Don’t Box Me In

By: Laurel Elders

"The good thing about a skeptic is that they consider all possibilities." - Thomas Mann

As I sat before my mentor, Sandy, as she looked at me inquisitively.

"I'm a Type Five." I reported with frustration in my tone.  

She could sense my tension and waited patiently for more. 

"I just don't think people can be boxed into stereotypes. People have free will, and everyone on this planet is 100% unique. I believe typing people limits them and could even be used to cast false judgment." There I said it. I was against personality typing.

"Ah." She nodded. "It's not that your concerns don't have truth to them. At what point does any asset become a liability?" she asked me.  

That was an interesting question. True to my Type 5 "Investigator" and truth-seeking nature, I went home to investigate my skepticism.

That was over a decade ago. Looking back, what fascinates me most is a bigger truth about personality typing. However, this truth did not find me through any logical or neatly packaged conception that would have been my preference.  

I sat meditating one morning a few weeks after fervently rejecting being typed. That morning a bigger, more meaningful truth came to me.

"It is not the person that is predictable, but the ego is."

This actually made a lot of sense to me. Studying psychology, I learned how the ego is developed as a defense mechanism response to keep up physically and emotionally safe. 

These defenses become patterned responses. We call these our defense mechanisms or conditioned ways of being. Not to be confused with the hard wiring we are born with, which is captured in personality assessments like MBTI, DISC, and Strengths assessments.  

While our hardware is captured through some assessments, the Enneagram captures our software. Software is a program that runs. We have egoic programs (aka defenses and conditioning) that run in the background. 

However, unlike a computer that is unconscious, we can gain consciousness of our conditioned responses and evolve out of egoic ways of being.  

Part of the contribution the Enneagram gifts us with is a path of integration out of ego and into the essence of who we are without our defenses and conditioned ways of being. 

We can view any personality assessment as a pathway to understanding:

1. our hardwiring (how we are born) or
2. our ego responses (defenses we develop). 

These can be shortcuts to our self-understanding when used as an asset to personal growth. However, they can also be used negatively to judge ourselves or others. That is the tipping point into the liability or pitfalls of personality assessment. 

They can also become a liability if we believe they are the truth of who we are. While they can illuminate aspects of ourselves, our true potential at the end of the day is defined by us, not any tool for self-reflection.

The Course in Miracles teaches us we do not have to learn through pain alone. We can equally learn through love (think positive affirmation versus negative). I now celebrate the opportunity to learn through positive pathways and self-awareness to evolve out of ego and into a new possibility of my choice.  

In this regard, the truth really does set us free. When we are no longer bound and constricted by our past conditioning, we access new possibilities that exist within us.

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