When something is working or feeling pleasurable, we want more. It’s easy to get attached—and dependent on having it, whether it be a person, a behavior or an object. I get attached to homes, especially beautiful ones. After leaving the first home I owned when my marriage ended, I experienced pangs of sadness years afterwards. I was clearly attached. 

Since then, each home pulls me in, but never as much as the first. I love remodeling and decorating, making my unique stamp and creative expression, and underneath there is a sense of security, belonging and comfort that a home provides. The downside is the responsibility, expense, maintenance and loss of free movement that comes with home ownership.

There are three Enneagram types that are most sensitive to attachment issues, the inner triangle of types 3, 6, and 9. This Harmony triad is called the Pragmatists or Attachment triad and they show us the practical side of living:

• Threes know how to get things done and achieve results. They create an image of success and get attached to that image, believing it’s who they are. They also become attached to the recognition and accolades they receive. They’ve lost the connection with their own true and authentic self, and the conviction that they are valuable for who they are, not what they do.
• Sixes are loyal team players and problem solvers. They get attached to a group of people, a job or a system that gives them a sense of safety, security and certainty. They attach themselves to the structure and rules of the person, group or system, losing trust in their own inner wisdom and compass.
• Nines are grounded, peace-loving and diplomatic, seeing all sides and viewpoints. They maintain their peacefulness by avoiding conflict and finding comfortable routines they get attached to. Soothing themselves in familiarity and repetitiveness, they lose their life force energy and what they really feel and want. 

For each of these types, they look outside themselves for what they need, whether it is approval, security or self-worth and love, rather than finding it inside. Attachments are attempts to fill the void of what’s missing, but always come up short. What is missing can only really be found within.

As we’ve seen in the first two articles of this series, the Harmony triads give all types all three centers of intelligence, like the 3, 6, 9 already has in the completed inner triangle. The 3 is the primary type of the heart or feeling center, 6 is the primary type in the head or mental center as is 9 in the body or gut/instinctual center of intelligence. 

When we are online with all three centers, mind, body and heart, attachments lose their hold on us. We naturally connect with our inner wisdom and trust its guidance. We become our own best leaders.