Enneagram Type 9: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Overview of the Enneagram Type 9: The Peacemaker, Mediator, Spiritual Seeker

If you are an Enneagram Type 9, you are about harmony. You are peace-loving, trusting, easy-going and even-tempered. Your mantra is to go with the flow. Sitting on the crown of the Enneagram, you hold spiritual instincts. What is ironical is that despite your orientation to spirituality, you are potentially the most grounded in the physical world.

You exude a positive energy. What appeals is the pleasant side of life. You enjoy being stress-free and desire life to be effortless. Being optimistic, you carry the faith that things will somehow work out on its own. Your belief is that everything will be okay should everyone stay cool and collected and no one rocks the boat.

Enneagram Grid

“If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” — 14th Dalai Lama

Primarily, your focus is on the avoidance of conflict or from upsetting things. Thus, in terms of relationships, you desire cooperation and consensus. Basically, you like everyone to be happy.

Your attitude towards life is one of contentment. You are very willing to accept things as they already are. Your tranquil nature draws others. When it comes to seeking conflict resolution, your friends like turning to you. You have the ability to hold various viewpoints, without taking a stand. You see things from a macro perspective and offer solutions that emphasise stress-avoidance.

Famous Enneagram Type 9 personalities include Princess Grace of Monaco, Claude Monet, Abraham Lincoln, George W Bush, Annette Benning, Jeff Bridges, General Colin Powell, Carl Jung, Geena Davis, Walt Disney and Joseph Campbell

The Shadow Side of Enneagram Type 9: Sloth

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — C.G. Jung

The deepest fear of an Enneagram Type 9 is about having to experience pain. Thus, your impetus in life is to numb out pain so that you can keep the peace. This is likely to involve living in denial for the sake of escaping suffering. While contentment is a great value that you hold, it can mean that you avoid fixing problems when one exists.

Due to the tendency for avoidance and running away, your energy – while positive – is more inward, i.e. making you more of an introvert. Where you are compelled to be social, you survive by not being fully engaged. It is your way of protecting yourself from the outside world.

With a low tolerance for conflict, you resist change. You fear rocking the boat and stubbornly cling on to status quo. You find comfort by choosing to be blind to what needs to change or procrastinating on things.

Others often take you for granted due to your self-effacing attitude. It comes as a shock to them when you erupt into outbursts of anger all of a sudden. They are caught unawares. Your easy-going demeanor hides the fact that you have been repressing anger for the longest time.

By sweeping things under the carpet, you have been in denial. It comes in the form of self-deception. You deceive yourself that you are at peace when in fact you are not. At a deeper level, you resent being overlooked by the people around. Resentment builds up when you consistenly ignore your own needs and interests.

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” — 14th Dalai Lama

Due to your self-effacing attitude, you often take on identities that belong to others. You do this through adopting the traits of your loved ones. As an Enneagram Type 9, you hope to keep everyone happy. However, this is often made at the cost of knowing yourself. Greater self-awareness and understanding becomes a lot harder. Ultimately, you lose your sense of self.

Opportunities for Growth

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” — Abraham Lincoln

Opportunity for growth arises when you start to realize that ignoring a problem does not make it go away. You learn to overcome the habitual response of choosing the least problematic strategy, which may not necessarily be the best way to tackle an issue. Instead, you make the decision to stay present to the problem and finding a solution. By meeting your challenge, you eventually discover that you are able to have the peace that you desire.

You find out that your problem is likely to escalate or worsen should you refuse to confront the pain earlier on. Put simply, the lesson lies in “a stitch in time saves nine”. No longer “spacing out”, you are more ready to acknowledge when a problem exist. You do not procrastinate. You make marked improvements when you learn to take calculated risks and move out of your comfort zone.

The spiritual path for an Enneagram Type 9 lies in reclaiming your sense of self. Thus, you stop idealizing others. You learn to assert yourself and allow your voice to be heard. You find healthy ways to express your anger. Instead of projecting the qualities of others that you admire, you are able to appreciate and value who you are. In doing so, you are in a better position to rise to your fullest potential.

You are able to direct your positive energy towards proactive action. You move towards an Enneagram Type 3 and become highly motivated. You start to prioritize. You are also able to make accurate risk assessments by staying alert to issues like a Type 6, along the grid line of the Enneagram.

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” — 14th Dalai Lama

At your best of an Enneagram Type 9, you exude a calm energy even though you could be right in the middle of chaos. You are your own person and you do not need to give yourself away in order to be accepted or to keep the harmony. You use your gifts to maintain oneness, harmony and wholeness. You are at peace on the inside and outside.

Positive Affirmations for Enneagram Type 9

I am alert to the world around me.
I engage in life fully.
I embrace change.
I am at peace on the inside and outside.
I am safe.
The world is safe.
I am attentive to my problems.
I am present in the here and now.
I play a significant role in this world.
I work on my personal growth.
I take an active interest in life.
I take care of my needs.
I chunk down my problems to work through them.

Round the Enneagram

The Enneagram is a tool that helps create greater self-awareness. It is not merely a personality profiling system that places you in a box. In fact, by knowing what personality type you are, you will begin to understand where your comfort zone lies and why you have the tendency to operate from here.

Instead of rejection, you come into acceptance of who you are at the identity level. You avoid the traps that put you in self-sabotage. You are also able to live in fuller expression of your core essence.

What needs to be realized is that growth arises when you are outside your comfort zone (or core type). Thus, the best way to evolve is not just through adopting the highest values of your core type but also by integrating the highest values of all other Enneagram types.

It is with this that you are encouraged to walk round the Enneagram, using the gridlines as a guide for transcendence.

Start first by gaining an awareness of all 9 types of the Enneagram. The links to a description to the other 8 Enneagram Types are as follows….

Enneagram Quiz: How would You Cross the River?

Enneagram Type 1: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 2: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 3: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 4: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 5: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 6: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 7: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

Enneagram Type 8: Positive Affirmations for Path of Growth

With this post, I end my Round-the-Enneagram tour.