Nice thread. I've been thinking about starting my own "Enneagram 6" thread, and kinda did at another (enneagram-based) forum.
My history with the enneagram goes basically like this: before I studied it at all or took a test, I figured I was an 8w9; then, in a thread about my MBTI type (not started by me), an ENTP ([MENTION=7421]Bay[/MENTION]) on here said she thought I was a counterphobic 6; I didn't really know what that meant, so I took an enneagram test (similarminds), and it came out 6(w5?) sx/so, with 6, 8, and 3 as my three highest fixes; I started a thread about my enneagram type, and some people who know the enneagram well ([MENTION=10654]Noon[/MENTION]) said that my results looked exactly how you would expect a counterphobic 6's to look, but, frankly, I still had no idea why or what that really meant; I studied the enneagram a bit more, did not identify at all with the brief health level descriptions for the 6 on the Enneagram Institute's website, but did identify with the healthy levels of enneagram 5s and the healthy levels of enenagram 8s (once again, the very brief descriptions), and this made me think I was actually a 5w6 sx/so; I largely ignored the enneagram for the next year or so, but, after eventually putting 5w6 sx/so on my profile, I noticed I kept going back to it and thinking to myself, "I dunno..."; when something feels "off" like that to me, it's usually a good sign that, well, something is off; it nagged at me for a few months, I even changed it to 6w5 sx/so for a short while, but then changed it back (after reading my explanation of my thought process for why I decided on 5w6 in the first place); then, two things happened (rather far apart [~5 months] chronologically from one another [one last December, and one this April]), the former planted the seed, and the latter caused the idea to bud, and so I decided to start seriously studying the enneagram (I also felt like I'd largely exhausted the MBTI/Jungian material, and that learning about the enneagram was the next logical step).
The thread on my enneagram type, after a long hiatus, had also gotten kick-started, randomly, by someone else, around March, I believe, so the enneagram was kinda fresh in my mind going into April, and a good number of people who know me reasonably well (internet-wise) voiced their opinion that I was probably 6w5 (as opposed to the good number of people who had voted 5w6 the last time this thread was active); at [MENTION=5999]PeaceBaby[/MENTION]'s recommendation, I took the enneacards test at enneagram.net, and that came out 6w5, with 683 as my most likely tritype (which seemed to fit really well); then I started talking to [MENTION=5627]BlackCat[/MENTION] about the enneagram, checked out what books are out there, got his recommendations, and got 'Personality Types' by Riso and Hudson (I've since ordered 'Wisdom of the Enneagram' [same authors], 'Character and Neurosis' [Naranjo], one Helen Palmer book, and read a lot of the online material). After reading the enneagram 6 description in 'Personality Types' (the long, detailed health levels, specifically), and just coming to understand the system better, I feel pretty confident I'm an enneagram 6w5 sx/so, one who had lost contact with my inner guidance for some amount of time now (not entirely sure how long yet, just fully came to this realization very recently), and have been spending too much of my time/energy around health level 6 (which happened to jibe with the first experience that planted the seed back in December that I may be a 6w5, not a 5w6). I was afraid, when reading the descriptions, that I might even fall down into health level 7, as the level 6 description fit far more than any of the other previous 5 levels (I kinda describe myself as spending something like 10% of my time/energy in each of the first 5 levels, and 50% in the 6th), but, to my relief, the accuracy of the profile, or, better stated, the extent to which it accurately fit me, stopped on a dime at health level 6. The health level 7 just sounded nothing like me, nor did 8 or 9.
I'm big on using this stuff (MBTI as well) for personal development (awareness -> acceptance -> action), so that's where I've been for the last several weeks (month?), and am starting to make some really good strides. For the first month, I felt like I was really tearing down walls, illusions, ego defenses, looking very soberly and honestly at myself in the mirror; for the last few weeks, that's abated a bit (I still try to keep open to any truths that might arise [as I suspect I will be doing for a long time now {i.e., the rest of my life}]), and been replaced with more constructive internal dialogue (remain open to the moment, the ego is not the self, embrace love/trust over fear); literally just two days ago, at a yoga class on Sunday morning, I felt an amazing switch, whereby I felt like I reconnected with my own inner authority (honestly, I've had this feeling before, last time I remember it most distinctly was my last semester/year of college, when I really had my shit together, and life just felt... alive), which, tbh, I associate with Fi (it's literally a feeling, a line of energy, drawing upward, from a source, a well, deep within my chest [solar plexus, really]); somehow, I'm not quite sure why (I've got some hypotheses, but still not quite sure), I'd lost contact with that, even though I'd had it before, and I can clearly remember how amazing it felt to be in contact with that.
Anyway, sorry, that was kind of a long explanation, but I figured I might as well fill you in on the whole story, considering your own path to enneagram 6 seems rather convoluted.
