Around the Circle | An Enneagram Podcast

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Two quick things before we jump in!

First, I'd love to invite you to watch the video version of this episode on YouTube. We're working to grow our presence there, and if you haven't already, I'd really appreciate you subscribing to our channel. It makes a difference!

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Second, come join the conversation on Tuesday nights! We're working through Helen Palmer's The Enneagram in Love and Work together, and I'd love to hear your perspective : HERE

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In this episode of The Reading Room, Jeff continues his exploration of Helen Palmer's The Enneagram in Love and Work, examining the "Focal Issues" she identifies for all nine types. Written more than 30 years ago, Palmer's work helped shape many of the descriptions that still dominate Enneagram conversations today.

But do those descriptions hold up?

From the hidden stubbornness of Nines and the confrontational honesty of Eights to the mental gymnastics of Sevens, the projection of Sixes, and the emotional intensity of Fours, Jeff explores what Palmer gets right, what deserves a second look, and which familiar stereotypes may need to be abandoned altogether.

Along the way, he challenges conventional descriptions of Ones, examines the relationship between privacy and avarice in Fives, and considers how Twos and Threes pursue connection, attention, and identity.

I want to hear your take!

Join our weekly Reading Room discussions every Tuesday at 4:30 PM Pacific / 7:30 PM Eastern where we are reading, questioning, and discussing some of the most influential Enneagram literature of the last 40 years.

Join us : HERE

Register for Year One : HERE

Work with Mandy Capehart : HERE

Talk with TJ WIlson : HERE

Are Enneagram Sevens really avoiding pain? Or is something deeper driving their relentless pursuit of possibility, experience, and connection?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff is joined by Lindsay Davis Marx and Marianne Biglin for a revealing conversation about the inner world of Enneagram Sevens. Together, they explore how Sevens relate to their thinking, feeling, and body centers—and what happens when they move toward One in stress and Five in security.

This time, Jeff pushes back on some familiar Enneagram stereotypes. Sevens aren't necessarily afraid of pain, disconnected from their emotions, or incapable of slowing down. Their experiences suggest something more complicated: a deep desire to live fully, a fear of losing life's possibilities, and a longing to be genuinely seen and understood.

Along the way, they discuss perfectionism, chronic illness, optimism, emotional vulnerability, relationships, and the surprising ways Sevens find stillness and security.

What if the Seven's greatest struggle isn't avoiding suffering, but learning to embrace the life they have—even when it doesn't go according to plan?

Join our Tuesday night Reading Room discussions : HERE

What happens when we combine the nine Enneagram types with the three human instincts? We get 27 subtypes—and a whole new layer of complexity in understanding personality, motivation, and relationships.

In this episode of The Reading Room, Jeff continues exploring Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, examining the history of the instincts and how self-preservation, sexual (one-to-one), and social energies interact with each of the nine types. Moving through all 27 subtypes, Jeff highlights Palmer’s most compelling observations about the passions, relationships, and the hidden motivations that shape our lives.

But how much of this framework actually holds up? While some of Palmer’s descriptions offer remarkable insight, others seem incomplete or miss the mark entirely. Jeff challenges several of her conclusions, particularly those concerning Enneagram Ones, and asks whether subtypes are essential to understanding personality—or simply another useful language for exploring ourselves.

#Enneagram #EnneagramSubtypes #EnneagramInstincts #HelenPalmer #TheReadingRoom

What happens when an Enneagram Eight loses control? And what does it look like when their strength gives way to tenderness?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with three Enneagram Eights—Kyle, Deena, and Grace—to explore their experiences of stress and security, particularly their movement toward Five and Two. Together, they discuss the Eight's relationship with anger, anxiety, vulnerability, and the often-overlooked emotional life beneath their powerful exterior.

The conversation explores the difference between gut intuition and emotional connection, why Eights often express love through action, and how fear can quickly become anger when their sense of agency is threatened. Along the way, the panel considers how instinctual differences shape their experiences and how growth can open the door to generosity, service, and tenderness. What happens when an Eight discovers that strength isn't always about being in control?

#enneagram #enneagram8 #enneagrameight

Join us on Tuesdays : HERE

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff begins exploring the nine Enneagram types through Helen Palmer's The Enneagram in Love and Work. Moving through the first pages of each type's chapter, Jeff examines four central themes: worldview, spiritual path, concerns, and personality bias. What does each type believe about the world, where does its attention go, and what does meaningful growth require?

This time, Jeff highlights Palmer's most compelling insights while pushing back on her assumptions about childhood wounds, the origins of personality, and the relationship between our motivations and behaviors. Along the way, he considers the difference between describing a type's struggles and identifying the work that might actually lead to growth.

• Type Two: Becoming indispensable to others, the subtle manipulation of relationships, and learning to recognize personal needs and worth apart from being needed.
• Type Three: Confusing performance with identity, losing touch with genuine emotions, and learning to distinguish the authentic self from the image presented to others.
• Type Four: The push-pull of longing and rejection, the emotional focus on love and loss, and learning to find satisfaction in what is already present.
• Type Five: The desire for privacy and independence, mistaking emotional detachment for spiritual maturity, and discovering the importance of participating in life rather than merely observing it.
• Type Six: The complicated relationship with authority, forgetting past successes, and developing genuine faith rather than settling for the security of rules and protective structures.
• Type Seven: Finding joy in possibilities and plans, replacing painful feelings with positive alternatives, and learning to stay present rather than moving on.
• Type Eight: Confusing subjective convictions with objective truth, using power to establish control, and learning to question personal assumptions while genuinely considering other perspectives.
• Type Nine: The comfort of neutrality, the enormous energy spent avoiding what matters most, and learning to direct attention toward personal priorities and meaningful action.
• Type One: The severe inner critic, the tendency to turn self-criticism outward, and the difficult but essential work of distinguishing what we want from what we believe is right.

Throughout the episode, Jeff asks whether traditional Enneagram descriptions adequately capture the motivations beneath our behaviors. Can we move beyond familiar caricatures and childhood narratives toward a more precise understanding of each type—and a clearer picture of what growth actually looks like?

What happens when Enneagram Nines begin taking up space in their own life?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with five Enneagram Nines—Sara, Theresa, Sue, Lynsie, and Andrew—to explore their relationships with their body, head, and heart.

Together, they discuss the challenge of listening to their physical self, the mental energy spent considering everyone else's perspective, and the difficulty of expressing their own emotions, desires, and needs.

We then take up the experience of Nines as they move to Six in stress and Three in security. Along the way, the panel explores anger, inertia, self-neglect, confidence, and the possibility that growth for Nines involves learning to recognize their own value and take up space in the world.

Join us on Tuesdays : HERE

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What if the greatest obstacle to becoming who we want to be is settling for something less than what we truly desire?

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff continues his study of Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, exploring the relationship between our deepest fears, what we avoid, and the passions traditionally associated with each Enneagram type. What if the seven deadly sins are not the source of our struggles, but the fruit of something deeper?

This time, Jeff introduces the idea of idols—the lesser substitutes we settle for when our fears shape our choices. Ones settle for being right instead of being good. Twos pursue appreciation instead of genuine love. Threes chase image instead of excellence. Across all nine types, these false substitutes promise satisfaction but ultimately leave us wanting more.

How can recognizing what we settle for help us understand our shadow, confront our fears, and recover the things we genuinely desire?

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Join the Reading Room!

We're studying Helen Palmer's The Enneagram in Love and Work together every Tuesday evening. Join us for thoughtful conversations about the Enneagram and the things that matter most.

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#Enneagram #HelenPalmer #AroundTheCircle #EnneagramTypes #PersonalGrowth

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff welcomes Sherry Danner, former marriage and family therapist, boundaries coach, and Enneagram Five, for a conversation about boundaries as the art of relationship. Rather than simply protecting our peace or learning to say no, they explore how boundaries shape our identity, commitments, and ability to connect with others.

This time, Jeff and Sherry discuss the difference between hurt and harm, the challenge of being clear, kind, direct, and honest, and how our familiar strategies for avoiding discomfort can eventually work against us. Lastly, they explore the role of the head, heart, and body centers in navigating relationships, including our desires for clarity, connection, and agency. When does protecting ourselves become a form of isolation? And what might it look like to establish boundaries that make deeper relationships possible?

Connect with Sherry

Sherry is currently developing Divine Lines, a new project focused on identifying and overcoming patterns that keep us from pursuing what we truly desire. Drawing on insights from the Enneagram and personal growth work, she plans to offer individual and group opportunities beginning in early 2027.

Website: https://divinelines.com/ (currently under construction)

Email: sherry@divinelines.com

Reach out to Sherry to join her mailing list, learn about upcoming offerings, or inquire about working with her individually.

What do Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones really have in common?

In this Enneagram panel, Jeff is joined by coaches representing the three Body Types to explore the inner worlds of Eights (Stacey Wynn), Nines (TJ Wilson), and Ones (Dani Cooper). They talk about agency, autonomy, control, anger, energy, and what it actually feels like to move through the world from the Body Center.

Along the way, the conversation explores the arrows and lines, passive aggression in Nines, the One’s relationship with control and spontaneity, the Eight’s movement between strength and vulnerability, and the complicated relationship all three types have with anger. The group also pushes back on the idea that our Enneagram type necessarily begins with a childhood wound, asking whether our type may shape how we experience our story rather than simply being caused by it.

What changes when anger isn’t simply a problem to overcome, but a source of energy, agency, and action?

#Enneagram #Enneagram8 #Enneagram9 #Enneagram1 #EnneagramTypes

To meet with us on Tuesday Nights : GO HERE

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What if the deepest motivation of each type begins not with something broken, but with something good?

In this episode of the Reading Room, Jeff continues working through the introduction to Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, focusing on a foundational question: Where does our Enneagram type actually come from? Palmer describes the passions—the traditional deadly sins—as a central axis of type, shaping the biases through which we experience ourselves and the world.

This time, Jeff pushes back, exploring three categories that may be more foundational to our experience: embodiment, fear, and avoidance.

#Enneagram #HelenPalmer #EnneagramTypes #PersonalGrowth #TheReadingRoom

Spiral Dynamics Podcast Feed : HERE

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff continues our series on Spiral Dynamics, exploring the high and low sides of Orange, Green, Yellow, and beyond.

As the spiral expands, our values become more complex: Orange elevates reason and achievement, Green turns our attention toward empathy and inclusion, and Yellow begins asking how we discern what is actually wise.

This time, we look at what each stage contributes—and what happens when its central value is pushed too far. Orange can give us science, expertise, and extraordinary human achievement while reducing people to productivity. Green restores attention to dignity, subjective experience, and unheard voices, but can struggle to distinguish between listening to every perspective and treating every perspective as equally wise. Yellow responds by reaching for discernment, integration, balance, and wisdom.

Lastly, we bring Spiral Dynamics into conversation with the Enneagram, asking what maturity might look like when we can recognize the different voices, centers, instincts, and values within ourselves without being dominated by any one of them. And as Yellow gives way to Turquoise, we consider whether maturity eventually requires something beyond understanding the map: actually entering the world, participating in it, and learning how to live what we know.

#spiraldynamics #Enneagram #motive #maturity

Connect with Melissa and her work : HERE

How does the Enneagram shape our creativity?

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with author, artist, and Enneagram coach Melissa Kircher to explore creativity through the head, heart, and body. We talk about finding the right physical space for creative work, the importance of routine and “shitty first drafts,” eureka moments, curiosity, the muse, and the strange mixture of discipline and receptivity required to make something new.

Along the way, we explore creativity through an Enneagram lens: how each center contributes something different, how our stress and security moves can shape the creative process, and why creativity can be both an act of purposeful expression and a form of restoration. Melissa also shares how years of writing, painting, illustration, and coaching have shaped her understanding of what it means to create.

Lastly, Melissa gives us a preview of her upcoming book—a practical, illustrated guide designed to move Enneagram wisdom from theory into transformation. The central question underneath it all: What happens when we stop thinking of creativity as something reserved for artists and begin seeing it as part of being human?

#Enneagram #Creativity #CreativeProcess #PersonalGrowth #AroundTheCircle

To join us this Tuesday : GO HERE

In this episode of the Reading Room, we begin our journey through Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram in Love and Work, one of the foundational texts of the modern Enneagram.

We introduce Palmer and the narrative tradition, explore her emphasis on learning from people speaking from inside their own type, and consider why attention, relationships, and lived experience are so central to her approach.

Along the way, we work through Palmer’s concise portraits of all nine types—especially how each approaches love and where each naturally focuses attention. We then move into some of the deeper assumptions beneath her Enneagram: personality as a “false self,” essence as our deeper spiritual nature, and the passions as the organizing forces that shape the way each type experiences the world.

Lastly, we explore Palmer’s account of the passions, virtues, fixations, and arrows while asking where her framework is illuminating and where it deserves more scrutiny. Is our Enneagram type primarily something to transcend, or does it reveal something genuinely good about who we are? And what happens when we keep Palmer’s remarkable observations about type while questioning some of the metaphysics underneath them?

#enneagram #HelenPalmer

For more Panel discussions go : HERE

In this episode, we sit down with Enneagram Fours, Sixes, and Eights to explore what happens when something goes wrong. We’ve been calling 4-6-8 the emotional response triad—three types that often look for some kind of response from the people around them before they can move through a problem.

Along the way, we explore what that response looks like for each type. Fours look for emotional connection and the sense that you get it. Sixes look for congruence, reassurance, and evidence that their experience makes sense. Eights push for presence, investment, and signs that the other person has real skin in the game. The language differs, but underneath it is a shared question: Do you see what I see, and do you care about this with me?

Lastly, we talk about trust, betrayal, intensity, vulnerability, and what happens when that hoped-for response never comes. What emerges is a conversation about how 4-6-8 types seek alignment in difficult moments—and why being seen by another person may be an essential part of how these types find their way forward.

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In this episode of the Reading Room, we finish our journey through Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, turning to pride, hubris, humility, and the complicated work of seeing ourselves clearly. We explore the difference between healthy self-regard and self-obsession, and ask how wisdom might help us find an honest assessment of both our value and our limitations.

Along the way, we move into Brown’s conclusion and the relationship between emotion, theory, and meaning. What stories do we use to make sense of ourselves and the world—and where might the Enneagram fit as a theory of human motivation? We consider the role of self-awareness, the centers, and the stories we tell in creating meaning from our experience.

Lastly, we explore Brown’s distinction between the “near” and “far” enemies of connection and what it might tell us about love. Attachment can masquerade as love, just as other emotions can appear to connect us while actually pulling us apart. We end with a question at the heart of the entire book: How might knowing ourselves more deeply help us become people who can more freely love and connect with others?

#enneagram

Connect with us at : www.aroundthecircle.org

Subscribe to the Spiral Dynamics feed : HERE

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In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff continues his introduction to Spiral Dynamics by looking at the high side and low side of each stage—and what each color can teach us about human growth.

This time, we move through Beige, Purple, Red, and Blue, exploring survival, belonging, individual power, and belief. Along the way, Jeff connects Spiral Dynamics with the Enneagram, showing how our values shape what we want, how we understand ourselves, and why we sometimes talk past the people closest to us.

Lastly, we consider an important possibility: growth doesn't always mean moving forward. Sometimes the healthiest move is reclaiming something valuable from an earlier stage—and learning to recognize the wisdom each color has to offer.

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with a panel of Enneagram Ones to explore their relationships with the head, heart, and body—and what those relationships reveal about stress, security, and growth.

This time, the panel talks about thinking repression, the inner critic, the need to fix what has gone wrong, and the grief Ones experience when relationships or ideals fall apart. They also explore why emotions can feel messy and why Ones so often turn their feelings into something to manage or solve.

Lastly, the conversation turns toward the body, anger, limits, and the ever-present language of “should.” What might growth look like when Ones learn to bring the gifts of the head, heart, and body together with greater freedom and grace?

#enneagram #enneagramone #enneagram1 #enneagram1w2 #enneagram1w9

To Join us Tuesday : GO HERE

In this episode of The Reading Room, Jeff continues through Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart with Chapter 12, “Places We Go When We Feel Wronged.”

We begin with anger: Is it a primary emotion, or is it often an indicator pointing toward something deeper—grief, betrayal, fear, shame, disappointment, or pain?

This time, we follow Brown through contempt, disgust, dehumanization, and hate, asking what happens when the experience of being hurt begins separating us from other people. Along the way, Jeff brings the Enneagram, the ethics of Jesus, and questions of prejudice and human dignity into the conversation.

Lastly, we turn to self-righteousness and the danger of becoming so convinced of our own rightness that we lose curiosity, connection, and compassion. Anger can be a catalyst—but what would it mean to transform the pain of being wronged into something life-giving: courage, love, justice, compassion, and meaningful change?

#BreneBrown #AtlasOfTheHeart #Enneagram #EmotionalIntelligence #TheReadingRoom

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff sits down with a panel of Enneagram Twos—Amy, Sarah, and Jennifer—for a candid conversation about how Twos experience the Head, Heart, and Body Centers. They talk about thinking through relationships, the deep drive toward connection, and the challenge of knowing when helping becomes overstepping: “Is this mine to do?”

This time, the conversation moves into rejection, relational rupture, emotional intelligence, and the complicated relationship Twos can have with their own needs and bodies. The panel considers the Heart Center as a “bonding center”—an intelligence constantly tracking connection and the state of relationships.

Lastly, they explore the Two’s movement toward Eight: the power and agency it can provide, but also the temptation toward control when vulnerability feels threatening. What does growth look like when a Two can care deeply for others without taking responsibility for everyone—and can trust that connection doesn’t have to be earned?

#Enneagram #Enneagram2 #EnneagramTwo #PersonalGrowth #Relationships

In this episode of Around the Circle, Jeff continues through Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, looking at the places we go when life is good: joy, happiness, calm, contentment, gratitude, relief, and tranquility. Along the way, he asks a bigger philosophical question: What if these emotions don’t simply describe how we feel, but offer clues about what human beings are made for?

This time, Jeff brings Brown into conversation with Aristotle, Socrates, Jesus, Aquinas, and C.S. Lewis, contrasting momentary pleasure with a much richer vision of happiness as human flourishing. Aristotle’s eudaimonia, Aquinas’s union with the highest good, and the Beatitudes all point toward happiness as something deeper than favorable circumstances.

Lastly, we turn toward gratitude, foreboding joy, and tranquility—and the practices that help us build a life characterized by wisdom, moderation, virtue, and joy. What habits spiral us upward? And what if the best life isn’t simply one that feels good, but one in which our character truly flourishes?

#AtlasOfTheHeart #BreneBrown #Enneagram #Happiness #AroundTheCircle