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?’
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?’
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