(Episode 55) What's Your Enneagram Personality Type? A Tool for Personal & Collective Transformation with Hemla Makan-Dullabh


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In this episode, Hemla Makan Dullabh joins us once again (she talked about the healing power of colors in episode 41), this time to take us on a tour of the nine different Enneagram Types.

You’ll find a summary of the episode below and can find the full transcript by clicking here.

About Hemla

Hemla is a Transformation Catalyst based in Los Altos, CA. She founded Seven Rays Holistic Center over twenty years ago. Hemla has a background as an artist, teacher and she is a mother of two boys. Her work focuses on Awakening the Power within. Hemla helps people engage with their own inner healer. She is a guide and teacher, blending various modalities together to help people connect with their whole being. As a transformation catalyst, Hemla uses the three-centered approach. We have three centers of intelligence including body, mind and heart. Engaging in the three centers is essential to bring wholeness and wellness to our human BEing. Hemla works with both groups and individuals, and offers classes for communities and corporate groups. Her passion for color therapy is incorporated in all the modalities she offers.

What is the Enneagram System?

The Enneagram system is dynamic, alive & constantly evolving.

Family constellations work intersects with the Enneagrams. Type structure gives a layer of information to help describe a personality type.

Enneagrams provide us with a tool for understanding, and can be used for both personal and collective transformation. 

As Hemla beautifully shares, “Enneagrams are like a Spiritual Road Map to better understand oneself and others.”

Enneagrams can show what causes us to be triggered and what triggers others.

They reflect our personality, but this isn’t really who we really are. Within, your true being or true nature is who you really are. Your essence is who you are. We’re all trying to get back to that center of who we are.


Unveiling Your True Being

Our society, culture, upbringing, etc. have all layered on top of our true inner beings, and these layers take away from the truth of our being.

What makes us tic and react? Understanding this can help you grow and heal. With this awareness, we can bring change. Then the question becomes, what would you like to do with that awareness?

Enneagrams don't favor one center of intelligence. We are mentally thoughtful, heart-based and body-based. When all three centers are working together and we work with them, we can really be present in our human being and we can react from there. The idea is to bring all three centers on board.

Our work is to wake up to ourselves and to others (after our inner beings have been asleep).

Enneagrams give us an overview. You can search for clues online about your type, but it’s more effective to have a Typing interview with a trained Enneagram Practitioner who will take you through a long process, asking deeper questions. Often two numbers come up during this process. Without putting ourselves into a box, these numbers can help us to understand ourselves better.

Though the basis of the Enneagram System is Nine Personality Types, this is just the first layer of a multilayered system. Underneath is a psychological roadmap and even deeper is a spiritual roadmap.

We need to know what’s going on in the mind, with our fixations, and with our emotions, through our passions.

Observing these layers takes time and engagement, but we can work with them to understand our true nature.

There are three Enneagram subtypes, each of which find balance through a centering practice that will always be opposite what’s most comfortable for these types:

  1. Head types tend to get stuck in thought and mental rumination, so their centering practice is to be more in silence.

  2. Body types tend to move a lot, so their centering practice is stillness.

  3. Heart types need connection with others, which can make them lose connection with themselves, so their centering practice would be solitude.

The Enneatypes cultivation is to go into a place of discomfort, which is the space in which we all grow.

Spiritual growth never comes from a place of comfort, it is always from a place of discomfort.

It’s not about fixing or changing something, it’s about recognizing something through observation and knowing what to do with it. 

Being present to what’s there, examine, listen in (instead of trying to fix it) -- these are all what the Enneagram is about, and that’s the change or transformation that happens.

As Salvador says, “let change evolve” as a natural process.


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A Tour of The Nine Enneagram Types:

Enneagram Type 1- Perfectionists/Reformers/Teachers - creating a perfect world, perfecting themselves and  others. All about their Sense of control for what they perceive to be perfect. To get that perfection. 

Challenge: sense of something wrong or not quite right. Finding errors.

Enneagram Type 2- Givers/Helpers - go out of their way to help others and do for others as a way of expressing care nurturing or love.

Challenge: lose connection with themselves and their own needs because they’re always outwardly focused.

Eanneagram Type 3- Performer/Achiever - Going, doing, achieving. Always striving for success, setting and reaching goals

Challenge: Lose touch with what they need inside themselves.

Enneagram Type 4- Individualists/Romantics - Want to have a different unique point of view, they don’t want to fit into what’s already there, they want to create a different structure or way of seeing and doing things.

Challenge: Sometimes that search for something different can take them away from the fact that there is already something complete and whole inside of themselves (as they’re always looking for something that’s missing).

Enneagram Type 5 - Observers/Investigators - like to observe and investigate from the outside before they can commit to or be involved in things. They love to absorb knowledge around areas they have deep interest in. Very cerebral. 

Challenge: Can often detach from emotions because their minds are so incredibly active. Guarded about people wanting their time and space. Observation before engagement.


Enneagram Type 6- Loyalists/Skeptics - Driven by need for safety and security. So they will want to observe and see if they’re safe, okay or not in any particular environment. Great at mitigating risks.

Challenge: Lots of doubt as trying to figure out right from wrong. 

Enneagram Type 7 - Epicure/Adventurer/Enthusiast -  Want freedom, want to be out there exploring. They don’t like it when options to try new things are taken away. Need freedom to explore different options.

Challenge: Very future-driven. Always planning. Don't like to be contained in any way.

Enneagram Type 8 - Boss/Protector - They look for a sense of justice and truth. Often protecting the underdog. Very black or white thinking. Clear idea of this or that, true and just.

Challenge: Don’t show vulnerability very easily

Eneagram Type 9 - Mediator/Peacemaker - Always wanting to keep peace. Avoid conflict at all costs.

Challenge: Don’t express their own point of view or opinion in order not to cause conflict. Often go with what everyone else wants in order to keep the peace. They go along to get along.

Enneagram Triads — Body, Heart and Mind:

Enneagram Types 1, 8 & 9 - Body Triad - What they feel and sense in their body. The common emotion is anger, though, as Hemla explains in the episode, each expresses it in different ways.

Enneagram Types 2, 3 & 4 -  Heart triad - Connection, feeling things and emotions. The common emotion is sadness or grief though, as Hemla explains in the episode, each expresses it in different ways.

Enneagram Types 5, 6 & 7 - Mind (Head) Triad - Mental cerebral work and action gets done. The common emotion is fear though, as Hemla explains in the episode, each expresses it in different ways.

Shadow and Light of Each Enneagram Type

Each Enneagram Type has a passion, which is the more surface personality, as well as a virtue, which reflects what the Inner Being needs.

Enneagram Type 1 - Tend to repress their anger, their virtue is serenity.

Enneagram Type 2 - Pride in doing for others, with expectations (everything hangs on how others react) Their virtue is humility.

Enneagram Type 3 - Appearance to the outside world. Have to constantly keep up this image. Always trying to prove themselves worthy to others and to themselves. Their virtue is honesty. (ie being able to take time out)

Enneagram Type4 - Envy is their passion. Consciously and unconsciously comparing themselves to others. Virtue is equanimity. There is space for everything in the universe. Nothing is missing. Everything is in perfect harmony or balance.

Enneagram Type 5- Avarice or extreme greed is their passion. An intense desire to guard everything that relates to themselves. Automatically detach from feelings because they’re afraid if they give too much there will be nothing left for them inside. Their virtue is about non-attachment and generosity. Trust there will always be enough. The universe will always provide

Enneagram Type 6 - Passion is doubt. Seeking security push against themselves. Virtue is to step into courage. 

Enneagram Type 7 - Passion is gluttony. Total Excess. Taking away their freedoms is like a death sentence. Starting things without finishing .Virtue is sobriety. Knowing possibilities are out there, but being okay with just one or two options.

Enneagram Type 8 - Passion is vengeance. Right vs. wrong. Can project anger and intimidation in order to seek control. Virtue is Truth. Everything is already in balance in the Universe, they don’t have to fight so hard for the control that they feel they need to seek, which leads to vulnerability.

Enneagram Type 9 - Passion is inattention to self. They can be so outwardly focused that they fall asleep to their own needs and forget to fill their own cup, which leads to self-neglect. The virtue for them is right action -- staying present to what their needs are in the moment.

Conclusion

One thing to remember is that we’re all composed of all nine Enneagram Types.

The deeper you go into personality types, the more you realize our complexity as humans. There’s always more to learn.

It’s also possible to overlap the systems, including the Five Element System, The Enneagram Types, and even Nine Star Ki, a system Salvador is currently working on in an upcoming book.

There is also some overlap with Numerology and Enneagram Types.

Hemla provides a much more in-depth understanding of each of the Nine Enneagram Types and their nuances throughout the episode.

We’d love to hear your thoughts – scroll down to the comments and let us know, what inspired you most about this episode?

Resources Mentioned This Episode

To contact Hemla Makan Dullabh, you can visit her website here.

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Ready to live the life you’ve always wanted? Click here to get Dr. Setareh’s FREE audio guide to learn how to attract endless possibilities into your life.

Click here to listen to Hemla’s episode on Color Therapy in episode #41 of The Natural Healing Podcast.


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