What happens when Enneagram Nines begin taking up space in their own life?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with five Enneagram Nines—Sara, Theresa, Sue, Lynsie, and Andrew—to explore their relationships with their body, head, and heart.

Together, they discuss the challenge of listening to their physical self, the mental energy spent considering everyone else's perspective, and the difficulty of expressing their own emotions, desires, and needs.

We then take up the experience of Nines as they move to Six in stress and Three in security. Along the way, the panel explores anger, inertia, self-neglect, confidence, and the possibility that growth for Nines involves learning to recognize their own value and take up space in the world.

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What if the greatest obstacle to becoming who we want to be is settling for something less than what we truly desire?

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff continues his study of Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, exploring the relationship between our deepest fears, what we avoid, and the passions traditionally associated with each Enneagram type. What if the seven deadly sins are not the source of our struggles, but the fruit of something deeper?

This time, Jeff introduces the idea of idols—the lesser substitutes we settle for when our fears shape our choices. Ones settle for being right instead of being good. Twos pursue appreciation instead of genuine love. Threes chase image instead of excellence. Across all nine types, these false substitutes promise satisfaction but ultimately leave us wanting more.

How can recognizing what we settle for help us understand our shadow, confront our fears, and recover the things we genuinely desire?

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We're studying Helen Palmer's The Enneagram in Love and Work together every Tuesday evening. Join us for thoughtful conversations about the Enneagram and the things that matter most.

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#Enneagram #HelenPalmer #AroundTheCircle #EnneagramTypes #PersonalGrowth

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff welcomes Sheri Danner, former marriage and family therapist, boundaries coach, and Enneagram Five, for a conversation about boundaries as the art of relationship. Rather than simply protecting our peace or learning to say no, they explore how boundaries shape our identity, commitments, and ability to connect with others.

This time, Jeff and Sheri examine how our Enneagram types influence the ways we establish, violate, and respond to boundaries. They discuss the difference between hurt and harm, the challenge of being clear, kind, direct, and honest, and how our familiar strategies for avoiding discomfort can eventually work against us.

Lastly, they explore the role of the head, heart, and body centers in navigating relationships, including our desires for clarity, connection, and agency. When does protecting ourselves become a form of isolation? And what might it look like to establish boundaries that make deeper relationships possible?

Sherry is currently developing Divine Minds, a new project focused on identifying and overcoming patterns that keep us from pursuing what we truly desire. Drawing on insights from the Enneagram and personal growth work, she plans to offer individual and group opportunities beginning in early 2027.

Website: divinelines.com (currently under construction)

Email: sherry@divinelines.com

Reach out to Sherry to join her mailing list, learn about upcoming offerings, or inquire about working with her individually.

What do Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones really have in common?

In this Enneagram panel, Jeff is joined by coaches representing the three Body Types to explore the inner worlds of Eights (Stacey Wynn), Nines (TJ Wilson), and Ones (Dani Cooper). They talk about agency, autonomy, control, anger, energy, and what it actually feels like to move through the world from the Body Center.

Along the way, the conversation explores the arrows and lines, passive aggression in Nines, the One’s relationship with control and spontaneity, the Eight’s movement between strength and vulnerability, and the complicated relationship all three types have with anger. The group also pushes back on the idea that our Enneagram type necessarily begins with a childhood wound, asking whether our type may shape how we experience our story rather than simply being caused by it.

What changes when anger isn’t simply a problem to overcome, but a source of energy, agency, and action?

#Enneagram #Enneagram8 #Enneagram9 #Enneagram1 #EnneagramTypes

What if the deepest motivation of each type begins not with something broken, but with something good?

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff continues working through the introduction to Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, focusing on a foundational question: Where does our Enneagram type actually come from? Palmer describes the passions—the traditional deadly sins—as a central axis of type, shaping the biases through which we experience ourselves and the world.

This time, Jeff pushes back, exploring three categories that may be more foundational to our experience: embodiment, fear, and avoidance.

#Enneagram #HelenPalmer #EnneagramTypes #PersonalGrowth #TheReadingRoom

Spiral Dynamics Podcast Feed : HERE

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff continues our series on Spiral Dynamics, exploring the high and low sides of Orange, Green, Yellow, and beyond.

As the spiral expands, our values become more complex: Orange elevates reason and achievement, Green turns our attention toward empathy and inclusion, and Yellow begins asking how we discern what is actually wise.

This time, we look at what each stage contributes—and what happens when its central value is pushed too far. Orange can give us science, expertise, and extraordinary human achievement while reducing people to productivity. Green restores attention to dignity, subjective experience, and unheard voices, but can struggle to distinguish between listening to every perspective and treating every perspective as equally wise. Yellow responds by reaching for discernment, integration, balance, and wisdom.

Lastly, we bring Spiral Dynamics into conversation with the Enneagram, asking what maturity might look like when we can recognize the different voices, centers, instincts, and values within ourselves without being dominated by any one of them. And as Yellow gives way to Turquoise, we consider whether maturity eventually requires something beyond understanding the map: actually entering the world, participating in it, and learning how to live what we know.

#spiraldynamics #Enneagram #motive #maturity

Connect with Melissa and her work : HERE

How does the Enneagram shape our creativity?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with author, artist, and Enneagram coach Melissa Kircher to explore creativity through the head, heart, and body. We talk about finding the right physical space for creative work, the importance of routine and “shitty first drafts,” eureka moments, curiosity, the muse, and the strange mixture of discipline and receptivity required to make something new.

Along the way, we explore creativity through an Enneagram lens: how each center contributes something different, how our stress and security moves can shape the creative process, and why creativity can be both an act of purposeful expression and a form of restoration. Melissa also shares how years of writing, painting, illustration, and coaching have shaped her understanding of what it means to create.

Lastly, Melissa gives us a preview of her upcoming book—a practical, illustrated guide designed to move Enneagram wisdom from theory into transformation. The central question underneath it all: What happens when we stop thinking of creativity as something reserved for artists and begin seeing it as part of being human?

#Enneagram #Creativity #CreativeProcess #PersonalGrowth #AroundTheCircle

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In this episode of the Reading Room, we begin our journey through Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, one of the foundational texts of the modern Enneagram.

We introduce Palmer and the narrative tradition, explore her emphasis on learning from people speaking from inside their own type, and consider why attention, relationships, and lived experience are so central to her approach.

Along the way, we work through Palmer’s concise portraits of all nine types—especially how each approaches love and where each naturally focuses attention. We then move into some of the deeper assumptions beneath her Enneagram: personality as a “false self,” essence as our deeper spiritual nature, and the passions as the organizing forces that shape the way each type experiences the world.

Lastly, we explore Palmer’s account of the passions, virtues, fixations, and arrows while asking where her framework is illuminating and where it deserves more scrutiny. Is our Enneagram type primarily something to transcend, or does it reveal something genuinely good about who we are? And what happens when we keep Palmer’s remarkable observations about type while questioning some of the metaphysics underneath them?

#enneagram #HelenPalmer