It’s hard to imagine what life was like before X-rays, MRI’s and brain scans. Thanks to these incredible detection devices we can now know what ails us with pinpoint accuracy.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a similar tool for our souls? A tool that can help us more accurately detect our emotional and spiritual health? Well, we think there actually is one. We have used it on ourselves, and on many others and the results have brought tremendous insight and life change to us all.

And today we want to share it with you.

There was a time we believed

the key to personal and spiritual health and growth

could be summed up in simply knowing and following God.

Sounds right, doesn’t it? But, let’s think about that.

Think about the people you know who thoroughly believe in God, they go to church, attend Bible studies, and pray. And, maybe these folks do really good things for others, they’re super generous with their time and talents yet, still, there are some pretty significant snags and gaps in their attitudes, actions or relationships.

No one is perfect.  But, if success in life comes from just knowing and following God, why is it that so many of us are not farther along?

What we’ve discovered is this:

It is actually at the intersection of knowing God

and authentically knowing ourselves

that we find genuine and lasting transformation.

What’s knowing ourselves got to do with it? Good question. We wondered that, too. Besides, most of us think we know ourselves pretty well, don’t we? And therein lies the problem. We thought we knew ourselves really well.

We thought we could see most of the major areas in our lives that needed improvement- and we were working on them.  But, we know now that we could only see some of those areas on our own.

At a very significant level, we remained basically blind to several non-resourceful ways of being.

Thankfully, we learned about a tool for greater self-clarity that’s been around in one form or another for over a thousand years. That tool is the Enneagram.

The Enneagram is an in-depth, spiritual/personality inventory That acts like an X-ray/MRI of our interior life…it shows us both the places of great virtue and God-likeness as well the parts that most challenge our wholeness.

It has far and away offered us the most profound insight into what’s working and what’s broken in ourselves and in our most significant relationships.

This was the primary tool we used under the guidance of trained Enneagram counselors to emerge from the greatest challenge of our life into the most profound place of peace and wholeness we have ever known.

And, to this day, we continue to grow, shift and thrive as we observe certain hidden beliefs and behaviors through the lens of our Enneagram types. In fact, we were so impacted by the Enneagram’s astounding ability to help transform our own distorted perceptions that we are now certified Enneagram specialists ourselves.

* No other test or inventory we have ever used has come close to helping us see our compulsive internal patterns with such clarity.

* We believe this personal inventory gives you the best chance for lasting spiritual and relational transformation.

We encourage a minimum of several sessions with a trained specialist to get the most benefit from the inventory.

Like the value of a hair stylist when we need to cut the back of our hair, an Enneagram specialist is trained to help us look at our inventory in places it’s been hard for us to reach on our own. They know to ask the kind of questions and make observations that help open us up for the maxium progress.

The Enneagram invites you to celebrate your true self, the unique way in which you bear the image of God, and it challenges you to engage in the transformation of your calculating self, that prevents you from fully being who God has designed and gifted you to be.

The Enneagram is a map of nine specific types of personality and it helps us see specific ways we forget who we truly are as well as ways we most often lose our sense of connection with God.

You’ll recognize parts of you in many of the types. But there will be one or two primary types that are most dominant and influential in you.

The three types that perceive reality primarily through their feelings and battle with SHAME:

* Type Two:  The Helper/The Loving Person.

* Type Three:  The Achiever/The Effective Person

* Type Four:  The Individualist/The Creative Person

The three types that perceive reality primarily through their mind and battle with FEAR:

* Type Five:  The Investigator/The Wise Person

* Type Six:  The Loyalist/The Responsible Person

* Type Seven:  The Enthusiast/The Joyful Person

The three types that perceive reality primarily through their intuition ( or gut) and battle with GUILT:

* Type Eight:  The Challenger/The Powerful Person

* Type Nine:  The Peacemaker/The Easy Going Person

* Type One: The Principled Reformer/The Good Person

Your type shows us your “point of view” on the world. Each point is valid and accurate. No type is greater or more desirable than another.

The goal is for us to learn from each type and grow healthier by observing their ways of being in the world and adapting more of their skills and attributes in balance to ours. Each type brings a gift from God to the rest of us. Each type represents an aspect of God-likeness we all need in our lives.

The point of this assessment is not to be more self-critical but to be more self-aware.  It allows you to finally be able to see the more non-resourceful parts of yourself, and as you do, this simple practice of self clarity can help the unhealthy tendencies of your personality begin to recede.

In his book The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self Discovery, David Benner says this:

“ Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known. Both therefore have an important place in Christian spirituality. ‘There is no deep knowing of God without deep knowing of self,’ John Calvin wrote.

Thomas a Kempis argued that ‘a humble self knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning’ and Augustine’s prayer was ‘Grant, Lord, that I may know myself that I may know thee.” Nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consist of these two parts; knowledge of God and of ourselves. Yet we have focused on knowing God and tended to ignore knowing ourselves.

The consequences have often been grievous –marriages betrayed, families destroyed, ministries shipwrecked and endless numbers of people damaged. Not all knowledge transforms. Some merely puffs up. Self-knowledge that is pursued apart from knowing our identity in relationship to God leads to self inflation (1Cor 8:1) Knowing God and knowing self are therefore interdependent. Neither can proceed very far without the other.” 

Here are our options:

• We can continue to stay asleep to our small self ego that causes us and others to suffer and constricts the life of God in us

OR

• We can learn to see and wake to a much larger, brighter reality that lives inside us, a life that can never be taken away, diminished or disowned – that part of us that is whole and most truly the Kingdom of God.

* Major sections of this blog are from Chapter 19 of our book: Nothing to Prove: Find the Satisfaction and Significance You’ve Been Striving for at the Core of Your True Identity.

Three Resources That Can Help 

 1.  If you would like more information about taking an official Enneagram test and receiving a detailed assessment click HERE.

2.  If you’d like to receive a FREE copy of our new pdf: The #1 Tool For Personal Transformation, that goes into a bit more depth on this subject, click HERE.

3.  We’re offering you our new FREE on-demand video course this week: “Stop Striving and Start Enjoying the Life God Made You to Live.” It’s 3 short video sessions (or email sessions)spread out over several days. But they are only available this week.  You can enjoy them at your convenience. They offer priceless lessons we’ve learned that can help you significantly reduce feeling stressed, stuck or stale in any area and start experiencing the ultimate life God made you to live.

To Sign Up NOW for Our FREE online class click HERE.