Do you want to understand more about who you really are?
Want to know what is really going on when relating with others?
There are useful maps that help you make sense of life, and practical tools that assist in better communication. I've studied many of them and teach some of the best. I offer personalized support and helpful tools for anyone wanting to understand themselves and others with more clarity.
Want to know what is really going on when relating with others?
There are useful maps that help you make sense of life, and practical tools that assist in better communication. I've studied many of them and teach some of the best. I offer personalized support and helpful tools for anyone wanting to understand themselves and others with more clarity.
Hello to you. I'm Dale Rhodes, a mentor and guide with a private practice focusing on The Enneagram, World Wisdom Traditions, good common sense and more since 1998. I am still passionate about teaching clients and students about 9 Points of View, and I am a certified, well-seasoned, full-time professional in the Enneagram field.
I offer online sessions for individuals and couples, and in-person programs. I work well with reflective and creative people who are motivated to learn, grow and change. Whether the content you wish to explore is your own self-understanding, relationships, spiritual growth or finding right livelihood, my clients find that our sessions offer useful practical information as well as meaningful insights that support positive change. If you're trying to be more fully human, more fully yourself, this is a solid method for you- and accompaniment itself is often worthwhile.
Schedule sessions directly using the Schedule Now button above, or purchase discounted multiple sessions via the Payment Page menu above. Reach out to begin, I am very glad to connect with you!
I offer online sessions for individuals and couples, and in-person programs. I work well with reflective and creative people who are motivated to learn, grow and change. Whether the content you wish to explore is your own self-understanding, relationships, spiritual growth or finding right livelihood, my clients find that our sessions offer useful practical information as well as meaningful insights that support positive change. If you're trying to be more fully human, more fully yourself, this is a solid method for you- and accompaniment itself is often worthwhile.
Schedule sessions directly using the Schedule Now button above, or purchase discounted multiple sessions via the Payment Page menu above. Reach out to begin, I am very glad to connect with you!
- Master of Arts: Interdisciplinary Studies: Spiritual Traditions & Ethics (2002)
- Master of Science: Human Services & NonProfit Administration (1991)
- Bachelor of Arts: Interpersonal Communications, Gender Studies (1989)
- 3 Professional Enneagram Certifications: Narrative, Spectrum, Changeworks
- Additional Certifications: MBTI®, Spiritual Direction & Contemplative Listening
- Outdoor Naturalist Trainings: Wilderness Awareness School & Metro's Nature University
- Longtime Mentor for Certifying Narrative Teachers and The People's Nonprofit Accelerator
- Sustaining Community Member: DoYogaWithMe.com
My personal experience that The Enneagram helps us understand ourselves and others starts with my parents.
I opened the trunk of my father’s car in Chicago after he died in 2000: Two air compressors, lock thaw, kitty litter in case you get stuck in snow, a battery recharger, Prestone, oil, windshield fluid, 17 cans of fix-a-flat, blankets, rags, batteries, toolbox, cables, keys, flashlights, a sun shield with an advertisement for smoke alarms. This shed light on my father’s type being what the Enneagram presents as a Preserving Loyal Skeptic Type 6, those who have more attention to material safety/security/doubt/loyalty. He raised us kids to be “prepared for danger” in many ways, i.e. learning home and car repair, safe driving, outdoor survival skills, not poking your eye out ever. In light of his higher need for physical/material security, I see now why he was loyal to his local carpenter’s union: there is a social safety in numbers! You wanted someone like my father being your carpenter: he questioned if things were safe and secure until they were certain. When someone offers you support, sometimes it's in the form of a supporting wall joint or keeping an eye for you. One of my best friends who is the same Loyal Skeptic Type 6 tells me that her definition of a friend is “someone who has your back”— it makes sense when the world seems dangerous, right?
In contrast, I was also raised by a self-proclaimed "border collie"... a Social Navigating Connector Type 2. My mother’s attention did not go to safety/security/doubt/loyalty; it went to a world needing relating/connection/kindness. She taught her children that kindness was the highest value, and we were regularly linked with opportunities to serve those less fortunate in our neighborhood, such as elders, people with polio, the poor, etc. My mother wanted her two daughters and three sons to be “kind” people, and I think she got what she wanted: three nurses, an Enneagram mentor and the world’s best single dad.
We had plenty of family challenges, but I now understand the gifts that come with being raised by two people very different than me. We are all likely doing our limited-best from our own framework, but the work is to broaden our own by expanding our understanding of others. My job as a provider is to support people expanding beyond and adding to their own worldviews. When I could finally understand my parents as people *naturally motivated* by two very different values (i.e. safety first and kindness to others), I understood my childhood better for where there were challenges and where there were gifts too. I’m not joking here: I now understand why someone gives you an air-compressor for your birthday (bc they want you to be safe) and why someone else sends you a Hallmark Card when it’s not your birthday (bc they want you to feel connected). Life makes more sense and relating seems way more rewarding.
Got someone you want to understand better? Yourself and another? Let's learn together in a session or a program.
I opened the trunk of my father’s car in Chicago after he died in 2000: Two air compressors, lock thaw, kitty litter in case you get stuck in snow, a battery recharger, Prestone, oil, windshield fluid, 17 cans of fix-a-flat, blankets, rags, batteries, toolbox, cables, keys, flashlights, a sun shield with an advertisement for smoke alarms. This shed light on my father’s type being what the Enneagram presents as a Preserving Loyal Skeptic Type 6, those who have more attention to material safety/security/doubt/loyalty. He raised us kids to be “prepared for danger” in many ways, i.e. learning home and car repair, safe driving, outdoor survival skills, not poking your eye out ever. In light of his higher need for physical/material security, I see now why he was loyal to his local carpenter’s union: there is a social safety in numbers! You wanted someone like my father being your carpenter: he questioned if things were safe and secure until they were certain. When someone offers you support, sometimes it's in the form of a supporting wall joint or keeping an eye for you. One of my best friends who is the same Loyal Skeptic Type 6 tells me that her definition of a friend is “someone who has your back”— it makes sense when the world seems dangerous, right?
In contrast, I was also raised by a self-proclaimed "border collie"... a Social Navigating Connector Type 2. My mother’s attention did not go to safety/security/doubt/loyalty; it went to a world needing relating/connection/kindness. She taught her children that kindness was the highest value, and we were regularly linked with opportunities to serve those less fortunate in our neighborhood, such as elders, people with polio, the poor, etc. My mother wanted her two daughters and three sons to be “kind” people, and I think she got what she wanted: three nurses, an Enneagram mentor and the world’s best single dad.
We had plenty of family challenges, but I now understand the gifts that come with being raised by two people very different than me. We are all likely doing our limited-best from our own framework, but the work is to broaden our own by expanding our understanding of others. My job as a provider is to support people expanding beyond and adding to their own worldviews. When I could finally understand my parents as people *naturally motivated* by two very different values (i.e. safety first and kindness to others), I understood my childhood better for where there were challenges and where there were gifts too. I’m not joking here: I now understand why someone gives you an air-compressor for your birthday (bc they want you to be safe) and why someone else sends you a Hallmark Card when it’s not your birthday (bc they want you to feel connected). Life makes more sense and relating seems way more rewarding.
Got someone you want to understand better? Yourself and another? Let's learn together in a session or a program.
Community Courses: The People's Enneagram
For over 20 years, I have facilitated interdisciplinary experiences for a vibrant community of people exploring The Nine Points of View together. Now, people from all time zones are exploring this powerful tool for positive transformation through online live interactive courses, most often using literature and film as method for examining character and development. Expand your views of our world, of yourself and of those around you; all with one of the best guides available. Join us in this grand ongoing community. The best way to learn is through a continuous learning community experience. So, if you talk type, you should be with us.
Email to ask about hosting an in-person program for friends, family, colleagues at your own site. Click on the buttons below to find out about scheduled programs waiting for you.
What's so good about an interdisciplinary professionally-led Enneagram Community?
I asked when I started this vibrant community over 20 years ago and it still guides me today.
"A lake evaporates upward and thus gradually dries up; but when two lakes are joined they do not dry up so readily, for one replenishes the other. It is the same in the field of knowledge. Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one- sided about the learning of the self-taught." Hexagram 58, The Lake, The Joyous; The I Ching (The Taoist Book of Changes)
I asked when I started this vibrant community over 20 years ago and it still guides me today.
"A lake evaporates upward and thus gradually dries up; but when two lakes are joined they do not dry up so readily, for one replenishes the other. It is the same in the field of knowledge. Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one- sided about the learning of the self-taught." Hexagram 58, The Lake, The Joyous; The I Ching (The Taoist Book of Changes)
Get some sense of me at this online show, where I'm the convener and Type Four presenting "Using My Powers for the Good. " All 9 Presenters are grand examples of the good folk in our community. Read on below and meet me in real time to learn more.
Dale Rhodes shares his professional experience, formal training, and education to make a most effective consultant and teacher. His intention to bring about positive change through employing the Enneagram is matched by his abilities to skillfully apply the system in many different arenas, including individual mentoring and organizational training. His work will offer you delight and great benefit. Helen Palmer, author of The Enneagram and The Enneagram in Love and Work
Dale Rhodes, with his professional backgrounds in nonprofit management and spiritual direction, brings maturity and a freshness to teaching the Enneagram. He offers mentoring, spiritual direction, panel interview workshops and retreats for a wide variety of students. Participants are delighted and enriched by the perspectives that Dale brings to the potential for positive change in relationships, work and spirituality. I am pleased to support this highly qualified and caring Enneagram Teacher in the Narrative Tradition. David Daniels, M.D., Stanford Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, co-author of The Essential Enneagram
"Dale Rhodes is a very knowledgeable Enneagram presenter and a wonderful host for guest workshop presenters. Enneagram Portland is one of the bright lights in the Enneagram galaxy." Jerome Wagner, Ph.D., Loyola University, author of The Nine Lenses on the World
Our Enneagram workshop with Dale was incredibly valuable to our staff, both in terms of increasing individual self-awareness, and in terms of deepening group cohesion. Our staff all work closely together, and so feeling connected to and understood by each other's co-workers is essential to being able to guide the transformative work we do with our clients and guests. Our Enneagram staff workshop with Dale has given us a shared language and set of tools for further developing our self-awareness, improving our communication with each other and with guests, and deepening our sense of connection to each other and to the work of this organization. Both online and in-person, Dale was an incredible teacher and facilitator with remarkable integrity, compassion, and humor, expertly guiding our staff group towards a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how we communicate and work together as a community. We're looking forward to further developing these skills with him! Liz Coppola, Program Director @ Ekone Ranch and White Eagle Preserve (www.ekone.org)
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