Every Tuesday at www.aroundthecircle.org we release a "Rewired" episode for all members.

This is an example of our most recent discussion on stance. We dive into a big term debate in Enneagram world: what do we actually call the stance of Ones, Twos, and Sixes? Are they compliant, dependent, responsive, or reactive? Katie comes in ready to retire some terms altogether, Jeff brings the history from Horney, Riso–Hudson, Palmer, Chestnut, and Naranjo, and together they pull the whole thing apart—from theory to lived experience.

Along the way, they tease out why “compliant” and “dependent” miss something essential, how thinking repression really shows up in 1–2–6 land, and why reactive may be the most honest (even if it stings a bit). They also talk about the danger of naming only behavior instead of underlying motive, why Ones are not nearly as “certain” internally as they look, and how terminology actually shapes people’s ability to see themselves clearly.

In this conversation:

• A quick history of stances: moving toward, against, and away

• Why “compliant” doesn’t describe Ones, Twos, and Sixes as well as we think

• The case for “dependent” and why it still falls short

• Reacting vs responding: what thinking repression really feels like on the ground

• How language choices impact coaching, corporate work, and self-understanding

• Where Jeff and Katie land—for now—on what we should call the 1–2–6 stance

Michael Shahan to talk about what happens in the therapy room when “something different needs to happen” – and how our Enneagram type often **gets in the way* * of real transformation.

We look at the sneaky ways ego disguises itself as “doing the work,” why simply venting or collecting tools isn’t the same as change, and how type-patterns show up when clients resist the very shifts they say they want.

We walk around the circle:

• how 4s, 5s, and 9s can get trapped in their inner world,
• how 1s, 2s, and 6s outsource their thinking and chase shoulds and diagnoses,
• how 3s, 7s, and 8s try to outrun their feelings with action and efficiency.

Along the way we talk about finding the right therapist, balancing the three centers, working with your repressed center through tiny “micro-moves,” and why noticing your patterns is often the first hard step. We also name a hard truth: Enneagram knowledge isn’t the same as doing the work.

If you’ve ever wondered, “Why do I know my type and still feel stuck?” this one’s for you.

Apply to be interviewed on Early Access : HERE

See our other work at : www.aroundthecircle.org

Katie talks to her friend Kayci about what it feels like to be a reactive doer. We talk obligation, anger, and the struggle of juggling what you want vs the expectations of others.

In this far-reaching Type Four conversation, Kristen Messegee sits down with Enneagram coach Monique Lacoste to explore the inner landscape of one of the most mythologized and misunderstood Enneagram types.

Together they trace what it means to carry intensity, to read truth on every level, and to live with the emotional realness of the emotionally responsive types.

Monique opens the door to the lived experience of Fours: the search for authenticity, the pull toward beauty, the cultivation of mood, and the complicated dance between internal image and external mirroring. She speaks candidly about anger, passion, shame, envy, and the surprising ways these show up in real relationships, conflict, creativity, and self-understanding.

They look at Tri-Fixes, instinct theory, attachment patterns, emotional truth-telling—and remaining grounded in story, vulnerability, and real-time discovery.

For the full interview with Today and Josiah go : HERE

Jeff sits down with Cody Harris and Josiah Goff, hosts of the Enneagram Five Podcast, to explore the inner world of Fives—especially male Fives who rarely get this kind of airtime.

Cody and Josiah talk about deconstruction, neurodivergence, learning to actually feel emotions instead of just analyzing them, and how their podcast slowly moved from “transparent” (talking about past struggles) to truly “vulnerable” (naming what they’re in the middle of right now).

If you love a Five, are a Five, or have ever wondered what’s really going on behind that stoic exterior, this one will give you language, stories, and a whole lot of compassion for the Five experience.

Apply to be interviewed on Early Access : HERE

See our other work at : www.aroundthecircle.org

In this Early Access episode, Katie introduces the next chapter of the series: additional interviews with each Enneagram number, beginning with a rich Type One conversation featuring Natasha. Natasha shares her journey into the Enneagram, her experience of body-centered intuition, and how Ones navigate anger, resentment, and the urge to fix entire systems rather than small parts. Together, Katie and Natasha explore the deep emotional life of Ones, the difference between thinking and feeling, and why growing in self-awareness is both liberating and humbling.

We sit down with Danielle Fuller, creator of Scientific Enneagram, to preview her brand-new podcast coming to our channel in January 2026.

Subscribe : on iTunes or on Spotify .

Danielle is an engineer and a systems thinker who sees a huge gap between the world of Enneagram teaching and the world of science and research. Her passion is to become a bridge-builder between those two spaces, helping us ask better questions, see the limits of what we know, and slowly build a real body of work around Enneagram and science.

In this conversation we talk about:

• Why doing good science with the Enneagram is so hard (self-reporting, motives vs. behavior, and the limits of current tools)
• How psychology has moved through introspection, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and the cognitive revolution—and where the Enneagram might fit in that story
• The tension between qualitative narrative work (like panels and coaching) and quantitative data (stats, brain scans, validated scales)
• The ways cultural bias shows up in psychological research (WEIRD samples, Western assumptions, college-student data) and what that means for a tool that claims to describe 8 billion people
• Why motive may be one of the most important things science could study—and how the Enneagram offers a lens, not the final word

We also get into funding, grad students, file-drawer problems, conspiracy thinking, and why Danielle is doing this as a passion project even though there’s basically no money in it.

If you’re a scientist, grad student, therapist, or researcher who’s Enneagram-informed (or even Enneagram-skeptical) and want to talk, Danielle would love to hear from you: hello@scientificenneagram.com

I’m genuinely thrilled about this show. My hope is that The Scientific Enneagram becomes a hub for serious conversations about motive, method, and what we can actually know when we bring the Enneagram into the lab.

Thanks for supporting us on Patreon. You’re making experiments like this possible.

In this episode of Early Access, Katie sits down with Joleen Nguyen, a 32-year-old counterphobic Enneagram Six and new mom to explore the rich inner world of Sixes from the inside.

Joleen shares how she first met the Enneagram through a flimsy one-paragraph description of Sixes, why it didn’t stick at first, and how returning to the Enneagram years later (after a deep love affair with Myers-Briggs) completely changed the way she saw herself.

She and Katie unpack why the Enneagram goes deeper than Myers-Briggs—naming why we do what we do—and what it means that your number doesn’t change, even as you grow.

Together they tease apart the frequent mistype between Sixes, Threes, and Eights, looking at stance, energy, and especially what happens under stress: Six “six-ing out,” Three-ish sabotage, and how integrity, community, and fear show up differently in each type. Joleen opens up about the Six “committee,” the terror of being wrong, the longing for secure community, and how motherhood helped her finally trust her own judgment.

They close by reframing Sixes not as “the anxious ones,” but as people whose consideration of others is a superpower.