Fostering An Integral Vision For The World

Guided Meditation for Healing

This morning, I was in contact with someone who is ill and offered her a meditation for healing. Before you do any kind of guided meditation, it is important that you have neutralized your busy mind. Have you ever heard a guided meditation where the speaker jumps right into the guided practice without bringing you inside of yourself?

So, it’s important to spend a few minutes relaxing the breath and stilling the body which builds deeper sensory awareness.

1. Begin by closing your eyes and noticing the sounds in the room; notice a sound you didn’t notice a moment ago when your attention was elsewhere.

2. Notice the sound of your own breathing and feel the sensory experience of breathing: the coolness of the inhale, the warmth of the exhale, the rise and the fall of the chest, the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm.

3. Notice an area of your body that is tight, tense or sore and place your attention there. Send the breath to that part of your body. Notice any shifts or notice if it stays the same. Notice the subtleties of the bodily (somatic) sensation. The deeper you feel the subtle sensations, the more deeply you move into meditative awareness.

4. After your body is relaxed and your breath is brought to your attention, begin the guided visualization exercise.

5. Imagine your breath is a healing balm and it is gently massaging the compromised part of your body while clearing it of any toxins. Exhale the toxins or any unwanted bacteria, pain, tension.

6. If you practice a religion or you consider yourself a spiritual person, you may want to use religious imagery: the light of the Holy Spirit or the love of God whom you are inhaling and exhaling to self and the world. If you have a Zen practice, simply inhale with the awareness you are touching, more deeply, your true nature while exhaling clarity to assist all sentient beings.

7. Close with a prayer of compassion for yourself. Then, extend this prayer to anyone who comes to your awareness in this moment.

My Pregnant Daughter, Fear and the False Self

Last week, my pregnant daughter called to tell me she had pneumonia.  She sounded weak and congested and she lives in El Salvador.  The moment she spoke, I could feel my body clench in fear, my breathing accelerate and my mind race with a familiar loop of habitual thoughts.   Pain, loss, overwhelm and fear flooded my awareness.

30 years ago this December, my sister-in-law died of pneumonia while pregnant and her baby died a day later.  I was 20 years old and the losses dealt a traumatic blow to my family so my automatic response was conditioned by a previous trauma.   My daughter is feeling better and her healing is being supported by her husband,  good medical care and an understanding employer.

As for me,  it took some mindful breathing, relaxation exercises to calm my clenched body and a moment-by-moment shift of attention to stabilize what I now know is an “abdominal (ab) reaction.”
I am a 7 on the Enneagram so I began to observe the ways in which my mind went into the planning cycle.  I saw how my mind wanted to plan how my family would cope with any potential loss so we could be okay again if anything happened to my daughter or her baby.  I was actually hiring day care help in my mind and planning how to get Cesar into the country so he could get grief counseling and a job nearby so we could offer any support he might need!

All of this happened in my imagination and had I allowed it to continue, I would not have been able to be functional and competent; I also might have made it worse.  I began with action; I called a friend whose husband is a pulmonary doc and got some health markers so my daughter could observe progress in her healing.    I then called a strong friend who could help me calm my racing mind.  After our phone call, I was neutralized enough to sit with my fear.  (I called no one in my family as I would have absorbed their fear through the phone and I needed to wait until I was stabilized enough to discuss it with any semblance of calm).

What struck me was how my mind wanted to repeat its tenacious familiar spiral.  Each time it spiraled into future imagination to avoid the feeling of actual feeling of Terror, I returned to my breath and was able to have a good night’s sleep.  Each of the three times I woke that evening with an ab reaction, I continually repeated the cycle: feel the fear in my body, breathe into it, notice arising  thoughts without feeding them.  Surrender to a power greater than my own.

The next day, I felt the sadness and loss underneath the fear and was able to release cleansing tears which allowed me honor the very real love I have for my daughter and the very real grief I felt when I lost my beloved sister-in-law and her baby, Jessica.  True Presence is its own healing balm.

I share this with you as I prepare for a workshop “Enneagram and the False Self: Shifting from Habit to Presence” because I have found a large measure of relief from unnecessary suffering by recognizing the distinct way my own ab reaction plays out.

An ab reaction is rooted in the structure of our Enneagram  personality style and as you could see from my example, our thoughts are accompanied by bodily (somatic) responses. This structure is sometimes called the “false self,” a highly conditioned response which is present in every human being and is necessary for survival.

You’ve heard of “fight, flight or freeze?” We are talking primal, instinctual responses here and regardless of our type, we have a sophisticated, unconscious “structure” which serves to protect us.    As we mature, we begin to recognize it’s protective nature as it defends the true Self.

When we see how it is rooted in illusion based on reactions from the past, we can shift our attention into what is called “present centered awareness.”  This is easier said than done!  Our bodies and minds are extraordinarily protective.  Fortunately, they are also highly adaptive. It just takes some conscious awareness and a sense of communal support to help us on this path.

So, what is the core assumption of each type and what are methods which create new adaptive loops?

Body Types: (8/9/1)

These types are also called the instinctual types.   Our primal response in the face of perceived danger/stress elicits a charge that the body experiences as Rage (consider a baby screams when she can’t get her needs met…)  We are socialized not to express that degree of feeling so Rage shows up as anger which is expressed differently based on the type.    In types 8/9/1,  it shows up subtly in a spiral called obedience/defiance.  ”I will go along with you” says the Body type, then defy the other overtly (8), with worry, anxiety and/or resentment (1) or with passive/aggressive stubbornness (9).  All are anger responses.  (Eights say that they work with finding less black/white perspectives in order to identify more tempered alternatives to their anger,  Ones will say that if they get underneath the worry/anxiety, they find the anger. Nines’ anger is expressed by numbing out to self and going stubborn which can be experienced by others as arrogance).
The practice is to notice the obedience/defiance dance, identify your own unique habitual thought loops, recognize them, stay very gently with the resistance and identify where it shows up somatically. Relax into the anger.   Then, give the body what it needs: a good work out, yoga moves, deep and mindful breathing, time in the neutral healing of the natural world.    Another effective practice is  calling a supportive friend/coach/therapist who can listen receptively, identify possible blindspots and perhaps, ask clarifying questions as this is called the “self-forgetting” triad.

Heart Types (2/3/4)

These types are also called the emotional types.  They exemplify the primal human need for connection and bonding.  When faced with a perceived loss of connection ahear type experiences Panic (born in the primal panic a child feels when mother disappears).  If you are an emotional type (2, 3, 4), you exemplify the anxiety that arises out of this perceived loss of contact with other.  The heart type tends to compact emotion down in chest and lock it in there.   So, if type 2, 3, 4 feels a loss of connection they respond by making contact by being successful and amazing in order to hold love of “other” (3), by meeting the needs of “other” and/or manipulating the “other” into approval which is a substitute for authentic love and contact (2) or by taking “other” in through introjection of lovable aspects of the other then rejecting other if it feels too close, too intimate (4) and ultimately, a fear of the primal loss of connection to “other.”
The antidote?  Compassion.  Find the closed down places in the body and massage them with compassion and Love for self/other which are One.  Give the body what it needs. Does it need connection in meditation? Hold the cat or some remembrance of connection. You may need an actual physical “something” to hold as a touchstone.  Heart types also describe the usefulness of physcial exercise to make internal contact with themsleves,  an experience of prayer and/or meditation which offers connection  something “Greater-than.”   Heart types often describe their greatest antidote to the anxiety is touching the soft spot inside of themselves.
Head Types (5/6/7)

These types are called the Head types. They exemplify the core human need for safety and security.  When faced with perceived threats, they experience Terror (think of a child who screams in terror when charged by the large animal up the street).  Yet, the Terror shows up more subtly once the child is socialized and it is expressed in a spiral of trust/non-trust.  If you are a Head type, you doubt there is an inner authority or inner Ground that keeps you safe and secure.  So when you experience perceived or real threat to safety and security, you respond by fleeing.

The 6 runs from her own inner authority and goes from source to source to find an authority who is supposedly more competent than the One within.  Certainty will “amp up” her uncertainty which will send her into a spiral of doubt and questioning.

The 7 escapes through mental planning and envisioning and thinking positively about the reality of what is showing up while avoiding the fullness of what is really happening.

The 5 plans for intrusions on her time and emotions as she fears she doesn’t have the energy to handle the overwhelm.

The practice?  Identify the cycle of trust/non-trust, find the inner authority and give the body what it needs: shake out the fear through arms and legs, physically run from the fear until the fearful energy is discharged, and make some contact with the actual physical ground outside.  A contemplative practice is useful in focusing attention in order to calm the cycle of thinking, overanalyzing and other mental gymnastics.

Note: Thanks to Marion Gilbert, Terry Saracino, Helen Palmer and Bergamo panelists for their contributions to this article.