Roles and Identities / The Enneagram
	At various times in my life I've identified myself as a poet, writer, mountain climber, runner, bicycle racer, amateur astronomer, artist, electronic music composer, son, lover, single person, god father, step father and husband. I've also identified myself to varying degrees with a large number of jobs or functions, including: student, farm laborer, gardener, painter, roofer, machinist, book and movie reviewer, poetry collection curator, bicycle courier, advertising copy writer, freelance writer/editor/designer, documentation specialist, technical writer, financial analyst, project planner, project coordinator, project manager, and web page developer. I've even slid into the habit of thinking that some of these roles were partly who I "was." But the funny thing about all of these identifications and roles is that each one of them involves its own belief system and way of looking at the world (some of them radically different from one another); many of which I've since left behind. Since there's no way I can leave myself behind, these belief systems can't be who I am. The Fourth Way schools teach that we have Multiple "I"s from the intellectual, emotional, moving, and instinctive centers of our being that must work together harmoniously for us to be fully conscious. Some of them can get together and agree to do something that another "I" disagrees with, causing mixed feelings, confusion, conflict, or paralysis. Other schools teach that we "cathect" our parents, significant others, roles, and even behaviors and create self images--ideas about who we are--that fit with our personalities. Am I a chorus of "I"s and self images then? And if there's an awareness that's different from all of these ideas, who or what is that awareness? One of my more negative self-images has been that of a "stutterer." It's taken years for me to figure out that I'm just a person--not a "stutterer" or really even a "person who stutters." I recently completed studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder Campus, where I earned a Masters Degree in Speech-Language Pathology in the department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Science. In adjusting to this career change, it's been amusing to see the tendency of my personality to take on yet another self-limiting role as its own identity. I've explored the question of identity and stuttering on my Veils of Stuttering site.
The Enneagram	A somewhat facile admonition I hear from time to time is: "Your task is to find out who you are and to be that." This is a good description of the process. But it's not an easy thing to do if one's identity is wrapped up in a role, because there are so many of these. In fact, the best thing about this admonition is that it encourages people to focus on more fundamental questions. A good place to start is to examine and understand the strategies of one's personality. This is said to be the most difficult task that a human being can undertake. I've identified my personality type as a "nine" or Mediator (with a "one" wing) on the Enneagram, a personality dynamics system that has helped me learn a lot about myself and my self images. But what a study of the Enneagram reveals is that we are not really who we have created our "selves" to be. The nine personality types or "fixations" are said to be strategies each of us developed to get love, approval and attention from our caregivers. And one reason we created these personalities in the first place is that we didn't feel accepted for what we were. What's your fix? It'll show you who you aren't. But finding out who you are is a bit more difficult. I can return to the essential qualities I exhibited as a young child by following the Enneagram's interlaced lines back to my "Heart Space" (for me, the "three" or Performer.) But we are all much more than our fixation or our Heart Space. We are really capable of developing in ourselves the positive aspects of all the points on the Enneagram. And then we will find that we're not a "this" or "that." We are really something else. And I've found that the Enneagram is not an easy way to discover even my limited ego identity. For example, I've been vacillating for some time about my own fixation. Sometimes I think I might be a "one" (reformer or perfectionist) instead of a "nine." Sometimes I think I'm a "three" (performer). Other times I think I'm a "four" (Romantic.) There are sure a lot of "fours" with home pages! (By the way, this vacillation from point to point is apparently typical of "nines.") To read my article on the application of the Enneagram to speech therapy (which includes a brief introduction to the Enneagram), go to the Library. The TelosNet Enneagram Links page is a good place to begin an exploration of the Enneagram on the Internet. Check out Dave's Enneagram page. He's compiling a list of home pages of people of the various fixations. If he keeps this up, the Web will provide virtual Enneagram panels on the nine points. Such panels have always been the best way to start recognizing your own fixation. Another valuable place is the Enneagram resource list of an Enneagram teacher in the Seattle area. There are some other links to Enneagram resources on the Web in the OmegaViews section of TelosNet. The Enneagram is used by the Ridhwan school in its spiritual growth work as a tool to understand the dynamics of personality. I think the most important caution I've learned in my work with the Enneagram is that it's a map that I shouldn't confuse with the territory to which it refers. A secondary caution is that the Enneagram system is seductive. I find it all too easy to begin to indulge in useless and probably misleading speculation about what "Point" my friends and family members are.
The Problem of Projection	A major trap of the self examination that's required to figure out who you "are" is narcissism. We're all narcissistic to one degree or another, however, in that we need to have ourselves acknowledged and mirrored back by others. And self-criticism for this can quickly shade into super-ego bashing, which is narcissistic by definition. Narcissism is really projecting the qualities of the self onto others--and even the universe. But if there's a clean spark of sincerity in self-inquiry, this can help burn through those projected self-images. Finding out who we "are" is really essential to finding out what we're projecting, so we can inquire into and start metabolizing those images. The seeming contradiction--that we should examine ourselves to become free of ourselves--is indicative of the difficulties. There's a wonderful Sufi story called The Land of Truth about the perils of "truth-seeking" that I've put in the Library here on my Web site.
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