I’m kind of a training snob.  When I went to train as an Enneagram teacher, I asked around for the best school for psycho-spiritual integration and found my way to Helen Palmer and David Daniels, MD., who are Enneagram teachers in the Narrative Tradition.  I’ve found that teachers who emerge from that program have a combination of deep respect for the system, capacity for ongoing self-observation and compassion for the people of the 9 types mostly because there is great attention to developing a capacity to be fully present and listen deeply to the worldview of another.  

When I needed an excellent coach and mentor to help me get my Enneagram teaching career started, I found my way to Mary Bast of Out of the Box Coaching who was invaluable in guiding me through the ins and outs of creating a business which leveraged my own unique skillset and teaching style.

When organizations started contacting me to do workshops, I asked around for the best “train the trainer” program and found my way to Ginger Lapid-Bogda’s Enneagram in Business training program.  I also liked that Ginger was trained in the Narrative Tradition.

So, when I found out Ginger had created an Enneagram iPhone app, I was curious and downloaded it right away as it was only $2.99.  Her layers of experience is evident in the app…it’s outstanding and I’ve recommended it to students and teachers.  It includes: videos, test, stress reduction tips, wings and arrows and subtypes, weekly tips, conflict tools, development areas. Not at all surprised that it’s in the top 100 downloads. 

Congratulations Ginger.  Nice work.

As I watch Facebook posts, I notice personality preferences influencing the way people post and the content they choose.   In our Integral Transformative Practice group, we use our private Facebook group as a tool for self-observation and see how our type shows up in the way we post (or resist posting) and how we post.

In the Enneagram, there are three primary centers of intelligence:  

• Body/moving (kinesthetic)
• Heart (emotional)
• Mental (cognitive)

Body Center

If you are a Body Center type—Eight, Nine, or One—you tend to filter the world through an intelligence of kinesthetic and physical sensations and gut instinct. You use personal position and power to make life be the way it should be. You devise strategies that assure your place in the world and minimize discomfort. Because of this orientation towards power, issues of justice, fairness, obedience and defiance are often on the viewscreen of a body type.  

Moving Center operates through the intelligence of movement. There is a natural capacity of the body to explore the universe through movement. Consider the first time you rode a bike when you were a child. You practice and practice and there comes a day when all parts synchronize and you are riding the bike and you feel the wind in your hair. The next time you get back on the bike, there is no need to re-learn for the body has an intelligence and you feel it from the inside out. There is an ease of body and a quality of relaxing, letting go, surrendering.

Of course, not only the Body Center types, but all types depend upon the Body Center of intelligence to be in touch with the energy needed for action, to discern how much power is needed in a given situation

Heart Center

If you are a Heart Center type—Two, Three, or Four—you tend to perceive the world through the filter of emotional intelligence. You are attuned to the mood and feeling state in others, in order to maintain your feeling of connection with them. You depend more than other types upon the approval and recognition of others to support your self-esteem and your feeling of being loved. To assure that you get that approval and recognition, you create an image of yourself that will get others to accept you and see you as special. Because of this focus on connection, heart types are often oriented towards relationships and what sustains them based on the preferences of chosen groups and family of origin preferences.  (They may align or oppose the person/group based on the level of connection). 

The Emotional Center houses the empathetic capacities of the sympathetic nervous system. The heart carries intuition, a sense of beauty, creativity, image and symbol.  When the gummy, sentimental, confused emotional self is released, we swim free in a state of compassion in which we can hold (not agree) with multiple stories at one time.

Of course, not only the Heart Center types, but all types depend on emotional intelligence to develop the higher qualities of the Heart Center, such as empathy, understanding, compassion, and loving-kindness

Head Center

If you are a Head Center type—Five, Six, or Seven—you tend to filter the world through the mental faculties. The goals of this strategy are to minimize anxiety, to manage potentially painful situations, and to gain a sense of certainty through the mental processes of analyzing, envisioning, imagining, and planning. 

The Mental Center operates through the use of cognitive function.  This is the center that teases through distinctions, doubts, tests, inquires, reasons. It is a center of inquiry and knowledge. It analyzes, plans, processes, envisions. This is a force that takes apart in order to put back together again in an effort to make sense of things. This is the space in which someone may say something to you and you may oppose it or try to see if it is congruent with your perspective.  Because of the orientation towards security, issues of competence, reason, who one can trust or not trust are often on the viewscreen of a mental center. 

Of course, not only the Head Center types, but all types depend upon mental intelligence to develop the higher qualities of the Head Center, such as wisdom, knowing, intuition and thoughtfulness.

Kind of interesting to use social media as a tool to observe how we show up.  I notice the beautiful images, music and family/friend/lover stories some of my heart center friends bring to FB.  

My body type friends are often posting photos of food and the natural world…some post often on issues of social justice that have me considering things that slide off my viewscreen.  

My fellow head types are often teasing through ideas or posting on issues that are testing their own personal/collective values about feeling safe or secure in the world.  

I’ve found two universals: most everyone loves to laugh and appreciates ridiculousness…and most everyone loves animals and babies.

I think it’s something about innocence.

Letting go is not in order to get something better.  It is the something better.  For it immediately restores the broken link with the dynamic ground of reality by which its very nature flows forth from…a fullness beyond imagining.   Cynthia Bourgeault