Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Gettin' hip

One of the ways to loosen the hold our Enneagram style has on us is by mindfulness - becoming aware of patterns. Simple information doesn't quite cut it. If you have an iphone, there is a new app to play with to increase your mindfulness. Here is a link to an article that explains how it works.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149169/vision%3A_can_human_beings_drop_their_divisive%2C_reactionary_thinking_and_move_to_a_higher_level

Friday, December 10, 2010

RAS

A root of our problem in life is our reticular activation system. Didn't know that, did you? RAS is the neurological setup at the top of our spine that filters and expedites certain messages and piece of information before (aye, there's the rub, before) it reaches our neo cortex and the free choice that that organ allows.
So if you suspect your RAS is causing you problems, look for bringing forward into today what was a problem pattern for you as a child. When you keep getting the same information, you keep having the same problem.
So just take a look at how you define a problem you have and think back...does this pattern remind you of a childhood pattern?
The beauty of the Enneagram is that it gives you pretty strong hits about what patterns you are probably acting out as an adult. So...given your RAS filter how might you relax that pattern a bit?

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Agere contra

"Agere contra" is Latin for acting against one's impulses as a means of personal growth in spirituality. Here is an example from William Atkinson: if we wish to conquer emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance, cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements of those contrary dispositions we prefer to cultivate.

With Enneagram sophistication, we understand there are perils to that. We might be able to alter and improve a small behavior pattern, but usually when we try to change, we use our Enneagram energy in the service of changing something we're doing because of our Enneagram style. A style one will be self-critical and then resolve to stop, but will criticize every effort to change.

Factor of 10

Why is change so hard?
One reason is that we are hardwired to see what we have seen before, hear what we have heard before and think what we have thought before. Homeostasis is the neurological and chemical tendency to maintain the status quo.
That's why the educational research shows that it requires 10 times the psychic energy to unlearn something as to learn something.
So any learning that doesn't "fit" our previous information is difficult. That applies to simple cognitive data (the price is wrong) or the muscles needed to learn to thread a needle, shoot a free throw or drive a car.
Practice does not make perfect: it makes consistency. Practicing doing it wrong makes you do it wrong more consistently. Watching Fox news makes you perfectly Republican. Watching Bill Maher makes you perfectly angry.
Reading all sides of a question is tiring. But that's the way to go.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Overlay

When we assign or infer an enneagram style, that's not as accurate as when we discern a style in a person.
However, it has some validity; when I coach North Americans I keep in mind the Three characteristics of the countries (US and Canada. I've not coached any Mexicans). No matter what the basic style of someone is, you can see an overlay of cultural characteristics.
For example, regardless of the style, many Americans give me a blank look when I ask them what they have that they didn't work for. Especially if they are politically conservative, they assume they worked for everything they have. They ignore race, gender, health, opportunity, IQ and all sorts of systems that support them - both political and natural.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Reality, really?

In most futile arguments, one of the most common telltale phrases that indicate this is going nowhere is "Well, the reality is..."
Every Enneagram style has, in a minor key, its own reality. An argument is precisely about what is real. If one side insists that his/her reality is THE reality, then no real discussion can take place. The only way to have a discussion is to ask "what is your reality?" Reality here means where do you place your weight, your emphasis, your concern, your primary values etc.
The "reality" is the conclusion, not the starting point.
One of the lovely benefits of learning the enneagram is to realize that what is real for one person is quite different from what is real for another.
One way to get at the reality concern is to learn, by osmosis, inference or direct questioning, what is at stake? What does the other person think might or must happen if they don't get their way?

Monday, November 29, 2010

Nines are beautiful

Nines have a natural modesty that they sometimes push too far -- into "I don't count." They see assertion as something that will get them into trouble. Self advertising seems "pushy" or in bad taste.
I recommend to all you Nines that you have a blooming flower in the area you spend the most time. Flowers are nature's way of advertising. "Here I am!" is the alluring component of the flower's color. Nines must allow themselves to bloom. It won't hurt at all.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Listen, Eights

If there is one thing an Eight can learn to do to grow spiritually it is listen. The following public obvious Eights on TV irritate me and probably a lot of others because they frequently interrupt their guests or commentators and apparently don't "get" what the person is saying:
Reading from Left to Right: Ed Schulz, Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. What they all should do is access their Seven wing and listen to Rachel Maddow and Charlie Rose, both intellectual Sevens who listen uncommonly well.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Lying in style

A style 7 standup comic was talking about his weight. He was carrying an extra 30-40 pounds. He told the audience that he purchased membership in a gym. He hadn't decided yet if he would actually go to the gym or not. He said that if he didn't, he would keep the membership and call it a "fat tax."
That is how a style 7 reframes unpleasant reality. Sevens take a natural creativity and deceive themselves and others by reframing.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Judgement

The Onion, a satirical news source, has an article today that says Obama sent out a 75,000 word e mail full of incoherent statements, contradictions, obscenities, typos and general disorientation. www.rawstory.com
The website Fox Nation jumped all over it as authentic, commenting on it, not understanding it was satire. (For those not used to publishing, many novels are only 50,000 words long. A 75,000 word e mail would cover 350 printed pages!)
Why did they not see the satire? The folks at Fox probably did, but deliberately promulgated it simply to reinforce their narrative.
But the bloggers and comment-writers did not see the satire. Why not?
Stupidity is not the deepest answer. We all have a tendency to believe what fits the mental world in which we live. Objective criteria (75,000 words one night!) and congruency (elite intellectuals don't write that, even if you hate elite intellectuals) are easily brushed aside if the information fits with what I already think.
We all have a rather subjective world that we have to monitor by reading, discussion with people who don't agree with and the art of critical thinking.
Ideology is communal, egotism is personal, but they both prevent us from making good judgments.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

To see and not to see

Style sixes have an interesting information processing quirk. On the one hand, they are keen observers, scanning their environment at all times. Counterphobic sixes are often reckless or indulge in dangerous sports. I was watching a mountain climber being interviewed and when asked what was the secret to not getting hurt he replied, "You have to know where you are at all times and constantly scan the environment."
That's from their fear base. But they also do something else to frighten themselves more: they don't believe what they hear or see -- not entirely. They look beyond appearances to look for hidden meanings and deleted information. Sometimes they even miss the information that is there when they look for what is NOT there.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Doing splits

I blame our cultural split between mind and body on Fives. Descartes was a Five and he split all of reality into two: res extensa and res cogitans - things you can measure (they have extension) and things of thought. So scientific thought focuses on what you can measure while human experience, tainted by consciousness is not considered "scientific." So if you go to a doctor, basically a chemist, he will not ask you what you're thinking or feeling, he just measures stuff: pressures, proportions, and percentages. Then he prescribes pharmaceuticals. It's all very scientific but not human and I blame Descartes, rather universally acknowledged as the father of modern science and his style Five split between body and soul.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Common sense

For reasons philosophical and perhaps (my detractors say) personal, I've never trusted people who use "common sense" as their platform in politics, their interpretation of scripture or their financial decisions.

Common sense tells us pictures can't travel through the air, any more than metal airplanes. Common sense tells me machines can't add and hummingbirds can't fly backward.

Reality is a lot more our creation than a given. The more we learn of the Enneagram and how different each person's world is, the less credence we give to "common sense." Here is an opinion I like -- by the British philosopher, Erich Heller.

Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Feelin' it!

Style Four has an emphasis no other style has in quite the same way. They often insist, in one way or another, that their emotions be an important part of any decision. None of this "just do it" stuff. They have a strong sense of being entitled to their emotions and having their emotions be an important part of your (or anyone's) decision. Threes might be motivated by money, Eights by power, but Fours are motivated, both in direction and force, by their feelings.
For an enjoyable display of this style, go watch some reruns of Allie McBeal. Not only is she a 4, but the whole show is about the feelings of people. The legal background is really "back," because everything is focused on how people feel. It would be fair to say that the show is a style 4 show, much in the sense that a community, tradition or culture has a style.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Morphous

Style Threes are the natural marketers of the internet. They know what will please people and are often talented at giving customers/clients/friends/spouses exactly what they want.
If, however, Threes slip from integrity, they become somewhat like a category in Role-playing games called a "shape-shifter." They will morph into what they really are not.
Sarah Palin is a fine public figure who is expert at morphing into what the political desires of a certain segment of people want. She embodies, or rather appears to embody what the ideal American is. When she says to a group of people that they are the "real" America, she is identifying (and morphing into) a certain ideal. You can please some of the people all of the time - by becoming or at least becoming what they want.
Palin is a Three.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Two for the money

How do you pay a Two for all that s/he has done for you? With appreciation.
If you are a Two, when you don't protect your boundaries (by doing too much or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of), look out for doing things for people for appreciation. Sometimes those who appreciate most received the most from you.
A special note here has to be made of religious motivation. People with unsophisticated religious understandings will often do too much or allow exploitation if they think God will appreciate it. (High places in heaven, stars in your crown: these are metaphors for Divine appreciation). See a theologian and/or a therapist for beliefs like these.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Ones in trouble

Ones can get in trouble for being too righteous or by flipping their righteousness into hypocrisy. Ones are vulnerable to hypocrisy because they have high standards they don't/can't live up to.
We happen to have several public example. Lou Dobbs is coming back on the air after having been publicly exposed as hypocritical in his fulminating against illegal aliens and at the same time hiring them. (Lou they aren't aliens - they're just hungry people from across the river).
Keith Olbermann got suspended for being too angry about right wing nonsense. The ostensible charge was giving money to democrats, but it was all legal. The real reason he was slapped was more likely his boss didn't like his vituperative defense of the reality principle in the face of the triumph of fantasy.

Lou D and Keith O are both pretty clear style Ones. If you want to study Ones, they'd be good examples. The other strong political media One is Bill Maher.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Seeing is believing

An old, often abused, spiritual tradition was called "custody of the eyes." (It was given to me in Latin - custos oculorum). The understanding was that to focus on what you were all about, you had to control where you look.
Here is a contemporary experience that illustrates that what we see can actually over- ride what we feel. http://myhealingkitchen.com/soul-food/the-rubber-hand-illusion/
See how important our Enneagram focus of attention is? What we look for is what we see, and what we see is what we feel. So if you're feeling bad, I have bad news for you - you're looking bad.
So if you would like to make any change in your life, what might you start looking at instead of what you're looking at now? Whatever you look at, you will believe.
A large social observation illustrates that. 17% of Americans still believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth and 25% of Fox viewers believe that Obama is a Muslim. What you see really is what you believe.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Election, of course

Chris Matthews doesn't know the Enneagram, but he asked Michelle Bachmann a pointedly specific question and she gave a non-answer, just sort of a series of platitudes. So he asked her the same pointed question and she gave him the same series. Exasperated, he asked if she was hypnotized.
She wasn't, but she is in a trance. Her trance is ideological, but the vivid exchange illustrated what a trance is: a trance is a set response that we give, no matter what the stimulus is. If I am a Six, really entranced (think Woody Allen), and I'm given a piece of news, I can predict that no good will come of this. I don't have a preset series of talking points like Bachmann, but I do have a default set of responses. If I am a Four, no matter what the situation, if I am really entranced, I will know that my emotions are the important factor. My mood triumphs "consensual reality."

Hint: to tell when the politicians are in a trance, watch for generalizations, not specifics. Lower taxes, but no specific cuts. "Get things done," but no practical plans. Sometimes it is even more sweeping: "No compromises."
Generalizations are how we hypnotize ourselves and keep our Enneagram trance. Individually, it's an enneagram style, politically it is ideology.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Generally

One way to think of your enneagram style is as an excessive generalization. When we are young, we have to generalize. "NEVER" cross the street without looking. If you do, you will die.
But we absolutize other generalizations. Dogs bite. I have to be good. I am weak/strong/pretty/shy/or just different.
Some of these generalizations cluster into an Enneagram style.
So take your favorite Enneagram conviction and see if you can specify what is true and what is doubtful about your style. For the next few days, I'll parse some generalizations.
Let's start with Ones. You know you have to be a good boy/girl. And you know the rules for being good are within you. Can you make a distinction between one rule that you have that is absolute (Never vote for a Tea Party Candidate) and one that is relative (sometimes it is OK to leave work an hour early and go have a drink with a friend). Not very often, of course, but maybe sometimes.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Either/OR #9

When Nines are on their game, they are natural negotiators, able to see all sides of a question. But if they are not quite aware, they can polarize between the needs and agendas of others and their own. The inner experience is that only one of us can have what we want. It's either you and your way OR me and mine.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Either/Or #8

Style Eights often polarize between winning and losing. They see life as a battlefield and often interpersonal relationships are contests of wills. Given as they are to b/w thinking if they're in their trance, they can think in sporting metaphors with the winning and losing always playing a role.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Either/Or #7

When Sevens polarize, they can divide discipline and creativity by fearing that if they expend effort and work hard they will lose their cherished spontaneity. This can contribute to their inability to finish things they start: if something doesn't come easily, like spontaneity, they can feel it is impossible. The faulty belief is that they should be able to do a good job immediately. This is rooted in their general fear that they do not have the power to take effective action--a general characteristic of the fear-based triad.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Either/Or #6

Sixes have the most obvious form of polarization: they polarize against themselves. That's why we have phobic and counterphobic style Sixes.
This often shows up in an inability to make decisions. They will second-guess themselves and picture what can go wrong; then either paralyze themselves or take precipitous action if they are unhealthy.

H. W. Bush is a public example we all know. A Six, he was so loyal and unswerving in his devotion to the Reagan doctrine that for years he did nothing. Writers commonly referred to "The Reagan-Bush" administration. Gov't is the problem, went the mantra, so he was fairly inactive. Then his popularity fell to 19% so he HAD to do something. So he did what unhealthy sixes do - he projected. He projected all the evil of the world onto Saddam Hussein. Then he did what healthy Sixes do: he got the community together - in this case other nations. He bribed, threatened and cajoled them to attack Hussein with the US. He went from phobic paralysis to counterphobic violence.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Either/Or #5

Fives have a mild polarization about information at times. Most of the times Fives keep their own counsel and a frequent complaint about Fives is that they withhold information. However, at times they will compulsively share information, often more information than you expected or sometimes more than you wanted. Fives can get a buildup of information like Nines do of anger.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Either/OR #4

When Fours polarize they frequently divide acceptance and authenticity. They inwardly assume they are defective in some way so they have to be who they are not in order to be loved, paradoxically, for themselves. French drama often depicts defective or deformed people overcoming this polarization. Cyrano Bergerac, Beauty and the Best and Hunchback of Notre Dame all have deformed people finding love - a Four's dream. Deformed people are both authentic and loved.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Either/ Or #3

An important facet of either/or polarization is that they are mutually dependent. Think teeter-totters of your childhood. Behind the excessive attention to one of the polarities is an unconscious or barely conscious attention to the opposite. In style Three, one division is between success and failure. The more success a Three has, the deeper her failure of fear is apt to be. Oprah is a Three, fabulously successful. The last film she made was about her slave ancestry. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow if one is polarized. Tony Robbins is so rich he owns his own island. His book on Power starts with his narrative about when he was overweight sleeping in a bathtub.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Either/or #2

Style Two is often polarized between their needs and yours. The inner
Two" assumption is that you have needs that only I can meet along with an equal belief that when style I meet your needs,I will not meet mine.

So if you are a style two, keep looking for "win-win" situations -- ones in which both of you go away happy. If both your needs are not being met, you're in trouble. You will meet their needs and keep track of what they owe you==a debt which seldom gets paid.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Either/or

A common mental habit holds our Enneagram problems in place. Polarization is the habit of taking a single reality and dividing it into two opposites. Each style does a number of these mental distortions.

Style One often polarizes against sensual pleasure. Religion in America is colored with puritanism, a Oneish religion. So we have Christine O'Donnell campaigning against masturbation and pornography a thriving industry. Many Ones will report alternately being very tightly disciplined in matters of the flesh (sex, food, bodily pleasure) and then becoming debauched for a while.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Academia

A lot of people study "about" the enneagram. It's not the way I employ and enjoy it. I use it as a diagnostic tool to see problems and then use other disciplines to help people weaken their enneagram trance.
If you're interested in the academic approach, Elizabeth Wagele has a blog on Psychology Today that lists some places you can get academic treatment of the Enneagram. Here's the link: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-career-within-you/201010/the-enneagram-is-becoming-popular

I shy away from "scientific" approaches to the Enneagram because so much of contemporary science is reductionistic. That is, only visible behavior can be studied, because if something is to be called scientific it must be quantifiable by some means: sensory data or computer calculation.

The Enneagram is also about inner motivation and subjective experience: using it is an art more than a science. I do not apologize for that. I am a theologian and that also required art and intuition for fruitful employment. So does parenting, coaching, loving and most of the other important endeavors of my life.

Simple.

Our enneagram style is the way we simplified life as a child so we could cope. One can't pay attention to everything or make sense of everything, so we simplify. If I see the way to make it upstream through childhood is by being good, I am a One. But if my method is to take care of others, then I become a Two. Every style relies on a specialty - a small set of coping skills regardless of the situation.

The egotistical life is one that is simplified. Simplification is so attractive and destructive. Look at the magazines selling it. The US today is vilifying Muslims. If we wipe out them, then we'll "take our country back." One solution fits all problems. Fundamentalism is the simplification of religion as egotism is the simplification of personal reality.

One reads a lot about "the simple life," but if your life is simple, you're neurotic. If you've ever tried to discuss religion with a fundamentalist or politics with a true believer, sooner or later you'll hear the tell-tale phrase: "Well, all I know is..." at which point I usually say, "Yes, that is true and that is the problem." That doesn't simplify our discussion but it does shorten it.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Process

Each of our enneagram styles is a form of rigidity. We assume from the past without paying real attention to the present, we react to the present situation with practiced regularity. We meet a stranger and assume s/he will or will not like us, we hear a story and react with fear/rage because of the way we interpret it.

It is hard, terribly, to change these rigidities. One way is by concentrating on what you're trying to change as a process. Not failure or success, but effort that may bring some success. I find affirmations improve things with this approach. Instead of a frightened Six saying "I am courageous," it would be better to say, "My courage is getting stronger." "I am courageous" will feel like a lie to your unconscious so your affirmation will be either ignored or a cause of shame. But "I am getting more courageous" is probably true and acceptable to your unconscious.

The journey, not the destination.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Heavy research

Some folks like academic "hard data" research and would like to see the Enneagram "scientifically" validated. Here's how one guy did it.



Using the Enneagram to help organizations attract, motivate, & retain their employees
by Hebenstreit, R. Karl, Ph.D., Alliant International University, San Francisco Bay, 2007 , 128 pages; AAT 3294292

ABSTRACT (abstract summary is below)

This study used an on-line survey to evaluate various hypotheses around differences in decisions to join, stay with, or leave organizations being explained by differences in Enneatype. 87 completed surveys were collected July-August 2007 and data was analyzed using Cronbach's alpha (reliability), ANOVA and Tukey tests (chance), and Fisher exact tests (links to MBTI). The results supported several of the hypotheses, revealing that some statistically significant (p < 0.05) inter-Enneatype differences exist in decisions to join, stay with, and/or leave organizations:

Enneatype 1s differed from 4s and 8s in valuing supervisory integrity more when having joined organizations. They also differed from 3s and 4s in that dimension having chosen to stay with their current companies. Enneatype 6s differed from 4s in their higher valuation of trust in leadership having decided to join organizations (as did 1s, 5s, 7s, and 9s). A collaborative work environment was more important for 9s than 4s remaining with past employers. Sufficient time off was valued more by Enneatype 5s (and 6s) than 3s having chosen to stay with past employers. Enneatype 6s (along with 1s and 2s) valued trust in leadership more than 4s having chosen to stay with past organizations. Additionally, Enneatype 1s differed from 3s in valuing the aggregate literature review-based factors more having chosen to stay with their current employers. Further analysis by subtype revealed statistically significant differences between social and sexual counterparts in the former's higher valuation of innovative work when joining and remaining with past organizations. Social subtypes differed from self-preservation peers having chosen to stay with past employers based on collaborative work environments. Sexual subtypes differed from social subtypes in their valuation of supervisory support having decided to stay with past employers, and from both other subtypes when factoring in interesting work. Other statistically significant results (0.05 < p < 0.08) were also revealed that require further research with larger populations. The results of this study validated many of the findings and predictions of the literature and Enneagram theory. These findings should provoke corporate action to integrate the basic motivations of the Enneatypes into the workplace to attract, retain, and motivate their diverse workforce.

So there!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Get together to get it together

Beginning with, or least powerfully augmented by, the Bush administrations deliberate frightening of America (Time magazine's cover headline: Be Very Afraid! and the degree of fear calibrated yellow and orange), the culture, normally a style Three on the Enneagram is showing some signs of a slide to side Six.

With style six comes explicit fear and a distrust of authority (11% congressional approval).

What is encouraging in the underbrush however, is how often the purveyors of bad news who are just warning us based on data tell us that the best way we can survive the coming hard times is in community.

When the US was more confident, the cultural ideal was "independently wealthy." But if the planet is overheating and government is corrupt, lots of luck with that strategy. The strategy most often suggested is "grassroots" and "local initiative" and "shared burdens" -- the high side of style six. Sixes are the most loyal and most communal of all the styles. Strength in numbers and all that.

So if you read or watch the news, and are getting frightened, do what healthy sixes do: form community.

When I was editor of the Enneagram Educator, I was working for the National Catholic Reporter, so I had a lot of subscribers who were sisters. I did a survey and 40% of those women who live in and love community were Sixes. Figures.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Supply and Demand

The underlying principle of economics is the assumption of scarcity. Things are as valuable as they are scarce. The law of supply and demand.
That metaphor works well for our ego states, too. Every Enneagram style is an experience of deprivation, of shortage. The more entranced we are in our ego style, the less grateful we are for what we have and the more conscious we are of what we don't have and our need to have it.

So one way to discern your style and your relative freedom within it is to ask, "What is missing from my life?" If you really want to shake things up inside, follow up with, "And this thing(s) missing from my life -- how do I keep it out?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Parallel universe

It is Sunday. If you watch political "debates," you see what the Enneagram theory elucidates. People live in different worlds. When one person starts talking, the other person takes exception to every sentence because the assumptions behind the sentence is unacceptable.
For example, Republicans believe (and it has the power of religious belief), that "government is the problem." Non republicans (democrats, independents, people who read books), don't accept that.
But every ideology is something like an Enneagram style. It operates out of a "model of the universe." In certain Enneagram styles, the universe is really dangerous; in others, it is not. The world is different.
Take a less incendiary example: for some people UFO's are just not real because, in some sense, they simply are not (and maybe CAN not) be part of their world. For others, they keep scanning the sky because "they've seen 'em." My mechanic, a hard hat realist, has seen UFO's. The pharmacist, a no-nonsense realist, knows they don't really exist.
I'm a theologian. In my universe, let's talk about divine intervention. The Rapture - devoutly believed by many bumper-stickered native-- it is not going to happen. I know, because in my world, in my model of the universe, it just is not going to happen. I'm as sure of my belief as they are of theirs.
Every Enneagram style has a set of beliefs about what is/is not going to happen because that's the world is.
The smaller your world, the more rigid your beliefs. Except mine. Rapture is NOT going to happen.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Court Jester

Steven Colbert testified before congress yesterday, doing what a Seven does best: delivering important information in a manner that is entertaining but has a bite.
Colbert stands in the tradition of a great 7ish archetype: the court jester. It was the job of the jester to entertain the king but also to tell the king some things he probably did not want to hear.

The jester was often called a fool. Be that as it may, Colbert is foolish and he is no fool.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Infinity and beyond

You never get enough of what you really don't want. One of the characteristics of an Enneagram ego style is excess. Freud noted that all neurotic desires are infinite. This explains why, some people can not get enough money. In the US, the top 1% have 38% of the wealth and the top 20% have 84% of the wealth and are lobbying--bribing-- to have their taxes reduced and are sheltering their money in the Cayman Islands. The Wal-Mart family has as much money as 120 million Americans (that's one third of the population).
Individually and collectively, egotism leads to excess. That's why, when I want to determine an Enneagram style, I ask, "What do you do, voluntarily (that's important - that it be voluntary) too much of? Work too hard, eat too much, surf the net too much, watch TV too much, shop too much -- it can be anything. The reason it is excess is because you're doing it instead of getting what you really want. You shop because you want personal power, or because you want to think you're beautiful or you want to take revenge on your spouse by spending the money--our excesses can disguise our real wants. Our desire for more is not targeted at what we really want.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Necessity

Necessity is the mother of invention - and the sister of creativity. Necessity is a form of vacuum, an awareness of "not" -- not working, not pleasant, not available -- not something important.

As such it is a precondition of learning, and creativity can be thought of as learning that comes from within. (That's why it is called inspiration at times).

A young man went to the old Confucian master and said he wanted to be his student. The master politely agreed and told him to come to his house the next morning at tea time. When they sat down, the master began to fill the younger man's cup. But after the cup was full, he kept on pouring. When the young man protested, the older man said, "Well, this is like our situation. You come to me for wisdom, but you are already so full of yourself that there is no room for me to give you anything."

But when we are in pain or confused or consciously ignorant--some kind of emptiness-- then we feel the necessity that is the mother of invention and the sister of creativity. I have learned that this necessity comes from two directions: a pull into something new or a kick, strategically placed, to suggest I leave something old. From either direction, I feel a certain urgency - a necessity.
So where are you empty? Your Enneagram style, with it's tight focus on one thing, usually omits looking or sensing other areas. Look at the "low side" of your enneagram style and you will see your empty area - a source of creativity.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The mother of invention

Before Wikipedia there were linguistic insights so profound and widely applicable that they became aphorisms. The reason they stick in our language is that all of us are smarter than any of us--the principle behind wikipedia.

Necessity is the mother of invention. It is only when we are aware of what we don't have that we invent something new. Pain works quite well. If I am in pain doing something, it feels necessary to do something different.

Once I am aware of what I don't have, what the vacancy is, what I don't know, what I fear, then I can do something different. When it becomes emotionally necessary to make a change, I make the requisite invention. Complacency is the mother of paralysis. As you become aware of your enneagram energy, you become more aware of what you're missing.

The people have spoken by keeping this principle alive in the treasury of sayings: Necessity is the mother of invention.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Religion undefined

The Enneagram is widely used for spiritual growth. Saturday I'm going to spend a day with a liberal protestant church integrating the Enneagram with the scriptures.
You will notice that most Enneagram authors, while deeply, passionately at times, concerned with spirituality, do not use it in conjunction with "organized" religion.

Christian religion in the United States is "generally" not spiritual. It gives people something to belong to, some have virtuous outreaches and missionary work that combines social justice and proselytizing.

But there is very little healthy, mature religion. The sermons are largely moralistic, much of the religion in Christian book stores is the "gospel of gain" (sometimes called the prosperity gospel) like the prayer of Jabez. Much catholic piety is stickily sentimental, especially the writings about Mary.

The right-wing Christians are a vicious lot, by and large, at least as they show up in state and national politics. I'm not concerned with them. Of greater concern is the run of the mill church goers. They could really profit from the enneagram, but they really don't have a spiritual matrix that could assimilate the Enneagram.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Environment, really local

Marshall McLuhan, the 60's media guru had a principle that modern business and hospital research confirms. First, you create an environment, and then the environment creates you.
Look around your office/home/car. It reflects you, of course, but it also creates you. For example, every file that needs attention --filing, answering, filling, reworking-- is a not only a drain on your energy, it also functions as your mother or father or teacher, whoever had the job of getting you to do what you didn't want to.

Yes, each file is a visual nag: "don't forget to do me," "don't forget this has to be done," "don't forget your deadline for this." You may think you grew up and left home, but you brought the nagging of your parents and teachers with you. You hired piles of paper to nag (the kinder word is remind) you to get your work done.

Wouldn't it be nice to grow up and not have anyone--or any thing -- tell you to clean your room?

It would also be nice to understand that imposing order on your office restructures you inner life a bit. Think of it as very cheap therapy.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

What you see is what you get

My friend, Tom Condon, sent me the results of an experiment of how our perception influences us. Remember, the starting point of the enneagram is our focus of attention.
Closing the Gap: How Desire Affects Perceptions of Distance
When we judge distance, desired objects seem nearer
By Valerie Ross

We often assume we see our physical surroundings as they actually are. But new research suggests that how we see the world depends on what we want from it.

People see desirable objects as physically closer than less desirable ones, according to a study in the January issue of Psychological Science. When psychologists Emily Balcetis of New
York University and David Dunning of Cornell University asked people to estimate how far away a bottle of water was, those who were thirsty guessed it was closer than nonthirsty people did. This difference in perception showed up in a physical challenge, too. People tossing a beanbag at a $25 gift card were, on average, nine inches shy, whereas people aiming for a gift card worth nothing overshot by an inch.

As the brain evolved, people who saw distances to goals as shorter might have gone after what they wanted more often. This error in perception was actually an advantage, leading people to get what they needed—and, perhaps, survive more often than their more accurate counterparts. “Seeing water as closer when you’re thirsty might make it a little more likely you’ll try to go get it,” Balcetis says.

What are you looking at?

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Shadow rules

An Enneagram style has a shadow. That shadow is not an evil thing, it is just the opposite of what your usual habits are.
The shadow can be very strong. For example, some Enneagram students and teachers see the humorist Bill Maher as a 7. He is a really strong and funny style One. He is angry and vents his anger against all sorts of stupidity. One of his books is called "New Rules," a giveaway of the inner structure of style One.
But he has a strong connection to his 7 shadow, so he is funny and entertaining, usually a hallmark of a 7. Listen carefully and you'll hear him angry and that anger is home base.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Burning Books

A moderately to seriously deranged pastor (Jones) in Gainesville, Florida got the world's attention by threatening to burn the Koran. Everybody from Obama on down paid attention to this pathetic pastor. Why?
Why should burning the book be any more worthy of the world's attention than our killing of more than a million people in Iraq to get their oil?
Because it was a symbol. We are not a rational race, we operate off symbols. We scream in delight at football games, we pay exorbitant sums for cars that will go fast on roads that are choked with traffic that won't let us go fast.
We live by symbols. The Koran is such a symbol.
So when we wish to make a change in our life, one of the things that works best is to make a small symbolic change. If you want to stop procrastinating, do one small thing you've been putting off.
If you know the Enneagram, do one small activity that is typical of your stress or security point. For example, if you are a Two, your connecting points are 4 and 8, so do one small aesthetic thing that is self-nurturing: buying flowers or decorating your office or learning to knit. Abstract resolutions like "I'm going to take better care of my self," are useless. New Year's resolutions usually fail for this reason.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

I want to

Aristotle said it first: "All men by nature desire to know." Then in 1993 a British author, Alfie Kohn, wrote "Punished by Rewards." He argued, brilliantly, I think, that extrinsic rewards actually hurt intellectual performance - that if left to our own devices our natural curiosity makes us learn more than if we are rewarded. Now, Daniel H. Pink has a new book, Drive, that repeats the point and situates his argument in the context of contemporary business.

Republicans will be furious if this principle gets out. They insist that unless you force people to work by starving them if they don't, that workers will just sit and love idleness. Aristotle, Kohn, and Pink say "No, if people are not blocked, they will naturally love to learn, work and create. It's in our DNA." And both Pink and Kohn show experiments that illustrate even monkeys are naturally problem solvers without external rewards being necessary.

Enter the Enneagram. Our desire to learn and to create is not arbitrary. Each style has an inner direction for their creativity: Twos want to create in a different way than Sixes. So when we try to improve (ourselves or others as a coach), we need to know what the intrinsic motivators are. They are more powerful than any imposed goals, rewards or punishments.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Relate

A beloved nephew, Cy Monley, married Saturday. In addition to the jubilation proper to the occasion, one can consider if the Enneagram has anything to say about marriage or relationships. The usual question is, "What types have problems and what types are most compatible.
The answer is easy. When the people are healthy, their types don't make any difference. What the Enneagram articulates is "if they have a conflict," then "here's how these types decay into conflict."
This is a specific application of the general principle: when we are on our game, we live in the present, act and react appropriately and forgive each other when either doesn't do either of those: act or react appropriately." Appropriate is one of those weasel words like "reality," that defies definition because it is context-dependent.

A fabulous researcher, Gottman, could predict whether or not a couple could have a happy relationship by language analysis. A good Enneagram teacher could come close by discerning how deeply fixated each style was. The first clue one looks for is rigidity. If either party has standard, inflexible responses, trouble brews. It doesn't matter if the response is to hide, to fight, to run, to do anything. If that is their 90% pattern, the couple has little chance.
But flexibility, a wide range of options on how to handle any situation, will be a sign of health that bodes well.
I wish Cy and his new bride, Christina, all the riches reality can bring. From what I can discern (which I've told him is a lot), they are going to be delightfully happy.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Morality

Dr. Andre Rushkowski, the director of communications at my graduate school in Toronto told me precisely how to evaluate morality in movies. What gets punished in the narrative is immoral, what is allowed or rewarded is moral.

Boston Legal
is popular and sophisticated. But conservatives who see sex as the main sin while cool about violence to people, animals or the planet will see their worst fears realized. The people the drama has us love are eloquent in the defense of ecology, honesty in politics, fairness in economics and legal rights for all are simultaneously indulging in lascivious sex much of the time.
We grow to love Alan Shore, who propositions a new girl every other show and who defends every underdog and every liberal cause: honesty, fairness and compassion. He defends principle above the law, whether it is euthanasia, ecology, abortion rights, or the common good over private property. William Shattner is a lovely foil: he is the archetypal Republican: racist, bigot, gun fanatic, loves all wars and is equally sexually indulgent.

The cultural message is clear. Consensual sex of almost any kind is OK. Lying, cheating, stealing, racism, religious intolerance and bigotry is not.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Great Expectations

When things go predictably wrong, others say to us, "Well, what did you expect?" What was predictable to them somehow escaped us. You dated her, you invested there, you looked for a job someplace -- and when it didn't work out, a friend looks puzzled and asks, "Well, what did you expect?"
Each enneagram style with its worldview and focus of attention, has implicit expectations. You will save yourself a lot of mistakes, and possibly heartaches, by knowing what your expectations really are. Our expectations are powerful. Every wise boss knows that his or her expectations become, for many employees, marching orders. Every spouse knows that the expectations of the other simply must be considered or trouble will follow.

I'll give you an example or two, but in addition to your Enneagram style, you may have some expectations that are personal to you. If you are a Six, you expect things to go wrong. Sixes routinely take precautions, insist on detailed disclosure and relish backup plans because they "know" (they expect) that things will go wrong.

Fours frequently expect to be rejected. Remember the old story of the man who had a tire go flat out on a country road? He didn't have a jack to fix the tire. He was about a mile from a farmhouse and all the way to the farmhouse he muttered to himself, "He's probably got vicious dogs, he is probably in bed already because it is almost dark, he probably doesn't trust strangers" etc. He finally got to the house, there were no dogs and when he knocked on the door, the farmer stuck his head out the window and asked what the trouble was. "Keep your damn jack!" the man shouted. We all have some legitimate fears of rejection (remember your first date?) but Fours really expect rejection.
Therapists use an interesting word, "pull." If we expect something, we unconsciously "pull" for it, because we "know" that attitude or behavior is there and we want it out in the open.
So check your expectations. You're going to get some of what you expect.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Family values

One of the salient characteristics of an Enneagram style is a perceptual bias along with patterned responses, a type of behavioral bias. An Eight will get loud, a Seven will get funny, a Nine will withdraw etc.

So for today's blog I think it only fair to let my readers know that I have a political bias. This bias is a family one; the quotation below was sent by a family member, approved by at least four other family members and is indicatory of both my family patterns and my Enneagram style. It is also indicatory of a background that includes reading books, so I have political persuasions not found on talk radio. As far as I can discern, talk radio here in Kansas does not include information found in books or articles with footnotes and complete sentences.

Did you know that the words "race car" spelled backwards still spells "race car"?
Did you know that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the 1st letter and move it to the last, spells its past tense, "ate"?
And if you rearrange the letters in "so-called tea party Republicans," and add just a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the fuck up you freeloading, progress-blocking, benefit grabbing, resource-sucking, violent, hypocritical assholes, and face the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush."
Wow! How weird is that?

Monday, July 12, 2010

Prime directive

In his classic Sci-Fi book, I, Robot, Asimov has one of the technicians observe the following: "He (the robot) believes only reason, and there's one trouble with that..." his voice trailed away.
"What's that?
"You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason--if you pick the proper postulates."
The reason many people cannot discuss religion or politics is that each side has a different postulate. If your postulate (your fundamental starting point, your conviction that you never yield on) is a slogan "Government is the problem, not the answer," you will always come to conclusions that flow from that. The reason "big lie" propaganda works is that once you establish the postulate, data does not matter.
Some Christians believe "Every word of the bible is literally true." They shed science and historical data like an ill-fitting garment, and they embrace physical impossibility like an affectionate child-- all because of their postulate.
Our Enneagram style functions like a postulate, in a moderate softened sense. If I am a style Nine,my postulate is that I MUST have harmony. If I am Three,I MUST have success. The more neurotic I am, the more rigid and determining is my postulate.
The postulate filters out all information that conflicts with it and suggests that all responses lead to it. If I am a Four, I filter out all (or at least most) suggestions that I am just one of the folks and I respond in such a way that reinforces my belief that I am unique and not quite acceptable in my uniqueness.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Wrong in general

Of the variety of ways that we exaggerate, distort, delete, obfuscate and in general screw up communication, probably one of the most deleterious is generalizations. On vacation I did a lot of reading a talking. Surprise! I had the most trouble dealing with generalizations. I was trying to be fair and balanced, so I watched some Fox news and read several conservative blogs. Whereupon I reflected on the havoc generalizations can cause.
Which reminds me of a story. I was invited to a home with two teen age boys. The whole family was doing a lot of fighting and not relishing the conflict. I went to live with them for a week. Within two hours of my arrival the boys began to argue loudly and warmly. I was invited to magically stop them. So I did.
I did it by simply getting them to agree that whenever they used the words always or never, they had to pay a quarter into a pot. It was considered cheating by finding synonyms like "invariably" or "habitually" or "you have the habit of."
By the end of the week, everyone was laughing and amazed at how often they were fined. The interruption of generalization fractured most of the fights and made the fights they had more real, about current concerns.
Look at what a generalization does. It brings the energy and pain of the past into the present and overloads the emotional tenor of the conversation. It also accuses the person with whom you are arguing of either refusing to or incapable of change. They "always" whatever. "Always have, are now and always will be." It's a grammatical curse.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

You never forget your first time

I'm told by intermittently reliable authorities, some of them with too much education, that marijuana does its magic by enabling us to forget and to experience whatever one does as though it was the first time. One hears phrases like "Oh man, vanilla ice cream" uttered as though this was the first time he had ever tasted it.

We are hard-wired to indelibly remember our first time. First love, first car (Perhaps the same), first day at school, first home run, first time of any important category. Ancestors who came through the bushes and did not make powerful accurate life-preserving impressions and decisions the first time about whether s/he was facing a friend or foe, danger or opportunity did not get to be our ancestors.

So when we get jaded, when we have done something too long, we long for the freshness of that first time. Old folks sometimes try to recapture that "first time feeling" by telling the story and we rightfully resent it.

But it is helpful to understand that being jaded, losing the ability to experience things for the first time is a common -- Enneagram -- form of egotism. Yes. An ego-state, our Enneagram style, is one step removed from being present, from experiencing this moment with all its freshness. We see what we have seen too often because that is all we would allow ourselves to see. We respond from dull and dulling habit instead of being present and responding to what is real - that the event in front of us has never happened before, and is, in a myriad of ways, unique.

We love and gush over babies and shrink from converstion with the old in spirit because we sense whether or not that "first time" freshness is at hand. Our ego state is like a fast food joint. We get what we have always gotten and it tastes like it has always tasted. We trade predictability for taste, excitement and adventure. If a One is always legally correct or a Four is always melancholy, they trade what they fear - freshness and fecundity - for familiarity and comfort.

The alternative to marijuana is to wake up to the present moment. Then you don't have to obliterate the past in order to encounter now.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Death and egotism

Our enneagram style is an ego - state. It is our default position when we face stress or difficulties of any variety. I'm a 7, under stress, I tend to seek escape. Whereas, under the same stress, an 8 might get angry and start blaming or taking dramatic action.

One secret conceit of our ego style is that we have an answer. Our ability to deal with unknowing or powerlessness is always an overcoming of our ego.

One of the sickest, most egotistical manifestations of collective egotism is the religious formulation of answers to everything. The book of Job is a detailed refutation of people who have all the answers. In Job's case, the answers were to why we suffer. For 35 chapters, Job's friends give him platitudes; he is suffering because he sinner is their theme. Job is willing to live with unknowing. Job is a spiritual giant.

Jim's wife, Catherine, sent us an e mail telling us she is bringing in hospice - the people who will help her die. I probably won't get to talk to her before she does. I would not tell her about heaven. What shall I say then? I would tell her a parable. "Once there were twins in the womb and one of them said, 'I'm going out of here to the other side.' The other twin grew anxious and said, 'That's crazy. You know we can't live without this cord that feeds us. We've always been happy here, why would you leave? Nobody has ever come back!'
Nonetheless, the first twin said, "I'm going." And did.

My grandson Lucas is now 9 months old and is new to this world. Ten months ago he never could have predicted that he would want to jump, laugh when tickled properly, eat carrots and pet little dogs. He never would have believed it. Who can blame him?

Whatever is on the other side of this life is probably as different as the lives before and after birth. I don't know what the grand plan is, but I'll try to live with not knowing. We could all start practicing that here and now. Only egotists have final answers to the big questions.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Coaching for real

Trying to become real is not easy. We certainly can't start with a definition of real. Real is one of those words that the Germans call "ur" words, words that are so comprehensive that they define definition. Love, truth, beauty, reality -- these are like sunlight that enlighten everything else but we can't look directly at them.

So let's back into real.

It is hard to imagine anyone more backward than Sarah Palin. She divides America into "real" America and the rest of us. She does flagrantly what most of us do surreptitiously: real is what we identify with and or like. The Lakota Indians defined themselves as "the real people." (That's what "Lakota" means). So the first thing we have to do is learn that what we experience is real to us and coaching will endeavor to enlarge and perhaps alter what we experience.

For example, when I coach style Six, I admonish them not to watch the news broadcasts because those are calculated to frighten us: "If it bleeds, it leads" starts things off, followed by murders, rapes, car accidents, lost children and used car salesmen. News is when the fabric of humanity is torn. The unexpected, the disastrous, the frightening -- these make the news. If you are a style Six, this confirms your worst suspicions about the way the world is. But the news isn't that. It is a description of what went wrong that day. It is so narrow and selective it doesn't have much that is real. Television is always entertainment, regardless of what else it is, and entertainment is diversion from reality. The evening news is suffering as entertainment.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Get real

At one time or another I've done therapy, coaching and spiritual direction. Is there much real difference?
Only in resources and context.
A lot of religious writing and traditions talk smoothly about spirituality. I think that is a good thing. The coaching sites usually promise a felicitous combination of prosperity and happiness. I think those are good things.
People looking for spiritual direction usually come in search of virtue. In moderation I am in favor of virtue.

I don't promise and can't deliver any of those things. Perhaps my promise is captured best in a brief story. Houston Smith, the famous comparative religion author tells of his experience taking his Zen students to Japan to meet a famous Zen teacher who had a small group of intense disciples. The master walked into the assembled class and asked abruptly, "Why do you want to study here?" One graduate student responded that he understood there were some things about Zen that could only be learned by experience, not from books. Houston Smith said he thought was a good answer, but the Zen master was gruffly disapproving. So the student asked, "Well, what is the reason to study Zen?" The master's answer was brief and clear: "To see things as they are."

When I coach or try to heal or direct, the purpose of all three disciplines is to become more real. Within the enneagram tradition that starts with seeing things --especially ourselves -- clearly and then trying to become more real.

I received two unusual compliments on my coaching last month. One woman pronounced my help "yummy," which I thought was delightful! But the best compliment was from a man who refused to talk to me because he told my partner, Marie, "he is too real."
Well, the mission was not accomplished, but he did understand the mission.

More later. This will be a recurring theme.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

No conscience

With "drill, baby, drill" morphing into "kill, baby, kill" with the rise of oil from the ocean's floor and the rise of the consequences of the Cheney energy ethics, perhaps we should take a look at what a sociopath is and how they work.
A sociopath, according to Martha Stout, author of The Sociopath Next Door, has no conscience and cannot feel the pain or even the affection of anyone else.
I found it illuminating to learn the motivation that prompts them to disregard any social and moral norms. It is the desire to dominate.
In sociopathic people, community or cooperation is not valued. Nor are emotional bonds. Life is reduced to a desire to win. Dick Cheney dismissed moral considerations as he wrote "What good are principles if in the end you lose?" The lust for domination knows no limits.
We see this limitlessness when it is written large on a national scale. Project for a New American Century (PNAC) enthusiastically embraced America as ruling the world as the only super power. No talk of cooperation or community - military supremacy fueled by oil from Iraq.
But closer to home, 4% of people sociopaths - that's one out of 25. They look like us, the talk like us, but they don't think like the rest of humanity. They are only interested in winning, domination and control.
On a more muted note, domination is the default position in many relationships if the emotional bonds are frayed or broken.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Name your reward

Which would you rather be praised and recognized for == your effort or your talent? (And if you are a coach, teacher, parent or manager, which will you choose to reward?) Shows like "Britain's Got Talent and the American knockoff, American Idol spend most of their time and gush on talent.
Bad choice.
When you praise or otherwise reward achievement, when you praise effort, you empower the recipient. They are in charge of effort. If you praise talent, you praise them for what they had nothing to do with.
A lovely research experiment praised one group of students for effort and the other group for talent. Then they gave them choices around some other tests. The students who praised for talent chose the easier tests (to prove they were smart). Those praised for effort chose harder tests, probably because they felt more powerful and in control of the outcome.
If this topic interests you, may I recommend to my fellow coaches and teachers the book, Talent is Over-rated. Unless of course, this seems like too much work.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Failure is a noun

I love language and when I do my coaching by phone, I pay the kind of attention to language that a hungry dog pays to barbecuing hamburger.
I especially watch for nouns. Nouns are lumpy. Nouns lump all sorts of things like time and place and circumstance and effort and evaluation into one word. A word like failure, or issue or trouble or in a degraded form "well, you know."
But most of all nouns leave out "how." If have an "issue," instead of looking at a behavior that irritates or frightens me, I leave out "how." Let me give you an example.
I have an issue with right wing zealots. Translate: when they blame all problems, past and present, large and small (I told you nouns are lumpy), personal and social on "the liberals" or "socialism," I am alternately frightened and irritate. Here's HOW they do it. They are NOT "wingnuts" (a noun) they are people who do specific actions (blame, lump, coalesce, complain) in public for the sake of Fox news.
More personally, when someone says "I am a poor student," I want to know how you do poor work, how you fail, how you don't cope, how you talk to yourself. I want those verbs.
I find it most helpful to combine my career as high school grammar teacher and executive coach. If those CEO's would use verbs have their problems would go away.
Buckminister Fuller, a hero of mine, observed, "I think I am a verb." He was right.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Power of symbols

One of the tragedies of communication in this country is the substitution of the word "literal" for "true," or even for "real." A woman called me on the phone all excited about a speaker and said he "was literally on fire." I was so tempted to ask about 3rd degree burns.
I suffered a symbolic tragedy last week. My beloved KU basketball team lost. Really. They did. The whole country went into shock and the tires went flat on my life for a while. All because a group of tall young men couldn't put a ball through a hoop one more time.
How did they do this to me? Sacred space (96 X 48 lovely hardwood), sacred time (exactly 40 minutes of playing time), high priests wearing striped shirts, commandments (no fouling!) congregation forming one body (all wearing the same color). As a priest I recognize great liturgy when I see it.
So, boys and girls, here's what we learn from this. Symbols are not only real, they are more real than real real. So if you would like to change anything about your life, the first place to look for leverage is in your symbol world. Changing the way you dress, talk, eat, drive, etc in any small way will bring about changes far more powerful than any kind of grim resolution.
And I'm glad Kentucky lost, too.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Reform

Dennis Kucinich is being compared to Ralph Nadar because he won't compromise on what many consider an idealistic position.
There is good enneagram reason to compare them. Both are style Ones. When not quite on their game, Ones cannot compromise because they have strict inner rules. DK not only has inner rules, he carries the constitution with him. He carries his rules inside and out.
What Nadar and Kucinich do, they do in the name of virtue. What harm they do, they do because of rigidity. Obama, Clinton and McCain are all Ones, too. They were sure they were right and were intent on changing the world to fit their vision. That's what social subtype Ones are all about. Nadar and Kucinich have the same agenda, only with stricter principles.
Healthy Ones have to make a distinction between standards and expectations. They have a keen sense of standards but the ability of others or themselves to live up their standards has to be taken into consideration.
Ones like Nadar and Kucinich and all ones take a deep consolation is being right. But they have to ask themselves if being right is as important as being effective. They will answer that it doesn't do any good to be effective doing the wrong thing. The problem comes with the word "wrong." Few things are totally right or wrong (including my opinions!) but Ones are often guilty of black/white, right/wrong thinking that leads to polarization.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Ayn Rand, sociopath

A sociopath is a person who has no moral compass, no power of empathy to feel with or for others. Moral right and wrong are simply categories they don't access and probably can't.

Ayn Rand wrote several books that are bedside reading for some powerful men in Washington. Alan Greenspan sat at her feet and absorbed her philosophy and Clarence Thomas loves her work so much he requires his clerks to read it.
Ayn Rand modeled her superhero, John Galt in Atlas Shrugged on a serial killer of the day, Edward Hickman. Hickman killed and dismembered a 12 year old girl. Rand gushes about him, "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should. He had no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman." Another hero, Howard Roark (in The Fountainhead) is described thus: "He was born without the ability to consider others."

Her philosophy is a distorted derivative of Neitsche's Superman ideas, but it is filtered through her enneagram style. She is a subtype of style One, self-preservation. Ones derive their morality from internal principles, not social norms. They are reformers and critics of social norms. Ones live by inner rules that they consider binding on everyone. Rand's philosophy is an elaboration of her unhealthy enneagram style. Ayn Rand created heroes and a "philsophy" that spelled out the bleak, heartless inner life of a sociopath.

When a One is a sociopath, as Ayn Rand is, then the internal rules are absolute and other people do not matter. Clarence Thomas, an obvious One, frightens me. He does not ask questions in the supreme court; he goes by his own vision and is largely unmoved by the opinion or information of others. I don't know that he is quite a sociopath, but seems very unhealthy. Donald Rumsfeld is probably another example of a sociopathic One.

Ones are not sociopathic more than other styles. Obama, Hilary Clinton and McCain are all healthy Ones. They are all convinced the world should operate the way they think, though. That's what reformers are all about.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

March Madness

With both March Madness basketball tourney and the Olympics, all Enneagram students can see style 3 in action.
Two characteristics plague style three: competition and external rewards. Threes will work incredibly hard for trophies, salaries, credits, gold stars, applause, medals or any indication outside themselves that they have done well. Their ability to focus on a task for an extrinsic reward is remarkable. So when a medal or a championship is at stake, they really perform.
But they also do what they do and do it well best when in competition with others. When Tiger Woods was interviewed by Morley Safer on 60 minutes, he said he was competitive in everything. When Safer asked him, "So if we played a game of cards, you would try to beast me." Tiger answered, "No, I'd kick your ass." That's intense competition. And Michael Phelps was asked if he every provoked a competitor he answered with a smile, "I love the competition. It's what feeds me." Both men are style Threes.

We have an Enneagram Three culture so we believe in competition, but Alfie Kohn has a great book, "No Contest," that details all the way competition hurts us. If you are a teacher or a parent, you might check it out -- we need to be aware of cultural pressures.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Political Enneagram

Talk show hosts are "personalities" in a professional recognizable way. So here are some Enneagram styles you can study. The Keith Olbermann/Rachel Madow MSNBC combination is interesting from an Enneagram perspective. They share roughly the same values, but Keith is a One. Only a One would have as part of his program "Worst Persons in the World." Ones sort for what is wrong and Keith does so with hot vengeance. You can feel his moral outrage in his clipped speech, the anger in his voice and his penetrating look that convicts as much as convinces.

On the Enneagram diagram, Ones and Sevens are each other's shadow. This means that each celebrates those traits that the other tries to suppress. So when Rachel, a clear Seven, comes on, the mood is lighter and she applies the needle where Keith preferred the hatchet. She will smile brightly while skewering and the accusation is not so much that her opponents are evil is that they are funny in their ignorance and posturing.

On the other side of the TV set are Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. Both of them are heavier than Keith or Rachel. They are both Eights, furious that their way does not prevail. The level of anger is more pronounced, in Rush it comes out both in volume and in caricature, in O'Reilly it is more like existential outrage: the world should not be the way it is. Why doesn't it listen to me?

Enneagram styles do not gravitate to Left or Right. Obama, Hilary Clinton and McCain were all Ones with widely differing views. I can see no correlation between position and personality.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

It is solved by walking

We have several ways of making any changes we want. One is by trying to change our feelings. The assumption is that if we can change our thinking, we'll change our feelings and then we will behave in new ways. This belief reigns supreme in all talking therapies; it under girds nagging, preaching and cheerleading: think better, feel better and you'll behave better.
There is another tradition. An older spiritual tradition, newly embraced by brief therapy and in some practices of NLP says that if you change the way act, your emotions will follow. The medieval principle was solvitur ambulando" it is solved by walking.
An example: if you came to me with depression, I would not try to talk you out of your misery. Instead I would ask you to change the way you sit, stand and walk. You cannot stay depressed standing up straight, breathing deeply and walking briskly. So go for a brisk walk and see what happens.
I learned this working in a high school. I was not given an office, so when students or faculty came to my office, we would discuss their problems while walking. I got a reputation for being able to help with depression. I assumed it was my brilliant conversation, but gradually came to realize it was the walk that helped, not my counsel.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The way we do everything.

A zen author, Cheri Huber, has a lovely phrase: "The way you do anything is the way you do everything." Because this is true, whatever problems you have a work will reveal your enneagram style and you will have the same pattern in other areas of your life. We live our enneagram patters out in everything we do. It is fun to watch sports and decipher an enneagram style from the way they play. The way they play is the way they live. For example, Bret Favre is a 7! Always smiling, reckless, spontaneous, high energy and impulsive. I'll bet he lives like that, too. I have a nephew like that.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

What's missing?

Our Enneagram style narrows our focus of attention; we have an internal unconscious focus so that we ignore other important parts of reality. Here's a simple question to find out what you habitually miss because you don't pay attention to.

What is missing from your life and how do you keep it out?

You may say that circumstances and external forces are to blame. That may be partially true, but you are not helpless or an innocent bystander in your life. And your focus of attention is powerful and aggressive.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Last resolutions

I'll finish out the resolutions for each style. If you are an 8, do something nurturing. Keep a plant alive all year, learn to cook a new dish or adopt a stray dog.
If you are a 7,schedule a 10 minute break between tasks on your calendar. If you are a Nine, call someone for lunch and insist that you go where YOU want.

Dr. Monley wrote and asked why our culture worships bigness (Oprah, Microsoft,Walmart). Elementary, Dr. Monley. Size matters.

The problem is that we worship size because in the US, we have a culture that uses extrinsic rewards, not intrinsic ones. A is a better grade than B, even if student B learned more. The reward of learning to read is the erosion of ignorance, not the grade. The reward of work is inner transformation more than the salary. In a 3 culture we tend to ignore the inner pleasure of work/play/learning and focus on the amount of money we earn. We even give kids trophies for playing baseball!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Our favorite drug

The enneagram is first of all about a focus of attention. America suffers politically and economically, individually and collectively because we pay attention to television so devoutly that in a certain sense we live in an altered state. Right after a local guy, David Cook, won on American Idol, I asked a group who David Cook was and who Ban Ki Moon was. (He's secretary general of the UN). Not one person (of 15) knew Ban Ki Moon, everyone knew Cook. I do not watch American Idol but I could not avoid his name.
Here are some political consequences of watching TV.

In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Some religious tradition speak of custody of the eyes. I think this might be the best and perhaps the first good use of that discipline.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Really?

I lost a coaching client last week because he understood what I was doing. I was working with a talented therapist and she referred him to me. We talked once and then she asked him if he wanted another session. He answered, "No way, he's too real." I think he was on to something. If you desire coaching or spiritual direction, you can take it from him and me that the deepest intent of my work is to help you be more real. Happiness is collateral benefit, not always possible and financial success in post-Bush America is certainly not guaranteed. But reality is the direction we're going. My understanding of the Enneagram is that our Enneagram style is a coping skill that works sometimes and sometimes doesn't. When it does not, it is because we are not being real.

The other day I made some recommendations for 2010 resolutions. For style Five I recommend, male or female, that you do some weight-lifting. Your body is not just to hold your head up so you can read books and screens. Deal with it.

For Sixes I recommend you fast from the news as much as you can stand. The commercial news reinforces paranoia and worsens your suspicion that the world ended some time ago and you're just finding out about it.

For Sevens, I recommend you do one symbolic thing slowly: eating or walking or dressing or whatever. But slow down in one activity of your choice.

If you do this, you get to be more real.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Resolve

I have a mantra for style Two that might suggest their New year's resolution: "What I don't get up front, I get out back." What one thing that you want could you ask for directly in the New Year?

Let's make a suggestion for style 3 also. The mantra here is "Correct your own papers." When you were in school, the teacher determined your ability and achievement; you didn't get to claim your own merit. But as a 3, you will tend to "outsource" your approval, so to start correcting your own papers, what one small symbolic thing could you do that will be as indifferent as possible to any outside reward or punishment, smile or frown?

And for style 4, I assume literacy. Would you please read "Eats, shoots and leaves"? The book is in praise of,of all things, GRAMMAR. You need to realize that systematic structure of your life is a scaffolding for your best creativity. The best writers employ flawless, deliberate grammar. (Yes, I know they break an occasional rule, but always on purpose). What grammar is to literature, structure and order are to your life.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Enneagram resolutions

As we make our New Year's resolution, there is a trap awaiting all of us. When we try hard to do something, our unconscious habit is to use our Enneagram energy to combat the problems created by our Enneagram energy.
So if I am a One, I will try harder to be perfect, if I'm a Two, I'll be more generous etc.
So let me suggest an alternative for each style. Let's start with style One. If you are a One, a major area of improvement would be to relax and enjoy more sensuality. I don't mean only sex, but that's an option, but broaden your sensual menu to include massage, aromas, walks in nature, listening to music and exercise that is fun. Anything on a machine is suspect. Some of you polarize between virtue and pleasure, so if you can understand that pleasure may be the most virtuous thing for you, you will use your enneagram energy in the best way possible.