Accurately identifying your Enneagram type really does matter, and here’s why. Mistyped people pay attention, although unintentionally, to the wrong things (or misinterpret why they do something) and subsequently pursue a development path that isn’t going to support their growth The post Overlays for Type Eight: country and family appeared first on The Enneagram in Business.
Accurately identifying your Enneagram type really does matter, and here’s why. Mistyped people pay attention, although unintentionally, to the wrong things (or misinterpret why they do something) and subsequently pursue a development path that isn’t going to support their growth and transformation. Mistyped people also misunderstand or misinterpret their own impact on others, making it challenging to truly understand and improve human interactions using the insights of the Enneagram.
There are many reasons that contribute to the challenge, but also the beauty, of accurate typing. One of these factors involves overlays on our type. The two overlays that occur most frequently are country (culture) overlays and family overlays. Not every country has a clear Enneagram type, and Enneagram teachers may disagree about the type of a certain country. My assessments come from two sources: my personally having visited the countries multiple times and from discussions with Enneagram professionals who live and work in those countries.
Country: Spain
Spain is an Eight culture with a long history of battles and wars. In fact, Spain was the first to have a worldwide empire in the XVI century that included territories from all continents, so large was their territorial reach. With a long tradition of strong patriarchy, Spain is known for its bullfighting, a bloody and violent spectator “sport” that ends in death, most often for the bull but sometimes for the matador. In general, communication is extremely direct, with loud voices and with no problem expressing anger, which can be quite intimidating. The overlay of directness and claiming space or territory overlays most Spaniards, regardless of type.
There are most likely other countries that could be Enneagram Eights. No country, however, came to my mind, so I asked Google AI, and they weren’t sure either! In addition to Spain, AI speculated that possibly Mexico, Russia and even the US could be candidates. I have personally been to Mexico more times than almost any other country, and Eight does not seem to be a good fit. Yes, Mexico might be a passionate country (think Diego Rivera, who was likely an Eight himself), but the country as a whole is, in my experience, deeply tender, familial and loyal, and not particularly aggressive or confrontational. Also listed was Russia, but I have no direct experience there.
The US does not seem to be, in my thinking, an Enneagram Eight country and is far more likely an Enneagram Three: image-oriented, results-focused, etc. But Texas in the US is most probably an Enneagram type Eight state. Calgary, Canada, may be an Eight city, and it has so much in common with Texas: ranching, vastness, oil…Hmmm.
Family overlays
Not every family has a strong family overlay, but those that do have had one person in the family system, usually a person in a position of perceived authority, who has had a pervasive influence on all the children in that family, not just one child. That person could be a mother, father, grandparent, uncle, aunt, or even the eldest sibling. If the family overlay is type Eight, the children tend to present themselves as tougher or stronger than they actually are.
About Ginger
Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD, author of nine Enneagram books including The Art of Typing, is a speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach. She provides certification programs and training tools for business professionals around the world who want to bring the Enneagram into organizations with high-impact business applications. TheEnneagramInBusiness.com | [email protected]
The post Overlays for Type Eight: country and family appeared first on The Enneagram in Business.
