We recognize personalities everywhere—on screens, in print, through voices carried across podcasts and radio. We feel as though we know these figures: their expressions, their opinions, their tone. And yet, a quiet question lingers beneath our fascination: Who are they, really? Not the image, not the persona, but the living, breathing being behind it all.

Many of us find ourselves captivated by the Enneagram—its uncanny ability to describe, with startling accuracy, the patterns of human personality. Across cultures and countries, its influence continues to spread. Why? Because it speaks to something we continuously seek to understand ourselves and also to know what makes others tick.

Think back to high school. Each year the classes chose a girl and a boy to be their “favorites” in categories like : Best Looking, Smartest, Most Athletic, Most Likely to Succeed, Most School Spirited, Wittiest—and of course, the Best Personality. In the teen years having a good personality is a coveted compliment. And it serves us well all during life.

There is a difference between spiritual strength and ego strength. Ego strength is built from a deep commitment to our own story, our needs, our preferences, our interpretations of the world. It relies on familiar patterns and well-worn responses, often moving automatically, convinced that its way is the only way. It can appear strong, even decisive, but its strength is rooted in repetition rather than truth.

Strength is essential for the spiritual life. This includes physical endurance as well as mental and emotional strength. But the most profound is the strength of the soul. 

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness..." These words, recorded by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, were spoken by Jesus in Paul’s prayer for his affliction to be healed.

What kind of strength do you long for? Is it courage? Endurance? The strength to face loss, illness, or the suffering of someone you love? Not having the strength we need is not a final verdict. Instead, it is an invitation. Yes, we are invited into a new experience that looks as if it will break us, but instead, it strengthens us.

I was thirty-nine, a husband, father, and the new owner of a house with a mortgage. For the past eleven years, I had been a faculty member of a medical residency program at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, School of Medicine. I thought my job was secure, but one day I walked into a faculty meeting, and our director informed us that the resiliency program had lost its government grant. We relied on that grant for all the operations of the residency program, from paper clips to salaries. By the end of the meeting, all of us knew we were out of a job.

In consciousness and spirituality studies, there is a common denominator: the quest for peace. In such studies, all forms of peace can be traced back to the great peace extended to the universe, from beyond ourselves—the peace of the Divine.

The body center of intelligence, like the other centers of intelligence, can be fueled by the ego. Yes, if unchecked, the mental structure of the ego can overtake the body. The unchecked ego has many distortions of reality which impact the body positively or negatively. And, as can be the case with all three centers, the body center can also be in direct coherence with the soul. When the body and soul are in sync, divine energy fuels the body center.

There is another momentous power within loss. It does not announce itself with fanfare, but once we recognize it, our lives are transformed. 

Loss carries an immense power. It can undo us, weaken us, stab us, and at times make life feel almost unbearable. And yet, loss also holds another kind of power… the power to shape strengths within us, that we might never have known otherwise… strengths that become part of who we are.

Our body, even as it breaks under loss, is learning how to endure more life than it ever has before.

The heart feeds on love, faith, and hope. Hope engenders the ability to anticipate the future. Indeed, it helps us realize that there will be a future. If there is a future, hope helps us trust that we will show up for it. On the Enneagram of Soul, hope activates Sacred Creativity. Yes, paradoxically, loss and grief have their own way of evoking hope by stirring creativity in our hearts. In the act of creating, we find meaning and express it. When we dream, wonder, envision, and put our ideas into motion, we are full of life… we do not have the time or interest for self-pity or emotional paralysis. Hope empowers us. 

Our hearts carry a full range of emotions, some are directly experienced and others are pushed back or repressed. But emotions range from profound sadness, such as that experienced during the death of a loved one, all the way to the ecstasy experienced when our child is born. We keep all emotions in our hearts. But when loss floods our heart with unending grief, fear, anxiety, deprivation, uncertainty, and even meaninglessness, it can feel like a stab, like something ripped from our heart— or like our heart is darkened, or empty.

The mind that suffers the deepest grief is also the mind that that same grief can greatly empower. 

What if the smallest question you ask today becomes the doorway to something life-changing tomorrow?

“Wonder Bread” was born from wonder itself. At the International Balloon Race in the early 1920s, Elmer Cline stood beneath a sky alive with color with hundreds of hot air balloons rising, drifting, and shimmering. He was awe-struck. That single moment of astonishment didn’t just pass; it imprinted on him. It gave birth to a name, an image, even a national product. Wonder became something people could hold in their hands.