Enneagram Intro: Structural Components
Written by Sofie
VIRTUES
The essence or essential quality of your core type, who we are at our best in high awareness when we let go of the vice or passion of our personality. The virtue is the most authentic expression of ourselves, the gift that comes with our type once we wake up.
VICES/PASSIONS
Vices or passions are nine ways to lose our center and become distorted in enacting them. They can be thought of as the untamed animalistic quality that we inherit and stay stuck with if we don’t practice awareness - instinctual reactions to the wounds that our ego structure is most susceptible towards, an emotional vice or limiting belief. It is what happens when our ego fixation grips us tightly and loses track of the virtue given to us with our type. A strategy that works to get our needs met in the short run, but is ultimately misguided, leaving us empty and unnourished. The Inner Work that that we can practice when actively engaging with the Enneagram is a path from vice to virtue - from shadow to light.
The Holy Ideas are the world belief of our type structure when we perceive reality with an awake, present mind. Losing connection to our type’s holy idea leads to an ego delusion of reality that is called ego fixation.
CENTERS OF INTELLIGENCE
The three centers of intelligence refer to the sources of human intelligence. Intelligence isn’t exclusive to the thinking center, there are different ways to know something and engage with reality.
HEART CENTER: Enneagram 2,3,4
Heart or Image types have unique gifts and problems concerning their emotions. When heart types are present, they can use their emotions constructively to relate and connect to people. When the heart center becomes distorted through our ego fixations, these types will become emotionally imbalanced. The underlying issue with identity that all heart types have is shame. Shame arises when heart types lose touch to their essential qualities and their value and identity. To compensate for this loss, heart types will create a fake identity or image as a replacement for this lack of value. 2s, 3s and 4s all try to create a narrative around themselves that receives validation for this fake image. By doing so they lose touch of some parts of themselves that they underdo in the heart space, thus heart types become blind to the parts of their hearts that they suppress.
2 overdoes an image of being needed and loved, carrying the prideful internal belief that they are indispensable and special to their close ones through their rejection type offering, leading to the ego fixation of flattery.
3 overdoes an image of being the best or most successful in their field, projecting an image of someone embodying the values of their community, leading to vanity as an ego fixation, pushing aside feelings for the sake of productivity.
4 overdoes an image of being entirely separate and individual from others, clutching on to a narrow set of emotions they allow themselves to express, leading to underdoing positive or bright aspects of the personality.
HEAD CENTER: Enneagram 5,6,7
Head types have unique gifts and problems concerning their thinking and dealing with fear. When they are present, they have an exceptional gift of insight, perception and understanding. When their heads center becomes distorted through their ego fixations, head types lose trust in their inner guidance and fear arises. To compensate for this felt sense distrust in their own thinking, they overdo one aspect of their center, trying to find guidance and security to counter the anxiety.
5s overdo thinking and suppresses doing, withhold their energy from people and seek competency and unique insight as their rejection type offering, leading to a profound disconnect from the world outside of the secure, guarded, neutral system inside their heads and an inability to function in their gut/action center.
6s are disconnected from the thinking center, flip-flopping between the influence of 7 (possibility) and 5 (granularity), leading to a profound distrust in their own abilities and a meticulous, hypervigilant way of combing through data, trying to find balance and middle ground as an ultimate, proof-tested truth, often going back and forth between opposite beliefs.
7s underdo thinking and substitute it for doing, fleeing from fears through engaging with the outside world in planning and jumping from thought to action quickly, leading to FOMO and Shiny Object Syndrome and a sloppiness in thinking as too many tabs are open in their mind’s browser.
GUT CENTER: Enneagram 8,9,1
Gut or body types have unique gifts and problems regarding their intuition or instinctual knowing. The gut center represents our way to take up space in the world and assert our boundaries, our sense of aliveness and way of taking action. When gut types are present, they have a special gift of intuitive body knowing. When they are caught up in their ego’s fixations, they become cut off from their intuition, feel like they’re unable to assert their needs which leads to a consistent feeling of rage. Gut types share a felt sense of constant boundary infringements (carried anger in the body), leading to them seeking ways to be autonomous, impactful and independent.
8s overexpress their instinct and center, acting up on every gut hunch to assert boundaries quickly before they could be overrun, assertively expanding the self into its surroundings, pushing away threats with pure gut force.
9s are out of touch with their gut power, repressing and denying their instinctual hunches and dissolving the self into a malleable, blank slate for outside influences.
1s unerexpress their gut instinct, funneling it into a strict, sharp stream of gut power that overconfidently knows what’s right as a superego type, setting boundaries not only outwardly, but inwardly through self-control.
TRIFIX THEORY
Every person has one core type and two fixes in each ot the remaining centers. This creates one of 9 enneagram types and one of 27 trifixes or archetypes for each goblin that exists.
The second and third fix in our trifix are strategies we use when engaging with the respective center to ultimately please our core type’s needs.
Example: A 3w4 6w7 9w1 is a 369 archetype (The Chosen One), a core heart type that uses competency and adaptation to receive validation/admiration and uses 9ish strategies to assert boundaries and autonomy while engaging with fears and their head center in a 6ish way.
Check out our trifix names to get a feel for the gestalt of each archetype. If you book a typing with us, you will receive a personalized trifix cheat sheet.
HORNEVIAN GROUPS
Based on the psychoanalist’s work Karen Horney, the Enneagram is split into three Hornevian triads that depict how we move in relation to other people, get our needs meet and solve inner and outer conflicts.
ASSERTIVE: Enneagram 3,7,8
Assertive types go for what they want from life and move powerfully against obstacles set in their way. They take charge and make things happen, having a demanding streak based on an inner conviction that their demands are there to be met. All assertive types are structurally out of touch with their own heart and vulnerability. 7 and 8 being opposite from 3 in the symbol do a portion of what 3 is doing, making them assertive distortions of the original or foundational assertive type 3.
3s have assertive hearts that want attention and demand to be seen, expecting praise and being able to adapt their ways if they find their strategy not to be working, leading to great marketability and productiveness.
7s have assertive minds that actualize thoughts into deeds, entitlement to get what they want and quick orientation towards new goals if their nurturing juice is not to be found.
8s have assertive guts and demand their autonomy to be established through taking charge and being on top of threats to their boundaries.
COMPLIANT: Enneagram 1,2,6
Compliant types have superego which needs justification for their needs to be fulfilled, which leads them to doing what they think is best after examining a need under a moral lense. This leads to them feeling morally superior to others as they feel they are dedicated, responsible and committed to their promises. Every desire needs to be weighed against a greater good or consensus or feelings of guilt will haunt them. Relaxing is hard for compliant types. They are structurally out of touch with their thinking center which leads to a lack of inner guidance. 1s become their own parental guidance, 2s reject paternal guidance and overdo the nurturing guidance themselves, so types both do a portion of the original superego type 6 that is disconnected from both paternal and nurturing guidance at once - making 1s and 2s distortions of 6, funneled through their center lense.
1s embody god’s will and are identified with their high standards, seeking autonomy through doing what’s right which his determined on an intuitive gut knowing .
2s are self-rejecting and other-focused, denying their own needs and secretly expecting to be cared for in the same way they care for others.
6s seek security and support through following a rule based system and either identifying with it or going against it, making them tribalistic, hard-working types (earned support).
WITHDRAWN: Enneagram, 4,5,9
Withdrawn types move away from others and turn inwards to get their needs met. They have a disadvantage in asserting themselves and a sense of being different from others and not as functional in the outside world. Under stress, withdrawn types pull away from others and deal with the cause of the problem alone. This leads to a hurdle for their ideas to be born and actualized, as they can become trapped in an eternal spiral of endless research (5), refinement (4) and preparation (9). Withdrawn types are cut off from their gut power and have a hard time accessing their own force and vitality.
4s seek image validation but can’t receive it through others, so they withdraw from the superficial or ordinary to receive attention inside, making them self-creating.
5s seek security but can’t receive it in the outside world, so they withdraw into their own minds finding competency and solace there without having to get caught up in the messes that human emotions are to them.
9s seek autonomy but can’t assert their boundaries so they won’t be infringed upon, so they withdraw into their fantasies where they find a stable, harmonious haven, cutting off their own gut force and power.
HARMONIC TRIADS
Harmonic triads capture the coping mechanisms that each type uses when their needs are not being met, a strategy to carry themselves in conflict. What happens when we don’t get what we want? We become reactive and demand to be heard, paint everything in rose colors to placate the perceived problem or detangle our emotions from the issue to seek a competent solution.
REACTIVE: Enneagram 4,6,8
Reactive types are the assholes of the enneagram when triggered. Once a problem arises, they will get caught up in their emotional response to it and be unable to contain their feelings. They expect to be heard and want others to see the problem as they do, they don’t want a solution or comfort. They want you to poke your finger into their wound and see the ugly reality of whatever small issue may be bothering them.
4s are temperamental, negative and self-absorbed, amplifying inner negative states and declaring it as authenticity.
6s are outspoken and combative, reacting to threats of their belief system with long vents and mental spiraling .
8s are in denial of their own vulnerability, making them forceful, defiant and acton-oriented, specifically in regards to boundary infringements.
POSITIVE: Enneagram 2,7,9
Positive types aren’t necessarily always upbeat and happy, especially 9s are often dark and somber. But when faced with conflict or having their needs denied, positive types have a habitual emphasis to focus on the bright side of things and minimize or neglect the problem.
2s positively reframe their own good intentions, making them blind to their negative impact since they are inherently good - that is their ego trap that comes with rejecting the bad parts of themselves, fully believing that they hold the power to make everything better.
7s flee into the future, glorifying it to be better than what brings them pain now, distract themselves or spice up the boringness with fun and chaos, always focused on the next big thing, not allowing to slow down and experience the suffering.
9s are neutralizing for inner balance, brushing over the negative and pulling down the positive to some middle ground of harmony, putting themselves in relation to the big whole and the entire universe so their problem becomes smaller and does not matter in context anymore .
COMPETENCY: Enneagram 1,3,5
Competency types try to detach themselves from their emotions when being faced with messes. They go into problem-solving mode and suppress their heart’s response, making themselves cold and neutral in the process. They like to see themselves as rational and measured.
1s withstand a lot of their gut impulses and self-righteously act on others, creating a rigid persona that is unyielding to the other’s position, not realizing that they act on impulses and gut sensing themselves which makes them irrational to others .
3s are out of touch with their own hearts, sacrificing true feeling for productivity and success, leaving them hollow in the process and detached from their actual wants and beliefs, ignoring that they are in fact a pure heart type.
5s seek knowledge through objectivity, not realizing how emotionally fueled their ideas actually are as they think their emotions, closing themselves off to the external world and resurfacing only with insight.
