The Enneagram is a profound tool for this journey. Its purpose is to help expose the false beliefs you have developed about yourself since early childhood. It shows us how the demands of the “real” adult world began to overwrite the vivid imagination and intuition of our youth.

The Enneagram states that there are nine different types across three different centres. The “Head”, the “Heart” and the “Gut” and each of us falls into one distinct or dominant type.

There are no good or bad types in the Enneagram. All of the numbers from 1 to 9 have great redeeming features along with some compulsions too. These compulsions are where we step out of our true selves and enter the false egoic realm that has built a protective shell around us. Sounds great but that so called protection has stopped us from living our lives to the fullest. The ego is not necessarily a bad thing – in fact it’s quite the opposite but as the old adage goes – It’s a wonderful servant but a very poor master. So cultivating a healthy ego is so much part of our work. To help ourselves, others and indeed the entire world.

So, when we are controlled by the ego we are living out of our false selves and life can be quite unreal and troublesome and we can feel very disconnected. But when we control the ego, we are stepping up into our true selves and we come to see ourselves as we really are – warts and all. And we can then own our own shortcomings and with this new awareness we can begin the path of healing and step more fully into our true and beautiful self.

Acknowledging our compulsions as we all have them can be uncomfortable or even disturbing but taking on this work can truly liberate us from that critical, never changing pattern that keeps us down. So take the plunge and take courage. We will all hold each other as we venture on this quest.