10% discount offer extended

I've decided to extend the 10% discount on my Enneagram courses until Monday 30th August. Because I'm a 9, and 9s are nice. :)

You can sign up at www.enneangel.com.

Typing people close to you

I've always said that I think typing people close to you (family and close friends) is harder than typing strangers. Our Enneagram type is like a holographic image going through us that shows up in the smallest parts of our lives. So a complete stranger walking past me in an airport might say "yep, there goes a nine" based on a few minor details, and they would be right.

Whereas, with the people closest to you, you don't have the distance to see them as a whole. And your relationship with them can obscure things as well. When I first got interested in the Enneagram and tried typing my family, my first thought about my mum was "she's loud and bossy - she's an eight". After a while I started to think about her preoccupation with security and paranoia about certain institutions. She relates to me as a mother by worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong for me and any danger I might be in. So for many years I have thought of her as a six. Something was missing though. We've always had communication problems because we see the world in very different ways.

Having recently spent a lot of time with her on the holiday we spent together I've had plenty of opportunities to think about our relationship and where we are both coming from, and I've come to the conclusion that my first impulse was the right one. She is an eight. A lot of the issues with security are from her survival subtype. But the things that wind me up most about her come from her eightness - the being controlling and confrontational and being too busy putting her point across to listen to anyone else's. Don't get me wrong - she does have the eightish virtues as well. She can be extraordinarily generous and I know that if ever I was in real trouble she would fight my corner, whatever our personal differences.

Having this epiphany about her type and what it means in our relationship has come as something of a relief. She is just as infuriating as ever, but knowing where she's coming from makes it easier to deal with. So does recognising that her good points are coming from the same place as her bad ones. And that, I guess, is the beauty of the Enneagram.