I believe that more than anything else, people long to be free.

We all long to be free from self-imposed limitations and self-sabotaging behaviors. We want freedom from feeling held back and blocked. And, we’d really like freedom from the stress of feeling “less than”..less than perfect, less than giving, less than capable to our challenges, less than good enough, less than sure, less than happy. The problem for some of us is that we don’t know know what limits us; we can’t put our finger on it exactly. More stress!

Enneagram personality patterns

That ’s the beauty of the enneagram personality profiles. Working with enneagram personality patterns you can pinpoint the adaptive strategy you developed as a child to get your needs for love, security and worth met. You can then work with the “4As” of awareness, acceptance, action and adherence when you notice your reactivity to stressful situations, circumstances or thoughts.

All of this is discussed with clarity and inspiration in David Daniel M.D.’s recently updated version of The Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide (which he co-authored with Virginia Price, Ph.D.). This simple to use and refer to guide easily identifies one’s path back to wholeness and happiness.

During my conversation with David Daniels, who is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medical School, he stresses that even as a psychology student he disliked the concept of psychological typing; it seemed so negative to him.

That’s why Daniels emphasizes that the enneagram system is completely different in that it allows for the integration of a higher level of personality with one’s essential spiritual qualities.

“The whole theme is about identifying patterns that limit us so we can be more non-judging,” states Daniels. Typically, we humans don’t realize that we’re not seeing all of reality, so we can’t understand why others don’t see things the way we do. “It’s the story of the elephant,” explains Daniels, continuing, “One person sees the trunk, one person the tail, another the foot. We don’t get the big picture.”

Understanding that your enneagram personality type predisposes you to seeing and experiencing a particular reality can actually be your key to freedom. It’s a self-discovery process that invites self-recognition, self-renewal and expansion of Self as well as a greater understanding about the ways in which others see the world and their connection to it.

What is an enneagram?

“Ennea” is Greek for nine and “gram” means a figure or something written. There are nine styles for personality that mirror the way our brain neurons work — in a pattern of the interwoven flow of information and energy. Daniels explains that the brain is basically a pattern machine.

No one enneagram type is better than another. There are both positive and negative manifestations of each of the nine enneagram types:The Perfectionist, The Giver, The Performer, The Romantic, The Observer, The Loyal Skeptic, The Epicure, The Protector and The Mediator.

Yet, essentially each is an outdated adaptive system that no longer serves us as adults. Once you identify your type you can begin to react differently to the same old stressors that get your buttons pushed. With awareness you can understand that you, at your core, are much more than a personality adaptation.

What to do when your buttons get pushed

Because were are such creatures of habit and it is so easy to react in the same old way each time our buttons get pushed, I ask Daniels what we should do first when our buttons are pushed.

His response: “Pause, breath back down with gentle energy and ask ‘why am i reacting?’ Then you can go to the conscious conduct of letting go.”

Daniels says that 90 percent of the time letting go is the solution. We get upset about things that threaten our core strategy for feeling secure. We just need to recognize we’re reacting from a historic pattern that has no current validity.

This reminds me of a Zen concept I read about many years ago: it’s not another person’s fault that our button gets pushed; they didn’t create the button. And, yet so often others get the full force of our reaction, no matter how out-sized and inappropriate it is to what is actually taking place.

Integrating your essential spiritual qualities

Working with the enneagram system empowers you by enabling you to realize that this personality pattern is not everything that you are. As Daniels says, you can ask yourself “What if I didn’t have this core pattern?”

With awareness, you can begin to “come back to unity” by recognizing and owning your expansive essential spiritual qualities — qualities like holy faith, holy hope, holy origin, and holy truth. You can practice reflection that enables you to reclaim your higher qualities.

As Daniels, so aptly puts it, “We go away from our essential qualities, they don’t go away from us.”

To learn more about this remarkable system for self-discovery and growth, go to www.enneagramworldwide.com. The book is just $10 which is a steal for a wonderful self-help tool for yourself and people you care about.

Melissa Wadsworth is a self-help author, inspirational speaker and personal potential coach specializing in intuitive dream boards.