How do we light the heart so we can find our way back home? Here are some ideas for each of the 9 Enneagram types.

Enneagram Ones

Ones are Body Center Enneagram type whose guts and minds can be so strong, they can override their hearts, thus making the journey back home challenging.
Idea | Place your hand over your heart and make the sound of “Ha” so that you can feel your Heart Center vibrating.

Enneagram Twos

Although Twos are a Heart Center Enneagram type, accessing their hearts fully for themselves and not for others is more of a challenge.
Idea | Place both hands in front of the heart about 6 inches from the heart, making them curve toward inward rather than going outward. Say the sound of “om” so it resonates deeply in the heart, using the hands as a gentle barrier to maintain this energy inward instead of going outward.

Enneagram Threes

Although Threes are a Heart Center Enneagram type, they use their hearts to read other peoples’ responses to them rather than to explore their own inner journey to find out where home truly resides.
Idea | Place both hands over the heart, then gently breathe so the breath enters the heart and can be felt it through the hands.

Enneagram Fours

Fours use their heart first and foremost to feel their own feelings.
Idea | To expand the heart into the world, open the palms upward with elbows gently resting near the side of the body and forearms reaching gently outward and make the sound of “Ha.”

Enneagram Fives

Fives need to first need to become embodied before they can more fully access their hearts.
Idea |This can be done through breathing more fully into the body or even through a form of movement or exercise where they feel more fully in their physical selves. From this place, breathe more fully into the heart area.

Enneagram Sixes

Sixes tend to have a rapid interaction between their minds and their hearts, so it is important to first access the heart in a different way.
Idea | Take a walk, go into nature, and find a way in which the body feels relaxed. This will also relax the heart and separate it more from the mind. Bring joy into the heart, filling the heart with joy by thinking of something or someone special and loved.

Enneagram Sevens

The heart can be challenging for Sevens because, as a type that wants to run from pain by moving into the mind and idea generation and positive possibility thinking.
Idea | To become more integrated and complete, stay in your heart no matter what it offers, focusing on your emotional experiences for increasingly longer periods of time.

Enneagram Eights

The heart of the Eight is rich and vibrant but walled off because that is where vulnerability resides.
Idea | To allow deep feeling, deep heartedness and true strength rather than fortified strength to emerge, relax the body armor that protects your heart by breathing gently and regularly into your heart area. Massages help, too!

Enneagram Nines

For Nines, the body must be fully felt in order for the heart to find its way home.
Idea | Be courageous, be big, stand tall – no slouching – and speak your truth. The heart wants its voice to be heard.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD, author of eight Enneagram books, 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 | ginger@theenneagraminbusiness.com