Enneagram as Mirror to the Soul: Type Two
A place for those with the type two enneastyle to discuss personal growth.
Rumi Poem | Type 2
Love yourself completely
Return to the root of your own soul
~ Rumi
Why is this an important poem for type Twos to use for reflection? Twos – at least, most Twos – are adept at showing love for others and do so continually. However, self-love is harder to do because the Twos’ focus is on the external and how others respond to them, not on their intrinsic self-valuing, which is an internal exploration. Experiencing the root of one’s own soul requires a deep inner journey and the ability to self-love and self-care without attention to the responses of others. Go there!
By Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD. Visit: TheEnneagramInBusiness.com | ginger@theenneagraminbusiness.com
10 Comments on “Enneagram as Mirror to the Soul: Type Two”
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I’m trying to discern if 2 is my enneatype home. I don’t quite understand the competition component of its Soul Child. Can anyone describe what this is like for them? Specifically in a variety of settings like relationships and professional life?
As a two I find that I can lead with my heart and go to my head for safety and forget to move to my gut. Today’s daily question of how you connect with your body has me pondering. I love yoga and swimming but do not always make time in my schedule for these things. I have begun dance parties and walks with my daughter in this time of social distancing. I am wondering what other folks are doing to connect the heart and head to their gut and bodies?
I would also wonder if your soul child is helpful in finding which spiritual practices help too? I find in this unusual time that when I am grounded my creativity soars in the online programs I am creating and in my parenting. However, I am still working on building the bond with my gut!
I’m really appreciating the heart-head-gut harmonizing ideas. It helps me explain why I appreciate all of the body work I do. Yoga, exercise, hiking, dance… we also have a farm and raise veggies for market which is all very physical work – all of this pulls me out of my head and calms my heart and feels very primal and grounding to me. I’m trying to give myself as much of these things as possible.
Can anyone help me out with the #2 mantra: Love Contemplates Decision? I don’t get it!
Hi Kate,
I would love to hear from twos, but my understanding is that you follow the heart space harmony (working from the handout on the different harmonies from this week):
1) Love = You start with Love as your Heart Center – (Moving from the Heart Center to the Head Center begins the process of moving the personality away from subjectivity and emotionalism.)
2) Contemplates = You are able to slow down reactivity and pause in contemplation when you get to the head space – (In the Head Space the personality finds relief in the gifts of the Feeling Center which allows the space to move from reactivity to patience and wisdom.)
3) Decision = Emotion is now tempered with a thoughtful pause, and you are able to listen to your instincts from the gut space to make decisions that are balanced from all centers and are based in reality instead of insecurity or reactivity. (Once the mind and heart are no longer in opposition, the personality finds refuge in the Body Center where Reality transcends mere feeling and thinking.)
4) And you return home to the heart space. (Finally, the personality returns home with an ability to love out of Truth without expectation or attachment.)
Contemplation links love to decisions that are healthy and based on what’s real.
Does that help?
An example could be this issue: my adult son doesn’t communicate with me very well – I’m lucky to get a call once a month – and I feel abandoned.
Love – my gift is my ability and desire to love.
Contemplates – I stop and pause my feelings of hurt. I put myself in his shoes and imagine his life taking care of a young family. I can imagine and understand the demands on his time.
Decision – I realize the best way to show selfless love is to make his life easier. I decide to send him short messages of encouragement that need no reply. I can feel connected without requiring his time, and I can feel filled with love from within me instead of demanding love from an outside source.
Thanks Gwen,
Yes, this helps a lot.
These days have proven to me to be the time of the Beasht. In Celitic language this is the shadow work that is contained within the light. The Beasht lives in the Loch ( the lake) of our psyche in the unconscious and it is our task to go beside the waters of the Loch and to sit with the Beasht- not dive in after it or run from the shore but to sit beside the dark waters.
When I think of this shadow a different image comes to mind. It is the image of my experience in Germany. Early in the morning my mother and I left the hotel to find the Hohle Fels cave. The sun had not yet come over the mountain and the granite wall was in shadow. As the sun crested and lit the wall it illuminated everything. The sparkly granite, the fern and moss clinging to the walls and the entrance to the cave which was previously hidden. The cave is always there but it takes light to illuminate it. This is the hard work of waking up to my own delusions of what and who I am.
The most surprising is new awareness is the possibility that I have completely covered up my 2 nature. Either my soul child is a 2 or in fact my Enneatype is a 2 that found a comfortable pattern of sleep within the 8 as a protective device. Looking at my spiritual biography from the Anamcara Apprenticeship my language describing my life and my sense of worthiness and worthlessness I wrote about was screaming for attention. I see it now and maybe for the first time am seeing how my motivation for all relationships has been to be loved and even when I am loved I don’t actually accept it. “Oh they are just saying that. They don’t really mean it.”
This time of dark waters has been very illuminating.
Thank you for sharing, Erika.