Beyond Self-Improvement to Discovery
We’re often encouraged to “work on ourselves” to become “better” versions of ourselves. Systems like the Enneagram offer valuable insights into our personalities, yet even these profound tools can lead us into a trap: the belief that our flaws must be “fixed.” The paradox of self-improvement is that the harder we try to rise above our limitations, the more we reinforce the very identities we hope to transcend. This approach can keep us in a loop of striving rather than revealing the deeper, more authentic experience of simply being.
Instead of aiming to “fix” ourselves, relentless curiosity invites us to explore ourselves with an open mind and a sense of wonder, to discover rather than improve. Curiosity doesn’t ask us to “get out” of ourselves; it asks us to meet each part of ourselves exactly as we are. With curiosity, the Enneagram becomes a powerful doorway to genuine understanding and transformation—an invitation to explore our patterns, fears, avoidance mechanisms, and the paradoxes within us. This journey goes beyond self-improvement, leading us to realize that our true nature is not something to attain but something to experience directly.
The Paradox of Self-Improvement
We often find ourselves stuck in the paradox of self-improvement: self can’t get out of self. The harder we strive to escape or improve, the more we reinforce the very sense of identity we’re trying to transcend. This loop of self-fixing arises from a belief that something is inherently wrong with us, driving us to “optimize” our personality to find peace or happiness. But each attempt to improve ourselves ultimately strengthens the identity we hope to leave behind.
Relentless curiosity invites us to step out of this cycle of self-improvement. Rather than seeking to escape or optimize, curiosity asks, What’s actually here? It reorients us from fixing to discovery, allowing us to engage with our experiences without judgment. We’re no longer battling our limitations but learning to understand and observe them. This shift changes everything: we see that our patterns are not flaws to be overcome but doorways to deeper understanding.
The point is not to become a different person, but to become more fully yourself.
From The Wisdom of the Enneagram
Fear and Avoidance
Fear, avoidance, and emotion form a triad that profoundly shapes our inner experience. While fear is a natural survival mechanism, it often becomes psychological in humans, extending beyond immediate threats to influence our thoughts, beliefs, and identities. This pervasive fear drives us to find ways to protect our sense of self, with avoidance becoming one of our primary strategies. Avoiding discomfort, however, can trap us in what’s known as the anxiety-avoidance cycle. In this feedback loop, each act of avoidance temporarily eases anxiety but ultimately strengthens the underlying fear, increasing our dependency on avoidance as a coping mechanism. Over time, this cycle narrows our lives and reinforces the belief that discomfort can be fled, limiting our experience and growth.
Breaking Free of the Anxiety-Avoidance Cycle
Curiosity provides a way out of the anxiety-avoidance cycle by shifting our focus from escape to exploration. When we approach discomfort with curiosity, we no longer avoid but actively engage with our experience, asking questions like, “What am I truly feeling here?” and “What lies behind this discomfort?” Paired with awareness—the nonjudgmental observation of our reactions—curiosity dissolves the compulsion to avoid. This practice disrupts the anxiety-avoidance loop, helping us build resilience and embrace discomfort as part of a fuller, more authentic life.
Fear of Emotions and the Shadow Self
Fear doesn’t just apply to external situations; it often affects how we relate to our emotions. Many of us are conditioned to avoid particular feelings, such as vulnerability, anger, or sadness, because they challenge our sense of control or stability. These avoided emotions form our “shadow”—the parts of ourselves that remain hidden because they feel too disruptive to face.
Relentless curiosity invites us to confront these emotional shadows. Awareness allows us to hold these emotions in a space of nonjudgment, where they can be seen without interference. This process of witnessing emotions without an agenda—of simply being present with them—acts as an alchemical force for transformation. Emotions that once felt overwhelming or threatening become messengers of insight, allowing us to reclaim parts of ourselves that were previously hidden.
The personality is not something to get rid of, but to understand.
Through understanding it, we see beyond it.”
From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram
The Power and Mechanism of Transformation
True transformation is not a matter of “doing” but of seeing. Awareness—the simple, nonjudgmental act of observing—is the alchemical agent that catalyzes transformation. As we bring awareness to our beliefs, attitudes, and patterns, we allow them to be seen fully, which creates space for organic change. The Enneagram helps us see where transformation is possible by pointing to our patterns; curiosity opens the doors, and awareness provides the illumination that allows these patterns to shift.
Transformation, when grounded in curiosity and awareness, is deeply experiential. It’s about 90% experiential (phenomenological) and 10% conceptual. Information about ourselves alone doesn’t create change; the quality of attention and openness we bring to our inner world allows us to transform. Through curiosity, we let go of trying to “fix” ourselves and instead open to what is present, allowing transformation to unfold as a natural process of awareness.
From Self-Improvement to Self-Discovery
When we live with relentless curiosity, we shift from a goal-oriented self-improvement approach to a path of open-ended discovery. Curiosity asks us not to perfect ourselves but to meet each part of our experience—each strength, fear, and habit—as it is. Rather than asking, “How can I be better?” curiosity invites us to ask, What’s this? What’s here to explore? These questions do not seek to “fix” anything; instead, they lead us into deeper dimensions of understanding and authenticity.
Curiosity and awareness allow us to release the need to control or judge our experiences. We begin to see that each part of our personality, every habit, and every fear holds insights. The Enneagram becomes a map for self-discovery. This approach changes the nature of transformation from something we “do” to something we experience, allowing us to meet ourselves with a sense of beginner’s mind.
The Enneagram is not a typology of types. It is a typology of traps.
Claudio Naranjo
Embracing the Mystery
At the heart of this journey lies a profound mystery. As we let go of self-improvement and embrace curiosity, we encounter a presence within ourselves that is beyond personality, beyond self-concept. This presence is spacious and holds all our experiences without judgment or need for change. In this awareness, we touch a freedom not tied to improvement but inherent to what we are – individual consciousness.
In this realization, we find that our journey was never about becoming something more or better but about returning to the wholeness that is always here. True transformation arises not from achieving a different self but from seeing what’s not real.
The Enneagram isn’t about fixing or improving who you are,
it’s about seeing what you aren’t.
John Harper is a Diamond Approach teacher, Enneagram guide, and human development student whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.