Lessons from Understanding Enneatype 3

Accomplishments don't make the man or the woman.  I don't have to strive and achieve to become worthwhile.  I am worthwhile because I exist, because at my very core I am an embodiment of all that is valuable and worthwhile. 

Though being impressive to others and admired by them may feel affirming, I can really know my value only by affirming myself at my core.  I am not my image.  I am not what I project.  I am not my exterior.  I am valuable because of what is inherently me inside, and the only real affirmation is that inner experiential knowledge.  My image won't help me to escape worthlessness, for there is no worthlessness to escape from. 

Lessons from Understanding Enneatype 2

All of us need to be loved.  In so many ways we do what we can to obtain love, whatever we believe is necessary in order to encourage it, be worthy of it, and hang onto it.  The only problem is this:  It's wasted effort, which diverts us from knowing that Love is already here for us.  Love is here, throughout our being, pervading and enveloping us with its constant presence -- if only we would open ourselves to it and allow ourselves to know it in its fullness, depth, warmth, and richness. 

Why all the unnecessary striving?  Because we so easily close our eyes to the real Love that is there all along and look for it outside of ourselves, as if someone else can give us what we already have but won't face.

When we dare to recognize the Love that characterizes our being -- and dare to inhabit it and know that it IS us -- then love is not something we need; we don't have to become worthy of it, we don't have to grasp for it, we don't have to hanker after it, we don't need to manipulate anything or anyone to get it.  It just is. 

And that is beautiful.

Lessons from Understanding Enneatype 1

Goodness is real.  However, it's not our personalities, or egos, which can attain real Goodness.  They seek it nonetheless and ironically cut us off from what we most desire. 

The very act of striving to be or do something "just right"--whatever it is we might want to be or do, and whatever it is we mean by "just right"--causes our personalities to become more crystallized--more hardened and unyielding.  The harder a personality gets, the more of a trap it is.  In trying to embody such Goodness, we build our own prison cells.

It's not that we shouldn't be Good.  It's that we ARE Good, just as we are--a concept that is difficult for most of us.  Until we come to experience our true inner Goodness, we tend to strive, turning our attention away from real Goodness and toward some idea we've put together (or which we have learned from our families or social groups) about what Goodness should look like.

The key is to turn inward and explore our deep experience.  It's real and true, and it will lead us to know Goodness.  Our feelings are our teachers.