This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 600 fourth episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode, Nine Positive Character Arks in The Eneagram. Character arcs aren't just the stuff of good fiction. They're

also the essence of all personal growth and transformation. Little wonder then that some of the best

shortcuts writers can find for identifying the most powerful character arc options are those found in personal development tools such as

the Eniagram.

These days most of us are familiar with the Eniagram as a popular personality theory, focuses on an interconnected circle of nine

possible types. I like the way Ian Morgan Kron and Suzanne Stabil describe the inigram in their excellent

beginners book The Road Back to You. They say the enigram teaches that there are nine

different personality styles in the world, one of which we naturally

gravitate toward and adopt in childhood to cope and feel safe.

Each type or number has a distinct way of seeing the world and an underlying motivation that

powerfully influences how that type thinks, feels, and behaves.

For some people, just being able to recognize themselves in one of the nine types is fun, interesting,

and enough to satisfy their curiosity. But the endagram also offers a deep rabbit hole

for those interested in its many complex layers of theory.

An age-old tradition, it comes down to us

as not just a personality typing system, but as an ego transcendence tool.

In short, it's all about transformation.

I've been studying the Ennagram and using it as a cornerstone of my own personal growth for almost five years now.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say its insights have been a major role player in turning my life inside out and upside down in all the best ways.

If you're interested in doing the hard and sometimes scary work of looking deep into your own shadows and

rediscovering all the good stuff you've lost down there. The Enagram is an

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