The Practical Enneagram

I catch up with Enneagram author and trainer, and beautiful Social 3 Ronan Gallagher, who has written a really cool and interesting Enneagram book, Stop Being Your Self. The final interview in the series.

The questions I ask Ronan:
How’s the second book going?
What’s it about?
Who is it written for?
What do you enjoy most about writing?
Anything you don’t enjoy?
Do you think there will be more books?
How do you see your type, type 3, showing up in your process?
Your first book, Stop Being Yourself, is written in a very unique style. Describe that style in your own words?
The book is underpinned by certain psychological understandings. Whose work or teachings were you principally influenced by?
Are the chapters based on real people?
Do they know?
Prior to your career as a corporate trainer and author, what were you doing?
Was there a moment you know you wanted to stop?
Is there anything you miss about practising law?
Do you still swim?
Have you ever neglected your fitness?
What are you grateful for about what comes naturally to you as a Social 3?
Do you have specific practices around the third instinct?
What sort of a child were you?
How did your type gel with the culture you were raised in?
How did it not gel?
What’s one piece of advice for 25-year-old Ronan?
What would you like to ask your future self?
When would you say your spiritual journey began?
Define success from your current vantage point.
Do you ever make yourself cringe?
How do you deal with that?
What do you do when you want to psyche yourself up?
Something you waste money on?
Something you waste time on?
What’s valuable to you?
What’s a question you are currently holding?
What’s something that isn’t in question?
What would you say is your largest fear or concern currently?
What helps you to be yourself?
When do you feel the most yourself?
And the least?
What do you do when you are feeling sad?
Thoughts on therapy?
What is one thing you believe to be true about self-development
What makes you feel confident?
What makes you lose confidence?
Which types tend to populate your work and life?
Any types that don’t tend to enter your life?  ('Heavy set Ones'. LOL. Definitely stealing this).
Describe your relationship with social media.
What no longer makes you feel reactive that did before?
What still occasionally makes you feel reactive?
What helps you to slow down?
Favourite style of yoga?
Prefer practising in a studio or alone?
What do you love about training people?
Anything you don’t love?
How has this been for you?

Learn more about Ronan's book and his work at stopbeingyourself.ie 

Music by UNIVERSFIELD from Pixabay

The brilliantly creative medical doctor and Enneagram author Saleh Vallender (Sexual 5) indulges me with rapid-fire questions about him and his recent books explaining the neurobiological bases of our Enneagram types and Myers Briggs cognitive functions.  

Saleh’s questions:

Where in the world are you at the moment?
Where’s home?
What’s a common reason to travel for you?
How do you generally spend a long-haul flight?
What languages can you speak?
Favourite world cuisine?
What is the first thing you usually do when you wake up?
What’s an important habit for you?
Have you ever run a marathon?
Would you?
How do you relax?
What are you most grateful for about your upbringing?
If there was something you could change about your upbringing, what would it be?
What are you most excited to learn more about right now?
What stops you from learning everything you want to learn?
What did you learn from writing your first book, 72 meditations?
Biggest cause of sleeplessness?
Did you always want to be a medical doctor?
If you weren’t a medical doctor, what do you think you’d be doing?
Aside from the obvious, what’s the most intimate thing you can do with another person?
What is a quality that you notice yourself gravitating towards in others?
Quality in others you find difficult?
What is a quality you like about yourself?
Biggest perceived inadequacy?
When did you last fall out with someone?
Do you think that we need to suffer in order to grow?
Which countries did you visit during your break from medical school?
What was your favourite place to visit and why?
What were you seeking?
Did you find what you were looking for?
Do you ever get lonely?
When do you feel the most alone?
What was the last book you read?
What’s a piece of advice you haven’t managed to forget?
Do you still think you’ll specialise in pain?
Name one thing that science doesn’t yet understand about pain.
Do you think there are correlates between our types and our responses to psychological and physical pain?
Describe your own relationship with pain.
Who inspires you?
When do you feel the most creative?
When do you feel the most depressed?
When did you last feel stressed?
What helps you when you’re feeling stressed?
Who do you turn to for wise counsel?
Describe your writing process
The single most important thing you have done for your development?
What is something that you want the Enneagram field to understand?
What is something you wished the medical field understood?
Do you think that correlations exist between our health issues and our types?
What was or is your hope in publishing your book, The Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs, and the Brain, which includes your book, the “The Neurobiology of the Enneagram?
Do you plan to empirically validate your various hypothesis?
What helps you to stay present?
What is a day well spent?
What makes you angry?
What do you tend to criticise yourself for?
What do you tend to criticise others for?
What do you tend to know about people without them telling you?
What don’t you usually know?
What’s one thing other people find normal that you find weird?
What is one thing that other people find weird that you find normal?
What is one thing that knowing the Enneagram has helped you with?
Who in the field of the Enneagram would you like to interview?
What are you working on to do with the Enneagram right now?
What will you likely say to yourself when you listen back?

Saleh's Enneagram books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saleh-Vallander/e/B0BKP3GQX8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

The interview he did with Kara on the Blindspot: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-21-the-neurobiology-of-the-enneagram/id1635625250?i=1000590199491

Enneagram teacher, master storyteller and definitely one of the funnest humans in the field Kathryn Grant (Social/Navigating 7) teaches the Enneagram using the metaphor of Homer's Odyssey. Do as I did, and get yourself a mug of something hot and enjoy this snippet from her current online course, Sail the Wine Dark Sea! After some sailing, we take flight and discuss the Wings.  

• How Kathryn got into the Enneagram [1.15]
• How she met Michael Goldberg, who wrote about the Odyssey from the Enneagram perspective [4.23]
• We set sail [13.05]
• We leave you on the island of 7 to talk about Wings [36.53]
• The theory of the Wings originally from Ichazo [37.33]
• How do the Wings help with personal growth? [43.37]
• How does the Enneagram stay alive for Kathryn, and is it still useful for her personal development? [50.45]

References, Michael Goldberg's book, Travels with Odysseus: https://amzn.to/422irbw

Kathryn's website: https://www.enneaquest.org/ 
The Workshop: https://www.enneaquest.org/event-details/sail-the-wine-dark-sea-2023-04-08-08-30

As many questions as I can ask inspiring and hilarious Integral Master Coach, Speaker, Writer and Entrepreneur Chela Davison (Sexual 7) in 19 minutes. 

What was the last fight you had with your husband about?
What are you most excited about in life right now?
What’s the biggest challenge you currently face?
What’s an important habit for you?
And your biggest vice?
How would you describe your home in three words?
When is the best time to ask you for a favour?
And the worst time?
What is the Sevenist thing about you?
And the least?
If you weren’t your type, clearly the best, which type would you be and why?
Most used app?
Most used word?
Do you see yourself going back on social media?
What is a book or author you recommend to all creatives?
A book or author you recommend to all coaches?
What does writing mean to you?
If you were to pen a memoir, what would the title be?
If you were to write a self-help book, what would the title be?
How old were you when you completed the Landmark Forum?
What would you say that it developed in you?
Would you do it now?
How many silent meditation retreats have you done? 
How does self-care look to you? 
If you weren't an entrepreneur and master coach, what would you be?
If you were to write yourself a Dear Chela, what would the subject be?
What is your greatest asset?
And weakness?
Who do you wish understood the value of self-development?
What age were you when you started your first business?
What was that business?
How did it end?
What is your primary spiritual path or practice?
How do you quieten your mind?
What was the last thing you sought to develop in yourself?
What’s a quality you value in others?
What’s a quality you value in yourself?
Last time you fell in love?
Last time you cried? 
Tell me one key lesson from the previous 12 months.
What is something that the pandemic highlighted for you?
Describe last year in three words?
What would you love to be able to say about this year at the end of it?
Who would you love to interview for your podcast, What is Leadership?
What is leadership?!
What’s easy for you that used to be challenging?
What’s challenging for you that used to be easy or fun?
Something you do now that you don’t want to be doing in ten years?
Most coached Enneagram type.
Most coached instinct type?
Funnest way to spend an empty weekend?
What is something that you prefer doing alone?
Who has inspired you lately?
Any pet peeves?
How do you say no to people you like?
Biggest accomplishment so far?
If you were not living on the Unceded Territory of the Squamish Nation, where would you be living?
What’s your favourite holiday?
Somewhere you haven’t been that you’ve always wanted to go?
Something you always travel with?
One piece of advice for skiing in a wedding dress?
Favourite workout?
What do you listen to when you work out?
Most eaten snack?
Most used metaphor in your coaching programmes?
The standard approach to resistance? 
What is your most given practice? 
What is one thing that running LEAD has taught you? 
Something that has surprised you about parenting?
Something that has surprised you about marriage?
Truthfully, what are your thoughts on my questions?
How will you reflect on this interview, if at all?

***

Music by MondayHopes from Pixabay

Find Chela's shiz:
Chela’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cheladavison7822
Her website where you can learn more about her coaching programme, LEAD and her podcast, What is Leadership?: https://cheladavison.com/

Enneagram Academy Singapore Founder, Enneagram trainer, and Dating and Relationship Coach Cindy Leong (Sexual 3) makes love happen. She's also a disarming and tender-hearted human being.  Here's an insight into her work. 

• How Cindy learned the Enneagram (with Mr Naranjo himself) [1.23]
• Why Cindy chose to specialise in Enneagram and relationships [2.30]
• Cindy's type and instinct type [3.13]
• How the Asian culture feels about the terminology 'sexual' instinct and the dominance of self-pres in Singapore society [7.30]
• Cindy's research on why eligible individuals find it hard to fall in love in Singapore [11.48]
• Cindy's melding of Gary Chapman's Love Languages and the Enneagram instincts [14.22]
• How is the Enneagram best used as a single person on the hunt? [18.03]
• Cindy's three levels of relationship-building: synergy, conflict, flourishing [18.29]
• Are some types better at being single? [22.42]
• Does our Enneagram type influence who we get attracted to? [25.07] 
• How does the matchmaking work? [28.18]
• A match-making success story [29.30]

Learn more about Cindy and her work:
https://theenneagramacademy.com
https://relationshipstudio.sg

***

Music by Gvidon from Pixabay.

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Website: www.thepracticalenneagram.com
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram 

With Valentine's Day around the corner, let's visit some of the lunacy that happens in relationships. Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, mediator and trainer, the delightful Matt Ahrens (Self-pres 9), shares his insights into each type's attachment issues. Matt disputes a lot of traditional Attachment Theory and says the whole thing with attachment is a lot more nuanced (which the Enneagram can account for). There are in fact three distinct styles for each type. Get in touch with Matt if this sort of thing lights you up. 

Instead of episode notes, here is Matt’s organisation of the Enneagram types and attachment styles:

Core attachment strategy, based on the dominant Center (wounded place)
234 - Anxious
567 - Avoidant 
891 - Disorganised - simultaneous co-arising of both 

Adaptive style, based on Hornevian groups (the non-wounded place)
126 - Anxious 
378 - Disorganised 
459 - Avoidant 

Subtype layer
SP - Warm (Anxious)
SX - Hot (Disorganised)
SO - Cool (Avoidant)

To summarise: 
Type 9 - Disorganised/Avoidant + subtype
Type 1 - Disorganised/Anxious + subtype
Type 2 - Anxious/ Anxious + subtype
Type 3 - Anxious/Disorganised + subtype
Type 4 - Anxious/Avoidant + subtype
Type 5 - Avoidant/Avoidant +subtype 
Type 6 - Avoidant/Anxious + subtype
Type 7 - Avoidant/Disorganised + subtype
Type 8 - Disorganised/Disorganised +subtype 

Find Matt
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattahrens
https://themattahrensgroup.com/

***
Music by Roman Senyk from Pixabay

Please leave the podcast a review or rating to help people find it!

If you have something to teach me about the Enneagram, please get in touch.

Website: www.thepracticalenneagram.com
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram 

It was my joy to talk with Enneagram Godmother,  Suzanne Stabile (Social 2) about her latest book, Journey to Wholeness, which along with Suzanne's unique teachings on the link between our types and stress/self-care, outlines a clear approach to balancing the Centers of Intelligence. 

• Did the pandemic have anything to do with this book? [2.38]
•  Is this book an evolution from the previous book, the Path Between Us? [07.11]
• How Suzanne approaches the issue of mistyping [10.38]
• The basis for the book's theory regarding accessing the high side of Stress number as a way to self-care, and the 'acting out' that happens in the Security number [13.41]
• Demo of the theory using Types 2 and 4 [19.04]
• Should we manage the dominant Center before practising using the repressed Center [20.52]?
• Why managing the dominant Center needs to be the first focus [21.25]
• Suzanne on bringing up her repressed Center, thinking [24.40]
• Why doesn't Suzanne talk about the instincts in her book? [26.25]
• How the dominant instinct/subtype changes [29.16]
• Suzanne on her love for reading and how it supports her repressed Center [32.17]
• Suzanne's next move: moral injury [35.19]

Suzanne's very practical new Enneagram book: The Journey Toward Wholeness: Enneagram Wisdom for Stress, Balance, and Transformation: https://amzn.to/3w0HUn7 

References:
Maurice Nicoll- the neurologist, psychiatrist and Fourth Way teacher who named the Centers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Nicoll 

Find Suzanne: 
Life in the Trinity Ministry: https://www.lifeinthetrinityministry.com
https://suzannestabile.com

***
Music by Reverie-Now from Pixabay

Please leave the podcast a review or rating to help people find it!

If you have something to teach me about the Enneagram, please get in touch.

Website: www.thepracticalenneagram.com
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram 

Dr Sterlin Mosley (Sexual 4) and Aaron Addonizio (Self-preservation 6), of Enneagram coaching and certification company, Empathy Architects, stop by to enlighten and frighten me about narcissism, and I loved it. Bye-bye Neglectful Narcissists, I'm onto you now. If you don't listen to Sterlin and Aaron's Enneagram podcast, Do You Know You? , you really should.  Sterlin's book is called The Narcissist in You and Everyone Else: Recognizing the 27 Types of Narcissism.

• The story behind the name, Empathy Architects [3.03]
• Was Sterlin always going to write an Enneagram book? [4.42]
• What does Sterlin's book do? [8.22]
• What's the relationship between empathy and narcissism? [12.50]
• Is narcissism always negative? [16.08]
• Sterlin encourages me that all types wear rose-tinted glasses when it comes to people they like, it isn't just me being a mug [20.20]
• Does narcissism exist at all levels of health using the Riso/Hudson model? [23.40]
• The distinction between having narcissistic traits and having full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder [25.17]
• Is narcissism more common with sexual subtypes? [30.00]
• What will surprise people the most about this book? [35.46]
• An example from the book: Self-preservation 9's narcissism [40.57]
• Another example: Social 7's narcissism [46.12]
• Advice if we read Sterlin's book and realise we are massive narcissists [50.08]

Order Sterlin's book:
Sterlin’s book:  The Narcissist in You and Everyone Else: Recognizing the 27 Types of Narcissism  https://amzn.to/3tpL3eF 

The episode that Aaron cites is: 
A Little Bit Culty:  https://alittlebitculty.com/
Episode:  “John Atak:  Make Me a God"
At 37:03 John is discussing the work of Erich Fromm in the Heart of Man from 1965 in reference to narcissism.

Find Sterlin and Aaron:
Website:  https://empathyarchitects.com
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/empathyarchitects/

***
Music by Nicsa from Pixabay

Please leave the podcast a review or rating to help people find it!

If you have something to teach me about the Enneagram, please get in touch.

Website: https://thepracticalenneagram.com/ 
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram 

Coach of coaches, psychotherapist, dream interpreter, and spiritual healer, Amy Ream (Social 6), wakes up very early on a Saturday to share with me a little about the way she works with the Enneagram.  

• Where Amy lives and what she does [2.37]
• First encounters with the Enneagram [3.21]
• What distinguishes a coaching client from a therapeutic client from a spiritual client? [8.10]
• How exactly does Amy use the Enneagram in coaching? [9.35]
• Thoughts on Tritype [15.04]
• What other tools does Amy use, in addition to the Enneagram [17.20]
• What is a difficult client and how does Amy deal with them? [19.33]
• What is spiritual leadership and why is it important? [23.00]
• What is a good amount of self-disclosure in a coaching/client relationship? [25.14]
• Amy's spiritual orientation [27.24]
• What's Amy's personal edge? [32.10]
• A retreat that Amy recently led [33.42]

Amy's website: www.amyream.com 
Book Amy: https://bookme.name/amyream/sessions

***
Music by TimTaj from Pixabay

Please leave the podcast a review or rating to help people find it!

If you have something to teach me about the Enneagram, please get in touch.

Website: https://thepracticalenneagram.com/ 
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram 

Enneagram teacher and Texan, the brilliantly wise, knowledgable and funny Judy Blackwell (Self-preservation 4)  offers a glimpse into her powerful work applying Enneagram wisdom to support individuals in recovery from addiction, as well as families of those affected.  Judy was recovering from being sick when this interview happened so her voice is not its usual self.

• Judy's background with the Enneagram [1.48]
• Judy's type [3.29]
• The two recovery universes [4.58]
• What brought Judy to recovery [07.37]
• Why is the Enneagram a helpful tool for recovery [10.40]
• Is recovery a spiritual endeavour? [12.11]
• Does Judy teach people the Enneagram early in recovery? [13.15]
• What defines addiction (how does it happen?) [18.32]
• Are some types or instinct types more likely to become addicted? [21.48]
• When does recovery end? [27.40]
• Recommendations/practices for each type in recovery:
  • Type 1 [30.33]
  • Type 2 [33.33]
  • Type 3 [35.37]
  • Type 4 [37.36]
  • Type 5 [41.26]
  • Type 6 [42.50]
  • Type 7 [48.00]
  • Type 8 [50.09]
  • Type 9 [52.52]
• Final thoughts [55.34]

Contact Judy: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/judy-blackwell-59144b16/

***
Music by Toby Smith from Pixabay

Please leave the podcast a review or rating to help people find it!

If you have something to teach me about the Enneagram, please get in touch.

Website: https://thepracticalenneagram.com/ 
Email address: rez@thepracticalenneagram