Conscious Leadership with NLP and the Enneagram

Eric Salmon and Robert Dilts, leaders in the fields of the Enneagram and NLP, are offering a seminar on the use of these amazing tools in conscious leadership. This will be in Paris, February 7th and 8th 2011, and you can find out more and book a place here:

http://www.cee-enneagramme.eu/evenements/conscious-leadership/

Enneagram news: Naranjo to visit UK

Claudio Naranjo, who brought the knowledge of the Enneagram to California and from there to the world, will be visiting the UK this December to give a workshop on the psychospiritual approach to the Enneagram.

More details and booking information are available at http://www.naranjoinstitute.org.uk.

Still possible to enrol

Due to problems with the brochures not getting out in time, there are still plenty of places available on this course, so get in touch if you want to do it and didn't make the enrolment evening. There are also places left on plenty of other adult education classes at Lowton High School and Golborne High School, including tai chi or embroidery on Monday evenings, or belly dancing with Jane Hanley on Tuesday nights (women only, I'm afraid!)

Enrolment for Golborne Enneagram course

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Enrolment for my introductory Enneagram course will be this coming Tuesday (7th September) at Lowton High School between 5pm and 7pm.

The course itself will be at nearby Golborne High School on Tuesday mornings from 10am to midday. It will run for 10 weeks from Tuesday 28th September and is called "An Introduction to Personal Development". The centre manager quite reasonably thought that calling it "An Introduction to the Enneagram" wouldn't mean very much to most people, so I did call it "An Introduction to Personal Development using Personality Typing". This is a bit of a mouthful and the last bit seems to have got lost somewhere along the way!

If you live locally and are interested in learning more about the Enneagram and using it for personal development, then come along and sign up. The course fees are very reasonable (£25 for the 10-week course).

10% discount offer extended

I've decided to extend the 10% discount on my Enneagram courses until Monday 30th August. Because I'm a 9, and 9s are nice. :)

You can sign up at www.enneangel.com.

Typing people close to you

I've always said that I think typing people close to you (family and close friends) is harder than typing strangers. Our Enneagram type is like a holographic image going through us that shows up in the smallest parts of our lives. So a complete stranger walking past me in an airport might say "yep, there goes a nine" based on a few minor details, and they would be right.

Whereas, with the people closest to you, you don't have the distance to see them as a whole. And your relationship with them can obscure things as well. When I first got interested in the Enneagram and tried typing my family, my first thought about my mum was "she's loud and bossy - she's an eight". After a while I started to think about her preoccupation with security and paranoia about certain institutions. She relates to me as a mother by worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong for me and any danger I might be in. So for many years I have thought of her as a six. Something was missing though. We've always had communication problems because we see the world in very different ways.

Having recently spent a lot of time with her on the holiday we spent together I've had plenty of opportunities to think about our relationship and where we are both coming from, and I've come to the conclusion that my first impulse was the right one. She is an eight. A lot of the issues with security are from her survival subtype. But the things that wind me up most about her come from her eightness - the being controlling and confrontational and being too busy putting her point across to listen to anyone else's. Don't get me wrong - she does have the eightish virtues as well. She can be extraordinarily generous and I know that if ever I was in real trouble she would fight my corner, whatever our personal differences.

Having this epiphany about her type and what it means in our relationship has come as something of a relief. She is just as infuriating as ever, but knowing where she's coming from makes it easier to deal with. So does recognising that her good points are coming from the same place as her bad ones. And that, I guess, is the beauty of the Enneagram.

It's launch day!

My online Enneagram courses go live today and I'm feeling excited and apprehensive. It starts with a free introductory teleseminar at 7.30pm BST. I've included details about registration in my last couple of posts, so I won't repeat them here. You can sign up for a course at www.enneangel.com.

Two days to launch!

I'm back from my holiday in Scotland and ready to get going with the Enneangel online Enneagram course. This will be available from Wednesday 28th July and will be launched with a teleseminar on what the course involves and what it can do for you.

Sign up for the teleseminar here.

Launch Date for Online Enneagram Courses

The Enneangel online Enneagram courses will be available from Wednesday 28 July. There will be a teleseminar on the day of the launch where you can learn more about them and ask questions.

What these courses will help you do:

• Find out how you are sabotaging yourself, why and what you can do about it.
• Learn how to turn your weaknesses into strengths.
• Improve your relationships at home and at work by better understanding of yourself and others.
• Learn about your Enneagram type, the gifts you bring to the world and the angel inside of you.

The Enneangel packages combine personal development using the Enneagram with different levels of personal coaching. They have a practical focus - not only do you learn about the Enneagram but you are encouraged to use your newfound knowledge in your own life. In this way it is suitable both for those new to the Enneagram and those already familiar with it but wanting do do more with it.

Register for the teleseminar here or send me an email.

[Note: I'm going to be away from phone and internet for a couple of weeks so it might take me a while to respond but I will reply to any comments and requests when I get back.]

Furthest from God

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In my last post I talked about the connection between the nine types of people on the Enneagram and the nine types of angel in the Celestial Hierarchy, and what I believe is behind this connection.

The one thing that doesn't tie up with the Enneagram is the order of the choirs of angels, with the head centre angels at the top, then the gut centre angels, with the heart centre angels at the bottom. One might expect them to match up with their order in the body, with the gut centre at the bottom.

When Plato talks about the three-part soul in Phaedrus, he divides it into the rational (head part) at the top and lumps the irascible and concupiscible parts (gut and heart) together at the bottom, so he didn't actually give a hierarchy to the last two parts. This still doesn't explain the seemingly counter-intuitive order of the Celestial Hierarchy, though.

My guess is that it is due to the function of the heart centre - it's all about reaching out to people. The angels of the purifying choir are the messengers that connect with people. They are closest to us and therefore, in a hierarchical system, they must be furthest from God.

One thing I like about the Enneagram as we know it today is that it isn't a hierarchical system. The nine types are arranged around a circle and no type is better or worse than any other. We all have our gifts to bring to the world.

Plato may have believed that the head centre was better and more desirable, and he may have had good reason to, in the time and place in which he lived. But we all need to be able to use all three kinds of intelligence - intellectual, emotional and instinctual. In the world we live in today, at least in the richer more powerful nations, it is often more of a problem for us that we become out of touch with our heart centres, losing our empathy and becoming detached from other people. Or that we lose touch with our gut centres and our will to act and direct our lives.

Neoplatonist Angels

I said in Angels and the Psychology of Goodness that I would add more about the link between angels and the Enneagram, so here goes.

There are different ways of categorising angels, but the first one I came across (and one which has always been popular) is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite's Celestial Hierarchy. When I first stumbled upon a list of this hierarchy and saw that there were nine different types of angels, I couldn't resist matching up the descriptions with the nine different types of people on the Enneagram. Imagine my surprise when I did so and found that all three head types were in one choir, the three heart types were in another choir and the three gut types were in the third choir! (The Celestial Hierarchy divides the angels into three choirs of three types of angel.)

Could this be a coincidence? Admittedly this wasn't a very scientific approach and it is only my interpretation of which angels seemed most like which Enneagram type. Having done this, though, all sorts of patterns began to emerge which I couldn't have predicted. As well as the three choirs matching up with the three centres (the perfecting choir being made up of the head centre types, the illuminating choir being made up of the gut centre types and the purifying choir being made up of the heart centre types), the hierarchy of head/gut/heart is repeated within the choirs.

Let me explain. As Hurley and Donson describe in What's My Type?, the nine Enneagram types can be defined not just by their home centre, but by their least preferred centre. So for example, for Type 1, their preferred centre is the gut centre, their heart centre comes in the middle and their least preferred centre is the head centre. For the Type 8, their preferred centre is again the gut centre, their head centre comes in the middle and their least preferred centre is the heart centre. As you can see on the Enneagram diagram, Type 1 is closer to their secondary heart centre and Type 8 is closer to their secondary head centre. Similarly for Types 2, 4, 5 and 7.

Things are slightly more complicated for Types 3, 6 and 9 on the inner triangle. For these three types their home centre and their least preferred centre are one and the same. In The Enneagram and the Triune Brain I hypothesised that this is because being weak in their home centre they use the balance of their other two centres to mimic the functions of that weak home centre. I have also heard an alternative hypothesis that these three types use their home centre for the functions of the other two centres, leaving insufficient energy for the home centre to perform its own functions. Whatever the explanation, it makes them hard to place on a hierarchy.
Now let's look at Pseudo-Dionysius's hierarchy alongside the Enneagram types and their centre stacking.

• Seraph, Type 7, head/gut/heart
• Cherub, Type 5, head/heart/gut
• Throne, Type 6, head/[gut,heart]

• Dominion, Type 8, gut/head/heart
• Virtue, Type 1, gut/heart/head
• Power, Type 9, gut/[head,heart]

• Principality, Type 3, heart/[head,gut]
• Archangel, Type 4, heart/head/gut
• Angel, Type 2, heart/gut/head

As you can see, the head/gut/heart hierarchy is repeated within each choir as well as in the ranks of the choirs themselves.

Finding these patterns does seem to be getting too much for coincidence. But what is the explanation? What is the connection? Well, Pseudo-Dionysius's work was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism. The Enneagram too has Neoplatonist influences. The three centres themselves are reflected in Plato's three-part soul. Is it possible that people were already aware of the nine Enneagram archetypes and their relationships with the three centres of intelligence when Pseudo-Dionysius was writing in the 5th or 6th Century? Did this influence Pseudo-Dionysius's categorisation of angels on the principles of "as above, so below"?

Vice to Virtue Conversion

I went to a Helen Palmer workshop some years ago on the vice to virtue transformation and it had a profound effect on me. She talked about how the vices for each type used the same energy as the virtues. Evil is only good that is not properly channelled. In NLP they say that every behaviour has a positive intention. The Enneagram takes that a bit further in that the vices and virtues for each type have the same positive intention.

When you fight your ego it's like fighting yourself, and the harder you fight the harder your other self fights back. When you face your ego and accept that it has a positive intention (even though it may not be relevant in the here and now), you take the energy back into yourself and your ego shrinks down into something managable and even lovable.

Three Steps to Enlightenment with the Enneagram

Step 1: Know thyself.
Know your Enneagram type and what it can tell you about who you are, what you want and why you do the things you do. We are all more than just our type, of course we are. But sometimes our fixation takes over and it is helpful to recognise when this is happening and what is behind it.


Step 2: Forgive yourself.
Love and accept yourself just as you are, flaws and all. All those things you hate about yourself - the things you don't want to admit to anyone, even yourself - have a purpose, and a good purpose. Every behaviour has a positive intention, as they say in NLP.


Step 3: Respond from essence.
Now you have a choice. You can recognise when you are tempted to respond from your fixation, you know why you feel that way and you can see whether it is appropriate here and now. You can respond from your fixation, laugh about it, forgive yourself and try to do better next time. Or you can respond from essence, here and now.

Simple, innit?

Facebook friendly Enneagram angel quiz

I've created a new version of the "What kind of angel are you?" Enneagram angel quiz. It's exactly the same as the one in the "Angels and Enneagrams" post, but this one can be taken through a Facebook app (and posted to your Facebook profile!).

I've included a link to it on the Quizazz website (just click on the blog post title) but you can also find it on Facebook if you look for the Quizazz app.

Angels and the psychology of goodness

It has been suggested that I should be clearer about the role of angels in what I teach and how I teach it. After all I'm an Enneagram teacher and angels are not traditionally on the syllabus. There is a connection and it comes through Neoplatonism, and I will post more on that later.

The main reason that I use angels in teaching though is as a symbol of the best that we can be. There are nine types of angel in the Celestial Hierarchy and nine types of people in the Enneagram of Personality. For me each of the nine types of angel represents the highest part of one of the nine archetypes of the Enneagram.

The Enneagram tells us both what is good about us and what is bad about us and most importantly how these are connected with each other. But sometimes it can be seen as just a negative thing and I think one reason for this is that it is such a true description of our basic motivations - it can be scary seeing your deepest darkest secrets out there in black and white and this can distract our attention away from the good stuff.

There has been more research recently into positive psychology and wellness, which I think is a good thing. Maybe the Enneagram can be a part of that. It's not just a description of what is wrong with us, it also shows us the best we can be and how we can get there. And at our best we embrace the divine spark of life within us and become the angel inside ourselves.

Acknowledgement: thanks to Ted for the blog post title.

Enneagram links

I've updated the blog with a list of links to useful Enneagram websites. You'll find this down the left hand side of the page.

Autumn Enneagram classes

I've been planning to start a 10-week course on the Enneagram at Golborne High School in the Autumn and I've just had a phone call from Stephen Toole, the Director of Community at Lowton High School who organises adult education classes at both schools. We've arranged the classes for Tuesday mornings 10am to midday.

So if you are in the Warrington/Wigan and Leigh area and want to learn more about the Enneagram, make sure you don't miss the enrolment day!

If that's too far away from you, the online Enneagram courses will be available soon, so stay tuned.

I'm having a 9 day!

The most important thing that I need to do today is getting started on creating my new website - www.enneangel.com. No - you won't find anything there yet. I've been to a tai chi class, had lunch, washed my hair, read my post and my email, answered a few messages, taken the car to a car valeting place (which was closed so wasted journey), and now I'm updating my blog. I'm wondering if I should do the washing up next...

Technorati

Have just submitted blog to Technorati.

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American style politics in the UK

There was a lot of talk at the time of the election about the introduction of televised debates and how our election campaigns are becoming more and more like American ones and how this is a bad thing. I'm in favour of televised debates myself. I think they are a chance to move away from soundbite politics and give people more of a chance to see what they are voting for.

It's interesting though that we seem to have got not just one but two type 3 leaders out of it, which with America being a type 3 culture would seem to back up those claims. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have that shiny, scrubbed 3 look, and both have got to high positions relatively young, which shows ambition. Gordon Brown showed many times (not just in the debates) that type 3 people skills aren't his forte and this has worked against him. He was popular as a chancellor but it looks like he shouldn't be allowed to go out and talk to voters.

We live in the information age, and I love it because I remember when the world wide web was science fiction. I'm optimistic about how it will affect the way we are governed because the greater the amount of information that is available to people, the better chance they have to make informed decisions.

But on the other hand, it can lead to dumbing down and lack of openness as people are afraid to say anything that might be controversial. I guess we all need to brush up on our type 3 self-representation skills in the information age. And maybe cut people a bit more slack when they slip up and act like human beings.

Angels and Enneagrams

I've been very busy on Enneagram related stuff recently. It's all to do with an online course I'm putting together, but being a 9 I keep going off on tangents. In spite of the fact that I can't draw I've created a set of nine cartoon Enneagram angels called Una, Due, Trey, Quattro, Fünf, Six, Sieben, Otto and Ennea. I've also created a short Enneagram quiz (it's only 36 questions which is quite short as these things go). It's called "What kind of angel are you" and is on ProProfs here:

What kind of angel are you? » Create A Quiz

I'd appreciate feedback on it - does it seem accurate to you?
Namaste
Jane