Enneagram

I will be taking a break from writing until the week of December 15th. I am going on vacation and won't readily have access to e-mail. Maybe you would want to browse the achived blogs while I am gone. I look forward to reconnecting when I return.
My friend Lori is a superb teacher of the enneagram. She interviews nine people, one from each type in the Enneagram in front of her classes. It is a great way to get a real life experience of the personality strategy of each type. For those of you who don't know, the enneagram is a psycho-spiritual system of understanding nine different personality strategies. Understanding the type you most resonate with provides a map with which to move from automatic pilot to conscious healthier choices. The enneagram is a tool to learn mindfulness and compassion for ourselves and others. I have studied the enneagram for 30 years and am quite passionate about using it to help myself and others. I was the representative of the four in Lori's Enneagram workshop on Saturday.The four is called the Tragic Romantic or the artist. It was exciting and scary to be interviewed about my take on the world in front of a group of people. Gary came to the workshop to learn more about me and about the Enneagram. I was very pleased that he came.
I learned a lot about myself from Lori's skilled questioning. For instance, abandonment is a much bigger issue than I had realized before. A lot of my anger and judgement toward Gary is because I feel abandoned by him. Our long distance relationship has separation built in. We see each other on the weekends. It often takes me most of the weekend to feel reconnected with him after we have been apart for a week. I feel protective ,critical and edgy when we first get together. I think that we both understood more about why this is so difficult for me and how important it is for me that he validates my feelings instead of trying to fix them. We have both been confused about which type he resonates with the most. I was frustrated because it is such a helpful tool for couples. Part of what I wasn't listening to was that he was confused, not that he wasn't interested. One of my growth edges in this lifetime is to learn to take things less personally. I sometimes see Gary as my enemy and attribute him with deliberate unkindness. I am realizing that his jibes are more often his way of protecting himself from communicating his anger directly. I can tell him that I feel hurt without making up a story that I need to leave the relationship. My friend Wendy was very helpful to me on Saturday before the workshop in helping me to see that I could ask Gary for what I wanted clearly and directly. He heard me and I felt so much better and was able to go into the workshop feeling more centered. Neutrality is rare for me. I often feel very strong feelings. My challenge is to know that I have feelings, not that I am my feelings. Then it is easier for me to get underneath the story I am making up to the sensation of the feeling in my body. In this way I bring my presence to my experience and the emotion can release. Emotion is energy in motion. I am learning that equanimity follows this experiencing and releasing process. What do you notice about your own experience of emotion? Are you learning to discern the story you are making up and wrapping your mind around over and over and to go underneath it to the sensation in your body that the emotion brings?
Maybe this time would be a good time to learn more about the enneagram. If you wish to, http://www.enneagraminstutute.com/ has some good clear information and several assessment tools. Have a lovely Thanksgiving whatever you are doing. I am grateful for you, for providing me this vehicle to share my learning and growing with you. I look forward to writing and sharing with you the week of December 15th.