too little energy (distress) leads to sub-optimal functioning. Eustress gets us up for the game; distress takes us out of the game. What gets each Enneagram Type motivated, functioning optimally, and what is their natural resilience?
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Where Does Your Authority Come From? Part 2

Where does each Enneagram style get their authority?  I made up some answers and, uncharacteristically, actually asked some representatives of each enneatype where does their authority come from.   Here are the results.
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Where Does Your Authority Come From?

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Where does each Enneagram style get their authority?  I made up some answers and, uncharacteristically, actually asked some representatives of each enneatype where does their authority come from.   Here are the results.
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silhouette of man and woman on hill

Virtues, Vices, and Relationships

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In the Enneagram system, virtues are said to be nine manifestations of love cleanly expressed while vices are appearances of love distorted or corrupted.  Since love can be directed both at ourself and towards others, the virtues are good for our relationship with ourself and with others.

Find out in this article which is a better attitude and disposition for your relationship with yourself and with others:

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wonder

Wonder

Wonder is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a cause of astonishment or admiration; the quality of exciting amazed admiration; rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience; to be curious or in doubt.”

When I read this definition, I thought of a child’s first encounter with something new in the world. Actually, everything is new to a child.

Then I thought about the Enneagram styles and wondered if wonder flows from and fosters the high side or essence of each style. Wonder seems to accompany the adaptive or divine idea which elicits the virtue or adaptive emotional response. Wonder acts as an antidote to the maladaptive or wrong ideas which stir up the vices of the styles.

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