What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a powerful and transformative framework for understanding yourself and others. At its core, it’s a personality typing system that identifies nine distinct personality types, each shaped by a core motivation, fear, and strategy for navigating the world. But unlike other typing systems, the Enneagram doesn’t put you in a box—it shows you the box you’re already in, and more importantly, it helps you get out of it.
Each of us carries aspects of all nine types, but we tend to gravitate toward one primary type early in life. This type becomes a lens through which we see the world and a strategy we subconsciously use to feel safe, accepted, or in control. Over time, this lens becomes so familiar that we often can’t see it at all—like a fish unaware of the water it’s swimming in. The Enneagram brings those automatic thought and behavior patterns to light so you can respond with more awareness, intention, and freedom.
What makes the Enneagram so unique is that it’s not static—it reflects the complex, evolving nature of being human. It is a dynamic map of personal growth, showing not just who you are today, but how you operate under stress, how you show up when you're thriving, and how to move toward greater balance and wholeness. Whether you're looking to overcome a challenge, achieve a goal, or simply grow in self-awareness, the Enneagram provides a compassionate and practical roadmap for transformation.
A Deeper Look at the Symbol & System
At the heart of the Enneagram system is the Enneagram symbol—a nine-pointed star inscribed within a circle. This ancient geometric figure is more than just a diagram; it’s a systematic roadmap for development that reflects the interconnection between all nine personality types. The lines that connect the types in the symbol are not random—they represent the natural movements of your personality in both growth and stress. In this way, the Enneagram doesn’t just tell you who you are—it shows you where you go, and the order in which to bring awareness to those shifts for meaningful inner work.
Centers of Intelligence
Body
Heart
Head
Each of the nine types belongs to one of three Centers of Intelligence—the Body, Heart, or Head- which reflects how we primarily experience the world and make decisions. These centers provide a valuable first lens to understanding not only your Enneagram type, but how you relate to your emotions, intuition, and thoughts. At FourEvergreen, we can use your center of intelligence wisdom for guidance in evaluating your four pillars of wellness.
Instincts
Each type is further divided into three instinctual variations, based on the dominant influence of one of the three basic human instincts: self preservation, social, one-to-one.
Self Preservation
Social
One-to-One
The nine types combined with the influence of instinct, create 27 subtype profile combinations. These 27 subtypes offer a nuanced and highly accurate picture of personality—capturing the subtle differences between people of the same type and explaining why two people with the same core type can look and behave quite differently.
At FourEvergreen Wellness, we integrate the Enneagram into our coaching process to help clients build deeper self-awareness and provide a personalized roadmap to transformation. To learn more about how this works in practice, visit our Wellness Coaching page.
A Note on Our Enneagram Perspective
As the Enneagram has grown in popularity, many gifted teachers have brought unique perspectives to its wisdom. At FourEvergreen Wellness, we honor the tradition of the original teachings rooted in the work of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, and we continue to study under respected modern voices such as Beatrice Chestnut, Uranio Paes, Richard Rohr, and Ian Cron. Our training comes through the Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy, accredited by the International Enneagram Association.