The Enneagram Page 3

Type Eight: The Challenger: powerful, dominating, self-confident, decisive, straight talking, egocentric, intimidating, willful, and confrontational. Their basic fear is of being harmed or controlled by others. Their basic desire is to protect themselves and to be in control of their own life and destiny. Their core issue is lust; for life as well as sexual lust. The Type Eight wants to control everything and everyone in their environment. They are excellent leaders and tend to own their own businesses or be CEO's. They also tend to be workaholics. When all is going well for Eights they are very generous and gregarious, and lead 'their people' with great charisma. When all is going poorly they become angry, manipulative, and try to sabotage and blame others.

Type Nine: The Peacemaker/Mediator: easygoing, trusting, optimistic, supportive, self-effacing, receptive, reassuring, agreeable, complacent, chameleons, and going along with others. Their basic fear is of loss or separation. Their basic desire is to have inner stability and peace of mind. Their core issue is sloth. Type Nine is easy going, they tend not to speak their opinion because they feel it may be controlling, they go along with what others want to do, they appear happy and content but also tend to build resentment when their needs are not met. They tend to be co-dependant in that they put other's needs before their own to avoid conflict and keep the peace. When all is going well they are happy and content. When all is not going well they can become resentful martyrs and can engage in passive/aggressive behaviors. Type Nine can be passive and stubborn. On rare occasions, they can become very angry.

These nine types constitute the nine core world views of the Enneagram. Both the up-sides and the down-sides of each type cause shape-shifting in their outward appearance. Within any type the healthy version looks very little like the unhealthy version. Also, each type 'wings' toward one of the two numbers adjacent to their number in a circle formation. For example, the Type Two will either 'lean' toward the Type One or the Type Three, hence, sharing some of the qualities of that adjacent type. Further study into the ways in which the Enneagram operates will enable you to recognize your type and better understand how you function within that type. My descriptions here are meant only to help you begin to see the importance of your type and to encourage you to move toward a deeper investigation of your Enneatype.