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.