Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith: Growing Emotionally and Spiritually through the Enneagram

by Bill Gaultiere, Kristi Gaultiere

If you've ever taken a personality test, you may have found yourself in enthusiastic agreement about the positive aspects of your personality, while the less desirable traits listed may have made you a bit defensive. Maybe you read up on a different personality type and wished you had more of those qualities. But the truth is, every type can get stuck in unhealthy emotional and spiritual patterns. And no matter what your personality, you have the potential to grow into the healthiest and most loving version of yourself.

In Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith, Drs. Bill and Kristi Gaultiere use the Enneagram to lead you through a journey of discovery, showing you how God can transform unhealthy patterns of anger, shame, anxiety, and sadness into freedom, joy, peace, and love. Through eye-opening insights, engaging stories, and simple soul care practices and spiritual disciplines, this book offers an avenue to renewed hope and personal growth you may not have thought possible.

If you want to go from knowing your personality type to growing in wholeness, empathy, and faith, let the Gaultieres be your guide.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Spirituality

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2023

About the author

Bill and Kristi Gaultiere have been counseling and ministering to people for 30 years. They are authors of "Journey of the Soul," published by Revell in 2021.

Bill is a psychologist who has served in private practice, co-led a New Life psychiatric day hospital, and pastored churches. Kristi is a marriage and family therapist who has also served in private practice and church ministry. Together they are the founders of Soul Shepherding, a nonprofit ministry to help believers discover their next steps for growing in intimacy with Jesus, emotional health, and loving relationships. They live in Irvine, California.

Reviews

[Vicki Cottingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was keen to read this book partly because I follow Bill and Kristi Gaultiere on social media and like what they have to say and also because I was interested in learning how the enneagram could fit with my personal faith. I know very little about the enneagram and before reading this book I had no idea which of the nine types I was.

This book helped me to better understand myself, why I think and behave in a certain way, and also how this then has an impact on my emotions, particularly the four key emotions they focus on. I really liked how the authors connected the spiritual aspect of our lives to what they shared and provided help and suggestions on how we can grow spiritually. If we are to fully know ourselves as a whole, the spiritual aspect of who we are needs to be included, and I am so glad this was covered in their book.

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#healthyfeelingsthrivingfaith

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so grateful this book was packed with such richness and depth for our often emotionally weary souls. Sitting in silence, as recommended for my type, is a gift I need, crave, and often try to avoid. Bill and Kristi welcome us right back to these rhythms here. So grateful!

[Alan Steier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appreciated the heart that went into this book on the emotions and the enneagram. Certainly an important perspective to have as we work through our own type. Appreciated the openness and honesty of Bill and Kristi as they shared their own story, and sometimes struggle. Highly recommend the book.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will return to this and reference it for help. They do a good job including and valuing the emotions God gave us and reconciling that with our belief of truth.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The variety of Bible translations was intriguing. I enjoyed the inclusion of saints

[Kathryn Lindstrom]

I was helped by this book. It was good to recognize my strengths and areas of growth as anenneagram 6. I plan on reading it /referrin to itagain to help me understand my dear ones!

[Vicki Cottingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was keen to read this book partly because I follow Bill and Kristi Gaultiere on social media and like what they have to say and also because I was interested in learning how the enneagram could fit with my personal faith. I know very little about the enneagram and before reading this book I had no idea which of the nine types I was.

I did find the first chapter hard to understand and it wasn’t until the end of the chapter did the authors mention that you could go to their website soulshepherding.org/Enneagram and take their free assessment to learn what type you are. I did this and I then re-read the first chapter which made a lot more sense to me. I wish they had made this suggestion right at the beginning of their book. The first chapter mentions a map for your type, this “includes your wing (the number next to yours that you relate to), stress line (in stress you take on the unhealthy traits of this number) and growth line (in growth you take on healthy traits of this number).” This is important to remember as you read through the book.

So, I recommend taking this assessment before reading the book and making a note of your “map” as this helped me to get more out of this book.

The authors also focus on four main emotions that can damage your identity and these are anger, shame, anxiety and sadness. I found the chapters on these emotions helpful as they gave information on understanding the emotion, feeling words for each of the emotions, scripture verses, and keys for living emotionally healthy.

At the time of reading, I did wonder how much of the book would be helpful – would I be interested in learning about the other types which I had no connection with?

However, overall I found the whole of the book worth reading. It helped me to better understand the various types, it showed me what is good about each of the types and how I can grow in my type.

The authors also showed how Jesus portrays each of the nine types in a healthy way at various times of his life and what we can learn from him so we can become more like him. The authors gave soul care practices which are relevant for each particular type and even though it wasn’t necessarily my type I was reading about I did find these suggestions useful as there was always something I felt would be good for me to put into practice. The “soul talk” which came at the end of the chapters was also helpful for considering and thinking about what I had just read and learning about how it applied to me.

This book helped me to better understand myself, why I think and behave in a certain way, and also how this has an impact on my emotions, particularly the four key emotions they focus on. I really liked how the authors connected the spiritual aspect of our lives to what they shared and provided help and suggestions on how we can grow spiritually. If we are to fully know ourselves as a whole the spiritual aspect of who we are needs to be included, and I am so glad this was covered in their book.

[Sally Sommers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it's true of any book about the Enneagram, but this one warrants reviewing periodically to soak in its truths further. Lots of rich content and specifics on each type for navigating emotions through a biblical framework. And even though nine of the 18 chapters are dedicated to a specific number, I found I got something out of most chapters. If not for yourself, you're at least bound to get something out of it for the sake of understanding someone else better.