The Practical Enneagram

A conversation with the smart, brilliantly imaginative and knowledgeable Tom Condon (Sexual 6). 

• How Tom came to the Enneagram [1.45]
• What is NLP? [3.0] 
• Enneagram styles as forms of defensiveness [7.41]
• What are some NLP approaches and processes to use in coaching? [10.35]
• Does Tom type people? [14.10]
• What does the Enneagram add to NLP? [16.00]
• Do Enneagram styles use specific meta-programs? [17.25]
• How does the process for change work, in an NLP approach? [23.15]
• Does Tom always use the Enneagram in coaching? [33.22]
• Tom's perspective on the instincts and the subtypes [36.27] 
• How has being Sx6 helped Tom in his work? [41.30]
• Some very cool ways of working with Type 6 fear [43.27]
• A tour of the Enneagram types and Tom's ways of working with them [48.20] 

References
Neuro-linguistic programming
Meta-program

Tom's website
Thechangeworks.com

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A chat with the effervescent Vanessa Fernandez (Sexual 3), about how she crafts her teachings in a way that transmits the growth and healing potential of the Enneagram. 

• How Vanessa got involved with participating at the recent IEA conference [1.31]
• How she found the Enneagram [4.27]
• Vanessa on her subtype [9.50]
• How Vanessa's values infuse her work [11.43]
• What is it to be a second-generation Enneagram teacher [15.38]
• More guiding values as she teaches [20.15]
• What can be tricky about teaching the Enneagram in the corporate world [24.20]
• What Vanessa is working on currently in her personal practice [26.11]

References
IEA conference
The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

About Vanessa
The Enneagram Workshop
Youtube
Instagram

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Interview with Clinical Psychologist and Founder of Life Centered Therapy,  Andrew Hahn (Sexual 4). Andrew describes his Enneagram of Essence process and the energetics of our Enneagram-type patterns. 

• Andrew's introduction to the Enneagram [2.10]
• What led him to develop his Essence Process [5.00]
• The first time he used the Essence Process on an Enneagram Type One client [8.25]
• Is this a somatic approach to the Enneagram? [10.15]
• In what order do we work to become aware of the energetics of our type patterns - the subtype pattern, the centers' pattern, and the energetics of our core fears? [11.55]
• Energetics of the subtypes [15.10] (sexual - up and out; self-preserving - in and down; social - up and diffuse)
• Energetics of Centers [18.35] (Heart - forward and out; Head - back and in; Belly - up and diffuse).
• How Andy identified core fears for the Belly, Heart and Head types [21.37] (They are 'I have no Heart', 'I have no Head', and 'I have no Body'.)
• A practice for working with the energetics of our type patterns [25.45]
• How to integrate essence work in coaching [29.20]

Recommended reading
Essence and the Enneagram - Rediscovering Who We Really Are - Part I
Essence and the Enneagram: Rediscovering Who We Really Are Part II

Learn more about Andrew's work:
Life Centered Therapy website 

The poem I read, Falling into Grace, by Andrew Hahn

What I want to know is
When you fall down
How do you respond?
Do you pretend
You have not fallen?
And if you do
Do you deny the grace
That is your place
When you fall?
Do you experience just how small
You really are?
Or deny the very essence of
That truth
And in that act
Deny yourself
And not tend to your garden?
What I want to know is
When you fall down
How do you respond?
Do you frown
Not knowing that you’ve grown?
Do you groan at the naked pain
And curse the Gods as a refrain?
Or do you refrain
From wallowing in the pain
Experiencing exquisite pain
A labor
Leading
To creative
Birth?

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Music entrepreneur turned Integral Master Coach and Teacher, Steve Beckett (Sexual 5), comes on to talk about teaching, coaching, and doing life from the Five perspective. Steve was my teacher when I went through Integral Coaching Canada's training. 

• Steve's journey from music/record label entrepreneur to Integral Coach and Trainer [4.25]
• Steve's first encounter with the Enneagram [8.05]
• How he experiences being a Sexual subtype [9.50]
• Deeper use of the Enneagram [10.57]
• How Steve uses the Enneagram in his personal work [12.50], working with fear [13.35].
• How Fivesness sources Steve in his work and what it closes down [14.54].
• Evolution of Steve's spiritual practices [17.50].
• On the Diamond Approach [20.55].
• How Steve experiences the awakened perspective for Five, Transparency [22.05].
• Most useful practices [24.40].
• Misconceptions about Fives [29.35].
• Integration points and their use in coaching [30.15].

References
Integral Coaching Canada
Diamond Approach

Learn more about Steve at his website, Integral Coaching UK.  

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The brilliant and fun Dale Rhodes M.S., M.A. (Sexual 4) talks about his literature and film groups, and his men's groups. 

• How Dale came to the Enneagram [2.25]
• His thoughts on the MBTI [7.35]
• How and why Dale started the film and literature groups [10.30]
• Who is the standard student for Dale's groups? [17.40]
• Why look at type through the lens of gender [19.35]
• A Daoist perspective on type [24.00]
• How Dale communicates the instincts material [26.40]
• Why is it important to learn the Enneagram in community? [31.30]
• A movie and a book per type! [37.50] Starting with Type 2.

Learn more about Dale's work at his website, Enneagram Portland.

References:
Judith Searle's book, the Literary Enneagram.
Tom Condon's the Enneagram Movie & Video Guide.

Dale's list of movies and books for each type:
The Connector (Type 2): Cold Comfort Farm/ and Kiss of Spiderwoman
The Performer (Type 3): The Pursuit of Happyness/ and Black Narcissus
The Romantic (Type 4): Departures/ and Hedda Gabler
The Observer (Type 5): Lars and the Real Girl/ and Into the Wild
The Loyal Skeptic (Type 6): Divergent (teen novel Veronica Roth)/ and Flirting with Disaster (film by David O. Roarke)
The Epicure (Type 7): The Mayor of Castro Street/Milk/ and A Raisin in the Sun
The Protector (Type 8): My Ántonia/ and True Grit
The Peacemaker (Type 9): The Stone Diaries/ and Paterson
The Idealist (Type 1): A Man Called Ove/ and Remains of the Day

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Coach, mentor, and senior faculty at the Deep Coaching Institute, Diana Redmond (SX9), talks to me about her journey and shares a couple of great tips for coaching Enneagram Nines. 

• Diana's background [3.05] 
• How she encountered the Enneagram and initial response [8.30]
• How Diana found the Diamond Approach work [13.20]
• What it means for coaching Nines that they are formed in the Belly Center [15.40]
• How to teach Nines to get centered in their bellies [19.07]
• How to avoid activating resistance/stubbornness [22.47]
• How to guide Nines to experience their anger [25.10]
• How to support Nines in seeing the Passion, Sloth [27.00]
• How Nines have a distorted sense of time [27.50]
• Diana's views on Object Relations [30.35]
• Do all awakening Nines go through a period of being overtly angry? [34.05]
• How important is a body practice like yoga or aikido for Nines? [34.43]
• Tip for Nines when exercising [36.10]

References
Deep Coaching Institue
Diamond Approach

About Diana
Diana's website.


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Dr. Khaled ElSherbini (Sexual 5), Founder of Enneagram Egypt, talks to me about his synthesis/ marriage of Wilber's integral model with the Enneagram.  

• Khaled's background and how he met the Enneagram [2.08]
• Why and how he developed the Integral Enneagram model [3.35]
• How he got the characteristics of each type at each stage (a description of his 9 stage methodology) [7.28]
• Why putting a developmental stages model with the Enneagram is a good idea [22.00]
• How to discern whether someone is expressing aspects of their developmental stage versus their Enneagram type [24.58]
• How to best support clients that are too comfortable at their level, aka, Nines at Green [27.13]
• How an initial client assessment helps you to see where the problems are located (whether an aspect of development or type) [29.00]
• Khaled reminds me (again) that coaching is not about getting the client up to the next developmental level [32.10 and various places.]
• How transparent Khaled is in coaching with developmental maps and the Enneagram  [34.05]

References

• Integral theory 
• Wilber's developmental model

About Dr Khaled ElSherbini 

•  Enneagram Egypt website
• The Integral Enneagram program

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Physical therapist and pioneer of the somatic Enneagram, Marion Gilbert (Sexual 8), talks about why the somatic component to developing and awakening with the Enneagram is so important to address. 

• Marion's introduction to the Enneagram [2.52]
• How Marion got involved with the Narrative Enneagram [4.50]
• What is the somatic enneagram? [7.50]
• Somatic nature of type (examples of Type Four and Eight) [8.40]
• Three basic pillars of somatic awareness [13.51] (1) grounded presence, (2) cultivation of inner observer and (3) cultivation of placement of attention. 
• Marion's integration of Peter Levine's work in her somatic awareness program [19.48]
• Contracted body center states and how they link to types [21.33] (head types flee, heart types freeze, body types fight).
• The relaxed body center states [24.03] (flight becomes curiosity, freeze reinstates seeking for connection, and fight becomes play).
• Non-dual perspective on integration [26.45]
• Is there any type for whom this work is more important? [28.25]
• Can we work on the somatic line without engaging the psychological enneagram? [29.22]
• How to avoid traumatizing people [30.40]
• How doing Eight has served and not served Marion [32.05]

References:

• 'Frosty' the snowman is a visual of the contracted and expanded states of the mental, emotional, and body centers. It is a visual included in Marion's materials. 
• The Narrative Enneagram

Marion Gilbert
Marion's website where you can learn about her Somatic Enneagram Certification Program

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The Process Enneagram is the ugly stepsister of the Enneagram! So says Lucille Greeff (Sexual 4), Chartered Organisational Development Practitioner, Facilitator, Coach, Poet and all-around Enneagram wizard.  In this interview, Lucille elucidates on all things vertical development and the Enneagram. 

• How Lucille met the Enneagram [0.46]
• What is vertical development [5.26]
• What triggers adult development [9.28]
• How has vertical development been contextualized in the Enneagram [11.06]
• What is the Process Enneagram [14.06]
• How to begin to work with this with clients [16.41]
• Developmental priorities at Points 1 and 2 [17.36] on the Process Enneagram, Point 4 [24.56], Point 5 [27.26] and Point 6 [27.41]
• How the Enneagram maps with Spiral Dynamics [32.16]
• What frame of vertical development to hold [34.36]
• How development probably makes you unhappier overall (but at least you'll be seeing reality as it is!) [38.03]

Learn more about Lucille's work at her website, Aephoria

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Interview with Enneagram teacher, psychologist, author, artist, and poet, Belinda Gore Ph.D. Belinda (Type 3) has been an important teaching presence in my life for the past 12 months or so.  In this conversation, we speak about what object relations is and highlight a couple of key ways of working with object relations patterns. 

• What Belinda does in life [1.45]
• What is object relations and where did it come from? [4.30]
• Who paired object relations theory with the Enneagram [6.03]
• Divergences in how object relations is taught [7.36]
• What does object relations add to the picture (why can't we just use the Enneagram to understand relational triggers)? [11.05] 
• What is 'repeating questions' from Diamond Approach? [13.40]
• 5 adjectives technique [20.20]
• The whole point of the object relations exploration [21.42] 
• Belinda's object relations book [23.12]
• How Belinda feels about threeness [28.53]
• How Belinda sees subtypes [33.14]

Resources/ references

Object relations patterns:
Attachment types:  Nines, threes, sixes
Rejection types: Eights, twos, fives
Frustration types: Ones, fours, sevens

• Belinda's course at the Deep Coaching Institute
• Belinda's article on object relations theory
• How Belinda came to teach Object Relations theory 
• The Diamond Approach. Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson, who I refer to, are the founders. 

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