Christopher L. Heuertz > Quotes

“Nouwen suggested we all find ourselves bouncing around three very human lies that we believe about our identity: I am what I have, I am what I do, and I am what other people say or think about me.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“My own consistent struggle is to recognize my addictive tendency to validate my worth (dignity) by curating an unrealistic and unattainable projection of who I think I need to be (identity).”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“These pages testify to the discovery of uhnlikely gifts when we stay in community--especially when we stay after things get hard.”
― Christopher Heuertz

“When we integrate, it should surprise us. It should be an unexpected reward for doing what is nourishing for our soul—and that wonderful shock of observing the gifts of our integration is the validation of the astonishing grace it is.”
― Christopher L Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Locating friendship at the heart of mission involves certain assumptions -- that reconciliation with God is something for which every human being is made and relationships are reciprocal.”
― Christopher Heuertz, Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission

“The English word personality is derived from the Latin word for “mask.” Simply put, our personality is the mask we wear. Taking off that mask, trying to get behind the mask, is the work of the spiritual journey. A mark of spiritual growth is when we stop polishing the mask and instead start working on our character. The Enneagram helps us do that character-structure work.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Tragically, most of us start with our sense of identity, believing that if we build out the mythology of who we think we are, then the more attractive our identity and the more valuable we become. But when we equate our dignity with the sum value of the fortification of stories we tell about our identity, we create a no-win scenario that will always lead to disillusionment and pain. Overidentifying with our success or failure, allowing the fragments of our identity to lay claim to the whole, and falling into the addictive loop of our mental and emotional preoccupations keep us stuck.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Just be. Let go. Give in to the silence.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“As Russ Hudson frequently emphasizes, “Type isn’t a ‘type’ of person, but a path to God.” The nine types of the Enneagram form a sort of color wheel that describes the basic archetypes of humanity’s tragic flaws, sin tendencies, primary fears, and unconscious needs. The understanding of these components, when shaped through contemplative practice, helps us wake up to our True Self and come home to our essential nature.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“When we give ourselves to the hard work of integrating what we have come to learn about ourselves, the Enneagram becomes a sacred map of our soul, one that shows us the places where we have vulnerabilities or tendencies to get stuck as well as the possibilities of where we can go for deeper freedom and inner peace.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Learning to see ourselves for who we truly are—the good, the bad, the ugly—is a gift of grace. The Enneagram helps us do just that.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“A mark of spiritual growth is when we stop polishing the mask and instead start working on our character.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Life-giving ministry flows from lives that are full of gratitude to God, not with an expectation of gratitude from others. In community we can support one another, affirm contributions and yet also trust that our work is sustained by grace.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission

“He once told me the story of a visit he made to a local Catholic elementary school. After sharing with a group of the students, a young girl—probably third or fourth grade—approached him and struck up a conversation. A few moments into their discussion, a look of pure astonishment flashed in the student’s eyes. Suddenly, she blurted out, “You’re blind!” Which is true. Due to a sickness, he lost his sight when he was just a small child. With genuine tenderness, Father Gillick responded, “That’s not news to me.” But before he could say anything else, she quickly moved from shock to sadness, replying, “You don’t know what you look like.” That profound statement from such a young person caught Father Gillick off guard, and before he could comment she softly said, “You’re beautiful.” I’m deeply moved every time I think about that”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Being able to caricature nine kinds of people might be an interesting dinner party trick, but it only reinforces the reductionism of categorizing individuals, which in the end dehumanizes everyone. The Enneagram offers much more under the surface. Its various facets—the names and needs, the Holy Ideas and Virtues—give us practical handles to better identify and understand our type. By digging deeper into the why behind each type we start to unravel the mystery of our True Self and essential nature. This is the real substance we aim for.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“And we know pilgrimages don’t end; they merely facilitate new beginnings.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“At the root of nearly every decision we make in life is the desire to find our way home, back to our essential nature, our True Self, and back to God. Sadly, the reality of living in the broken world outside of Eden is that we often go about this in all the wrong ways. So the Fixation and Passion of each Enneagram type become a sort of addiction loop, a misguided attempt to find our way home, back to our True Self where we are aligned with our Holy Idea and Virtue. I think of the Fixation and Passion as a tiny flashlight that our ego attempts to use to find our way home in the dark. These are the most primitive of all our coping skills, and when we rely on them they become self-destructive patterns that ironically keep us in the dark.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“When Twos consent to solitude, they agree to be alone in order to stop trying to please everyone—even God. Twos who constantly attempt to delight God fill all the surrounding space with their insecure energy and so are unable to receive Divine Love, which is already reaching toward them, even within them. Twos who withdraw to solitude consent to be present to God rather than to please God, which allows them to be filled by God with the love they long for.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Because these Anchor Points sit in the middle of their Intelligence Centers, neither of their wings reach outside their center. Because their wings don’t reach outside their center, they ironically are the most disconnected from their center. The Threes are the most estranged from their hearts (often manifested in their loneliness), the Sixes the most detached from their minds (which explains how irrational they can sometimes be), and the Nines the most disjointed from their bodies (experienced in the ways they calm down their external environments through the mellowing energy they project).”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“What’s more, the centers explain something about each of the nine Enneagram types by helping identify a person’s most accessible emotional response or reaction: anxiety or distress for the Head Center, fear or shame for the Heart Center, and frustration or anger for the Body Center.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“My own consistent struggle is to recognize my addictive tendency to validate my worth (dignity) by curating an unrealistic and unattainable projection of who I think I need to be (identity). By pandering to thin or worn-out versions of my False Self, I’ve fallen into the trap that Franciscan priest and author Father Richard Rohr (hereafter, Father Richard) often warns about: “Every unrealistic expectation is a resentment waiting to happen.” And as I constantly fail to meet my own standards, the resentment keeps me trapped.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“We are punished by our sins not for them.”1”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“I could see my spiritual director was not naïve or trying to please me, nor did he romanticize my eager personality; he simply got me to look at things in a much broader and less judgmental way, which as a type One on the Enneagram is a major victory.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Identity answers the question ‘Who am I?’, while dignity answers the question, ‘What am I worth?’”1”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“When it comes to recognizing the truth of our own identities, most of us experience a symbolic version of blindness that keeps us from seeing ourselves for who we really are.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“The Enneagram and its origins have a storied history, to be sure. But it is also a time-tested universal theory of human nature that stands to offer us treasured insights about ourselves: why we do what we do, what God created us for, and how to bridge the gap between.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Our mind uses the Fixation of our type as a way of convincing our heart that the Passion is justified, creating an inevitable loop of which we must be aware.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“The traditional Virtues of each type are as follows: Type One Serenity Type Two Humility Type Three Truthfulness, Authenticity Type Four Equanimity, Emotional Balance Type Five Detachment Type Six Courage Type Seven Sobriety Type Eight Innocence Type Nine Action Returning to type One, when the mind is set at ease that God’s perfection is enough, then the heart rests in serenity, unbothered by what seems to be imperfect.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“As we give ourselves to contemplative practice, aligning prayer postures with intentions to support our spiritual growth, something happens to us. We find new ways of coming home.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

“Drawing attention to themselves or their needs just complicated things, so Nines detached from their needs and ensured their surroundings and loved ones were taken care of.”
― Christopher L. Heuertz, The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth