Around the Circle | An Enneagram Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Reading Room | Chapter Two : "Personality and Wholeness in Therapy" Apr 04, 2026

Show notes

This week in the Reading Room, we continue our journey through Personality and Wholeness in Therapy with a deep dive into Chapter Two. This chapter introduces the PDP framework—a fresh attempt to reinterpret the Enneagram through developmental pathways, neuroscience, and narrative data. Along the way, we wrestle with big questions: What actually counts as evidence? How much of personality is fixed? And what role does inner experience play in shaping who we become?

The conversation moves between appreciation and critique. We explore the strengths of the narrative tradition—especially its focus on first-person experience—while also pushing back on philosophical assumptions around “true self,” wholeness, and the limits of scientific grounding. We also examine the tension between “types” and “patterns,” the role of automatic behavior, and whether personality constrains or enables real change.

Ultimately, this episode lands on a practical and urgent insight: the Enneagram matters because it reveals motive. And if we don’t examine our motives, they quietly run our lives. But when we bring awareness to them, we gain the possibility of real transformation—toward greater balance, integration, and health.

Processing Centers | Threes and Ones Apr 02, 2026

Show notes

In this installment on the Enneagram’s processing centers, Jeff Cook and Katie Whitlock engage When Working Together Doesn’t Work by Joey Schewee, focusing on the doing center through Types One and Three.

The conversation explores how these types assess life through action—how progress, productivity, and accomplishment become the primary lens for determining whether things are working.

For Ones and Threes, doing is not secondary; it is the ground of evaluation, the place where identity and meaning begin to take shape.

KJ Ramsey | Joy and Pain Apr 01, 2026

Show notes

What can joy survive?

In this conversation, Jeff Cook sits down with licensed trauma therapist and author KJ Ramsey to explore the surprising relationship between pain, joy, identity, and healing.

Drawing from her upcoming memoir The Place Between Our Pain, KJ shares how chronic illness, trauma, and the limits of control reshape our understanding of time, self, and what it means to be held. Together, Jeff and KJ examine the tension between despair and hope, the role of the Enneagram in personal growth, and the deep question beneath it all:

Can joy still exist when everything falls apart?

This episode moves through themes of:

Trauma and post-traumatic growth
The “true self” vs. personality
Chronic illness and the experience of time
Joy as presence, not performance
Agency, embodiment, and survival
Faith, meaning, and the limits of understanding

Whether you're navigating suffering, exploring the Enneagram, or asking deeper philosophical questions about identity and purpose—this conversation offers both honesty and hope.

📘 KJ Ramsey’s Book

The Place Between Our Pain: A Memoir of What Joy Can Survive

→ Pre-order & learn more: https://www.kjramsey.com

🌐 KJ Ramsey Website

→ https://www.kjramsey.com

🎙️ Around the Circle

The Enneagram publishing platform: Podcast • Books • Video • Ongoing formation

→ Join the community: https://www.aroundthecircle.org

→ Become a member: https://www.patreon.com/aroundthecircle

📅 Live Event (Colorado)

KJ Ramsey + Suzanne Stabile → April 17–18 : HERE

"Early Access" | Enneagram 9 | Blake in Utah Mar 31, 2026

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What does it feel like to move through life believing your presence doesn’t quite matter?

In this episode of Early Access, Katie Whitlock talks with Blake Walker, an Enneagram Nine, about the quiet patterns that shape her life—from avoiding conflict to merging with others’ goals, to the slow realization that her own voice matters.

Blake reflects on marriage, motherhood, and building a life that at times felt more aligned with others than herself. Along the way, they explore the Nine’s relationship to energy, anger, and purpose—revealing both the strength and struggle of a type that longs for peace but often loses itself in the process.

"Inside Story" | Season One Wrap w. Jeff Cook Mar 30, 2026

Show notes

As we close out Season One of Inside Story, Kristin Messegee and Jeff Cook reflect on what they’ve learned—and where the Enneagram needs to go next.

This conversation moves beyond theory into practice. What actually changes us? Why do we avoid our core emotions—anger, shame, and fear—and what does it take to face them? Across the triads, patterns emerge: image types struggle to access shame, body types resist seeing their impact, and head types find subtle ways to avoid anxiety altogether.

The Reading Room | Chapter One : "Personality and Wholeness in Therapy" Mar 29, 2026

Show notes

We’re back for Part Two of our deep dive into Personality and Wholeness in Therapy—and this time, we step into Chapter One.

In this episode, we explore three core ideas shaping Dr. Siegel's model. We trace how early temperament forms a kind of filter, how neural pathways reinforce our patterns over time, and why growth is less about changing your type and more about loosening its grip. We also examine Siegel’s integration model—one that calls us not into a different type, but into balance across the centers.

We are gathering on Tuesdays to discuss. The sign up is : HERE

Processing Centers | Eights Mar 26, 2026

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Explore more of Around the Circle, join live discussions, and access exclusive content: HERE

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We’re back in —and diving deeper into Joey Stabile’s Working Together Doesn’t Work, focusing on the Processing Center and what it reveals about how different types move through the world.

In this episode, we begin a discussion on Eights, Threes, and Ones—the “doing processors.” What does it mean to process through action? What gets gained—and what gets left behind—when execution becomes the primary lens for evaluating life?

We explore Joey’s framework of support centers—how doing can be backed by thinking or feeling—and how that shapes the differences between types that, on the surface, look similar. Along the way, we unpack:

Why Eights often feel misunderstood—and what’s actually happening beneath their intensity
The tension between execution and emotion in doing types
How Threes, Eights, and Ones differ in their relationship to results, relationships, and responsibility
Whether the “ends justify the means”—and how each type defines both ends and means differently
The hidden cost of prioritizing action over reflection or connection

This conversation slows down to wrestle with real language, real experience, and the deeper structure behind how we assess: Am I good in the world?

We’ll pick up next time with Threes and Ones—but for now, we stay with the Eights, and what it means to move through life with force, clarity, and blind spots we don’t always see.

"Early Access" | Enneagram 9 | Luke in North Carolina Mar 24, 2026

Show notes

The beginning of the end! In this episode, Katie talks with Luke, a pastry chef turned mental health counselor.

We talk about several differences between 3 and 9, and spend a lot of time diving into what it means for a 9 to "wake up" and start chasing after their own life.

Luke has an incredible knack for explaining difficult concepts, so this is a good one to listen to if you want to understand the 9s in your life.

The Morning Show | What We Talk About When We Talk About the Enneagram Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

What are we really talking about when we talk about the Enneagram?

In this Morning Show conversation, we move past surface-level typing and into something deeper—transformation, self-awareness, and the courage to face what’s actually being exposed in us.

We explore:

Why the Enneagram is more than insight—it’s a tool for real-time self-awareness
The difference between knowing your patterns and interrupting them
How unconscious motivations shape our lives (and how to bring them into the light)
Why “what do I want?” might be one of the most powerful questions you can ask
The tension between shared human flourishing and personal transformation
How each type filters reality—and what that means for relationships, emotions, and growth

Along the way, we engage ideas from Carl Jung, Brené Brown, and Dr. Daniel Siegel’s Personality and Wholeness in Therapy, while also diving into the practical, lived experience of using the Enneagram.

"Rewired" | An Introduction to Processing Centers Mar 19, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, we dive into Joey Schewee’s new book "When Working together Doesn't Work" -- Which you can buy: HERE.

We introduce a framework reshaping how we are understand the Enneagram. What begins as a familiar observation—types orienting around accomplishment, connection, or ease—becomes something far more grounded as we explore the underlying mechanism that produces these patterns.

Rather than stopping at outcomes, Joey’s work traces how each type processes experience from the inside out, offering a clearer structure for why we assess our lives the way we do. This conversation moves beyond description into explanation, giving language and form to something many have sensed but not fully articulated.