Sending everyone many blessings! Stay well all. I lookofreard to participate in the next few days.
Sending everyone many blessings! Stay well all. I lookofreard to participate in the next few days.
Look forward to talking to everyone soon.
the idea of an eight
“Strength embraces reality”
made me cry!
Gathering together in this time, to reflect on how I am feeling and relating to the pandemic, was so helpful. I hope we can all go forward and try to try to acknowledge our shadow side and fearful response and act out of love. Our intention matters. People will still die and terrible things may come out of this. But, wonderful things and connection have been happening too.
I will incorporate asking the questions from my gut, heart and head in my contemplative practice and work.
Hearing from other enneatypes helps me appreciate how we all approach the pandemic from different points of being.
This pandemic is forcing out death denying culture to face death. We are unprepared in so many ways- not just the dismal lack of protective equipment and tests, but even worse, our devision and spiritual void.
This teaching of Buddha has been guiding me these last few days.
“It seems that although we thought ourselves permanent, we are not.
Although we thought ourselves settled, we are not.
Although we thought we would last forever, we will not”
-Buddah
I love this Dana! Thank you and thank you for being on the front lines.
Thanks Dana. Powerful!
?
Tragic gap-
A tragic gap of this pandemic is that on one hand what we need in a time of illness and death, is community and togetherness. But, the virus being airborne, highly contagious with high morbidity and mortality, requires of us the opposite- distance is so isolating and tragic.
I weep and pray for the families that have lost loved ones and haven’t been able to have a funeral.
But, from it springs the recognition of our connectedness. My family has lingered at the dinner table each night, playing charades, and even sharing poetry. Everyone in my family, has been thinking about how they can help others.
It has also exposed the ways that technology can bring us together too- like this webinar!
Wonderful teachings. Very powerful work. I look forward to listening to the video again for what I might have missed and also need more time to hear and think about all the nuances of what was said. So good to journal about how I am doing at this time. Bouncing between feeling the anger, fear, and deep profound sadness and the possibility of what may change for the better, while taking the practical steps to care for us. I am deeply thankful for all the musicians, artists, thinkers, spiritual teachers and organizations and religious institutions who have gone online sharing their gifts with all of us. Deeply thankful for today and the following weeks as I dig into this material.
My tragic gap is how to handle the busy-ness of my mind in these times (which is partly being an informed citizen and partly obsessive) and still find inner peace and slow my mind down. I have to take walks with my phone at home. I have to hear about everyone’s day without jumping into the bad news. It’s a real struggle!
It is so difficult to find the balance between getting enough information to stay informed and overdoing it to panic and obsessing. Good for you for figuring out how to literally step away from all that is going on!
There was so much information presented today, after a while I just stopped trying to take notes and attempted to sit, listen, and absorb. I am very intrigued by the three word descriptions of each E type. Each is worthy of contemplation in and of itself.
In response to the journaling assignment, I chose as my “tragic gap” specifically the interactions I am having with my daughter in law around Covid 19. She is head type, 5/6, and her anxiety is so high, between worrying about me (over 65) and her 7 mo old granddaughter that my anxiety is triggered higher and higher, and I feel that in the back of my neck, shoulders and upper back.
I found myself cycling through the gut, heart and head centers, first needing to internally scream, “We’re all going to die!” and “What if the people I love die, how can I go on living?” And then slowly, I returned to a ritual I had to create for myself some years ago as a chaplain resident, where with breath (and actually gelling my hands before heading into a hospital room), I first breathed into the gut space and grounded myself, then breathed into my heart space allowing unconditional love to flow into me and through me, and then breathed into my head space, experiencing calm mind.
When I do this I can find groundedness, calm, love and wisdom, but it is an ongoing exercise I must practice moment by moment these days, and especially in response to my DIL, so I acknowledge her fear, honor her ability to ferret out every piece of information she can, and simply love her.
Jeanne-
Your post is so honest and beautiful. I think you voiced the collective anxiety we are feeling. We each are responding and filtering this barrage of information about a very scary situation with our own lenses and ego protections. And, it sounds like your awareness of this is helping with your relationship with your DIL.
I am so grateful for having a meditation practice to turn to. You are so spot on- that the work is moment by moment to help us breath through our fears.
Wishing you and yours safety and peace.
I am a head space 6 too Jeanne though older than your daughter. Mortality seems a lot more real these days. I have lost a lot of friends in the past year and my wife and I have had some health issues. Now this. I don’t tend to think of myself as old but I am very aware that there are many more days behind than ahead. That’s where I get lost in my head space. Only recently have I recognized what this must be like for our children and grandchildren. I feel for you and your daughter. A couple things I have learned from this work helps. The first one is that when I am stuck in my head it really helps me to do something. That is harder these days but chores, artwork, etc. bring me out of my head. I love to read but reading doesn’t work when I am stuck in my head. My mind wanders too much. Actually, I find it very engaging and relaxing to do jigsaw puzzles of nature scenes. I find that I can get drawn into the picture and be very focused on the shades of colors, the patterns, and so forth. For me it is grounding. A piece of head space advice we got last week also was very helpful – meditating with your eyes open. Meditating is tough for me because my mind goes everywhere but last couple days I have kept my eyes open and focused on a little statue I have and it has been very different. For me, the trip around the wheel from thinking to doing to feeling seems pretty big. No easy answers but maybe a little insight into life in the head space. I feel for your daughter. Be well.
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.
Erika, I appreciate your insights so much! I would encourage you to share this on the two and eight forum page. I don’t think we have any eights participating at the moment, but your thoughts could spark some discussions. I think twos would find your reflection very relevant.
Is there any correlation between enneagram type and birth order? I was reading something about birth order and the descriptions between first borns and enneagram 2s seemed pretty similar! Any thoughts?
Sending everyone many blessings! Stay well all. I lookofreard to participate in the next few days.
Sending everyone many blessings! Stay well all. I lookofreard to participate in the next few days.
Look forward to talking to everyone soon.
the idea of an eight
“Strength embraces reality”
made me cry!
Gathering together in this time, to reflect on how I am feeling and relating to the pandemic, was so helpful. I hope we can all go forward and try to try to acknowledge our shadow side and fearful response and act out of love. Our intention matters. People will still die and terrible things may come out of this. But, wonderful things and connection have been happening too.
I will incorporate asking the questions from my gut, heart and head in my contemplative practice and work.
Hearing from other enneatypes helps me appreciate how we all approach the pandemic from different points of being.
This pandemic is forcing out death denying culture to face death. We are unprepared in so many ways- not just the dismal lack of protective equipment and tests, but even worse, our devision and spiritual void.
This teaching of Buddha has been guiding me these last few days.
“It seems that although we thought ourselves permanent, we are not.
Although we thought ourselves settled, we are not.
Although we thought we would last forever, we will not”
-Buddah
I love this Dana! Thank you and thank you for being on the front lines.
Thanks Dana. Powerful!
?
Tragic gap-
A tragic gap of this pandemic is that on one hand what we need in a time of illness and death, is community and togetherness. But, the virus being airborne, highly contagious with high morbidity and mortality, requires of us the opposite- distance is so isolating and tragic.
I weep and pray for the families that have lost loved ones and haven’t been able to have a funeral.
But, from it springs the recognition of our connectedness. My family has lingered at the dinner table each night, playing charades, and even sharing poetry. Everyone in my family, has been thinking about how they can help others.
It has also exposed the ways that technology can bring us together too- like this webinar!
Wonderful teachings. Very powerful work. I look forward to listening to the video again for what I might have missed and also need more time to hear and think about all the nuances of what was said. So good to journal about how I am doing at this time. Bouncing between feeling the anger, fear, and deep profound sadness and the possibility of what may change for the better, while taking the practical steps to care for us. I am deeply thankful for all the musicians, artists, thinkers, spiritual teachers and organizations and religious institutions who have gone online sharing their gifts with all of us. Deeply thankful for today and the following weeks as I dig into this material.
My tragic gap is how to handle the busy-ness of my mind in these times (which is partly being an informed citizen and partly obsessive) and still find inner peace and slow my mind down. I have to take walks with my phone at home. I have to hear about everyone’s day without jumping into the bad news. It’s a real struggle!
It is so difficult to find the balance between getting enough information to stay informed and overdoing it to panic and obsessing. Good for you for figuring out how to literally step away from all that is going on!
There was so much information presented today, after a while I just stopped trying to take notes and attempted to sit, listen, and absorb. I am very intrigued by the three word descriptions of each E type. Each is worthy of contemplation in and of itself.
In response to the journaling assignment, I chose as my “tragic gap” specifically the interactions I am having with my daughter in law around Covid 19. She is head type, 5/6, and her anxiety is so high, between worrying about me (over 65) and her 7 mo old granddaughter that my anxiety is triggered higher and higher, and I feel that in the back of my neck, shoulders and upper back.
I found myself cycling through the gut, heart and head centers, first needing to internally scream, “We’re all going to die!” and “What if the people I love die, how can I go on living?” And then slowly, I returned to a ritual I had to create for myself some years ago as a chaplain resident, where with breath (and actually gelling my hands before heading into a hospital room), I first breathed into the gut space and grounded myself, then breathed into my heart space allowing unconditional love to flow into me and through me, and then breathed into my head space, experiencing calm mind.
When I do this I can find groundedness, calm, love and wisdom, but it is an ongoing exercise I must practice moment by moment these days, and especially in response to my DIL, so I acknowledge her fear, honor her ability to ferret out every piece of information she can, and simply love her.
Jeanne-
Your post is so honest and beautiful. I think you voiced the collective anxiety we are feeling. We each are responding and filtering this barrage of information about a very scary situation with our own lenses and ego protections. And, it sounds like your awareness of this is helping with your relationship with your DIL.
I am so grateful for having a meditation practice to turn to. You are so spot on- that the work is moment by moment to help us breath through our fears.
Wishing you and yours safety and peace.
I am a head space 6 too Jeanne though older than your daughter. Mortality seems a lot more real these days. I have lost a lot of friends in the past year and my wife and I have had some health issues. Now this. I don’t tend to think of myself as old but I am very aware that there are many more days behind than ahead. That’s where I get lost in my head space. Only recently have I recognized what this must be like for our children and grandchildren. I feel for you and your daughter. A couple things I have learned from this work helps. The first one is that when I am stuck in my head it really helps me to do something. That is harder these days but chores, artwork, etc. bring me out of my head. I love to read but reading doesn’t work when I am stuck in my head. My mind wanders too much. Actually, I find it very engaging and relaxing to do jigsaw puzzles of nature scenes. I find that I can get drawn into the picture and be very focused on the shades of colors, the patterns, and so forth. For me it is grounding. A piece of head space advice we got last week also was very helpful – meditating with your eyes open. Meditating is tough for me because my mind goes everywhere but last couple days I have kept my eyes open and focused on a little statue I have and it has been very different. For me, the trip around the wheel from thinking to doing to feeling seems pretty big. No easy answers but maybe a little insight into life in the head space. I feel for your daughter. Be well.
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.
Erika, I appreciate your insights so much! I would encourage you to share this on the two and eight forum page. I don’t think we have any eights participating at the moment, but your thoughts could spark some discussions. I think twos would find your reflection very relevant.
Is there any correlation between enneagram type and birth order? I was reading something about birth order and the descriptions between first borns and enneagram 2s seemed pretty similar! Any thoughts?