The Enneagram and Relationships

Have you ever wondered why people do what they do?

Have you ever wondered why you do what you do?

You may have noticed that people are not always predictable, particularly in relationships. Now, there's all kinds of reasons why we as human beings are not always predictable, but it's especially helpful to know yourself well and those you work and live with.

My name is Linda Frazee, and I've been teaching a system called the Enneagram for 30 years. I believe it is currently the best way to dive into your own self knowledge and understand yourself and others. Otherwise you're navigating from your childhood and your past relationship experience. Sometimes that works for you, but other times it really gets in the way.

The Enneagram is this ancient system refined in modern times. Once you find your type in the system, you can use the map it provides to understand why you do what you do and also why others do what they do as well.

Now, even though we know better, we keep expecting people to look through the same eyes we do. When we first meet someone new we may even find their viewpoint interesting or even fascinating. However, living with or working with someone who doesn't look through the same lens as us can get challenging over time. You might've noticed that. Discovering how they see the world, which has very little to do with how you do, can change the relationship dynamic tremendously.

Now, there's always two basic questions in any relationships. What do you believe about yourself and the world, and how much do you know about your own behavior and your own motivation.

Now, those two kinds of questions are really pretty basic, but if someone doesn't really know themselves, whether that's you as the person you're in relationship with, what they don't know gets in the way.

It's almost like whether they're trying to shove it under the rug or not, we trip over it. Because then we get into patterns that are just repeated over and over.

Studies show that arguments with people who live together in a romantic relationship are the same over 20 or 30 or 50 years. They'll often report, "we've had that same argument all these many years."

Well, my goal in teaching people the Enneagram is to help them go beyond the same arguments over and over and really dig a little deeper to see "what am I contributing?" and "what's my blind spot about this?". Because it's not fun having the same argument over and over. You might've noticed that too.

So the Enneagram provides a lot of answers.

It shows you your own blind spots, if you study it well. And it shows you your trigger points, the places that you get triggered.

You know, there's times you get really upset over nothing. And it shows us how we project. We project our own thoughts about how life should be in the lens we look through onto other people, and then we're constantly upset because they don't see it our way, and we don't even know we're projecting.

So a key ingredient in relationships is learning to really listen to the person, to get that they're different, and to celebrate their differences instead of attack them for their differences.

I have a five part series about the Enneagram. It's a good place to start about understanding yourself and understanding the people you're in relationship with. Just go to my website, www.LindaFrazee.com you can read my blog as well as register for it. It's Free and it's divided into five parts. It will be a good place to start in finding yourself. And if you're in a romantic relationship, it's really ideal to have your partner watch it with you as well.

Have a good day. I hope you enjoy the videos.

xxx - Linda