Welcome to this blog! As you will notice, it’s not only about the Enneagram, but also on inner growth in general. However, since what I am exploring is the Enneagram, the centres and the instincts (among other things), I’m assuming that most of you know about these things. But if you don’t, there will be plenty here for you anyway 🧡
Cicci Lyckow Bäckman
The one who blogs 😉Latest posts
Unseen treasures and forgotten keys — thoughts about lame uses for the Enneagram
The way lots of people treat the Enneagram today feels to me like the equivalent of returning to a grocery store over and over, in order to develop your skills in naming and identifying all the different articles in there and knowing exactly where to find each one. Sure, you can to that — but it’s not what the grocery store is for, and you will eventually starve. To live, you need to move on from mere identification to actually purchasing the foods, taking them home, and letting them nourish you. Sadly, it seems like the larger Enneagram conversation has…
Continue Reading Unseen treasures and forgotten keys — thoughts about lame uses for the Enneagram
Surface or Core — real understanding, or just trait-spotting?
Sometimes, people say that they have to “access their Nine” (when perhaps they mean “chill”) or “awaken their One” (when perhaps they mean getting organised or doing whatever they do more meticulously). But we can all chill, and we can all be thorough. So when is it actually relevant to discuss “accessing” other types within, and when is it just short-code for bunches of traits? One aspect of the “Zooming out” approach to the Enneagram that I like to advocate for is distinguishing between us behaving, reasoning or feeling like another type and us exhibiting aspects of the deeper core…
Continue Reading Surface or Core — real understanding, or just trait-spotting?
“Identification” in our instinctual drives — distinguishing personality from instinct
Did you hear about the notion that you can be either positively negatively identified with any instinctual drive — regardless of where this drive features in your preferential “stack”? Here I’ll say something about this perspective and point to some of the common misunderstandings that make this information seem like a game-changer when it comes to understanding the instincts. My response to some questions I’ve encountered on this topic has had my thoughts go in two directions: One, what it means that an instinct is dominant or leading, and two, what is and is not part of “instinct“ in the…
Our wounded hearts — the compost in which our ego personality develops
Sometimes people talk about “wounds” that form the basis of each personality type, and then a debate erupts whether our personality is actually wound-based, or whether this is an old, outdated notion that stems from obsolete psychology. After a while, it generally transpires that the wounds referred to are childhood wounds, such as not getting enough attention, being punished or otherwise treated unfairly, or any other common childhood experience. And no, those are not causing our Enneagram type. But there is another sort of wound that is, a strong factor — a much deeper type of wound, and much more…
Continue Reading Our wounded hearts — the compost in which our ego personality develops
My type story — finding the right type after being summarily (and wrongly) defaulted into the wrong one
I’m not a great fan of typing services. Offering to work with a client, following up conclusions, looking at deeper personality structures and exploring together, yes, sure. That is working from “you” into “type” — not the other way around. On way, you get to know both yourself and the model better. And if you don’t probe deeply enough into the model to actually find your type, having someone put a label on you won’t be that helpful. My typing story — a quick three-parter My type — after some initial confusion, more down to not having really understood the…
“Anger” is not one thing — how generalisations and simplifications squelch our inner experience
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of different posts on the topic of anger on social media, in and out of the Enneagram context. How anger is destructive. How it’s constructive. How it needs to be worked through. How it is a natural part of being human and not something that needs to be fixed. How it is a sign of health — or a sign of pathology. What gives? One problem with so many of our discussions, not least those around inner growth, is born at the very start of the discussion — or even before it begins. When we…
Luring the ego into the business of truth — welcome to Self-Definition 101
The Enneagram seems to be growing exponentially in popularity, which is cool. But, let’s face it — this increased interest is not primarily because hordes of people are seeking out inner work teachers for deep transformational development. Rather, it’s because the surface appeal and applications of the model are getting more airspace. Which, in itself, is obviously fine — only, a lot of its finer points (pun unintended) tend to get lost in translation. Its real value. Its innate quality of truth — which radically sets it apart from garden variety typing systems and all manner of nifty models that…
Continue Reading Luring the ego into the business of truth — welcome to Self-Definition 101
Growth hovering — substituting a new and improved intellectual grasp for actual experience
Are you prone to growth hovering? We all are, at least on and off, since this is one of the ego’s favourite activities. But since growth hovering is not actual growth — but excels at masquerading as just that — the challenge is to sense when orientation and overview falls over into hoarding and hovering, postponing any real inner work, and thus also true inner growth. All the time there seem to pop up new, fresh approaches on the Enneagram as a whole and on the personality types found on it. And they all seem to promise greater insight, leading…
Did you only learn it, or did you actually get it? The importance of zooming out
We hear a lot about understanding the Enneagram, as such — the system, the types, the arrows, the instincts, and so on. But we hear less about understanding the teachings about these things, in themselves. The expression “it’s not rocket science” is very true here, but not in the conventional meaning. Rather, what we need to realise is, it’s not like maths. It’s not logic. It’s humanity — and sometimes, it’s life itself. Because of this, we need to approach learning about the Enneagram (and everything in connection with it and around it) differently from how we would approach, say,…
Continue Reading Did you only learn it, or did you actually get it? The importance of zooming out
Trauma, healing and our instinctual reality — your gut looking out for you
Trauma* is a therapeutic chapter of its own. There’s talk of emotional trauma, and psychological trauma, and of course physical trauma. Instincts, though, are rarely discussed — likely because we don’t tend to be aware of them as everyday companions. But maybe we ought to be. Trauma can be radical, dramatic and life-changing. But there are also smaller, sometimes but not always repeated events that are equally traumatic, even though it does not show on the outside. And then, we have big, overwhelming experiences that are just that, but that we still wouldn’t label traumatic. What makes an experience traumatic?…
Continue Reading Trauma, healing and our instinctual reality — your gut looking out for you