The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery

By Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile

Over 750,000 Copies Sold Worldwide!
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
Missio Alliance Essential Reading List

Ignorance is bliss—except in self-awareness.

What you don't know about yourself can hurt you and your relationships—and even keep you in the shallows with God. Do you want help figuring out who you are and why you're stuck in the same ruts?

The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system with an uncanny accuracy in describing how human beings are wired, both positively and negatively. In The Road Back to You Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile forge a unique approach—a practical, comprehensive way of accessing Enneagram wisdom and exploring its connections with Christian spirituality for a deeper knowledge of ourselves, compassion for others, and love for God.

Witty and filled with stories, this book allows you to peek inside each of the nine Enneagram types, keeping you turning the pages long after you have read the chapter about your own number. Not only will you learn more about yourself, but you will also start to see the world through other people's eyes, understanding how and why people think, feel, and act the way they do.

Beginning with changes you can start making today, the wisdom of the Enneagram can help take you further along into who you really are—leading you into places of spiritual discovery you would never have found on your own, and paving the way to the wiser, more compassionate person you want to become.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9780830893270

Ian Morgan Cron

Ian Morgan Cron is a bestselling author, psychotherapist, Enneagram teacher, Episcopal priest, and the host of the popular podcast Typology. His books include the Enneagram primer The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, which has sold over one million copies; the novel Chasing Francis; the spiritual memoir Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me; and The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self.

Reviews for The Road Back to You

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A friend recommended this book as being filled with a great insight about life. It is a framework for understanding how people develop their personalities. It is also a means of better understanding yourself. For me the challenge is to grasp the presented spectrum of personalities well enough to know how to clarify yourself and your loved ones. The expectation is that knowing yourself better opens the door to a fuller and more satisfying life. I finished the book realizing that at best it is just an introduction. I will need to know more before I can begin to be confident about categorizing people. And in the end even if you don't fully accept the schema for categorizing people you have enriched you insight into the working of your mind and the mind of others.

[amandanan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you’re at all interested in enneagram, I highly recommend this book. I basically just highlighted the entire chapter of my number.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a pithy, but highly informative read about what motivates us. It gets at our dearest and darkest desires and how we can be our best selves, particularly if we are people of faith. When reading my section, I felt a shot of pain, but also great enlightenment. I will return to this again.

[scottjpearson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My wife came home from church one day and said, “I want to take that Sunday School class on the Enneagram.” I’d heard of it, but I knew nothing about it. Over the next few weeks, she kept calling people numbers. “You’re a five.” or “I’m a six.” Intrigued, I decided to read this book to learn more about it.

I was – and still am – very cynical that human personality can be broken down accurately into nine parts. Even though the enneagram has ancient roots in Christian spirituality, the system seems somewhat contrived and arbitrary. Why must things combine in a set way? Why can’t they be some other way?

At its best, this book offers a language to communicate about concepts that make people’s personalities tick. At its best, the enneagram provides a lens through which to understand the people in our lives with compassion. At its worst, it’s just another reductionistic self-help program.

These concepts are all-the-rage in mainline Christian churches today. Some people treat all of this as incontrovertible gospel. In some ways, it’s the new Myers-Briggs psychology test, which was the new Jungian archetypes. It’s helpful to be exposed to, at the very least in order to learn the language. But there is more to life than personality as there is more to psychology than the almighty self. This book needs to teach us about others, not self-absorption, about love-of-neighbor instead of mere narcissism.

Therefore, I think this book is misnomered. The goal is not self-discovery. The goal is discovery of how to understand those closest to us. I know I thought of co-workers and family members as I read. I thought of how I could have handled situations and people better than I did. Yes, it taught me about myself, but that wasn’t the point. It taught me about them and how I can relate to their lives better. It didn’t teach me how I can be me better. It taught me how handle me so that I can love them better.

[saresmoore · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a helpful and honest introduction to the Enneagram—it's written from a Christian perspective. I felt empowered in reading this and appreciated the unbiased insight as well as the theme of compassion and mutual understanding.

[cail_judy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Coupled with The Course of Love, these two books have come along at a crucial time in my life and given me great insight into myself, allowing for the self-discovery I've been searching for.

If you're interested in engaging with and learning about your core self in a tangible way, give this a read. It's a great introduction to the Enneagram, how it operates and how you (and others) experience the world.

[darcia_10 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Prior to reading this book, I knew little about the Enneagram system. I'm fascinated by the ways in which we can be typed into different personality groups, so I was happy to delve into this ancient system. The Enneagram is similar to the Myers-Briggs system, with more emphasis on behavioral patterns over thinking patterns. This book is marketed as "Christian", but a specific religious leaning is not necessary in order to read, enjoy, and learn from the material. While the authors do occasionally talk about their relationship to God, the connection emphasizes spiritual connections more than a specific religion or belief system. The writing style is conversational and flows well. The authors interject personal anecdotes throughout, giving the intimate feel of a friendly discussion rather than a dry textbook lesson.I particularly like that the authors don't use The Enneagram to simply label us with a personality type number and a list of traits, but, more importantly, they teach us how to identify our negative behaviors and offer ways to work on correcting them. The authors stress that our personality types don't cast us in concrete. When we're self-aware, we're able to challenge ourselves to grow and become the best version of ourselves. *I was provided with an ebook copy by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*