The Wings: you asked, I listened (yes, I do read the Goodreads comments on my book).
If you know me, you know I’m pretty (not so secretly) obsessed with wings and how their nuances interact with each singular personality type, so much so that I created a guide particularly to further the understanding of Enneagram Wings - including a description and “title” of sorts, health and lack of health. It might feel a bit pointed, but hey, that’s the point of the Enneagram in the first place.
We get the word Enneagram from from the Greek words ennea (nine) and grammos (a written symbol), the nine-pointed Enneagram symbol represents nine ways we relate to ourselves and others. Each Enneagram type has a different pattern of thinking, feeling and acting that arises from a deeper inner motivation or worldview.
No one is a 100% made up of just one personality type. Each individual has a mix of their basic personality type, plus one of the numbers on either side of their main enneagram number. For instance, if you are a Type 3, you would either have a dominant mix of a Type 2 or Type 4 in with you main Type as a 3. Essentially, your wing is the “second side” of your personality. In order to fully understand your personality, you must take into consideration which wing you are.
It’s easy to read the single-word description of types one through nine and make a decision, but it’s particularly important to read through the description of how each wing functions and acts in each type, and have a thoroughly informed idea of your wing. It’s also helpful to understand if you’re personally struggling with identifying with your particular type.
If we so perfectly and precisely mirrored the personality assumptions of our type without thoroughly digging into things like our childhood, home, love, work, play, subtypes and wings, we would literally only know nine different kinds of people, full stop. Here’s a brief glance into how your potential wing can interact with your type.
“I know a handful of Type Threes who hate their stereotype. “This doesn’t really sound like me. The core fear of ____ fits, but everything else doesn’t.” This doesn’t mean you’re less-than or even that you’ve mistyped, it means that no types even in their same realm are completely alike. So, if you’ve ever read or even skimmed a quick generalization, seen a meme, or taken an online quiz about what castle your type would live in and thought, “that’s so not me,” but related to other aspects of the type, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that you’ve mistyped yourself, or that you’re perhaps “less” this type than another type. It only means that you’re authentically you, and created to be you, and that you’re bringing something to the world that only you can.”
(The Complete Guide to the Enneagram)