Understanding Your Enneagram Results

What the Enneagram Is

The Enneagram is a sophisticated framework for understanding human consciousness—specifically, how we perceive reality and the strategies we develop to navigate the world. Unlike personality typologies that categorize who we are, the Enneagram describes how we are wired to pay attention, what drives our automatic responses, and the unconscious patterns we default to when we feel threatened or uncertain.

At its foundation, the Enneagram identifies nine distinct patterns of perception, each organized around a core fear and a corresponding core desire. These aren't arbitrary preferences or surface-level traits—they're deep-seated orientations that shape where our attention automatically goes, what we prioritize, and how we instinctively protect ourselves. Think of your Enneagram type as describing the particular lens through which you unconsciously filter experience, the mental and emotional habits you developed early in life to feel safe, valued, and competent.

Each of the nine patterns represents a complete strategy for engaging with reality. Type Ones orient around rightness and improvement because they fear being defective or wrong. Type Twos focus on relationships and others' needs because they fear being unloved or unwanted. Type Threes center on achievement and image because they fear being worthless without accomplishment. These core fears operate largely outside of conscious awareness, yet they powerfully influence our choices, relationships, and sense of self.

How to Use This Report

This assessment identifies your dominant Enneagram pattern—the perceptual and strategic framework that most shapes your inner experience. As you read your results, you'll likely recognize familiar territory: the fears that quietly motivate you, the desires that pull you forward, the habitual ways you respond to stress or opportunity. You may also notice patterns you've never consciously acknowledged but have been running in the background of your life for years.

The purpose of this report is not to define or limit you. It's to illuminate the automatic patterns that have been defining and limiting you without your awareness. When we operate unconsciously from our type structure, we have little choice—we simply react according to our programming. But when we bring these patterns into conscious awareness, something remarkable happens: we gain the ability to choose differently.

Read this report with curiosity rather than judgment. These patterns developed for good reasons—they helped you navigate your early environment and meet important needs. The question now isn't whether your type structure is good or bad, but rather: how is this way of seeing and responding serving you today, and where might it be constraining you?

What Your Assessment Results Mean

Your enneagram assessment reveals multiple dimensions of your personality structure, each providing distinct insights into how you engage with the world.

Your Core Type (1-9)

Your dominant type represents your primary perceptual pattern and strategy for navigating life. This is the lens through which you most consistently view reality and the core structure that organizes your inner experience.

The assessment scores each of the nine types based on how strongly you identify with their characteristic patterns. Your highest-scoring type is typically your dominant pattern, though scores close together (within 3-5 points) may indicate:

• Strong wing influence - You may be integrating traits from an adjacent type
• Growth in progress - You may be moving toward your integration point
• Balanced development - You've developed capacities from multiple types

Important: Your type isn't determined solely by which number scores highest. The most accurate indicator is recognizing your core fear and desire—the fundamental motivation that drives your automatic patterns.

Your Wing

Your wing refers to one of the two types adjacent to your core type on the Enneagram diagram. While your core type describes your primary pattern, your wing adds flavor, nuance, and additional capacities to how that pattern expresses itself.

For example:

• Type 1 with a 9 wing (1w9) - "The Idealist" - More calm, methodical, and idealistic
• Type 1 with a 2 wing (1w2) - "The Advocate" - More warm, helpful, and people-oriented

You don't choose your wing consciously—it reflects which adjacent type's qualities you naturally drew upon as you developed your personality structure. Some people have a strong, clear wing; others feel more balanced between both adjacent types.

Your Instinctual Variant

Beyond your core type, you have a dominant instinct that determines where you focus your energy and attention. The three instinctual variants are:

Self-Preservation (SP) - Focus on physical safety, comfort, and security

• Concerns: Health, home, finances, resources, practical matters
• Energy: Directed toward creating stability and meeting basic needs
• At their best: Grounded, resourceful, self-reliant
• Under stress: Anxious about security, withdrawn, isolated

Social (SO) - Focus on groups, communities, and social systems

• Concerns: Belonging, contribution, recognition, social dynamics
• Energy: Directed toward understanding and participating in groups
• At their best: Aware, connected, community-minded
• Under stress: Overly concerned with status, competitive, anxious about inclusion

Sexual/One-to-One (SX) - Focus on intensity, connection, and chemistry

• Concerns: Deep connection, attraction, intensity, meaningful impact
• Energy: Directed toward creating powerful unions and experiences
• At their best: Charismatic, intense, deeply connected
• Under stress: Possessive, jealous, volatile, merger-seeking

Your dominant instinct combines with your type to create a more specific pattern. For example, a Self-Preservation Type 4 looks quite different from a Sexual Type 4, even though they share the same core pattern.

Your Instinctual Stack

You don't just have one instinct—you have all three, but in a specific order of priority:

1. Dominant - Where most of your energy naturally flows
2. Secondary - Available but less automatic
3. Blind Spot - Least developed, often neglected

Understanding your full instinctual stack reveals not just what you prioritize, but also what you might be overlooking or struggling with in life.

From Pattern to Possibility

The Enneagram reveals that we are not our patterns—we are the awareness that can observe them. Your type describes a habitual strategy, a set of perceptual filters, a constellation of fears and desires that operate automatically. But you are the one who can notice these mechanisms at work and consciously decide whether to follow them or respond differently.

This distinction is crucial: you don't have a personality that's fixed in stone. You have a patterned way of perceiving and responding that has become deeply familiar. Through awareness, these patterns become visible. Through practice, they become optional. The more clearly you can see your type's automatic tendencies—where your attention habitually goes, what triggers your defensive reactions, what you're unconsciously seeking—the more freedom you have to choose responses that serve your actual growth and wellbeing rather than simply maintaining familiar patterns.

The path of development isn't about becoming a different type or eliminating your core structure. It's about developing awareness of your patterns so thoroughly that you're no longer unconsciously run by them. You begin to recognize when your type's fear is driving the bus, when your habitual strategy is activating, when you're perceiving through your type's particular filter. And in that recognition, you find space to pause, to question, to choose.

Understanding the Arrows (Stress & Growth Lines)

The Enneagram diagram shows directional lines (arrows) connecting each type to two other types. These connections reveal predictable patterns of movement:

In Stress (Disintegration) - When under pressure, each type tends to take on the less healthy qualities of another specific type. This isn't failure—it's a sign that your usual strategies aren't working and you're reaching for different (often less effective) tools.

In Growth (Integration) - When feeling secure and developing consciously, each type moves toward another specific type, accessing that type's healthier qualities. This represents expansion beyond your habitual patterns.

For example:

• Type 1 moves to Type 4 in stress (becoming moody and self-critical) and to Type 7 in growth (becoming spontaneous and joyful)
• Type 9 moves to Type 6 in stress (becoming anxious and defensive) and to Type 3 in growth (becoming focused and productive)

These movements aren't about becoming a different type—they're about understanding how you naturally shift under different conditions and what resources are available when you're ready to grow.

How to Use These Results for Personal Growth

Start with Observation

Before trying to change anything, simply notice your patterns:

• When does your type's core fear activate?
• What situations trigger your habitual defensive response?
• Where does your attention automatically go?
• What are you unconsciously seeking or avoiding?

Practice: For one week, just observe. When you notice your type's pattern showing up, mentally note: "Ah, there's my [Type] pattern." No judgment, no trying to fix it—just awareness.

Recognize Your Blind Spots

Every type has characteristic blind spots—things we consistently fail to see about ourselves or our impact on others. Your results reveal what you might be missing:

• What feedback do you tend to dismiss or resist?
• What needs or perspectives do you habitually overlook?
• Where might others experience you differently than you experience yourself?

Work with Your Arrows

Use the stress and growth directions as a map:

• Notice your stress patterns - When you catch yourself moving toward your stress type, recognize it as a sign to pause and attend to what's actually happening
• Consciously access growth qualities - Practice deliberately bringing in the healthier qualities of your integration type

Develop Your Blind Spot Instinct

Your lowest-scoring instinct (blind spot) represents an area of potential growth:

• If Self-Preservation is blind: Practice attending to your physical needs, rest, and boundaries
• If Social is blind: Practice engaging with groups, considering community, understanding social dynamics
• If Sexual is blind: Practice creating deeper intimacy, allowing intensity, pursuing what truly energizes you

Common Misconceptions About the Enneagram

Myth: Your type is determined by behavior Reality: Type is determined by underlying motivation—the why behind the what

Myth: The goal is to "be healthy" or "reach Level 1" Reality: The goal is awareness and choice, not perfection

Myth: You can change types Reality: Your core type remains constant, but you can develop capacities from all nine types

Myth: Some types are better than others Reality: Every type has equal potential for health and dysfunction

Myth: The Enneagram boxes you in Reality: The Enneagram reveals the box you're already in, giving you the map to freedom

Next Steps

Understanding your type is the beginning, not the destination. Here's how to go deeper:

1. Read your full type description - Explore your type's complete pattern in detail
2. Study your stress and growth types - Understand where you move under pressure and in development
3. Identify your wing - Notice which adjacent type's qualities you naturally express
4. Observe your patterns in real-time - Practice catching your type structure as it activates
5. Explore the other types - Understanding all nine patterns gives you more tools for growth

Most importantly: Use this report as a mirror for your inner workings—not as a verdict on who you must be, but as a map of where your awareness often gets trapped and where your freedom lies waiting.