The Wisdom of the Enneagram

by Don Richard Riso

Seek out diversity and variety. Sure, you like cheeseburgers, but maybe you could try the chicken sandwich. You love basketball, but perhaps you could also find another sport or activity interesting. The same is true with your choice of acquaintances. By sometimes interacting with people from very different backgrounds and perspectives, you will learn more about yourself and the world. All of this, far from bein...

Learn to cultivate quiet time for yourself. By this, we do not mean sitting around in front of a TV for hours, but time in which you get to be with yourself in a simple way. You benefit greatly from contact with nature. Take walks, garden, swim, meditate—and above all, do not use these times to worry, fret, and strategize about your work and relationships. They are times for you to become more comfortable with Being. Getting in greater contact with your surroundings and with the sensations in your body will do much to soothe and quiet that busy mind of yours.

Healthy Sixes are endowed with tremendous endurance and achieve their objectives through steady and persistent efforts. Less flashy than some of the other types, they believe in the adage “Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.” They give careful attention to details and tend to approach problems carefully and methodically. They organize resources, prioritize tasks, and see projects through, feeling that their personal value rests on their reliability and on the quality of the work they produce. High-functioning Sixes respect dependability and good craftsmanship and, to the best of their ability, provide them.

Because of their underlying vigilance and sensitivity to danger signals, Sixes also foresee problems and can “head them off at the pass.” They are natural troubleshooters and often save themselves, their families, or their companies many headaches by spotting irregularities or potential problems. They like to stay on top of things so that their world runs as trouble-free as possible. Keeping insurance and paying bills early are typical Six behaviors.

Sixes are outstanding in their ability to work for a common good without needing to be stars. Sixes ask what needs to be done and then do it, with a sense of being part of something that transcends their personal interests. They teach us all about the benefits and joys of commitment, cooperation, and service. Healthy Sixes are great believers in the age-old observation that people acting with a common purpose can accomplish more than anyone acting alone, particularly in situations where people need to band together to survive—to produce food or clothing, to build a house, to improve communities or working conditions, or to defend a city or a country.

While high-functioning Sixes are deeply loyal and committed to others, they are also committed to learning more about themselves. In the process, they often find rich and unsuspected talent for creativity and self-expression. Committing to their own development helps Sixes build strong self-esteem and see themselves as the equal of others—equally competent, equally worthy of respect and rewards, equally able to take responsibility and to hold their own in all areas of life.

High-functioning Sixes are self-confident and self-affirming because they have learned to recognize and trust their own inner guidance. Their faith in themselves often manifests as outstanding courage and leadership. They lead from a deep understanding of people’s insecurities and frailties, and others respond to them, seeing their sincerity and willingness to be honest about their own weaknesses. They nurture an egalitarian spirit, a sense that there really are no leaders and followers, just different people with different talents finding ways to combine them for a common good. This desire to engage, to find common ground, and to work for everyone’s mutual safety and benefit is a gift that our species needs for survival.

Sixes become actualized and remain healthy by becoming balanced in their instincts and grounded in their bodies like healthy Nines. For Sixes to find the stability they seek, they need to turn to the steady support of their physical presence: to get grounded in the here-and-now. Many Sixes are active, even athletic, but this is not the same thing as being in contact with the moment-to-moment sensations of the body. Attending to the immediacy of their sensory impressions acts as a counterbalance to the Six’s nonstop thinking and gives them something else to identify with.

At first, centering themselves in their physical sensations may produce feelings of panic or dread, particularly if Sixes have suffered trauma in their past. It is not uncommon for Sixes from abusive backgrounds to begin to tremble as they occupy their bodies more completely. At such times, it is important for Sixes to realize that such physical reactions are the body’s way of processing old fears and hurts and are not necessarily indications of present danger. If Sixes are able to sense themselves and their anxious feelings without reacting to them, they begin to come into a more open and trusting experience of life.

From this position of grounded openness, Sixes are able to recognize the common bonds they share with all of humanity. They feel inclusive and accepting of others, regardless of whether their views or lifestyles are familiar to them. They are filled with courage that is not a counter-phobic reaction to fear but is an actual force in and of itself. Their courage arises from a feeling of real inner solidity and of profound connection with themselves and with all living things. Thus, integrating Sixes, like healthy Nines, can approach tremendous challenges and even tragedies or threats with inner balance and equanimity.

“When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.” VIETNAMESE SAYING

The “wrong turn” that Sixes take is to use their fearful and doubting ego minds to figure out where reliable guidance and support can be found. Ironically, the more they question and strategize, the less secure they feel. Rather than give them the security they seek, being identified with their anxious thoughts makes Sixes feel small, helpless, and without direction. Only by seeing through their fearful thinking patterns can Sixes begin to reconnect with their Essential nature. When they do so, they rediscover their own inner authority, and they begin to recognize that the support they have been seeking is everywhere and always available.

Jenny, a therapist in her fifties who had recently undergone a mastectomy, beautifully expresses this transformation. I believe I became my own authority with my mastectomy experience. I was able to take in love from my family and friends. It never felt safe before. What a beautiful gift! I had to be my own authority because my survival was at stake and no one really knows what is best for me except me! I feel wonderful when I allow myself to feel healthy! Recently I have been focusing my attention on growing flowers as opposed to pulling weeds all the time. My “inner voices”—my old superego stuff—just keep me in the weeds.

Sixes achieve transformation by confronting their Basic Fear of being without support and guidance. As they do so, they begin to experience a vast, empty inner space, and they may sometimes feel as though they are falling into it. If they can tolerate this sensation, this space may change and feel solid or become intensely shiny and luminous—or it could transform itself in numerous ways. Sixes then come to recognize that the inner space they experience is actually the very support they have been looking for. It is free, open, and infinitely wise and patient. When this spaciousness is present, Sixes feel self-reliant, courageous, and brilliantly intelligent—in short, all of the qualities they have been looking for.

“You cannot depend on anybody. There is no guide, teacher, no authority. There is only you—your relationship with others and with the world—there is nothing else.” KRISHNAMURTI

This is the real meaning of faith, their particular Essential quality. Faith is not belief, but a real, immediate knowing that comes from experience. Faith without experience is belief. Faith with experience brings reliable guidance. Much of the personality of Sixes can be seen as an effort to imitate or recreate faith in terms of beliefs, and to find a substitute for the certainty that they are already secure as an expression of the Divine. When Essence emerges, however, Sixes have a certainty that they are grounded in Being in a way that is immutable and absolute. Being supports them because they are part of it: their own existence has Being because it cannot not have Being.