New Meetup group

Things are starting to happen in the UK Enneagram world. As part of this there is a new Meetup group in the Northwest of England for Enneagram teachers and anyone interested in learning more about it. It will be a place for teachers to post classes and people to get together for discussion groups. Join the group here. There are also Enneagram Alive Meetup groups in other parts of the country.

What Nines know: Every behaviour has a positive intention

Nines are the easygoing peacemakers of the Enneagram. The pre-supposition that every behaviour has a positive intention goes without saying. Nines can see everybody's point of view (though often with the exception of their own) and are good at finding points of agreement in negotiations.

They can sometimes take this too far in making excuses for bad behaviour. Nines have a tendency to idealise others and only see the good things, refusing to believe the bad. They have no difficulty in seeing the positive intention but may gloss over how well behaviour matches it.

Healthy nines can accept the flaws in people while still staying non-judgemental and understanding the positive intentions behind people's actions. So, if you are stuck in conflict, why not try thinking like a nine and see the world from many different places at once?

The Enneagram and NLP Presuppositions

I coach using both the Enneagram and NLP. They are different systems which work well together in a complement-ary way. The Enneagram helps us to understand who we are and why we do the things we do, and with NLP we can replace patterns of self-defeating behaviour with more productive ones. To do this, it helps to understand what the purpose of the original behaviour was, and what benefits if any it is still giving us. The Enneagram can help us to quickly get to the roots of that behaviour.

One of the great things about the Enneagram is the realisation it brings home that people can see the world in very different ways. It can help us to understand where they are coming from and communicate with them better. It can also help us to see where the limits of our own point of view are.

This can be achieved in NLP using the presuppositions. You take a presupposition, such as "there is no failure, only feedback" and look at your situation bearing in mind the truth of the statement.

It occurred to me recently that some presuppositions fit well with the mindsets of certain Enneagram types: they are things that this type already knows to be true. Although you never become a different type, it can be useful to see the world through their eyes.

With this in mind I plan to do a series of blog posts looking at presuppositions through the eyes of different Enneagram types.

Free coaching still available

Due to some technical difficulties with the first couple of sessions there are still free coaching sessions available via Live Ninja.

These are different to the free introductory sessions that I offer, in that they are meant to be a complete coaching session rather than an introduction to a longer set of sessions. You can even use it for a free Enneagram typing interview.

Book now, either on the LiveNinja website or through the widget on the Enneangel website.

Enneagram Intensive training in the UK

If you would like to take your Enneagram training a step further, Enneagram Europe is putting on Enneagram Intensive training this November in Dorset. You can find details at the Enneagram Europe website.

Sad news...

Sad news for the Enneagram community as Don Richard Riso passes away.

Last chance to book Oldham Enneagram workshop

It's less than two weeks away, so book now for the "Nine Kinds of Angel" one-day Enneagam workshop at Oldham Unitarian Chapel on Saturday 7 July. You can book online here or contact me for further information. The chance to take part in a workshop like this for only £15 may not come up again, so make the most of it!

One-day workshop on the Enneagram

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On Saturday 7 July a fantastic opportunity is coming up to attend a one-day introductory workshop on the Enneagram for the amazingly low price of &15 per person. It will take place at the Oldham Unitarian Chapel Connaught Street, OLDHAM OL8 1EB. You can book online on the Enneangel website or contact me on 01942 681206 or jane@enneangel.com.

Monkey Magic

Image by Nod Young via Flickr

I was always a big fan of the Monkey! series when I was a kid. If you don't know it, it's the dubbed into English version of a Japanese series based on a Chinese classic of literature. The hero Monkey is a monkey god (or demon or spirit) born from a stone egg called thought. In the first episode he is punished for running amok in heaven by being buried under a mountain for 500 years and is released on condition that he helps the monk Tripitaka travel to India to collect some holy scrolls. Pigsy (a pig spirit) and Sandy (a water spirit) have also been thrown out of heaven for bad behaviour and are likewise given a chance to redeem themselves by helping Tripitaka on his journey. The fifth member of the party is a dragon in the shape of a white horse. The rest of the first series and the second one are mostly about them fighting and overcoming demons, which is often made more difficult by Tripitaka's inconsistent pacifism.

I recently watched the whole two series again on dvd and still love it. It's not high art by any means but it is charming and entertaining. The plots are usually quite simple and often inconsistent. The costumes and special effects are reminiscent of early Dr Who (it can't possibly be the same quarry though). The wise Buddhist sayings that are thrown in and the unexplained sex changes also add to the strange and fascinating mixture.

One thing that is repeated every week is that they are on a journey as long as life. The series is full of metaphors like that. (Yes, I know it is a simile, but the journey is a metaphor for life as well.) They are travelling towards enlightenment by overcoming their personal demons (and the demons do quite often come out of their own heads).

But what does all this have to do with the Enneagram? I'm getting there.

After I watched the series again I decided to buy the book that it was based on, Journey to the West, in English translation of course. It had already struck me as I watched Monkey! this time round that Tripitaka's three disciples represented both the good and bad side of the three centres of intelligence.

Pigsy, representing the gut or body centre, is immensely strong and powerful and does most of the carrying. But he also gives in easily to his monstrous appetite for food and the opposite sex.

Sandy, representing the heart centre, is the one who looks out for Tripitaka most, and is concerned for him when he suffers from tiredness and  hunger. He also acts as a go-between when Tripitaka has fallen out with Monkey. But he tends to mope and complain and drown his sorrows in wine.

Monkey, of course, represents the head centre. He is clever, is a master of illusion, and can always think of a way out of their problems. But he is always looking for the easy way and prefers tricks to hard work. His tricks and deceptions always lead to his downfall.

Having started reading Journey to the West, their names also fit in with the Enneagram centres. The bodhisattva Guanyin gives Sandy and Pigsy Buddhist names (Monkey had earned his earlier). Pigsy is Zhu Wuneng, or Pig Awakened to Power. Sandy is Sha Wujing, or Sand Awakened to Purity. And Monkey is Sun Wukong, or Monkey Awakened to Emptiness.

So, bearing in mind the centres that they represent, Tripitaka sets out on his journey as long as life with a body awakened to power, a heart awakened to purity and a mind awakened to emptiness. What else could he possibly need?

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.

Furthest from God

Image via Wikipedia

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.

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