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.