Simon Parke's The Enneagram

The non-fiction book by Simon Parke titled The Enneagram made me think solely on myself. With the help of Parke, I was able to find a condensed version of my personality out of 9 varying choices. I knew what number I was on the Enneagram scale by reading the first sentence in one of his Miniature Portrait’s. It reads, “These people are sometimes seen as life’s carers”(Parke 35). This statement is very true about me in the way that I always care about other people and how they feel. As I continued to read in depth into Parke’s Big Portrait Gallery of a Two, my self-diagnoses was solidified. Above all, I began to find out that my personality had compulsions (or Ghosts as Parke will call them later) that I had never been aware of before. The acknowledgment …show more content…
Parke says that two’s seem “caught up in the image of being helpful and were unwilling to deviate from anything which threatened it” (73). This is a problem for me because I am more focused on being a helpful person to gain approval from the one I help rather than genuinely helping that person from the heart. For example, I used to unload the dishwasher without my parent’s having to ask because I knew that they appreciated having that chore done before they got home from work. Even though it was a small task, I still earned their …show more content…
Parke explains “reaction is untrue action, behavior that arises out of the damage and distortion in our personality”(73). Parke says that two’s react because our personality is damaged and distorted. To explain, I react to other people how they would want me to instead of how I would truly act with my normal personality. My ghosts as a two limit me from really acting with my heart. Parke tells me that I falter because I should be responding, not reacting. “Response is true action, behavior unchained from personal agendas” (Parke 73). This sentence made me think “are two’s actually ‘life’s carers’ if we are too focused on our personal