Have you ever done something and then wondered, Why on earth did I do that?
You knew better. You could see that what you were doing wasn’t particularly helpful. Perhaps you even recognised your Enneagram pattern taking over.
But you couldn’t seem to stop yourself.
That’s one of the fascinating, and sometimes frustrating, things about our personality patterns.
They’re automatic. They operate so quickly, and feel so much like us, that we often don’t realise we’re reacting until it’s too late.
And sometimes we only discover just how powerful they are when something happens that makes them impossible to ignore.
I learned this the hard way during a summer working at a camp in Canada.
The day I jumped into a river
Many moons ago, I spent a summer working at a camp beside a beautiful lake in Ontario.
I was the Leadership Programme Director, working with older campers who were training to become counsellors.
Water activities were a big part of camp life. Swimming, canoeing, kayaking. All sorts of things I wasn’t particularly experienced in, but thankfully the counsellors knew what they were doing.
One day, a group of older campers were practising kayaking in a narrow passage where the water moved quickly.
It was only about ten metres wide, but the current was strong and unpredictable. Rather than carrying someone downstream, it could hold them in one place, pulling them under and making it difficult to escape.
When I arrived, one of the girls was out of her kayak and clearly struggling.
I looked around. Nobody seemed to be doing anything.
And before I knew it, I jumped in.
Almost immediately, I realised I’d made a terrible mistake.
The current was much stronger than I’d appreciated. I was a reasonably good swimmer, but I wasn’t trained or equipped to perform this kind of rescue.
And now, instead of one person needing help, there were two.
Thankfully, another student managed to push us out of the dangerous water and towards the bank.
I remember walking back to camp feeling shocked, embarrassed and rather horrified by what I’d done.
But what disturbed me most wasn’t simply that I’d made a mistake.
It was that I hadn’t consciously decided to jump in.
I hadn’t considered the risks, assessed my capabilities, or worked out whether there was a safer way to help.
I’d just reacted.
And even if I’d known how dangerous it was, I’m not sure I could have stopped myself.
When our personality takes over
Looking back, I can see my Seven pattern operating quite clearly.
Watching someone struggle, feeling powerless to help, and not knowing what would happen next was more discomfort than I could tolerate.
My inner protection system wanted me out of that experience. Immediately.
And jumping in offered a way to escape the unbearable feeling of helplessness and become someone who was doing something useful.
A rescuer.
Now, wanting to help someone in danger isn’t a bad thing.
But in that moment, my need to escape my own discomfort was stronger than my ability to assess what the situation actually needed.
And I made things worse.
This is what I find so interesting about the Enneagram.
Our personality patterns aren’t simply habits we consciously choose. They’re automatic protective strategies that shape what we notice, how we interpret situations, what we feel, and what we do next.
And because they operate so quickly, we often experience them as the only possible response.
We don’t think, I’m going to use my personality strategy now.
We simply react.
The work of the Enneagram is to help us recognise these reactions, so we can gradually become less governed by them.
But how do we observe something that happens so automatically?
Nine experiments to catch your Enneagram patterns in the act
One way is to deliberately put ourselves in small, manageable situations where our habitual patterns are likely to become activated.
Not situations that overwhelm us or put us in danger.
Just ordinary experiences that invite us to do something a little differently.
These exercises are inspired by practices taught by Uranio Paes at the CP Enneagram Academy.
There is one for each type, but I’d encourage you to read all nine.
You may find several uncomfortable, and others surprisingly easy. The exercises aren’t typing tests, and your reaction to any one of them doesn’t establish your type.
Their purpose is to help you notice what happens inside you when you try to step outside a familiar pattern.
Type One: Do something imperfectly
Choose a small, low-stakes task and deliberately leave something imperfect.
Perhaps arrange something slightly asymmetrically, or finish a personal task without correcting every minor detail.
Then notice what happens.
Do you feel compelled to fix it? Does your mind start explaining why it would be irresponsible to leave it that way?
See if you can observe the discomfort without immediately correcting it.
Type Two: Talk about what you need
Have a conversation with someone you trust about what you need or want.
For a few minutes, keep the focus entirely on yourself.
Notice whether you start talking about the other person’s needs, explaining why yours aren’t important, or reassuring them that you’re fine.
What happens when you allow your needs to take up space?
Type Three: Do nothing productive
Sit in front of a blank wall for ten minutes.
Don’t meditate, plan, solve problems, or turn the experience into an achievement.
Just sit.
Notice the urge to make the time useful. The thoughts about what you should be doing. Perhaps the discomfort of not accomplishing anything.
And remember, the point isn’t to succeed at doing nothing.
It’s to observe what happens when you’re not being productive.
Type Four: Appreciate something ordinary
Choose an ordinary object, perhaps a chair.
Spend ten minutes appreciating it exactly as it is.
Notice its shape, purpose and completeness, without comparing it to something more beautiful, interesting or meaningful.
What happens when you don’t look for what’s missing or what could make it more special?
Type Five: Share before you’re completely ready
Choose someone you feel comfortable with and have a conversation about something you’re still thinking through.
Rather than waiting until you’ve worked everything out, share your thoughts while they’re incomplete.
Notice any discomfort around being unprepared, revealing uncertainty, or engaging before you’ve had enough time to process.
What happens when you participate without having all the answers?
Type Six: Focus on what could go right
Write down everything that could go well over the next seven days.
Your strengths, the resources available to you, the people you can rely on, and the things you’re looking forward to.
For this exercise, don’t add qualifications about what might go wrong.
Notice how quickly your mind introduces risks, exceptions or alternative scenarios.
Can you see the impulse to prepare for uncertainty?
Type Seven: Acknowledge your suffering
Take a piece of paper and write the heading:
My current and past sufferings and limitations.
Then begin listing the ways you’ve experienced pain, disappointment, limitation or difficulty.
And here’s the important part.
Don’t add but to the end of your sentences.
Don’t explain why it was okay, how things worked out for the best, or what you learned from the experience.
Just acknowledge what was difficult, staying within what feels manageable.
Notice what your mind does.
Type Eight: Share something vulnerable
Choose someone you trust enough to have an honest conversation with.
Tell them about something that’s been difficult for you. Perhaps you’re tired, worried, sad, disappointed or unsure what to do next.
Notice whether you minimise the experience, turn it into a story about your strength, or quickly move towards solving the problem.
What happens when you let someone see that you don’t always have everything under control?
Type Nine: Talk about what matters to you
Spend ten minutes talking to someone about your priorities, preferences, passions and desires.
Not what everyone else wants. Not what’s easiest for the group.
What you want.
Notice whether you minimise your preferences, become uncertain about what matters, or start accommodating the other person’s interests.
What happens when your own priorities become the centre of the conversation?
What you’re really looking for
When I first tried the Seven exercise, I thought it would be easy.
How hard could it be to write down the ways I’d suffered?
I was almost looking forward to it.
Which, in hindsight, was probably my first clue.
But as soon as I started writing, something fascinating happened.
I couldn’t stop adding but that’s okay because…
I’d write down something painful and immediately my mind would begin explaining why it wasn’t so bad.
But I learned something.
But it all worked out.
But other people have had it worse.
Again and again.
And the harder I tried not to do it, the more obvious the pattern became.
I couldn’t simply switch it off.
But I could watch it happening.
And that was the revelation.
I was experiencing my Seven strategy in real time, rather than just reading about it or recognising it afterwards.
I could see how quickly my mind moved away from suffering, even when I’d consciously decided to stay with it.
And I could begin to appreciate that these thoughts weren’t the whole of me.
They were part of a protective strategy that had become so familiar it felt automatic.
You don’t have to stop the pattern to learn from it
I think this is where we sometimes misunderstand Enneagram growth work.
We assume that once we recognise a pattern, we should be able to stop doing it.
But these strategies have been operating for much of our lives. They’re deeply familiar, and they’re often protecting us from experiences we haven’t yet developed the capacity to stay with.
So the goal of these exercises isn’t to force ourselves to react differently.
It’s to get curious.
What thoughts appear? What feelings arise? What’s happening in your body? What do you suddenly feel compelled to do?
And perhaps most importantly, what happens when you try not to follow that impulse?
You might discover that you can observe a reaction without acting on it.
Or you might discover that you can’t. Not yet.
Both are useful information.
And if an exercise becomes overwhelming, stop. There’s no value in forcing yourself through an experience that exceeds your current capacity. Sometimes we need more inner resources or support from another person before we can work with a particular pattern.
Becoming less automatic
I often think back to that moment on the riverbank.
What would I do differently now?
I’d like to think I’d pause, assess the situation, and consider what resources and expertise were available.
Perhaps I’d call for help, organise the people around me, or trust someone better equipped to perform the rescue.
But none of those choices felt available to me at the time.
My reaction to helplessness was so strong that my familiar strategy took over before I could consider another response.
And that’s why I think these small experiments matter.
They allow us to experience our automatic reactions in situations where the stakes are low enough for us to stay curious.
We begin to recognise the thoughts, feelings, sensations and impulses that make up our patterns.
We learn to observe them, rather than immediately believing or acting on everything they tell us.
And with practice, compassion and sometimes the support of others, we gradually develop more capacity to stay present with what we’ve been avoiding.
Not so we can get rid of our personality.
But so our personality doesn’t always have to make the decision for us.
Because the first time you catch your Enneagram pattern in the act, you might discover that you can’t stop it.
But you can begin to see it. And that’s where the possibility of choice begins.