Counterintuitive...

Richard Rohr writes, "Don't go after your sin directly, or you will only confirm your stance and your willfulness." For instance, if your sin has to do with an inordinate need for control, you will automatically try to fight it from a controlling stance and with a controlling style. His cowriter Dietrich Koller writes, "In the transformational work of repentance one doesn't strive for ideals, but discerns spirits...[it] is the work of grace alone. It is comparable to the seeds of the kingdom of God, which grow by themselves. It comes about 'automatically,' which is the word used by the Greek text of Mk. 4:28 to mean 'self-growing' What we can and must do is remove the thorns and thistles by continually interrupting ...our false pattern...The idealist strives for sublime ideals--and comes to grief on them. The work of spiritual development for transformational repentance does not blindly become enslaved to the ideals, but perserveres in sober alertness, before which the spirits unmask themselve...

These false 'pattern-spirits' have no real creative work; they can only exaggerate or distort our holy gifts. Anything can be distorted--and for a long time we won't even notice it, because the sheer activism of our pattern has put us to sleep. With the charism of the 'discernment of spirits' we engage in diagnosis: Am I now ruled by genuine pride or false pride? Authentic self-love or narcissism? Spiritual knowledge of guilt of neurotic guilt-feelings? ...The spirit of subservience or grown-up obedience? ...Genuine tolerance of suffering or cowardly conformism...?"
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective