If You're An Enneagram Six, Here Is The Self-Help Book You Should Read
Dependable. Teammate. Troubleshooter. The words that describe Enneagram Sixes bring to mind an individual who is reliable and who champions others. Enneagrams are an increasingly popular form of personality test, similar to Myers-Briggs, and they can be used to help you identify your best (and worst) traits. By knowing your Enneagram number, you can determine which Enneagram types you're most compatible with, what your motivations are, and the best ways to reach your aspirations.
Enneagram Type Six is known as The Loyalist, according to the Enneagram Institute. Type Sixes are "committed" and "security-oriented," the Institute says. Type Sixes are also the most loyal to those they love. While Enneagram Sixes are quick to trust others, though, they don't always trust themselves. If you're looking to learn how to listen to your intuition, cultivate faith in yourself (and the world), and quiet your insecurities, all while meeting your New Year's Resolution to read more, these are the self-help books that will get you started.
If you're harder on yourself than you are others
Enneagram Sixes, according to the Enneagram Institute, often struggle with self-confidence. "Sixes come to believe that they do not possess the internal resources to handle life's challenges," the Institute explains. Even though Type Sixes naturally trust others, they don't hold the same level of trust within themselves. That sense of insecurity is hard to live alongside, which is why acclaimed researcher and New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown wrote: "I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from 'What Will People Think?' to 'I Am Enough.'"
The book, full of several years' worth of research and numerous interviews, highlights how being imperfect doesn't mean that you're inadequate (per Amazon.com). "We need our lives back," Brown writes. "It's time to reclaim the gifts of imperfection — the courage to be real, the compassion we need to love ourselves and others, and the connection that gives true purpose and meaning to life." As an Enneagram Six, it's important to learn these lessons in an effort to be more confident in yourself.
If you're anxious about everything all the time
More than any other Enneagram, Type Sixes depend on a basic need for security and support, according to the Enneagram Institute. When that safety doesn't seem apparent, Type Sixes can be quick to draw the worst conclusions, ruminating on the worst-case scenarios, and becoming overwhelmed with anxiety. Anxious feelings aren't unique to Type Sixes by any means, but learning how much anxiety is too much anxiety is important to maintain your well-being. The Enneagram Institute offers advice for Type Sixes with anxiety: "Remember that there is nothing unusual about being anxious since everyone is anxious and much more often than you might think."
Learning to subdue that anxiety isn't easy, but Gabrielle Bernstein found that it is possible to transform that fear into something more productive. In "The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear into Faith," Bernstein uses her book to explore how connection, joy, and faith can ground you in life with more excitement than anxiety (per Amazon). In doing so, Type Sixes can find the sense of safety they long for. "The happiness, safety, and security we long for lies in our commitment to love," she writes.
If your mind is in the past and future, but you want to live in the present
With their longing for security and tendency for anxious feelings, Enneagram Sixes can have trouble living in the moment. Whether it's ruminating over past mistakes to see what they did wrong or planning for every outcome that could be in their future, Type Sixes want to maximize security and minimize stress, according to the Enneagram Institute. The author Alan Watts believed that everyone spends too much time in their heads planning ahead or looking back instead of being focused on the present.
In "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety," Watts offers insight that would likely ring true to Enneagram Type Sixes. Grounded in studies of philosophy and religion, Watts articulates how an individual "must embrace the present" to "live fully in the now" (per Amazon). Allowing the past to remain in the past and accepting the future to be an unknown you have no control over can help you live more in the moment than ever before.