What Is the Enneagram and How Can It Help Me Parent My Teenager? | Ashlie Woods | Episode 158

Parents wonder why teenagers do the things they do. When we struggle with them, it can leave us scratching our heads and wondering. Part of the reason is they may see the world differently than you do. We each have our own fears and beliefs that impact how we see things and how we react. Another issue may be your ability to  respond to a situation rather than fall into a reaction. Ashlie Woods understands all of this and she talks to Mighty Parenting podcast host Sandy Fowler about how the enneagram can help us understand it. She tells us what the enneagram is and shows us how to use it in our parenting. She talks about the archetypes, empathy, behavior problems, and motivation. She shares how we can gain greater freedom to reflect and choose so we can respond to our children rather than react to them.

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A Favorite Quote from the Show: 

We’re all just trying to get our needs met in whatever way we know how.

High Points From Our Conversation:

The enneagram is made up 9 archetypal patterns of human behavior. The 9 points represent a pattern of thinking and feeling that lets us make our way in the world.

It gives us the capacity to understand each other and to have compassion and empathy for ourselves first. When we have that then we can extend it to others in an authentic and real way.

We’re all just trying to get our needs met in whatever way we know how.

The enneagram is a tool that illuminates things that aren’t so fun to see. This can be difficult but it’s also a great freedom.

The things we’ve bean doing unconsciously will be seen by us. Awareness is the first step to changing.

None of us will make a change when the results we’re getting are more valuable than the price we’re paying for it through the consequences. As parents, we oftentimes don’t understand that about our children so we slip into emotional manipulation.

What motivates one person doesn’t motivate another.

However we see the world, we tend to assume others see it the same way, but they don’t.

Behavior problems come when our kids lack self-compassion, self-awareness, and self-worth.

Begin by discovering your enneagram type. Learn what it is that moves you, your basic fear and desire. Then you can begin to notice your own thoughts and behaviors and gain greater freedom. You can respond rather than react to situations. Even when you choose the same thing, you’ll do it with a different energy and likely, different results.

The enneagram helps you discover what’s possible.

Discovering our personality type doesn’t tell us who we are, rather it shows us the primary way we cut ourselves off from being who we are.

You are actually a rainbow, encompassing many different aspects of personality, but you forget. You think you’re red but you’re actually a rainbow. When you stick a label on yourself you feel justified in who you are. However, you aren’t that label.

Be careful not to type your children and “stick them in a personality box”. Rather, make a commitment to continuously relate to the people in your life as possibility.

The enneagram is based on motivation, not action. Two people who are different types can take the same action but do it for different reasons.

The enneagram is about motivation, not action. The same actions can come from different motivations.

The mind does this tricky thing. The brain starts to collect evidence to support our position whether it is true or not. You’ll see things that support your position and subconsciously ignore things that don’t.

When we do this, we begin to relate with this person in a certain way. We start to relate to them as we see them and that impacts how they show up in our world. People show up inside the space we provide for them.

Stay humble. Stay curious. Be willing to be surprised.

Resources:

The Enneagram Institute 

Kristen Kneff interview on self-compassion coming in 2021

Our Guest Ashlie Woods:

Ashlie believes you are infinitely powerful and inherently creative. Her work is about you knowing that truth in the most undeniable of ways so that you can embody it in every area of your life.

Her journey to freedom began over a decade ago when she attended a weekend workshop and discovered that she wasn’t broken. That life-changing moment propelled her along an endless path of self-love and authentic living.

In the decade since, she’s come to know the wholeness of who she is, to trust her intuition for guidance and to believe that she is worthy of what she most desires.

She believes there is nothing sweeter or more liberating than loving yourself exactly the way that you are. 

A Certified Integral Life Coach and Mindfulness Teacher, Ashlie facilitates transformational experiences that liberate and empower people to live their most creative, fulfilling and self-expressed lives.

For more from our guest or to connect with her visit https://ashliewoods.com.

Our Sponsor:

Sandy Fowler—helping moms find time for what matters most (Free strategy on taking the first step to finding more time while relieving stress and guilt at https://sandyfowler.com/find-time