There are so many pathways to knowing. My last post was about the I Ching, an ancient Chinese system of finding one's way regarding a problem, situation, or question, and now people are asking me, "What does this have to do with the Enneagram or the 12 Steps?"
Spirituality is about journeying into the self and finding love, unity, truth, and ultimately holiness there. In my experience, any map that assists in the journey is welcome. The Enneagram, the 12 Steps, the I Ching, and any number of other personality/spiritual systems are exactly that; they are maps. Sometimes my inner compass points to a different map from the one I'm most accustomed to using -- just like we may know that there are certain features of Google Maps that are especialllly helpful at times, even though we are generally well served by MapQuest and stand by what it has done for us.
All of these personality/spiritual maps require that we settle into the depth of ourselves in order to take in what they have to offer. Sure, they can be used superficially, for fun, or even for manipulative purposes. But when we truly open ourselves to self-discovery, then whatever tools we use are likely to provide us with something which is personally meaningful. That's because internal inquiry is what really matters; the maps just guide us in the inquiry.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Renewing with the I Ching
Today I was moved to get out my I Ching materials, which I had not worked with in some time. It felt important to explore it again, and the time opened up for me to sit down and be with it in the absence of distsraction or pressure.
The I Ching is an ancient "divination" tool, which helps to focus one's higher self, or inner knowing. It has its complexities, but it didn't take long to refresh my mind, and very soon I took a deep clearing breath, sensed my arms and legs and their relation to the ground, the desk, and the materials, and asked a heartfelt question about a recent decision and whether it was right for me.
The answer came, loud, clear, and refreshing: Renewal, stripping away the old, a need to accept that this change is indeed necessary, that my path would not allow it to be any other way... and that it will eventuate in greater closeness between me and others who are especially important to me.
Another deep breath... this, a relaxing one, a knowing one, breathing in the knowledge of my truth having been spoken. I felt it so deeply and happily.
The I Ching's message doesn't bring a false hope that the way will always be smooth or that life will be fully of only happy moments. What it gives me is an opening to my own understanding of my needs and how to fulfill them internally.
It feels dramatic and yet soft. It feels true.
The I Ching is an ancient "divination" tool, which helps to focus one's higher self, or inner knowing. It has its complexities, but it didn't take long to refresh my mind, and very soon I took a deep clearing breath, sensed my arms and legs and their relation to the ground, the desk, and the materials, and asked a heartfelt question about a recent decision and whether it was right for me.
The answer came, loud, clear, and refreshing: Renewal, stripping away the old, a need to accept that this change is indeed necessary, that my path would not allow it to be any other way... and that it will eventuate in greater closeness between me and others who are especially important to me.
Another deep breath... this, a relaxing one, a knowing one, breathing in the knowledge of my truth having been spoken. I felt it so deeply and happily.
The I Ching's message doesn't bring a false hope that the way will always be smooth or that life will be fully of only happy moments. What it gives me is an opening to my own understanding of my needs and how to fulfill them internally.
It feels dramatic and yet soft. It feels true.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
When Life Gets Difficult
There isn't one of us who hasn't experienced snags, potholes, or real crises in life. Even with a positive outlook or a strong spiritual foundation, no one is immune to problems. Smoothness just isn't a characterisic of life, and neither is a steady sense of cheer. It's normal to experience anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety, fear, loneliness, valuelessness, and all the other emotions with which we respond to stress.
Not only is it normal to experience these feelings about our difficulties, but our feelings can be the vehicles for working on them most sanely. When you feel an emotion, it carries with it some fundamental information about you. It offers a way in to your deepest intelligence. And that deep intelligence is what will help you meet your problems in a grounded, calm, clear, and courageous manner.
My work with the enneagram has taught me that all feelings are useful when approached as vehicles for self-understanding. This is one of the ways I work with people in therapy and coaching sessions, and the results are staggering. It's about helping clients find their true center even when they've been thrown a curveball, even in the midst of otherwise overwhelming demands, even when it seems that the worst-case scenario has become real.
On getting in touch with our true centers, we know that hope, peace, strength, and love abound. No matter what.
Not only is it normal to experience these feelings about our difficulties, but our feelings can be the vehicles for working on them most sanely. When you feel an emotion, it carries with it some fundamental information about you. It offers a way in to your deepest intelligence. And that deep intelligence is what will help you meet your problems in a grounded, calm, clear, and courageous manner.
My work with the enneagram has taught me that all feelings are useful when approached as vehicles for self-understanding. This is one of the ways I work with people in therapy and coaching sessions, and the results are staggering. It's about helping clients find their true center even when they've been thrown a curveball, even in the midst of otherwise overwhelming demands, even when it seems that the worst-case scenario has become real.
On getting in touch with our true centers, we know that hope, peace, strength, and love abound. No matter what.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Acceptance
I was thinking about Step 1 of the 12 Steps and the idea of acceptance. To admit we are powerless over our own or others’ compulsions is to accept the reality of them. Okay, but then what do we do? Stop the reality? Give in to it? Turn it over to a Higher Power and go hang out somewhere else?
Acceptance is not a simple term, and real acceptance is a mighty process involving one moment of surrender after another. To accept reality is to allow it fully without either judgment or preference. When I surrender or allow, I neither reject nor approve of reality as it is, I don’t defend myself against it or give up in the face of it, I don’t turn my back on it, and neither do I invite it; rather, I let go and let it be.
What does it mean to let a compulsion “be”? Or to let my helplessness “be”? They are part of me, aren’t they? I’m responsible for them, right? I like the answer from A. H. Almaas: “First, you realize that you are rejecting and pushing.”
We tend to defend our compulsions or try to push them away and reject them. But when we can look at them objectively as traps or trances or jesters that take us away from the truth of who we are inside, then we can cease to identify with them and begin to understand them lovingly. We come to understand that we are human beings with frailties, that we easily become trapped or entranced or duped by our frailties, that when we are at their mercy we have forgotten how to love ourselves. We begin to accept this, and we stop defending and rejecting ourselves and serenely surrender to the truth of the moment, that all we can do is “the next right thing.” And then we feel something like a blessing, a benediction, a protection, an inner knowing… a real acceptance.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
Acceptance is not a simple term, and real acceptance is a mighty process involving one moment of surrender after another. To accept reality is to allow it fully without either judgment or preference. When I surrender or allow, I neither reject nor approve of reality as it is, I don’t defend myself against it or give up in the face of it, I don’t turn my back on it, and neither do I invite it; rather, I let go and let it be.
What does it mean to let a compulsion “be”? Or to let my helplessness “be”? They are part of me, aren’t they? I’m responsible for them, right? I like the answer from A. H. Almaas: “First, you realize that you are rejecting and pushing.”
We tend to defend our compulsions or try to push them away and reject them. But when we can look at them objectively as traps or trances or jesters that take us away from the truth of who we are inside, then we can cease to identify with them and begin to understand them lovingly. We come to understand that we are human beings with frailties, that we easily become trapped or entranced or duped by our frailties, that when we are at their mercy we have forgotten how to love ourselves. We begin to accept this, and we stop defending and rejecting ourselves and serenely surrender to the truth of the moment, that all we can do is “the next right thing.” And then we feel something like a blessing, a benediction, a protection, an inner knowing… a real acceptance.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
Many paths to God
Using different words and stories, most of the world’s religions and spiritual paths teach the same values. Only when dogma is placed before values do they look really different. So when I teach the Enneagram or the 12 Steps, my message is wholly in line with that of my Protestant upbringing, just as it jives with the beliefs of my Jewish friends, my Hindu friends, my Buddhist friends, and spiritual people the world over.
The bottom line for all these spiritual traditions is being fully present to a deeper reality, where true love and wisdom exist. You don’t have to be religious or consider yourself spiritual to seek love, wisdom, and depth — one of the reasons I resonate so with the Enneagram and the 12 Steps. They are tools for anyone who desires a richer life.
I discovered the Enneagram about ten years ago as I sought a personality theory that accounted for more than the standard theores I had learned about as I trained in and then practiced psychology; without attending to the spiritual aspect of our natures, these theories seemed flat. Once I made the discovery, I could never look back but only go deeper and deeper into it, seeking and learning more and finding that it was like an eternal spring; it kept offering me more, and it still does. It quenches the thirst only to reveal deeper thirst, a process which is amazing — gratifying and life-giving. It teaches that indeed you have to lose yourself to find yourself, and through it you come to want that absolutely.
I have stayed with the Enneagram all this time and during these years was also led to rediscover the 12 Steps, to which I had been introduced when I worked as a psychologist in substance abuse treatment programs. In these programs you meet the most courageous people, and you see how the 12 Steps, the Serenity Prayer, and other “standards” of AA, NA, and the like guide people from despair to hope and beyond. Though it had been a few years since I worked in those programs, at a certain point recovering addicts began to be drawn to my practice, and I began working with them to strengthen their attunement to the Steps and to their inner selves. Helping them, I began living with the Steps in my own life and finding their power in times of struggle.
The Enneagram and the 12 Steps have become entwined as guides for me in my life — and so important that I felt called to make them the linchpins of my professional life. That’s why my therapy and coaching practice is now geared to help people via the principles of the Enneagram, the 12 Steps, and my clients’ personal spiritual directions.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
The bottom line for all these spiritual traditions is being fully present to a deeper reality, where true love and wisdom exist. You don’t have to be religious or consider yourself spiritual to seek love, wisdom, and depth — one of the reasons I resonate so with the Enneagram and the 12 Steps. They are tools for anyone who desires a richer life.
I discovered the Enneagram about ten years ago as I sought a personality theory that accounted for more than the standard theores I had learned about as I trained in and then practiced psychology; without attending to the spiritual aspect of our natures, these theories seemed flat. Once I made the discovery, I could never look back but only go deeper and deeper into it, seeking and learning more and finding that it was like an eternal spring; it kept offering me more, and it still does. It quenches the thirst only to reveal deeper thirst, a process which is amazing — gratifying and life-giving. It teaches that indeed you have to lose yourself to find yourself, and through it you come to want that absolutely.
I have stayed with the Enneagram all this time and during these years was also led to rediscover the 12 Steps, to which I had been introduced when I worked as a psychologist in substance abuse treatment programs. In these programs you meet the most courageous people, and you see how the 12 Steps, the Serenity Prayer, and other “standards” of AA, NA, and the like guide people from despair to hope and beyond. Though it had been a few years since I worked in those programs, at a certain point recovering addicts began to be drawn to my practice, and I began working with them to strengthen their attunement to the Steps and to their inner selves. Helping them, I began living with the Steps in my own life and finding their power in times of struggle.
The Enneagram and the 12 Steps have become entwined as guides for me in my life — and so important that I felt called to make them the linchpins of my professional life. That’s why my therapy and coaching practice is now geared to help people via the principles of the Enneagram, the 12 Steps, and my clients’ personal spiritual directions.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
Why do I matter?
So many people tell me they didn’t feel worthy of putting money and time into their own personal growth and didn’t seek out therapy or life coaching until they thought about the impact they have on other people. Here are some of their comments:
“I wanted to feel better about myself, but I didn’t want to do anything that would take away from my family. Then one day it dawned on me that every time I snapped at my wife and daughters I was hurting them. So I looked you up and asked for help. I was actually surprised at how happy it made my family.”
“It was always my dream to find my real purpose in life, and I kept putting it off because my son needed this or my aging parents needed that or my friends seemed more desperate than I did. When I bit the bullet and said to myself, “You need this,” I began to lighten up and wasn’t so anxious all the time, and I noticed that people around me responded so positively. I was kind of shocked but looking back, I can see how I was never my best with them because I didn’t feel free to be who I really am at my core, and who I really am is so much more appealing to them than the way I used to be. I’m more productive too and have lots more to give now.”
“You know, I was always mad about the way my family treated me. They made me feel like I was the one with all the problems and yet I didn’t deserve to reach out for help, like my life was supposed to revolve around them. It took a long time, but I finally did it. I knew I had to find a way out of that trap. When I realized that I was the one keeping myself there and not them, I was able to rise above the fray, and it began to make a difference in my family. Suddenly things were a little more peaceful for everybody, and when we do argue, I’m able to step back and see that I can keep the argument going or I can contribute to the peace process, it’s my choice. We’re all calmer now and can talk.”
As these comments make clear, we all have an impact on other people. If we’re grumpy or anxious, depressed or isolated, we affect the people we come into contact with, and not in a positive way. We all make a difference in this world, and through our individual growth and centering we contribute to the world around us, often profoundly.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
“I wanted to feel better about myself, but I didn’t want to do anything that would take away from my family. Then one day it dawned on me that every time I snapped at my wife and daughters I was hurting them. So I looked you up and asked for help. I was actually surprised at how happy it made my family.”
“It was always my dream to find my real purpose in life, and I kept putting it off because my son needed this or my aging parents needed that or my friends seemed more desperate than I did. When I bit the bullet and said to myself, “You need this,” I began to lighten up and wasn’t so anxious all the time, and I noticed that people around me responded so positively. I was kind of shocked but looking back, I can see how I was never my best with them because I didn’t feel free to be who I really am at my core, and who I really am is so much more appealing to them than the way I used to be. I’m more productive too and have lots more to give now.”
“You know, I was always mad about the way my family treated me. They made me feel like I was the one with all the problems and yet I didn’t deserve to reach out for help, like my life was supposed to revolve around them. It took a long time, but I finally did it. I knew I had to find a way out of that trap. When I realized that I was the one keeping myself there and not them, I was able to rise above the fray, and it began to make a difference in my family. Suddenly things were a little more peaceful for everybody, and when we do argue, I’m able to step back and see that I can keep the argument going or I can contribute to the peace process, it’s my choice. We’re all calmer now and can talk.”
As these comments make clear, we all have an impact on other people. If we’re grumpy or anxious, depressed or isolated, we affect the people we come into contact with, and not in a positive way. We all make a difference in this world, and through our individual growth and centering we contribute to the world around us, often profoundly.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
The 12 steps: simple, not easy
The 12 Steps are simple, but living according to the 12 Steps can seem like another matter altogether. AA members have a saying about this: It’s simple but it ain’t easy!
When you’re a member of a 12-Step fellowship, you are encouraged to find a sponsor, who will help you to understand and apply the 12 Steps. If you’re not a member of a fellowship and believe the 12 Steps might help you live a better life, then find a therapist or life coach who is intimately familiar with the 12 Steps and will agree to teach and guide you. Even if you are a fellowship member and have a sponsor, you might want extra support in understanding the steps more deeply and using them more fully and in that case, working with the same kind of therapist or coach can be an intensely satisfying experience.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
When you’re a member of a 12-Step fellowship, you are encouraged to find a sponsor, who will help you to understand and apply the 12 Steps. If you’re not a member of a fellowship and believe the 12 Steps might help you live a better life, then find a therapist or life coach who is intimately familiar with the 12 Steps and will agree to teach and guide you. Even if you are a fellowship member and have a sponsor, you might want extra support in understanding the steps more deeply and using them more fully and in that case, working with the same kind of therapist or coach can be an intensely satisfying experience.
(For earlier posts not shown here, go to http://www.lablanche9.wordpress.com/.)
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