Discovery 2: Each Other’s Sensitivities

The Inner Enneagram

Gaining Comprehensive Self-Awareness
of Each Other’s Personality

II. Discovering Each Partner’s Inner Sensitivities

As couples opened up in sessions, the Second Dynamic became clear – that each Enneagram type shared the same emotional sensitivities and underlying core insecurities that were being triggered in the relationship.

It is the natural human condition to have emotional wounds and insecurities in our personality. Just as we may have physical imbalances, like asthma. However, it these fundamental emotional insecurities that create our inner sensitivities and needs that show up in our personality. They are also what fuel our upset feelings in our conflicts together.

Partners find that gaining this personal self-awareness within themselves is empowering. Most people are unconscious of these sensitivities that grip their personality. And thus they tend to act them out freely and righteously. It’s like having asthma and not understanding it. Nor knowing what you can do to free yourself of it.

Gaining these shared awarenesses together is what enables each partner to better attune to and respect the sensitivities that each faces inside. This enables them to relate to their partner more deeply, and care about what each other goes through.

Knowledge is power here. Now they can immediately recognize the source of their tensions within themselves whenever they emerge. And with the tools we teach, they can safely resolve them with their partner rather than act them out. In doing so, they increasingly free themselves of the binding hold these sensitivities have on them.

“Chris was very helpful in guiding us to a happier marriage. My spouse and I had anger issues that had us on edge much of the time. Chris gave us insights that I found eye-opening. We are now able to recognize the underlying reasons for our intense reactions to each other, i.e., why we were causing frustration and hurt, when in our minds, we thought we were just being reasonable. We’re learning how to have a disagreement without emotional upset.

Without Chris, we never would have been able to understand why we triggered each other. We’re much more relaxed and enjoying each other’s company again and for that, I am grateful to Chris.” – R. L..

Continue to Discovery 3:

How Each Other’s Pressures Can Go Out of Balance