The last few months I’ve been on a self-discovery kick. Also known as, my mental health took a nosedive and I’ve been seeking some sort of balance ever since. After a break, I am back in therapy. I switched psychiatrist and have changed up some of my medications and recently tried acupuncture for the first time (thank you to my Chicago girl gang for the gift certificate!). I still suck at meditating, but I am trying to be more mindful and purposefully set aside time to learn and just be with myself which is what led me to an episode of Glennon Doyle’s podcast, “We Can Do Hard Things” about enneagrams with Suzanne Stabile.

Ok, I know everyone was talking about enneagrams a year or two ago – I saw the meme’s all over the socials but struggled to glean anything from the number types. Which seems ridiculous to me now because, holy cow is my number obvious.

For those unfamiliar with enneagrams, its roots go back to the 4th century, but the structure now used was developed in the 1950’s. According to the Enneagram Institute, “everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality...” (all definitions in this post are quoted from the Enneagram Institute). I won’t get into the specifics about the nine types because you can do that with a simple google search what I DO think is important to know is that Enneagram experts agree that we cannot change our core personality type. There are other factors that can come into play: wings, and levels of development that add layers to each type. It can be a little complex which I think is where I got lost initially – oh, and the fact that I didn’t know who I was anymore.

After Adelaide died, I was left with a shell of myself. My purpose had been her, my schedule was determined by her, my goals revolved around her. I was lost (read depressed) and have never felt less like myself. A year after Adelaide died, to the lay viewer I was functioning normal-ish. By the second year I had decided to give healing a go. Last fall, at the third-year mark, I thought I was doing pretty well and in comparison, I was: I had worked through so much of my grief, I was productive and generally doing life. But when you scrape away your surface issues the deeper-rooted problems find the light and can become invasive. Basically, my inner critic has been at an eleven for months now and I’m desperate for a moment of peace.

Back to the enneagram, I am a type 3, which is known as “The Achiever”. Please, someone, how in the world did this evade me years ago? Broken down to the simplest terms, threes are “adaptable, excelling, driven, and image-conscious”. Check, check, check, and check. But wait, there’s more. Each of the personality types has one of three ‘centers’. Five, six and seven belong to the thinking center; eight, night and one to the instinctive center; and two, three and four (wait for it), the feeling center. If that wasn’t enough each center has a “powerful, largely unconscious emotional response to the loss of contact with the core of the self”. For the thinkers that emotion is fear, the instinctuals is anger or rage, and my emotional friends, we feel shame.

So, basically the enneagram tells me that I am an emotional over-achiever that is concerned about how other people perceive me and when I’m not true to myself I feel shame. I mean, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a better description of me…ever.

Now, aside from being a cool party trick, why was this so enlightening to me? Because remember that important fact I mentioned earlier? WE CAN’T CHANGE OUR PERSONALITY TYPE. This revelation was possibly the single most freeing concept I’ve ever encountered. For YEARS (decades?) my inner critic has berated me for caring about what others think, for an ambition that risks leaving me disappointed, for absorbing emotions and struggling to process them, for feeling guilty for just about anything and everything. I have been desperately trying to change, but that’s not realistic because I AM WHO I AM.

I’m not saying that I don’t have work to do. I can absolutely work on being more confident in who I am so that I worry less about my image. I can do a better job of acknowledging all I have accomplished as I continue to do and achieve. My point is that these pieces of me that I fought against, that I thought were my faults are in fact core pieces of who I am and can be my superpowers if I tune them correctly.

Look, I’m no expert on any of this and can’t speak to the scientifically reviewed facts of it all. But these concepts have unquestionably helped me lean into my true nature and thus lower the volume of my inner critic. I’m finally giving myself permission to be me and wow, that feels really freaking good.

Image description: Close up of Kelly laying down wearing a blue and white striped shirt smiling gently at the camera.