How the Enneagram Helped Me Understand Myself (Eventually)

You ever feel like your personality doesn’t quite make sense, like it was cobbled together out of parts that weren’t meant to go in the same machine? That was me. I had all these reactions and patterns I couldn’t explain. I’d swing between feeling like I was too quiet or too much, too stubborn or too flaky. It felt like I was playing a character I didn’t remember auditioning for.

Then someone mentioned the Enneagram. I rolled my eyes. Another personality test? Great. Just what I needed. More bloody labels. But I was curious enough to give it a look anyway, and something clicked. It wasn’t just about traits, it was about motivation. It helped me understand why I kept ending up in the same situations, making the same mistakes, feeling stuck in the same emotional loops. It gave me language for things I’d only ever felt as background static.

This post isn’t here to explain all nine types or help you figure out your number. It’s just me sharing how the Enneagram helped me understand myself. How it gave me a way to name the weirdness. And how it’s still something I turn to when I need to remember who the hell I actually am.

How I Found the Enneagram

It Landed Right in the Middle of Deconstruction

I first stumbled across the Enneagram while I was deep in my deconstruction journey. I hadn’t left the church yet, but the cracks were showing. I was starting to question everything I used to believe and wondering who I was beneath all the religious scaffolding.

The Enneagram kept surfacing. People I respected were talking about it: Rob Bell, Richard Rohr, and folks at church who were also tugging at the same threads. The Liturgists podcast did an episode that caught my attention and made me take it seriously. It didn’t feel like another belief system. It felt like a tool that helped you ask better questions.

I Typed as a Type Six, and It Made Sense at the Time

When I first did the tests, the results were a mix: Type Six, Type Four, and Type Nine. Often, Nine came out strongest. But when I read the descriptions, Type Six made way more sense. I was anxious, hypervigilant, constantly scanning for danger. It fit how I was feeling in the middle of all that spiritual unraveling.

Six helped me feel seen. It captured the sense of needing certainty, needing support, fearing the worst. I latched onto it, not because it described who I had always been, but because it described who I was right then: scared, overwhelmed, and desperately trying to hold things together.

I Clung to It Because I Needed Something

At that time in my life, everything was falling apart. My faith, my community, my identity. I was grasping for anything that offered a sense of structure or clarity. The Enneagram felt like a lifeline.

I couldn’t connect to the version of myself I used to be. All I could see was who I was in that moment: stuck in survival mode. Six helped me make sense of that version of me. Even if, deep down, it wasn’t the full story.

My Understanding of the Enneagram (and Myself) Changed

Why Six Started to Feel Wrong

Eventually, the dust settled. I wasn’t in panic mode 24/7. And when I revisited the Enneagram with a bit more breathing room, something started to feel off. I couldn’t relate to the growth path for Six. I didn’t feel motivated by the same fears or pulled towards the same patterns.

I started wondering if I’d typed myself based on how I was coping, not who I actually was underneath the coping. I’d answered every test from a place of stress and trauma. That’s the version of myself I was looking at. It made sense that I’d landed on a type rooted in fear.

Looking Back, Nine Had Always Been There

When I looked back at my life before everything unravelled, Nine was everywhere. The constant drive for peace. The need to sidestep conflict. The habit of blending in with the people around me so much that I lost sight of who I actually was. It had always been there, even if I couldn’t see it at the time.

I used to listen to Mike McHargue (aka Science Mike) and resonate with how he talked about being a Nine. At the time I thought, “God, I wish I was like that.” But it wasn’t aspiration. It was recognition. I just didn’t have the clarity to see it yet.

Realising I was a Nine didn’t shrink my understanding of myself. It expanded it. It explained how I’d coped, how I’d shut down, and how I’d disappeared from my own life. But it also showed me the path back.

The System Made More Sense When I Zoomed Out

Once I stepped back and looked at the whole picture, the Enneagram stopped feeling like a test result and started feeling like a map. I could see where I moved in stress. I could see the parts of me that had shown up when I was struggling. I could see the healthier patterns that had always been there underneath.

I wasn’t wrong to resonate with Six, or even with traits of Three when I was burnt out and performing. But Nine was my centre of gravity. The place I returned to. The place I forgot about when I was spiralling.

The Patterns That Keep Pulling Me Off Centre

The Fear Spiral

If you’re not familiar with it, the Enneagram includes something called the Levels of Development. These levels describe how each type shows up when we’re at our best, coasting along averagely, or stuck in the mud of our worst habits. For Type Nine, descending those levels doesn’t look dramatic. It looks like disappearing. Fading out of your own life, slowly and silently.

When I’m in a healthy place as a Nine, I feel grounded. Present. In my body. I’m connected to what I want and what I feel, and I show up with intention. But when that starts to slip? It’s never a crash. It’s a slow vanishing act. I stop checking in with myself. I start saying “it’s fine” when it isn’t. I avoid the awkward conversations. I lose track of what I even wanted in the first place.

I blend in. I nod along. I stay quiet. I don’t rock the boat. And at first, people think I’m just laid-back or easygoing. But what they don’t see is that I’m shutting down. Bit by bit, I disappear. First emotionally. Then energetically. Then it’s like I’m not really there at all.

And here’s the wild thing: most of the time, I don’t even notice it happening. Until I feel this low-key irritation bubbling up. I start snapping at things that wouldn’t usually bother me. I feel exhausted but can’t explain why. I’m in the room, but I’m not in the moment. I’m floating through it.

That’s the descent through the Levels of Development for a Nine. It’s not a tantrum or a crisis. It’s a quiet, habitual retreat. One tiny “I’ll let that slide” at a time. One ignored feeling after another. Until I’m so far from myself, I can’t even remember what it feels like to be present.

How the Enneagram Helped Me Understand Myself

When I lose connection to myself, I shut down. I stop advocating for myself. I stop asserting myself. I go into autopilot and just exist. I check out because I don’t want to affect anything, and I don’t want to be affected by anything. I just want to stay neutral. Unbothered. Invisible.

But that kind of neutrality doesn’t last. It builds. It simmers. And eventually it cracks. I’ve seen it happen in jobs where I was just trying to keep the peace. Every shift felt like a threat to that peace, and eventually the pressure built until I couldn’t cope anymore. I left that job feeling like I’d walked out of the wreckage of my own silence.

I’ve felt it in my gender journey too. Instead of engaging with what I feel, I ignore it. I try to coast. But it always catches up. That avoidance turns into resentment. And that resentment comes out sideways: snappy comments, sudden withdrawal, or me just flat-out losing it over something tiny.

What I’ve realised is that these coping mechanisms aren’t inherently bad. Wanting harmony isn’t a flaw. But relying on harmony to function? That’s where it becomes a trap. I have to keep reminding myself that I can assert myself. That I don’t have to disappear in order to be safe. That my truest self isn’t the one who vanishes. It’s the one who stays present. Who speaks up. Who trusts that peace built on honesty is worth more than silence masquerading as serenity.

What I’ve Learned from Naming It

The Levels of Development from Riso and Hudson helped me name what was happening. They describe how each Enneagram type changes when they’re doing well, just getting by, or falling apart. And for Type Nine, that descent is subtle. It’s not dramatic. It’s gradual disconnection.

Reading those levels was like reading my own diary in third person. I could see myself at each stage. I could see where I’d been, where I was headed, and what it looked like when I was trying to claw my way back. That structure gave me something solid to hold onto.

Just being able to say, “Oh, this is what’s happening” has helped me interrupt the spiral. It doesn’t always fix it. But it gives me a way to re-enter. To check back in. To remember that vanishing might feel safer, but it’s not actually peace.

Being a Nine in the Real World

Peace at Any Cost

I’ve abandoned my own needs more times than I can count, just to keep things calm. At work, in friendships, in community spaces, I’ve swallowed frustration, agreed to things I didn’t want, said yes when every part of me was screaming no. Not because I thought it was noble, but because conflict felt unbearable.

For most of my life, I didn’t even realise I was doing it. It didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like survival. Like the only way to feel okay was to make everything else okay first. So I’d retreat. I’d keep the peace. I’d go along with things to avoid the awkwardness of saying what I really thought.

But that harmony always comes at a cost. Every time I disappeared to keep the peace, I chipped away at my connection to myself. And eventually, it showed. In burnout. In resentment. In those moments where I’d suddenly snap or shut down completely. It always caught up with me.

What I’m learning is that harmony isn’t the problem. It’s beautiful. It’s something I genuinely value. But when my sense of stability depends on things being calm around me, I start to disappear. I stop showing up. And that’s not real harmony. That’s avoidance dressed up as serenity.

Now, I try to notice the difference. To ask myself whether I’m choosing peace, or just ducking out. Because the truth is, the real cost of peace at any price is losing touch with the person I’m meant to be.

Sloth Isn’t Laziness. It’s Disconnection

Nine is often associated with sloth, but not in the way most people think. It’s not about being lazy. It’s about numbing out. Shutting down. Losing presence. And weirdly, that kind of disconnection can look really productive from the outside.

For me, sloth isn’t always about inaction. Sometimes it’s the total opposite. I can be deep-cleaning the kitchen, ticking off to-do lists, watching documentaries that make me feel productive and clever. From the outside, I probably look like I’m thriving. But inside? I’m completely checked out. I’m not engaging with what I feel or need. It’s like there’s a fog that rolls in and dulls everything. There’s a voice in the back of my mind whispering, “don’t look too closely.”

I’ve had whole days where I’ve been relentlessly productive, only to end the day feeling hollow. Not because I didn’t rest, but because I wasn’t really there. I was going through the motions, staying busy so I wouldn’t have to feel anything too uncomfortable. That’s what sloth can look like for me: not laziness, but disconnection masquerading as competence.

And then there are the other days. The ones where I am on the sofa doing nothing. Not because I’m lazy, but because I’ve hit the limit. Because I’ve spent so long exerting myself emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, that my whole system demands rest. Not the nourishing kind, but the shutdown kind. I’ve learned to notice the difference between intentional rest and the kind that’s really just escape.

The more I push through without connecting, the harder it gets to return. Sloth, in this sense, is like a slow fading away from my own centre. The longer I stay there, the more likely I am to spiral. So now, when I notice it creeping in, I try to get curious. I ask myself what I’m avoiding. I try to name the fog. Not so I can fix it straight away, but so I can find my way back.

Trying to Stay Present

The work for me is staying awake to myself. Staying present. Actually showing up. Saying what I want, rather than what I think will keep the peace. Which sounds easy in theory, but in practice it’s some of the most uncomfortable, itchy, soul-exposing stuff I’ve ever had to do.

I have to keep reminding myself that presence isn’t about perfection. It’s about noticing when I start to check out. Noticing when I’m disappearing again. When I’m saying “it’s fine” but it isn’t. When I’m holding my tongue not because I’m wise but because I’m scared.

Tarot helps. It gives me a mirror. Meditation, too. Journalling. Movement. Conversations where I let myself be messy, instead of polished and pleasing. It’s all practice. Every time I do it, I come back to myself a little more.

And this is what pulls me back up the Levels of Development when I start slipping. These small, brave moments of honesty. Of connection. Of choosing presence over comfort.

Because disappearing might feel easier, but it always costs me something. Showing up is harder, but it’s where the real peace lives.

The Enneagram and the People Around Me

It Wasn’t Meant to Be a Thing, But It Became One

I never set out to talk about the Enneagram with friends. But I’m me, so of course I did. It would come up in conversation, and someone would get curious, and next thing you know I’m pulling out a notebook or sending them a link.

More often than not, I was raving about it. I was fascinated, and I’d talk to anyone who’d listen. I’d start figuring out their type, talking their ear off, getting excited. I remember once I was in the middle of explaining someone’s likely type, absolutely buzzing about it, when someone else leaned across the table and said, “Wait, do me next!” because it sounded genuinely interesting.

Then someone else chimed in, “That sounds like my partner,” and before I knew it, we were knee-deep in a table-wide conversation about fears, fixations, and childhood coping strategies over pints. Somehow it always snowballed into that. It was like I’d cracked open a door and everyone else wanted to peek inside too.

It Stuck Because It Made Sense

I wasn’t trying to type anyone. We were just talking. Exploring the patterns. Trying things on for size. Sometimes it clicked immediately. Other times it was a longer process. But it always led to interesting conversations.

There was no “aha moment” where I became an expert. It just kept showing up. And the more I talked about it, the more I realised other people were finding it helpful too.

Why I Still Bring It Up

The Enneagram is something I return to again and again. It’s helped me, and I’ve seen it unlock something powerful for other people too. So when it fits, I bring it into the conversation, because sometimes it’s exactly the kind of insight someone’s been needing.

It’s not about putting people in boxes. It’s about finding language for what we already feel but struggle to name. It helps us notice the stuff that often stays just beneath the surface: the quiet motivations, the fears we didn’t realise were driving us, the ways we learned to cope that we’ve never had words for.

Still Here, Still Learning

The Enneagram isn’t something I think about every day. I don’t have my type tattooed on my arm. I’m not reading every new book or keeping up with every meme page.

But I circle back to it. When I’m stuck. When I’m stressed. When I’m trying to figure out why I’m spiralling or avoiding or going quiet again.

It’s not a fix. It’s a flashlight. It doesn’t tell me who I am. But it helps me notice when I’ve drifted away from myself.

If you’re curious about how the Enneagram might help you spot your patterns, understand your stuck points, or just figure out what the hell is going on inside you, book a discovery call with me. Let’s see where the conversation takes us.