SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Soul Portals, exploring psychospiritual horizons with your hosts, Cedric Speyer and Deanna Nagel. Cedric is an author and therapist who developed the interview guidance model and is a pathfinder in the psycho-spiritual realm. Deanna created the Essential Soul Care Model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Soul Portals feature guests sharing insights from their personal paths and professional practices. Thank you for tuning in for the Soul Talk with all kinds of trailblazing teachers and guides as Cedric, Deanna, and guests explore new evolutionary landscapes.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Each chapter describes a paradox that is grounded in the polarity between the passion that acts as the core emotional driver of the type, and the virtue that represents its higher level of awareness. Each type's passion reflects a kind of zombie addiction to seeing the world through the lens of this core emotional driver. That's why there's such a crossover with therapy and all this. Each virtue represents the goal towards which the type travels on the path of transformation. You move forward on your path by integrating your shadow, the darker aspects of your type, and the habitual patterns and blind spots that characterize it. The original meaning of the word passion is to suffer. Thus, your awakening comes in large part from the conscious suffering you endure as you face your shadow. Beatrice can give the overview that it's a personality system that has a lot of depth to it. And Beatrice is a licensed psycho therapist herself and a coach for many kinds of Enneagram-based retreats. So would you like to do an overview of the Enneagram and how you got involved?

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Sure. Yes, thank you, and thank you for having me here. Um so I learned the Enneagram in 1990, um, not really intentionally, sort of by accident. My um uh a good friend of mine from childhood, from uh junior high, from age 13, um, his father was David Daniels, who is a psychiatrist based at Stanford University, near where I grew up in Palo Alto, California. And he got really into the Enneagram. He met Helen Palmer, who wrote one of the first books in the US. And they started an Enneagram school. And even though he was, you know, a Stanford-based psychiatrist, um, you know, trained in the medical model, etc., um, he had uh the um the depth of experience and knowledge and imagination to really understand that the Enneagram was something really special. And he he used he used to say that he saw it as his calling and that he had never in his whole career as a psychiatrist helping people, he was also a psychotherapist, um, he had never in his whole career um encountered anything that was so transformational as the Enneagram. Um, so that had a big impact on me, my friend's father. I was in my uh early 20s. Um that was they had a big impact hearing him say this. And so one night over dinner, he said, Well, I think you might be a type too. Um so I took Helen Palmer's book home, um, one of the first Enneagram books out there in the late 80s. Um, and I read about my type, and it completely uh was shocked me how accurate it was at describing me to myself, um, both in terms I recognized and in things that I didn't really want to admit, you know, like um said it said twos are manipulative, right? And I was like, but I'm so nice, you know, I'm this nice person who's just wanting always everyone to like me and trying to avoid people not liking me. How can I be manipulative? But then when I really thought about like what manipulation really is without the pejorative meaning, I realized, well, it means moving things behind, moving things around and people behind the scenes, moving things around behind the scenes so you don't have to ask directly for what you need. Right. And that made sense to me. And so I realized it was also something that could help me see my blind spots, the things I didn't really understand yet about myself. Um, so I got really, I got into the Enneagram, I went deep. Um, and I ended up going to the Enneagram training that David Daniels and Helen Palmer offered starting in the late 80s. I went there in 96 and 97. Um, and I was really hooked. Um, I thought it just, it, I just felt like my mind wrapped around it, that it made sense to me, and it helped help me make sense of myself and other people and the world. It also really brought me back to spirituality. I had grown up, I was raised Catholic in California, and I wasn't, let's just say I wasn't very inspired by any of the priests I encountered in my childhood. And so I had sort of, and my father was a type one in the Enneagram, who, which is sort of like a rule-bound person who's, you know, right and wrong, good and bad. And so my Catholic upbringing, even though it gave me a lot of things, like a sense of faith, um, it didn't really make sense to me in many ways. And I sort of started moving away from it in my late teens. But then when I found the Enneagram, I and I found the spirituality behind the Enneagram, it was like, wow, there is really something, uh sort of a spiritual reality, a spiritual um foundation to uh our lives that I gained access to through the Enneagram. Um, but basically, just to say what the Enneagram is, and then maybe I'll pause and see if you have any questions about anything I'm saying. Um, the Enneagram is a personality typology on one level that describes these nine interconnected types that are based in three centers of intelligence in the human being, head, heart, and body. Um, and each of these types is it's it's it's a very powerful system because each of these types is goes very deep and is very extensive in describing in a lot of detail the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that make up the habitual functioning of these personalities. Um, so on one level, that's what it is. And when you learn your type, it's like it gives you a guide for self-observation, for self-knowledge, for learning about yourself, understanding about yourself, and having more compassion for yourself, and then also learning about other people's types and how they differ and having more empathy for other people. But in another way, the Enneagram is also a map of transformation that takes us from a lower level of consciousness to a higher level of consciousness. So it's a psychological and spiritual map of self-development of and how we identify with our personality. Uh, and we're actually, it's actually a case of mistaken identity. We think we are our personality because our personality starts developing in childhood, and it's a defensive structure that helps us protect ourselves as we grow. It helps us understand how to navigate in the world and how to shield ourselves from psychic pains and injury. So we need our personality. Uh, but the trouble is by the time we get to adulthood, we don't realize that we have come to see this defensive structure as all of who we are. We think I am my personality. Who else would I be? I am my patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and this I that I've come to know as, as me. But really, the personality is just a part of who we are. And to the extent that we think that's all of who we are, it actually prevents us from growing further. Um, so the Enneagram map, it shows us that the first sort of stages of inner work are psychological, kind of understanding our psychology, our childhood experience, our traumas and our wounds and you know, different aspects of our um unconscious patterns that drive us. But then at a certain point, when we've done the psych, as we do the psychological work, it prepares us to get in touch with spiritual spirit and it in our higher side or the divine within us. Um, and so the quote that Cedric um read from the Enneagram Guide to Waking Up is really about how we learn about this lower self as a vehicle or a teacher in order to help us ascend and help us come to know and in some ways awake up to all of who we are, the higher, more divine in us. But we have that divine in us only in potential. Uh, and the idea behind the Enneagram work is that we have to work actually. We have to make efforts, we have to uh make conscious efforts in order to manifest that higher side and go beyond uh the defenses of our personality that it's hard to let go of because that's what kept us safe and that's what's familiar and comfortable. Um, but in order to really grow and have spiritual experiences that are really founded, um, founded, they're on a solid foundation and not a spiritual bypass. Uh, we need to do the psychological work with our personality, but then um that kind of releases a lot of energy and expansion to be um who we really are and express our higher gifts and our higher self.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So we can't just leave it to the priests.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Um sorry. Right. And and the Enneagram does derive from ancient spiritual wisdom that is more mystical, right? So, and of course, the mystics have always said it's about direct experience. And the problem, I mean, again, priests can be amazing. I have uh a priest who's a teacher of mine who is a mystic who's amazing. But the problem with the the priests and the religious structures is that they get contaminated by the human ego, by the personality, right? It gets run by a bunch of personalities. Now, optimally our spiritual leaders are people who have activated their higher self, right? Who've grown beyond the personality, and then they can guide us there. But unfortunately, um the personality is it's really hard for people to tell when they're asleep versus when they're awake. Um, and so sometimes we have people guiding us who maybe haven't um haven't accessed the higher self uh that is within them.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

You you must be familiar with sorry, Deanna. That's okay You must be familiar with the Hamas who says the personality is built around the wound. So it's by name, by definition, compensation. Yes, yes. Okay, Deanna.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Okay, yeah, yeah. I have a burning question if I can formulate it. Um so I came across the Enneagram when I was um as a therapist, I'm also a licensed therapist, and then as a coach, I heard heard a lot about the Enneagram, especially in executive coaching. Um, and I didn't ever realize it was a spiritual tool necessarily until I got in my doctoral program, which was in multi-phase spiritual direction. And the Enneagram was like the focal assessment tool um that we explored. And so I'm just wondering and maybe this is maybe this is incorrect information, but from my my view, it seems like spiritual leaders, spiritual directors, spiritual advisors, spiritual coaches, they are using this tool. But I'm wondering why, at least from my perception, why it hasn't grown more within the field of psychotherapy.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

That's a great question. So I think one thing has to do with the history of how the Aneagram emerged in the modern era. Um, so Claudio Naranjo, so Oscar Claudio Naranjo, who was a Chilean-born American-trained psychiatrist based in Berkeley, who was also part of the human potential movement in the 70s, he worked with Fritz Pearls to develop Gestalt therapy. Um, he is the person who really brought the Enneagram from South America to the US. He learned it from Oscar Achazo, who had sort of rediscovered it, brought it forth in Chile in Eureka, Chile. And so Claudio um brought he's he he brought the sort of seed of the teaching from Achazo in the 70s to Berkeley, and he worked with a group of people, um a group of people in Berkeley and and sort of refined his understanding of the types and the system in that group. But he had um asked everyone in that group, and that the Enneagram wasn't the only thing they did they did in that group. They did meditation and gestalt practice and all kinds of things, but the Enneagram was one of the things they did, and it was one of the things that was very powerful, and it was one of the ways that Claudio developed his more clear description of the types. And so he is, to me, really the seminal author of the types and the subtypes as we understand them today. But in that group, they were supposed to hold it confidential within the group because Naranjo was honoring something Achazo asked him to do, which is, hey, don't tell everybody about this, right? Um, but what happened is that it leaked out through two people who shared it, even though they had signed something saying they weren't going to. And one of those two people was Bob Oaks, who was a Jesuit priest. So he kind of brought it into the Jesuit community. And indeed, three of the authors who first started writing about the Enneagram, Don Riso, Jerry Wagner, and Patrick O'Leary, were all met the Enneagram in seminary from Bob Oaks, right? So they learned it from Bob Oaks. So, and it's funny because my great aunt is a Catholic nun, and all the nuns know it too, right? So it kind of went through this Catholic, Jesuit sort of, and and of course, you know, many of those are were really open, right? I think when they were when you're in seminary and you're sort of studying something spiritual, um, you you see how the Enneagram can really help you kind of because see what gets between you and God in a way, which is our personalities, right? So I think it went out in that direction. So one of this is sort of the history of the Enneagram, is that then it sort of really spread, and especially in Catholic circles and Jesuit circles. And so it it was it, and it, and there wasn't much resistance to it there, right? Um, whereas in the therapy world, and I'm, you know, being a therapist myself, so I learned the Enneagram before I became a therapist. So here I am in going through school and therapy and then doing my training in therapy and training training centers and group supervision with other therapists. And I'm and I'm I'm thinking, like, how are you guys doing therapy without the Enneagram? Right. Because for me, it made it so much easier. And I would be in group supervision and someone would be bring up a case and they'd be talking about this client and all about the client. And then they'd talk about the client for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and then the the leader, the lead therapist would say, Okay, what do you guys think about this case? And I'd say, and then I'd just say, There, this person's this, this is this, and I would give like a little dissertation about what was going on with this client and what they needed. And everyone would be like, Well, it's just because I knew the Enneagram and I recognized the person's type, right? But you think they were open to the Enneagram? Not as much, right? So, and I tried to, even when I, so I wrote my first book, The Complete Enneagram, with a lot, it was motivated by a few different things, but one of the things was trying to get the Enneagram to therapists. Because to me, it was like a secret weapon. It's like I can like I became a good therapist in my first years because I had the Enneagram, not because I was special in any particular way. Um, and I just didn't know how anyone did therapy without the Enneagram. So, um, but I think part of it is because you're trained in what you're trained in, you know, there's a little bit more of the scientific model behind some therapies. Um, and so scientists aren't very open to something that hasn't been proven. So I think there's a little bit more of like, I was trained in this approach, and so that's my approach. Um, and so therapists weren't always, I mean, and I was frankly surprised. I didn't under really understand why therapists weren't more open. Now, some are. I think sometimes when a therapist meets a the Enneagram, they're like, wow, this is amazing, and they get really into it, but others really aren't as much. And I think it's um partly because of the way we're trained and maybe the more the science, the influence of the scientific model on things where you need proof of something. And you know, I always think I don't need the Enneagram to be proven scientifically. To me, it's just obvious that it works.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And I think there is a shift because a lot of the um ethical codes in the particularly in the United States are now adding religion and spirituality as something we need to honor within the the client. So I think there's an opening there.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Yeah, I think it's getting better. I mean, all of this is getting better. The Enneagram is more out there. You know, I I met clients who had had had you know encountered the Enneagram at work, like you're saying. Like it's it's it's spread more in corporate environments either. Now you have to talk about it in a different way. So when I I also do work with leaders and teams, and I've been working with the Enneagram and with leadership development and team development for a long time, and I just don't use spiritual language because you can't count on everyone being open to that or understanding what you're meaning. But the nice thing about the Enneagram is you can talk about in about it in psychological language and spiritual language at both at the same time or neither, right? You can talk about it in practical terms, which is what I the way I describe it when I'm working in a business. So um now optimally, what the Enneagram is really about is psycho-spiritual growth. It's about both and how they fit together and about how we get to higher levels of consciousness. So it's all it always feels really limiting to me, like when there's an Enneagram practitioner that isn't open to the spiritual, because I think, well, why don't you work with something else? You know, why are you working with this? It's like, you know, having a racehorse that you're just trotting around, you know, for a walk uh in the park with it, you know, it doesn't make sense because the Enneagram is it's such a powerful model for achieving real spiritual growth.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And then there's the pop watered down version that it's seen as some other kind of horoscope, right?

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Right. Of course, there are superficial versions and there are people that don't understand it that uh that question it and I think that's probably to be expected.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

There's a question in the chat. Um would you ask the therapy client near the start of the work to take a free quiz to learn their type?

SPEAKER_04 21:20

So definitely um typing, like someone finding their type accurately, is really, really important. And it's not always easy. Now, the problem with tests is that it's hard to create a really accurate Enneagram test. And especially the free ones, they may not be good, right? So I wouldn't I would I I would definitely start with a therapy client with the with the project of locating their correct type. Um, now my my business partner and I have developed an Enneagram test. I would say there's only really two Enneagram tests in the world. Uh, some another test that I used to use. Until we developed our own NRs, which are more high level, they're higher accuracy, but they're more expensive. They're not free because it is hard to create this test. It requires a lot of investment of time and energy. So that you, I mean, I think you can have someone take a free test, but I would just tell them ahead of time don't take that free test uh as a um as the final answer because it might be wrong, right? Now, Riso and the Riso Hudson test is um it's sort of in between a free test and the test I'm talking about that we created that's more sophisticated. Um it's not free. It's the it's called the ready, and it's it costs about $15, $20 now, depending on if you take two parts of it. Um it's not very accurate, unfortunately, and it gives you a bar graph, but of course, it's probably the most well-known test, and so a lot of people take it. And again, you can they can take a test, but I would just, you know, plant the seed that what the test says your type is might not be your type, right? And I think if if you're a therapist who really wants to use the Enneagram in your therapy practice, it it will make sense to get to know the Enneagram well enough. And even like we have a professional certification program in our in our inner work school, and we offer a typing course. Now you don't have to be in our program to take the course. It's a it's a two-day course, and we teach uh uh uh how to do an interview, like a systematic typing interview or typing uh so that typing sessions so that people you can help guide someone to their right type. Now, um you have to ask people a lot of questions and you have to develop a certain skill for hearing uh the answers and hearing what answers lead you to what type conclusion. But really, it's a collaboration between the therapist or the interviewer and the person being typed because the person being typed, it's you know, needs to give you accurate information about their experience. And the tricky part is the Enneagram describes blind spots, right? So that so typing isn't an easy thing, but it is essential to find the right type for the person really to gain access to all the Enneagram has to offer.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

The other thing that is a little confusing for people is that uh different Enneagram authors use different names. And then I noticed that again you came up with something completely different. Like Monty Python. That's you you looked at the paradox and the well that's not that's not different, actually.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

We're we we actually are we have a big ethic of adhering to the language of the of Ichazo and Naranjo, the people who brought it forward in the modern era, because it is confusing when people change the names. Um now, different people use different names of the types. I if you'll notice in the complete Enneagram, and I think also in um the Enneagram Guide to Waking Up, I tend to not use the names of the types, like the boss, you know, um the artist, because I think they can be as misleading as they are um helpful. When I do a basic introduction, like in a business, I usually use the the names only because people need to kind of start understanding what you're talking about. But usually I don't use the names. Um now when we talk about the passion to the the passion to the virtue uh journey, that is eight age old ages old, right? The there were monks in the desert of Egypt in the 300s talking about the passions, basically. They called them the the eight thoughts. So those have been around for a long time. The that which are they're basically the nine the seven deadly sins of the Christian tradition, plus fear and deceit, are the nine passions. Uh, and then the vice-to-virtue conversion, understanding the passion of your type is as was described in the quote that uh was offered at the beginning. Um, and then seeing how you go from like for me, the passion of type two is pride. And the journey is getting more and more aware of how pride manifests in my life, and it's pride as the sin of Satan, not pride as a good thing. Um, you know, getting more in touch with pride, and then as a journey to becoming more and more humble, to become going toward a state of humility, right? And so the the the journey of two, which is why we kind of framed the guide to waking up a little bit in terms of that paradox, like the tension between the low side, which is sort of you know uh manifested in the passion, you know, for me is pride and how getting more and more and more aware of pride leads to being more in a state of humility, which is a characteristic of the higher side of a type two.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

And I like those because they they imply the journey and the process, yes, as opposed to the artist, like somebody's saying the four is the artist, and then they say, Well, I don't paint or write or make music.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Exactly. So exactly. You'll have fours saying I can't be a four because I'm not creative or I'm not an artist, and it's like, Well, that's a theme, but it does it's not a requirement, you know.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

And if I had taken the the Enneagram in my twenties or thirties, I still would have been an eight. Yeah, a very strong eight, but I was an unbridled eight. Yes, I'm able to say it. So, you know, my years of my own psycho-spiritual journey have have softened those edges a bit. But I can see also how when I was 20 or 30 reading that list, I would have been very defensive. Yeah. Even though in retrospect, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Yeah, that was uh yes, exactly, exactly. Which is why in when in our test, you know, the questionnaire associated that's that is our Enneagram test, we give people the instruction to answer these questions, taking into account your life as a whole, right? Not the present time, right? Because you've probably shifted and changed a lot as an aide, given that you're a therapist and doing a PhD in spiritual work. It's like you've changed, you know. So if you talk about where you are right now, you might not get an accurate result because this is something that's been with us for a lifetime. Of course, we change within that type. Uh some people think we become a different type as we grow, but no, we we stay the same type for our whole lifetime, maybe multiple lifetimes, but we grow within the type and we we let go of some of the defensive patterns as you as well. Well, shadow work. Yeah. It's very much shadow work. It's like the hero's journey, you know, of like you need to encounter the difficulties in the form of your own blind spots, your own resistances, the things that are hard, the defenses that are hard to give up, um, and the shadow things, the things that you don't see in yourself that you don't want to see in yourself to become more whole. It's it's very much like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I have a question on the spiritual side of the psycho-spiritual journey with the Enneagram. So in terms of a spiritual practice, like like meditation, there's many different forms of meditation.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Are there types that are spiritual practices that match up ideally with each type that you'd recommend once you know that that's yeah, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

So it's interesting. Yes, there are different kinds of meditation, and it's really important to think about what kind of meditation is going to help you the most given your type, right? And so there are kinds of meditations that are sort of easy and natural for a type, um, and then there are ones that are more challenging. And one thing we often say is sometimes it's good to change the method as you go. So if you're more at the beginning of the journey, it might be good to choose a meditative practice that's sort of easy for your type. You know, you don't want to start with a big challenge, right? So for a five, for instance, zen meditation is going to be is very five-ish, you know. And so in the beginning, it would Zen might be a good thing for a five to learn and to practice because it's not a huge stretch, you know, it's it's sort of easier than say something else that might be like a dynamic meditation that might involve the body or something. Um, and so, but but then eventually that five shouldn't stay with Zen the whole time, right? At some point, they may want to add something in or switch to a different method so that they can grow in a new in a new way and grow beyond what might be easier. So I think it's good to ask that question and and pose and really think clearly about what's what kind what forms are good for people and at what point in the journey.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Um that goes goes right against like some gurus having a one size fits all method for all their followers and disciples, right? Then this this is much more individually customized.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Yes, exactly. That's that's a good way to put it. That the Enneagram offers a lot of customization for the person's journey in terms of what they need to do, exactly. There's also you know a level of the Enneagram that describes the three, the three kind of groupings of instincts, animal instincts in us, the self-preservation instinct, the social instinct, and the sexual instinct. This is one level and it refers also to the subtype level. Um, and for instance, self-preservation dominance are drawn to certain kinds of practice like silence, stillness. And this is me. Like I love a practice that's all about just, you know, the negativa, the letting go of content and getting more and more and more still and be just being in silence and learning to let go of thoughts and feelings. Um, social dominance tend to be need a sangha often. They they like to be, there's more practices around being of service or being doing things in a group. The sexual dominance can be more about fusion with, you know, like you know, fusing with a higher spiritual power, or um what's there's a phrase that I'm not thinking of that's escaping me, but it's um, you know, that kind of mystical fusion with something that can be really powerful or that's that sexual dominance tend to get drawn toward. So so yes, and I think it's good to take that into account.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Like the use of an oracle.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

Potentially, yeah, like or like a spiritual teacher, getting really, really, you know, focused on that spiritual teacher or a particular spiritual experience.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I started with mantra methods really simple, not easy, but simple for many, many years, and then recently um and spontaneously it shifted to affirmations and invocations. Does that resonate? Because I'm a four, you would know if that does.

SPEAKER_04 33:08

That sounds really good for your type, actually. I think mantras can be good for heart types, like almost having a relationship with the mantra or something something to focus on, so it's not just you in the empty space, you know, and then the affirm affirmations are really really good for fours, um positive affirmations.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah, because I realized I was at a certain point, this is a long period of time, that I was zoning out with the mantra.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

Yes, exactly, beautiful, yeah. That's what I'm talking about, and also I think for fours like a gratitude practice of some kind. I've heard of from a lot of fours that they benefited from a gratitude practice.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

So that's very related, relatable to the heart chakra. And then what you said about your preference relates to the root chakra. Right. And what you said about well, I'm an eight, so me connecting with a spirit guide or an oracle connects to the crown chakra. So I'm interested in that overlap. That's very fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Yeah, and I um, you know, I work with uh I have a teaching partner, a business partner that I do most of my Enneagram work with, Uranio Paias, who is a Brazilian Enneagram expert. He now lives in the UK. Um, and he is really a master of energy work. Um and so in our inner work retreats, it's really exciting because we bring energy work together with working with the types and helping people remove obstacles, things like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

And what I also there's a part about the I saw the picture in the book of the brain, the the senses. Am I messing that up?

SPEAKER_04 34:50

The three Well, there's the three centers of intelligence, um, head, heart, and body. So there are three head types, three heart types, and three body-based types, right? So eight is a body-based type, four and two are heart-based types.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

And so eight also or body-based types also um you said five senses, and I'm wondering if the sixth sense comes into that.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

Right. So body types are a lot about physical experience, gut knowing, instinctual intelligence. It's the intelligence we understand the least, and a lot about experiencing the world through the five senses. So that's um sort of eight, nine, and one are the body-based types. Now, the sixth sense is what we might call intuition. Um, and that's something different. And any type can be intuitive, but depending on your type and also your spiritual lineage, you may have a different kind of gift or different kinds of ways intuition comes in. So that's kind of a another thing altogether. But one of the benefits of working on releasing your identification with your personality is that you often, as you get more in touch with spirit, you get more in touch with your in your particular way of being intuitive and getting in touch with uh higher higher uh messages and guide spiritual guidance and this and a kind of sixth sense.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

There's there's a question in the chat.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Um, I'm into neuropsychology. How does your approach fit? E.g., if you were to put someone in a brain scanner, what might be visible about types?

SPEAKER_04 36:31

You know, I'm not sure exactly what might be visible about a brain scanner. Um, I do know that, so I'm if you're familiar with the work of Dan Siegel, you know, he talks about how relations good relationships, good therapy changes the brain. Um, so you might have more of your brain integrated if you've done inner work, if you've done a lot of psycho psychotherapy or spiritual work or both, ideally. Now, he also just came out with a book that I can't recommend 100%, but he does talk about how the these three groups of three types that I'm talking about, head types that kind of overuse the head, the mental function, heart types that overuse or live more from the emotional, um, and body types that live more from the body. Um, he had he talks about how there are there's a parallel to that in our brain circuits. So there are different kinds of brain circuits that are about, I think he calls it bonding, agency, and something, and something else. I can't remember what he's calling the head type thing. So, and and one of the great things about the Enneagram that I kept noticing after I learned it is a lot of things come in threes in the Enneagram. It's built on the uh one one element of it, is the law of three, uh, which is the idea based in ancient wisdom that it takes three forces to bring anything into existence. Um, and so there are these three groups of three types, and there are these different brain circuits that match up with these different uh centers, these different ways of being.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

What about children and how it affects parenting?

SPEAKER_04 38:16

It's excellent for parenting because it really helps you, like you said before, it helps you understand one size does not fit all, right? Like if your child is really quiet and not coming out of their room and socializing very much, it there may not be anything wrong with them, you know. But like a really outgoing parent might think there's something wrong with my kid, but maybe they're just a five. Um, and my business partner is a five, by the way, he's a social five. Um, so it really helps when you understand your child, you can understand more what the the particular kind of parenting they need, and you can understand yourself better to understand what kinds of things frustrate you or what kinds of mismatches there may be so that you can adapt to your child in terms of what the child needs uh to grow the best.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

What about career? Like, do certain types migrate towards certain careers? I think they do.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

I think um you find uh, you know, sort of more fours in like design and marketing, you know. I work in I do a lot of work, my organizational work in biotech, and you, you know, find certain types is that become engineers, like ones and fives and nines. Um, so I do think certain types gravitate towards certain things. I remember when I was in therapy, when I was after I learned the Enneagram, I got into therapy for the first time and I was headed to becoming an academic. Um, and I realized, ooh, this is not the career for me. I need something that's more connected to people, you know, and so I decided to become a psychotherapist instead of becoming an academic. And my experience of my professors in academia were that they went into their office, closed their door, and hoped no one ever talked to them, you know. So that's not, I realized that that's not who I want to be. Um I need some, I need to make an impact. I need to do something that's closer to people and understanding what makes them tick. So, and I'm a two, and so twos are very relation, very relationship focused, very focused on people and understanding people. So I do think that people gravitate toward things. I think when you understand your personality type, you can also course correct for ways that you may get like there may there are types like threes and nines, for instance, who often wind up in careers that they don't want to be in because they're very susceptible to taking the path that other people want them to take, right? So threes sort of um they sort of index to what other people think are successful. So my parent, my father wanted me to be a doctor, so I became a doctor, right? And I wanted to, I wanted my father to see me as successful. But then you find threes that kind of wake up mid-career and say, Oh, I don't like this at all, but I became this because other people wanted me to. And nines can be that way as well. Other types also, but those would be at the top of the list of types that might happen too. So definitely understanding yourself at a deeper level is always going to help you find the right career or find what's most satisfying to you in life, generally.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

And let's not leave out uh romance and partnerships. So, of course, are there any matches like that are better than others in the horoscope way?

SPEAKER_04 41:35

I know that's shallow, but right, right, right. Um, the answer is really no, because it really depends on in the in the relationship uh area for any any pair of two types, there's always going to be a way they get along well and they fit together well and they can be compatible, and a way in which they can get into trouble and not be so compatible together. There's always an upside and a downside to everything. And of course, when it comes to relationships, a lot of what we get influenced by is like who our parents were, you know, or we've had bad experiences with people in life, and okay, I want to avoid that type of person, right? It can be a little bit more like that, like our history. What really matters in relationship is level of development, right? It's always going to be easier and more satisfying to have a relationship with someone who's done some inner work and has a capacity to self-observe and self-reflect than it's going to be to have a relationship with someone who is at a lower level of development, who's stuck in defensiveness, who doesn't want to grow. Um, when I was a couples counselor, it would be really hard when I had a couple come in and one of them was really growth-oriented, willing to change and grow and look at themselves and examine and apologize and take responsibility. And one really wasn't, you know, wasn't interested in growth and was just sort of saying, hey, this is the way I am, deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Um you're not saying usually the woman when you just call it.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Well, it could go either way. It can it can go either way. Um, but it's really about level of consciousness and a desire to grow and change and become more aware and conscious. And if you have two people who are really willing to do the inner work to grow, then that's a recipe for a good relationship. Um, you know, all things being equal. But of course, they're, you know, people have their own tastes and the things they get drawn to for different reasons as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yeah, because then you'd welcome the contrast or the challenge if it leads somebody to very different in type.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Exactly. And sometimes opposites attract, you know, like a nine who's really conflict avoidant gets really attracted to an eight who's really good at doing conflict, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:57

That's I think I have that t shirt.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Well it makes sense that I mean there are other assessment tools that couples therapists use um of course, but it makes sense that if you understand um the personality type of your partner and your own I mean that's just sort of a quick roadmap.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Exactly. Exactly. And you understand what you might be projecting onto that person. Right. You understand to what degree you project, like for sixes, sixes that you know, projection is their main defense mechanism. We all do it, but they do it a lot. And so you can one the more you understand yourself, the more you can understand and manage yourself, and the more you can see that person in a fresh way, as they really are, as opposed to who you've come to see them as.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yeah, I have a question about uh the difference between descending into the wound, you know, not being afraid of it or avoiding it, and as opposed to rising to your quote unquote higher self. So that's as far as I can get with the question, but if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

Yeah, I mean I think you know, you need to go down to go up. That's that's the basic that's the answer to that question. I once I was at one of the first Enneagram conferences in the U.S. Um, you've some of you may have heard of Richard Rohr, Father Richard Rohr. Um he's also you know knows the Enneagram quite well, is really an amazing spiritual leader. Uh and he was, I saw him give a talk at the first ever Enneagram conference in 1994. It was at Stanford, and he gave the greatest talk. It was about the wheel of fortune. And he said, in the US in particular, um, we have a lot of things that are about the ascent, you know, be successful, grow, you know, self-improvement, all these things. But he said there's nothing to help us with the descent. And the Enneagram helps us with the descent. And um, I actually do a course every year, although we're not doing it next year, but I have done a course every year for the last seven years um on Dante's Divine Comedy and the Enneagram Path of Transformation, call it from fixation to freedom in Florence. We do it actually in Florence, Italy. And um what that has really taught me is you know, that's that's in the first pages of the inferno, is Dante is told you have to go down to go up. So he has to go into the inferno. He has to really see the shadow of all the types before he can climb the mountain of purgatory and go to paradise. Um, and so I think that's something a lot of spiritual traditions emphasize. And I think the Enneagram also uh helps us understand that too. But even more, it helps us understand exactly how to do it, depending on what type we are. It says, here's your shadow. You don't know what your shadow is? Try looking over here, you know. Um, for all of the types, it has it really lays out what the blind spots and shadow elements are so that we can consciously go there. And of course, that's what spiritual attainment is all about. We need to go into our shadow in order to ascend. There's no bypass, there's no way around that. Um, conscious suffering and surrender, and these things are just uh part of uh any really sound spiritual path, and the Enneagram really maps that out for each of the types in a lot of detail.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

I can tell you're really experienced in fielding questions.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

Uh well, I'm very passionate about the Enneagram and the path of transformation, and it's yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

I have a big picture one for you, which I'm sure you'll answer eloquently. So if we zoom out, how does what are the implications for world peace?

SPEAKER_04 48:03

That is a big one, yeah. Well, I mean, I think of the Enneagram and my own work on myself all the time when I look around today and of course see all the really painful, horrific, difficult things happening in the world and in all over in different places, the divisions. Um, and I think what we're really seeing is you mean you hear a lot, you hear from a lot of places that the any that the world, that humanity needs to really go to a higher level of consciousness in order to survive, really. Otherwise, we'll kill ourselves, right? Um, now I think there is right now another thing I've been hearing is that the veil has never been thinner between the higher levels and humanity today. It's like we have this huge opportunity and a lot of people are waking up. A lot of people are getting in touch with their spiritual gifts, a lot of people are are are being drawn toward this kind of work. Um, and that also brings about a backlash, right? So, in some ways, we're being tested by seeing the absolute worst in us, right? And I think about like people doing things, you know, leaders, you know, people killing people. Like I think how can some how can these people be killing all these people? Like, I don't understand it. But I so I think this, you know, and I'm not at the highest level of consciousness, I'm just, you know, in the middle somewhere. But I think what's happening is we're really seeing that in order to really go to a higher level, it's almost like we're meeting our shadow in the form of people in the world who are gaining power, who are really in it for themselves, um, really not doing it for the good of humanity or the good of other people, people who lack empathy. We're seeing the rise of these people. And I think what I keep thinking about the US is in order for things to change, there's gonna need to be a mass movement. There's gonna be need to be a tipping point where a lot of people are out in the streets as they're starting to be, uh, really, really fighting against um this what comes from a lower level of consciousness that's so it's becoming more and more obvious. I think we've always had this in us, but it's been sort of beneath the surface. Now it's really coming out, and we need we're being called to as a test, you know. If if we're gonna survive, we have to really rise up again against the sort of forces of of darkness, of the ego, uh, in order to really uh work to achieve a higher level.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

That I think the problem is it's really polarized. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 50:47

Exactly, exactly. And and and the Enneagram helps us understand we need a reconciling force. What's the reconciling? We need a third force. It's like thesis, antithesis, synthesis, they're reconciling. It's it's and that reconciling force happens. And I took a trip to ancient Egypt last year, and in all the temples, this is on the walls of all the temples. We need to kind of people like you all who are doing inner work, sort of when each of us individually kind of looks at our shadow and does the work of dealing with the shadow and going to the higher side, it's almost like the collective gets influenced by the individual people doing that work. Um, and so individual people like facing their pain and and and take and fighting against things that aren't good. Um, I think that's the way things change.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

Either that or it all blows up.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

Yep, yep, yep. Either that or it all blows up.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

So Sheila has a question. Are we born with our type or is it the environment we grow up in that shapes the type we are?

SPEAKER_04 51:51

Good question. So we're born most of us that have that work with the Enneagram a long time, including Almus, who you cited earlier, um, believe that we're born with our type, that we we come in with the type. Now, of course, our early environment also has a role to play in shaping us, of course. Um, but I have a little bit of a spiritual point of view around this. It's it's as if we're born as who we are, but we're born into a life that kind of matches the journey we need to take, the challenges that we need. Because it's really both. It's nature and nurture. Um, but we we do believe that our type isn't determined by our childhood experience. It's more how our type gets expressed in our life based on um that early experience.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Do you go as far as thinking that we choose our type in the before life?

SPEAKER_04 52:42

I'm not sure about that. I do so my business partner has done many past life regressions, and he always is either one of two types, the type he is now or one other. Um, and so he thinks it's almost like a soul's journey. Um, and I don't necessarily think we choose our type. I think that's too, it might be above our pay grade, but I do think that um that we have our same type. And it's just, I mean, I think anyone who has kids can look at kids and know, like from date, from early on, they're they are who they are. You know, it's like you don't turn you don't shape them that much, you know, you shape them, but um, like I I don't have kids, but I have a nephew who when from the time he was like one or two years old, I could tell what type he was. It was really obvious to me. Now I didn't I didn't say that to him, I didn't put that on him, but now he's 19 and he agrees, he took our test, and now he knows he he agrees that he's a self-preservation nine. I even knew his subtype, it was sort of obvious just to just by his temperament and the way he was.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

I meant choose the circumstances. So if you come as a type, choose the circumstances that are gonna maybe, maybe ideal, ideally painful.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

Yeah, yeah. You you often hear that it's said that people choose their parents and things like that. So maybe on some level, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Like so, so I'm a four, and the core wound is abandonment. Yeah, so I came into the world and my father dies when I'm 2.3 years old, so there I am facing the the core the core wounds exactly.

SPEAKER_04 54:15

And fours often have that exact experience where they experienced a big loss of some kind early on in life. So that's a i i it that's a great example of how our biography often matches up with our type and and what lessons we need to learn to cope with.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Yep. Okay, resonated with me. The part where you describe like, well, this may be what some of your childhood experience was. Yeah. As this type.

SPEAKER_04 54:46

Yeah, yeah. Most eights can tell you, you know, they they had a childhood that, you know, makes a lot of sense for how that ate strategy, the survival strategy worked, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

We have um about four minutes left, so I just want to make sure any last question before we start transitioning. See, if I had heard you speak of the Enneagram, you know, thirty years ago, I would have had that passion about it.

SPEAKER_04 55:51

Thank you. That's a big compliment. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Yeah.

unknown 55:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Well, because you presented it in a way that makes complete, total, whole sense. Yeah.

unknown 56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

And I was getting it in bits and pieces. Here's how you can use it in therapy, here's how you can use it as a coach, here's how you can use it as a spiritual director. Right. But you presented in a way that says, no, this is the whole enchilada right here.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I I I know that's the way I think. I kind of want to know what something is, and uh it before I get into the smaller pieces. And of course, sometimes you run into superficial renderings of the Enneagram or partial renderings because people, you know, maybe write about it before they should, or sometimes people have had the experience of someone tells them what their type is, right? Like, oh, you're this, you know, and sometimes that's wrong. And so the person's not only is being told who they are, which can feel invasion invasive at best, um, but they're also wrong about who they are, right? And so um, so that can be sometimes the way people can get put off by it. So, um, but but yeah, I think if people have a get a sense of what it is, it's often very compelling.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Right. So I'll adapt. I do a closing blessing, so I'll adapt it. Which is may we change some of the madness of this world into any gram informed relationship.