The Road Back to You: A book review

“For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in the fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.” —Thomas Merton

The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey of Self-Discovery is an excellent entry into the vast world of the Enneagram, a personality typing system with particular spiritual roots. The above quote, while it appears at the conclusion of the book, well articulates the need for self-awareness and self-discovery. Far from being a journey into narcissism, learning who we are, through tools like the Enneagram, is essential to our spiritual lives as we continually grow in the tasks of loving God and loving neighbor. The book is written by Ian Morgan Cron, an Episcopal priest (who also notes that he’s a Four), and Suzanne Stabile, a long-time Enneagram teacher (and type Two).

The Enneagram encompasses nine different types, and each are categorized into three triads, based on where you primarily make your decisions. This is how, then, the authors organize their book. There’s the Anger or Gut triad, which makes up the Challenger (Type Eight), the Peacemaker (Type Nine), and the Perfectionist (Type One). There’s the Feeling or Heart Triad, which makes up the Helper (Type Two), the Performer (Type Three), and the Romantic (Type Four). Finally, there’s the Fear or Head Triad, which includes the Investigator (Type Five), the Loyalist (Type Six), and the Enthusiast (Type Seven). If Buzzfeed and Facebook quizzes are Twizzlers and candy corn, then Enneagram is a 6-course gourmet banquet.

Each type is like a lens through which a person experiences the world, which uniquely gifts them, but each also has its deficits. “It helps people understand who they are and what makes them tick,” in the words of the authors (10). “It’s full of wisdom for people who want to get our of their own way and become who they were created to be,” as Cron recounts his spiritual director, Br. Dave, telling him.

Cron opens the book with a scene with his spiritual director who first helped him discern his way through the Enneagram. “What we don’t know about ourselves can and will hurt us, not to mention others,” Br. Dave continues.

This is an important detail about about the Enneagram: what it reveals to you isn’t just about you. It awakens a sense of grace for those around us who seem to have a completely different “operating system,” so to speak, whether our spouse, kids, boss, co-workers, pastor, congregants, or neighbors. The authors write, “The Enneagram is a tool that awakens our compassion for people just as they are, not the people we wish they would become so our lives would become easier” (228).

Each chapter includes 20 statements “What it’s like to be a …”, followed by a brief sketch of what a healthy, average, and unhealthy version of each type looks like. The authors then share the “Deadly Sin” associated with each type, what childhood may look like for that particular type, what relationships are like for that type, how they may experience the workplace, wings (or the ways each type blends into another), stress and security (another way that types are connected to one another), and lastly what spiritual transformation can look like for that type. Each chapter closes with ten paths to transformation. While one can certainly read the book straight through, this simple structure makes it an easy reference to go back and study particular types.

One particular common pushback against the Enneagram is the limiting nature of many similar assessments, such as the Myers-Briggs and DiSC profile. If there are seven billion people in the world, how can they all be boiled down to just nine types? To that rebuttal, Cron answers with the paint wall at Home Depot. There may be the color red, but there are infinite variations on that single color. The same is true of the Enneagram. There is the Six, but there are infinite variations of what a Six looks like. It’s an illustration I have already found myself using in conversations explaining the Enneagram.

Cron is an exemplar storyteller and his illustrations make each type come alive and remind you of people you know. It makes the book a very engaging read.

The authors write, “Inside each number is a hidden gift that reveals something about God’s heart” (228). If the book is missing anything, I would like to hear more about the gifts that each type offer the world. I would also like to hear more about the limitations of the Enneagram, that is, what questions is it not helpful in answering, and how does one keep from seeing things in the Enneagram that aren’t really there. But those are minor quibbles. What this book does well—introduce someone to the Enneagram for the first time—it does very, very well.

God is infinitely complex. That people are made in God’s image means that people are infinitely complex. And so, any system trying to make sense of that complexity has its limitations. That the Enneagram makes space for that complexity, for me, makes it one of the more helpful assessments available to bring some order in the chaos of our lives. And because there’s so much to it, it can be daunting where to start, much less, starting in such a way that engages the listener to want to go deeper. But this is something Cron and Stabile navigate extremely well.

I’ll be recommending this to anyone curious about where to start unpacking the Enneagram, and to anyone wanting to gain some deeper self-awareness in order to better navigate their relationship with God and others.