The man who can articulate the movement of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. Henry Nouwen 

 Over many years, my practice has developed into being soul centred and Spirit led. The soul is the name I use for our deeper self, our psyche, our essence, our true self.   The Spirit, as I am defining, is the ultimate way of being, the Divine, the Life Force, Love , the Christ Consciousness and it permeates everything. The soul is the inner life and what comes through us as we live our life. The Spirit uplifts the soul and without this flow between the soul and the Spirit, we can feel deflated and disconnected from our life force.  

To be fully alive is a great invitation to live freely as ourselves. So often we are hindered in this because of our early childhood experiences and the pressures and expectations of the world in which we live. We develop egoic structures that are necessary for our survival, but we often think this is all of who we are.  The ego structure can drive us from a place of fear in an attempt to protect ourselves. This leads us to try to control what is happening and we remain stuck in trying to find comfort and predictability, safety and security.  We all long for authentic and loving relationships yet it’s the reactivity that comes when we are stuck in repetitive patterns of ego behaviour that sabotage our relationships. 

 These motivations are usually unconscious but they cause us to experience deep dissatisfaction and pain as well as cause others to suffer. We also fail to see the life affirming and creative opportunites that are available by recognising that our ego is not our true identity. We need to integrate this ego with our soul so that we become fully alive. 

The Enneagram helps us to recognise these patterns so that they no longer need to run us. 

By combining ancient wisdom with modern science , the Enneagram reveals that we all have three centres of intelligence. In human personality, one intelligence is more dominant. It influences how we view the world and the way we think, feel and behave.

By studying the Enneagram, we can learn to observe when our ego is triggered and we feel like reacting. Sometimes we need to react quickly if we are in danger, for example. But we can often react with the same amount of energy even if it’s only a disagreement with someone else’s point of view. So with more awareness, we can learn to develop self mastery over our reactions. We can choose to pause and breathe, open and respond. By pausing and breathing in and down into your body, you are already becoming more aware of your reactions. You then open the space between the reaction and how you choose to behave. You can then choose to respond more and react less.

In more spiritual language, we talk about the true self and the false self. The true self is who we are from the beginning in the mind and heart of God, “the face before you were born” as Zen masters say. It’s our absolute identity, our substantial self which can never be lost, or improved upon, by any technique, religion, or formula. The true self , the soul, flows with the spirit that is in all things and guides us.

The false self develops to help us survive in the world..our education, our jobs, our success our clothes, our sexual identity for example. This is the ego or psychological self that we create to help us get through the day. And it is guided by unconscious motivation. The Enneagram helps us to recognise the false self and how it drives our reactions and behaviours.

We can then learn to recognise and grow into the virtues that our Enneagram type reveals, the gifts of the spirit, and live more from our true self, our soul.