In my next few blogs, I will dive deeper into the building blocks and motivations of the 9 different enneatypes. Today we will take a look at the various basic energies of a human being. In the tradition of G. I. Gurdjieff (who introduced the enneagram in the West) these are often called centres (of intelligence).

Every human being has (or consists of) three basic energies or centres:
- The head, or the mental centre,
- The heart, or the emotional centre and
- The body, or the physical centre.

The true purpose of the three centres has to do with oneness, objective consciousness, spirituality and our essence. The real purpose of the mental centre is quiet, objective inner knowing and a clear vision of life. The true role of the emotional centre in order to bring about connectedness. It is the centre of desire, understanding and spiritual intuition. The true purpose of the physical centre is to really be in the here and now, to bring us in motion and to use our energies to realize our life’s purpose. It is the centre of expression, creativity and freedom. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

The 'normal' state of affairs in most humans is that none of these three centres are functioning in accordance with their true purpose. Ouch! In small children (who are still in touch with their essence), this is still the case. Yey! Unfortunately, once our ego (sense of ‘I’) is activated, the physical centre will start reacting to stress and pain by contracting and removing (part of) our consciousness from the part that hurts. Therefore we are no longer (completely) in contact with our essence. The emotional centre responds by trying to fill the void with other people’s emotions and beliefs and a false identity. This creates a state of deep (existential) anxiety, causing the mental centre to think up various survival strategies, which causes us to contract even more etc. Before long, the centres are only concerned with the preservation of the ego. (Double-ouch! - and if you do not feel any 'ouch' at all, then you really have a problem - or perhaps no problem at all... at least it is something to think about...)

If the mental centre is in the service of the ego, the head is constantly thinking about anything and everything, it is a nonstop chatterbox that just will - not - shut - up. Blah blahblah blah blahblah... The fact is, we live in a constant state of tension and anxiety. To avoid feeling this pain, the head is continuously looking for explanations and searching for strategies to ‘fix our problems’. Recognizable? Not at all? You might recognize this process as something called ‘worrying’.

When the emotional centre under the influence of the ego, it keeps itself busy with mechanical feelings, sentiments, attachment and instinctive emotions such as fear, sadness, frustration, embarrassment, powerlessness etc. Any random impression from the outside world will elicit a pre-programmed emotional response. You may recognize it as: ‘... and again I responded exactly in the same way I always do, even though I was determined to it differently this time!’.

If the physical centre in the service of the ego, we are usually not very aware of our body. In the meantime, our bodies are constantly bracing for impact against any ‘real’ or imagined threat. So we put a 'boundary' between our 'self' and 'danger'. On the other side of the 'border' we feel safe. The result is usually a range of aches and pains, which we can ignore it for a while, but eventually real physical symptoms will manifest.

In effect, all of our centres have been kidnapped by the ego. But before we blame the ego for everything, it is good to remember that (at least in childhood) the ego was only trying to protect us from pain. Most of us lost our connection to essence at a very young age. The ego constructed a false identity to compensate for the loss of contact with our Real Self, so that we did and do not have to feel pain all the time. In other words, being Ego might not be all it is cracked up to be either? The question remains, how much protection do you still need from pain as an adult? How much ego do you really need now?

Oh, oh, oh – what to do, what to do?
Can help our centres to connect with their true purpose again?
The short answer is...
Yes.
But ... it does take some effort.

The good news is that it does not really matter where we start. If we start working on resistance and tension in the body, we will soon enough be confronted with underlying emotions, fears, limiting beliefs and mental strategies. It also works the other way around. It seems , however, that the most efficient place to start, is to start working on the centre that is cut-off or suppressed. More about this in the coming two blogs…

Questions and comments are always welcome! And please Share this blog, if you like what you are reading!

If you want professional help working on (balancing) your centres you can always book a personal Life Coaching session with me.

Want to know more? You might want to check out:
Riso & Hudson / 'Understanding the Enneagram - the practical guide to personality types'
Hurley & Dobson / 'What’s my type?’

You know those turning points in life? Something happens and you just know that nothing will ever be the same again. They seem to come around once in a decade, or so. I have had a few and still remember every one of them as if they happened yesterday.

The latest major turning point: April 2014 - A sunny, cold spring week near Norrköping, Sweden. Primal Therapy: without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done or been through in my whole life. Imagine giving birth seven days on a row - while running a marathon at the same time - and you start getting the picture. After having followed all sorts of personal development and spiritual courses and therapies for a decade, I thought I had a pretty good idea about the different patterns controlling my life. But there was so much more and it went so much deeper than I could have imagined. 

From both family lineages I have inherited a deep, deep fear and distrust of life. Patterns of dissociation, addictions and living a life of death. A need to suppress life, by controlling the self and others through judgment, victimhood or checking out. All these energies still present in MY body, like a sticky, black, sickening substance, infiltrating every organ and every cell.

Me, totally carrying on with the family heritage, not feeling safe in my body, tuning out, addicted to food and comfort, keeping my anger & life force down, believing that if I could just control events and people around me, I would some day feel safe enough to be here, to live. To my shame, this included trying to control my daughter, squashing her life force and spirit. Not because anyone is or was evil (it is not about blame), but because these patterns are so damn hard to break.

All events from the past, including starvation, abuse and wars, the voices of our parents, are still stored in our bodies. Almost all of us are stuck at the emotional level of a 3 year old our whole lives, and we do not even know it. We think we are free, but in reality, we just keep on repeating (or rebelling against) the way our mothers, fathers and ancestors lived. Generation after generation after generation…
 
One week of Primal Therapy and things feel different, lighter somehow (and I am not talking about the extra kilos I lost in the process). The unexpected discovery: all those voices, all that baggage – it is not me. It was never me! I want to be here! I WANT TO LIVE! I had no idea what this body and spirit were capable of, the force that lies inside. I am DONE with living a life of death. From now on I choose FREEDOM and LIFE! 

It is a truly transformative process. One of the most rewarding things that happened so far is to see the change in my daughter and our interaction. She feels so joyful, vibrant and alive and even though she still has her temper and moods, I can finally allow her to be who she is, without trying to control her so that I can feel safe. It is a true blessing. 

And this is only the beginning. Sure, there is a lot of work ahead, but at least now I feel that I have a real shot at actually becoming who I came to be. Feeling like a newborn baby, I have no clue what is coming, but I am ready to trust –knowing with absolute certainty that life will never be the same again. 

Want to know more? Check out:
What is Primal Therapy?
Primal Therapy with Puja
Ground Zero Primal

You can post your comments and questions in the Comments field below, on FaceBook or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to answer. 

Most people will do just about anything to avoid pain. 

If we get too close to a hot stove or an open fire, our body naturally recoils from the heat to protect itself. If we trip and fall on the street, or are about to crash our car, our bodies will brace for impact in an attempt to protect the body and avoid pain. It is a natural instinct, if something hurts, we want to get away from it.

The interesting thing is that most of us show this reaction not only to imminent physically threatening events, but also to imaginary (future or past) events.

Just a small experiment… Close your eyes and picture yourself standing on top of a flight of stairs. Let’s make it a nice and hard polished marble staircase. Feel the unyielding solidity of the stone under your feet. Now… feel your body leaning forward, until you lose your balance and start falling headfirst down the stairs. In slow motion you see the sharp edges coming closer and closer. You know there is nothing you can do to stop the fall. You are microseconds away from crashing your body into the hard stone… Full impact…NOW!

I do not know about you, but if I feel or sense my way through this sequence, I involuntarily start contracting different parts of my body – my stomach muscles contract, my shoulders tense up, my neck and jaw muscles become stiff – all in an attempt to avoid the (imagined!) impact. In my physical ‘reality’ NOTHING is going on, yet, my mind is unable to tell the difference, with the result that my body reacts the same way as if I were actually falling down a flight of stairs.

Fascinating, isn’t it? As you can imagine, this holds true not only for physical pain, but also for different kinds of (imagined or ‘real’) emotional pain.

The words, ‘I hate you!’ will – if uttered with the frequency of pure anger and hatred appropriate for such a statement – create a bodily sensation in anyone receiving it. It is simple physics. Intuitively this is perhaps easiest to understand in relation to sound. In the same way that you can feel the beat of a good bass rhythm in your body if you turn up the volume enough, music, words and other sounds also resonate in your bodily tissues (whether you are actively aware of it or not).

Not only will the (audible) sound of the words move through your body though, the emotion will as well. It is all energy. The only difference is in the frequency (sound) of the emotion, which is higher, and outside our range of hearing.

And that is all! … Or rather, this is how it could be:
Hateful words are uttered. They move through our body. We feel them. We move on.
However, for most of us, the story does not end there. Because we resist.

Most people, including me, do not truly want to feel negative emotions. Negative emotions feel uncomfortable. They feel bad. They feel painful. Or rather, most people associate negative emotions with pain, suffering and feeling bad in their mind. Just as with the example of the staircase, the image of pain in our heads (whether ‘real’ or imagined) causes our bodies to contract. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Nonetheless, contraction never feels good (just try contracting all your muscles and then let them go all at once - the relaxed state sure feels better).

And most people just want to feel good. What is wrong with that? Well, nothing, of course… given a choice everyone would choose to feel good over bad. The problem is: life simply does not always feel good. Yet, most of us are trapped by elaborate strategies to avoid feeling pain and resist whatever does not feel good.

Sooner or later we will encounter a situation that feels painful, whether it is emotional or physical pain. For most of us this happens sooner, rather than later. Starting the first time our parents do not come immediately when we cry, the first time we are hungry and do not get milk immediately, the first time we fall and are not comforted but are told to toughen up, the first time we are jumping up and down in anger, but are prevented from expressing our full will by well meaning parents who try to distract us instead. It happens to all of us, over and over and over again. So we build walls around ourselves to avoid feeling the pain. 

There are many different systems that describe these walls. One of my favourites is the enneagram. This system recognizes nine different defence mechanisms and strategies for avoiding pain. 
… There’s a silver lining to every cloud. Let’s do something fun instead (7).
… Others may have issues, but I certainly do not. I am in control (8).
… I do not really need anything anyway. Let me help you instead (2).
… I need to know more about this (5).
… I need to adjust my response or fix this to make it perfect (1).
… There’s something wrong with me, I am not worthy of a life without pain (4).
… It is your fault. I need structure to feel safe (6).
… Failure is not an option. I can turn this into a success (3).
… If everything would be peaceful all would be well (9). 

My preferred strategy is to tune out. I will just disappear into my head (either going into dream mode (9) or analyzing my feelings(5)) or get out of my body completely (9). Because if I am not really here, I cannot feel pain (nor any real happiness, but that’s just the price that has to be paid). Another favourite of mine is to comfort and numb myself with food, chocolate, tv… or anything else that will give me a sense of ‘fullness’ (9) – so I do not have to actually feel the emptiness inside me. 

This has worked reasonably well for the past 40 years (note that the words ‘reasonably well’ are yet another 9-strategy: ‘I’m fine… it’s OK as it is…’). Do not get me wrong – defence mechanisms are a necessary part of the life of most children. And yes, a healthy sense of fear is a handy thing to have when you are standing on the edge of the abyss. But… I am 40 years old. Do I really still need all these strategies??? And another question: what is it costing me to keep up these defences?

During the past few months I have had quite a ride with regard to my (ego)defences. Although I have worked with the enneagram for a decade or so, it seems I never truly believed that it was possible to transcend these mechanisms. After all, we need some kind of ego in order to interact with other people. Even with people who are clearly higher up the spiritual ladder (guru’s and such), different enneatypical behaviours are still recognizable. 

Obviously, I still have not transcended all my mechanisms. I feel things changing, though, more than ever before. Two keys for actually wanting to change things was 1) to fully see and accept that my defence mechanisms are still very much active at a subconscious level and 2) the realization how much my defences are costing me. 

In my case, tuning out and numbing myself in order not to fully feel has been the biggest energy thief of my life. I thought I just had low energy reserves and needed to be really careful with my body, my activities, how I spent my time and with whom I interacted. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the more I actively engage in my life, the more I exercise, the more I connect with the anger I feel inside – the more energy I get, the more alive I feel and the more free I feel to be myself. And paradoxically – the more I allow negative emotions and pain in my system by staying present regardless of what presents itself – the better I feel.

So, take another look at the list of pain avoidance strategies above. You just might recognize yourself in one or two of these typical behaviours… and ask yourself how much your resistance and defences against pain are costing you? 

Is it a price worth paying?

I must have been about eight or nine years old when my teacher at school asked each pupil in the class to write and illustrate his or her own fairy tale. When the project was finished, I held the end product in my hands – a yellow exercise book with orange dots containing a story about a princess. I do not even remember how the story went. What I do remember is the feeling of holding that book in my hand and realizing that the story did not feel like mine at all. It was no unique creation, but rather a mix of regurgitated fragments of tales I had read before. Although I loved to write, after that day, that feeling stayed with me – a voice at the back of my head, whispering to me that I was telling somebody else’s stories and not my own.

As I became older, my writing gradually became less and less free. The more I tried to follow ‘the rules’, the more difficult it became to write. The more difficult it became, the more pressure I put on myself to get it right. Writing a simple essay or column felt like the wrestling match of the century. I simply could not relax into the process and let the words come – I had to control them. I felt stifled by the form I thought was imposed by others on my writing. Although, in reality, I was being suffocated by the harness of rules and perfection, in which I had encased myself.

When I went to university, I basically gave up creative writing and focused on my scientific career instead. In science, the rules of writing are uncompromising; the structure of a scientific paper, including the placement of every dot and comma is predetermined. In essence, the rules imposed from the outside were even more constricting than my own. Strangely enough, at some level, it felt like a relief. I did not need to be creative; I did not have show myself or be myself, at all. At another level, after following those rules for ten years, after writing other people’s stories for a decade, every cell in my body was aching to be free.

I embarked on a journey of personal development and self-discovery. Peeling off layer after layer of protecting armour that was clouding my mind, encasing my body and surrounding my heart. Allowing my mind to absorb new knowledge beyond the conventional. Allowing my body to feel its pain and to express itself freely in movement. Allowing my heart to open up and express itself through my voice. Opening myself up to the present moment.

One day, I felt words inside, words wanting to be released. A hesitant start, taking baby steps, unsure what was expected of me, how to navigate this uncharted territory. Being afraid that it was going to feel like before, that I would freeze, that nothing would come out. Grappling internally with my self worth – or lack thereof: What could I possibly have to say that would interest anyone? Incredibly afraid that my writing was not going to be enough; that I was not going to be good enough. A that moment a friend gave me the decisive push I so needed. ‘Milena’, she said, ‘I want you to write something to me, every day for the next two weeks’. The topic: ‘What I love about myself’.

I had tried free writing exercises before. For me, they had never worked. For some unfathomable reason, this did. The exercise gave me just enough structure to be able to find the beginnings of a shape, yet was boundless enough to encourage free fall. I started writing whatever came into my mind and miraculously a structure and distinct style started to develop from within.

I found out that I love writing about nature and the connectedness that can be experienced in the natural world. I look at all the ugly things in this world and give myself permission to change my perception and find beauty, even when my mental and emotional habits are telling me otherwise. I enjoy contemplating spiritual and existential questions – trying to feel and understand what this whole life experience is all about. And I adore the feeling when the words come out just right, engaging all the senses and capturing that fleeting moment of clarity. 

The process of writing always was (and still is) a perfect mirror of the level of freedom I feel and the room I have within myself to be myself. As long as I am not free to be myself, I cannot express what I feel inside. I cannot tell my own story. That 8 year-old girl already knew this. So she embarked on a journey, determined to find her own voice and her own story. She has travelled a long way, and has a long way to travel still; opening up to the present moment and whatever wants to be seen. In the process discovering that it is not so much about writing her own story, as it is about allowing life to tell its story through her.

The other day my daughter was playing with my old smurfs. All music smurfs were grouped together in and around the smurf house. Other smurfs were divided into groups on the basis of other characteristics. Then I noticed that one smurf was all alone in a corner, on the other side of the room. The angry smurf .

I asked my daughter why that smurf was standing all alone, so far away.
- "I do not like him," was the reply.
- "Why don’t you like him?", I asked .
- "Because he is angry," she replied.
- "Is that the reason he has to be alone? Maybe he is very sad being there all alone? Can’t he play with the others? ", I asked.
- "No, he stays there. I do NOT like him!", she said .
End of discussion.

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... From where do I recognize this behaviour? Purely hypothetically speaking... Could it be that Mom has some tiny issues with disharmony in general and anger in particular? Could it be that Mom occasionally gets quite annoyed by the “I-want-to-decide-everything-myself “ attitude of a little 5 year old? Could it be that Mom totally loses it from time to time? Could it be that the voices in Mom's head are judging her without mercy and that she feels extremely guilty for not being able to control her anger? Could it be that Mom does not really want to feel anger at all? Could it be that Mom sends her anger way into a corner far away? Could it be that the anger is actually quite sad, but that the anger is rejected just because Mum does not like it? Like an angry smurf who is not allowed to play with the other smurfs… Could it be?

Later that night the angry smurf was still standing alone in the naughty corner. I reached out to my daughter again:
- "You know what, I think that the angry smurf feels very sad and alone. And you know what, just because someone looks angry or does angry things does not mean that this person is also angry at the core, deep inside. Why don’t we let him play with the other smurfs?” 
- "No," she replied.
- "But how would you feel yourself as you felt angry and no one wanted to play with you?", I asked .
- ... (Some deep thinking going on, no answer )
- "You know what, he feels so sad to me that I want to send him some light from my heart. Which colour do you think he would like?”, I asked.
- "Maybe purple," she said .
- “What a good idea, I will send purple light... Look, he is all purple and happy inside. He still looks very angry on the outside, but he is quite different on the inside.
- "I will send him a colour as well," my daughter said. "Now he is purple, light and happy inside ... I think he's sweet." She walked over to the angry smurf in the corner, picked him up and put him down with the music smurfs. And from that moment onwards the angry smurf was allowed to play with the other smurfs again. 
---

- “Mum.”
- "Yes?"
- "You do understand that smurfs are just toys, don’t you?”
- "Mmm - hmm."

A few weeks ago I was in an exceptionally calm and happy place during a whole weekend (after a pretty mind blowing spiritual experience). I was open, easygoing, in tune and connected; feeling my own needs and the needs of my husband and daughter, able to do what was asked in the moment and respond to my own needs and those of others without feeling conflicted. (Yep, I want to experience that more often as well).

During that weekend, my five-year-old daughter was happy, radiant, friendly, spontaneously helping out clearing out the whole(!) table, simply wonderful and a true joy to be around.

Now she is testing boundaries, fighting me every step of the way (especially in the morning). She just wants to play (of course she does) and refuses to conform to my rules (which I do not even like myself). She is acting out and going into drama (which really drives me insane).

Me? I feel a lot of frustration. I feel contracted in mind and my body (tense shoulders, tight belly, buttocks all clenched up). I see myself acting out old familiar (fear based) patterns – feeling an almost compulsive need to control what she does, how she does it, what she eats. Feeling nauseous with myself and beating myself up for being that way (I am especially accomplished at that!).

I see that I become triggered especially when there’s time pressure of some kind (having to get to school on time). I hear this voice in my head: ‘We HAVE TO get to school on time, because otherwise…’ Yes? How exactly is the world going to end, if a 5-year-old child is 5 minutes late for school?

I get triggered when she is going into drama. I try to reason with her from my mind (which, of course does not work at all). I need to contain her emotional outbursts (because they feel unsafe to me). I have this idea that I to behave like an authority figure and set boundaries. But how do you set loving boundaries without acting old-school authoritarian?   

Hmmm… I wonder if these experiences are linked somehow? (she said with sarcasm dripping from her voice). No seriously, although I have known at some levels (and in my mind) that children really reflect us back to ourselves, this time around the game has been taken to a whole new level. There’s no place to hide anymore (and believe me, I have been searching).

It is what it is: maybe the best thing I can do is simply to accept the facts as they are?
- I feel open and connected. Result: She feels open and connected.
- I feel closed and constricted. Result: She feels closed and constricted.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
you are no different from me at all...
I may not want to stay,
but it is useless to turn away.

Even if I do not agree,
you are just another reflection of me.
Anger, sadness, joy and shame -
we might seem different, but are one and the same.

If I feel closed, I can relax as much as possible and open up again to whatever is, now, in this moment. I can actively remember that many of the voices I hear in my head are old behavioural programmes stemming from my own childhood (and generations before that). If my mind feels the need to control the situation and her drama (= my inner drama?), I can try to do the opposite: feel my body, relax, feel safe in myself and do my best to stay calm. And I can really work on that guilt thing I have going, be compassionate with myself and stop beating myself up when I get it ‘wrong’. How’s that for a start?

I would love to hear from you as well! What are your experiences with children as mirrors? What do you do to stay in a healthy mother / parent energy?