Often when I’m talking about the Enneagram, people get worried that discovering their personality “type” is going to put a label on them.
We tend to resent being labelled, but we label ourselves all the time: conservative/liberal, gay/straight, old/young, extrovert/introvert. Some of our labels are factual, some are a question of degree, some are more important than others. Some may not even be true. None of them give the complete story of who we are.
So what use are they?
I recently took the Myers Briggs typology test again. (I used this site, which is fully accredited by the Myers & Briggs Foundation. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the MBTI measures where we focus, how we deal with information, how we make decisions, and the structure we prefer to use in dealing with the outside world.) I’ve taken this test before, but always in a business context, and this time I actually answered all the questions truthfully, rather than how I thought I should answer.
My new results (INFP) aren’t really the point, although it was a real ‘aha’ moment for me. What is important is that all these personality systems and tests are just a parlour game unless we make use of them.
I believe the work of our lives is twofold: doing and being.
And like the eagle, we must circle closer and closer to who we really are, because the two are intimately linked. If we don’t know ourselves, we won’t know what we are really meant to do.
Ayn Rand once said:
To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I.’
That’s why I believe so strongly that structured ways of looking at personality, such as Enneagram and MBTI are really helpful, and that these “labels” are to be worked with in reflection, exercises, prayer and observation, not just left as a brief moment of illumination.
What are your experiences of helpful labels?
Image by playingwithbrushes
Elsewhere:
Claire writes about coming home to herself here, and Lucy talks here about the different parts of the song that make up the whole.
And happy 4th tomorrow to all my American friends!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
you’re so right Tess, knowing our personality type has limited value if it’s only an aha moment and consequent saying, “I’m a . . .”
it’s the working it, the being it, doing it,
perhaps the reason we hate being labelled is that it feels confining, restricting, reducing
having an understanding of ourselves should help enlarge our life, and consequently the lives of those around us
labels are helpful when they allow us to expand our understanding, of ourselves and others
Thanks Kel, you add a useful point about expanding our understanding of others – it can be really quite freeing to realise someone isn’t being deliberately difficult, they just see things differently.
I guess where I’ve struggled with the ‘labels’ issue is with diagnosis. Is it helpful to diagnose a mental illness, or does it put you in a straight-jacket (maybe literally)? A lot of people have had the experience of being labeled as some disorder or other and then kind of dismissed or left with that for life. As in – ‘you’re bipolar, now take these meds and be quiet’.
On the other hand, I’ve personally had the experience of being glad to know what is troubling me, so I could do something about it, such as seek out specialized treatments. The label can go both ways – it can help you seek out what you need, or it can serve to keep you down.
I think a label is a tool – a lot depends on what use is made of it. As you say.
There is, for example, the Tess or the Kigen — what those names refer to is rooted in so unfathomable a mystery of being we can offer no description. All we can do is experience a glimmer of the phenomenon, and all other attempts to isolate the labeling, whether by ourselves or others, are meaningless.
@Ellen, I think this is an important point about the labels of illness that should be only a starting point but often are not. And roles – am I myself, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, my role at work? Do these prevent me reaching my full potential as my self?
@kigen, fascinating you should make this point about names because I recently seriously considered changing mine – I’ve never liked it. But then I realised whatever name we have is only a label and essentially meaningless.
Hi Tess,
Have been thinking about taking a new reading on MB lately and you’ve reminded me again. My spouse is qualified to give and grade them and I keep thinking I’d like to “reread me” again.
Labels – you’re right, they do seem unavoidable. I try to ditch the ones that are lousy (the ones in my head occasionally) and cling to those good solid ones that build up rather than reduce one’s own worth. I sat in on a workshop discussion re Enneagrams one day but never went farther than a surface knowledge of the practice. I will say knowing that you’re a proponent of them makes me more interested then the day of workshop did. I think personality assessments, MB, E, etc. are very useful in self-discovery and are useful tools to build up both one’s strengths and to heal those places we feel need a good strong band-aid OR even surgery:)
xo
Thanks, SS, I hope you find it helpful if you do retake the MB. I think the Enneagram is a little more difficult to get your head around on a superficial level, and the different approaches teachers/writers take inevitably suit some characters more than others. There’s one very well respected Enneagram teacher, for example, called Helen Palmer, whose written approach I simply cannot connect with, although I know others who are total fans.
Where MB manifests mostly around preferences and actual behaviour, Enneagram explores motivation and defence mechanisms. So two people may behave in similar ways but for very different reasons. Also, although there are good online Enneagram tests, they are not definitive in the same way that MBTI is. You tend to come out with two or three Enneagram types that may be you, and it is then a process of discernment and self-exploration, ideally with a teacher, to find your “space”.
Tess!
A label tells me what it’s made of, where it’s made, and how to care for it. A label helps me preserve what I have, helps me work with what I have more effectively. I think that’s a metaphor for the sorts of labels you’re speaking of. Labels don’t define us, only tell ourselves and others how we process stuff.
It helped me very much to discover my ‘type’ about twenty years ago. I was then an ENFP. I waver now between E and I. I remember I had no S in me…
Those were the days when I was really trying to understand myself — to build myself nearly. It also helped me understand others, or see why it was more difficult to get along with some.
I have tried to take an enneagram test on my own and have never been able to find what I was… So I gave up.
Today, the ‘label’ still gives an idea of the sort of person one is, all being ‘gifts differing.’ I realize how hard it is to be different in a family, when everyone is a similar sort of person and someone differs in so many ways…
@Roxanne, that is a brilliant metaphor, I’m feeling a little envious that I didn’t think of it myself!!
@Claire, I wavered between E and I for a long time, and they are still quite close, like you, very little S. It can be difficult to be different, in whatever context that is, and important to be authentic. “Gifts differing” – St Benedict says we “must at all times use the good gifts God has placed in us”.