enneagram passions

Enneagram – Type STRENGTHS (Part 3)

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enn water over rocksPREVIOUS: STRENGTHS (#2)

SITE: Popular Enneagram books

 

 

♟️ FALL from Higher Essence Qualities to Ego Distortions
Oscar Ichazo made a connection between the Tree of Life & the Enneagram symbol.  This chart shows his hierarchy of expressions.   While everyone has the potential to embody all of the Holy Ideas and Virtues, one version of each (pr. type) is central to each soul’s identity. So when one or both are missing, the loss is acutely felt, & the person’s ego (conscious False Self) becomes totally preoccupied with recreating them – although in futile, self-defeating ways.

Any loss or absence of connection to spiritual Truth generates a specific delusion /fixation, showing up as the underlying Toxic Rules of our Wounded Self. Each delusion forms the center of a psychological complex, which is the core of that particular fixation
Loss of awareness of the Holy Idea becomes a person’s Ego-fixation, &
Loss of contact with the Virtue forms the person’s characteristic Passion.

 ↗️ Ego-fixations & Passions  (review posts) represent how spiritual qualities shrink into Ego States.  The Enneagram’s 9 types indicate the main ways we lose our specific center, which creates distortions in thinking, feeling, & doing.  The Passions can also be considered our untamed animal nature before being transformed by contact from higher-awareness & Grace.

↗️ Instinctual Self  –  a primal aspect of personality. The Enneagram’s 3 instincts : Self-preservation, Social / Adaptation, Sexual / Attraction. Also a “Blind-spot instinct. (MORE…. )
Our dominant one insures our fundamental survival in the physical world, but in so doing can block the way to growth. They become an anchoring counter-balance to the higher spiritual Essential Self, rooting us in the dualistic (good-bad) defended Self, causing a habitual overuse of our survival strategies.
Spiritual & emotional growth comes from being able to balance, release & transform our instinctual nature into its higher opposite.

♟️ LAW of THREE – states that any creative act or Process requires three dynamic forces to manifest. And the Law of Octaves / Sevens – how vibrations & all creative processes proceed in periodic stages / waves, like the musical scale.

Personal growth proceeds around the Inner Points of the circle via the ‘spiritual’ octave Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do, toward full Essence /Consciousness (#9). Each octave is a circulatory system with a set of specific demands placed on it.
As energy circulates, it’s expressed by specific characteristics, depending on its proximity to the Divine,  🔑 starting at the Mechanical / Automatic way of functioning on the right side – THRU 🔐 #1-the way of the body, #2-the way of love & #4-the way of power, which need to be learned before moving up the left side.

PINK = closest to the divine, (“do”, the absolute) are material expressions on the  right, & wisdom on the left.
GREEN = represents the heart, the mediating zone between the most holy at the top – and –
BLUE = at bottom are manifestations of intelligence & awareness, being furthest from the divine.

Enneagram use  : for self-observation & inner work to deal with daily obstacles, with conscious effort instead of pre-set reactions.  ALSO – to help break out of “stuckness”.
🔆Affirming (#3) = prodding or unfolding force for growth – the active, dynamic energy that initiates action & moves things forward
🔆Denying (#6)= resisting or contracting force providing structure, limits, & grounded reality, as the necessary friction against which Affirming pushes 
🔆Reconciling (#9) = resulting harmony or neutral force that reconciles the two extremes. It holds the big picture, serving as the neutral stability that allows creation, movement & completion.

♟️ The Universal Principles of Being, Grace, Mercy – in Enneagram studies –  are seen as the bridge between flawed ego structures & True Nature. They are divine forces driving the engine of the universe & function according to spiritual laws in every octave, regardless of a person’s ‘developmental level’.
❣️ Grace = unmerited favor, which is not earned
❤️‍🩹 Mercy = withheld punishment which is deserved
💝 Being = Cosmic consciousness expands naturally into personality types (1-9) according to these principles, as:  Materiality, Desire, Conscious Labor, Power, Being, Intentional Suffering, Purification, Knowing, Essence. 

NOTE that the strengths & weaknesses of each type are two sides of the one coin. There is NO point in wanting to change to another type, since that would just mean swapping one set of problems for another.

NEXT: Type VIRTUES (Part 4a)

Enneagram – Type “DEFECTS” (Part 1)

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enn weaknessI DON’T WANT TO ADMIT TO
my biggest weak spot!

PREVIOUS: Enneagram Basics (#3)

SITES: Enneagram Videos
•“The Enneagram of Individuality”

• ‘Spiritual Desire & Blocks’
• Karen Horney & the Enneagram

‘DEFECTS’ / Defenses :  In trying to identify our own Type, most people will choose the number that makes us look good & reject the one that indicates our Shadow side. However, the ‘normal’ defense of each number is the most direct indicator of our True Number, so it’s best to start with the list of the 9 Grand Passions. Even though we share a portion of all nine qualities with everyone else, determining our type will depend on the main life-long motivation for our behavior, & the Passion gives us that. 

The PASSIONS / VICES are the characteristic defensive styles each Type is born with to cope with life’s stressors. Each VICE/Passion, with its accompanying Fixation can also be called character defects, main Emotional Issues, Mental Habits, defensive styles, used here interchangeably. They’re the opposite of the 7 Virtues (+ 2)

Our Enneagram Number tells us who we are (Nature),
along with our basic reactive style (Nurture),
shown by how we habitually react (Es) & what we do (As) – especially when stressed. CHART —>

◆ The Passion is the form of self-protection which we automatically gravitate to, based on our fundamental personality – originally a positive way of Being we can call our gift. This gift is a necessary & effective strategy for our survival as children, used to cope specifically with an unhealthy/unsafe upbringing, & in general with the universal difficulties of growing up.

• For most people the Passion gradually becomes a warped version of our Basic Self, exaggerating & twisting the very quality that is supposed to be our cushion & shield.
Instead, prolonged childhood damage turns the gift into a burden. It becomes a chronic internal preoccupation & counter-productive driving force, putting us in a ‘type trance’, with limited & distorted ways of understanding & dealing with reality.
EXP: The Passion of #1 is Perfection, the emotion is Resentment, & the Mental Fixation is Judging.

Enneatype & Fixations
The Enneatype is the tool for human expression free of longing & searching. It can be described as an imaginary membrane between fixation & freedom, the basic energetic pattern of human potential before it becomes perverted.

Fixation is being stuck in a Freudian psycho-sexual stage of development (oral, anal…), as a result of the child feeling ‘not enough’, incomplete, & therefore separate, not connected. This separated Self is a physical/ mental contraction which tightens up into the Type’s fixation, creating all inauthentic or unnatural behaviors, driven by desperate longing, & a search for the impossible.   (Fixation CHART)

The Passion develops in a 3-stage process:
a. IDEAL: Karen Horney, in Neurosis and Human Growth says that “gradually & unconsciously we create an idealized image of ourself, which entails self-glorification, & gives us the much-needed feeling of significance & superiority over others.”  This eventually leads to type-specific character defects.
EXP of Types uncomfortable with the Enneagram :
— 4s, the romantics who don’t want to look at the negative side of others
— 7s, the narcissists who never want to see their own negative side

b. LIFE STANCE: Our preoccupation with this self-image prevents us from allowing anything to seep into our awareness which would contradict or negate it. According to Horney, if we only look at the world thru ‘idealized glasses’, then our primary concern is not about what we truly feel, but whether or not we feel safe.
To feel safe – from being discovered as imperfect – and to be able to stay inside the idealized bubble, we develop strategic but artificial ways to cope with life that override & bury our genuine emotions, wishes & thoughts. c. UNDER STRESS: In addition to our ‘regular’ in-authentic mode, when we have to deal with stressful situations, especially long-term, our fixation gets darker, turning it into the negative Passion/Vice. We act out a twisted version of our self-image, adding to our burden. Over-reacting may be a temporary but characteristic flare-up, or the way we usually deal with people-places-things, even when not directly faced with a problem. Either way it separates us from others instead of drawing us closer together – causing more stress!

NEXT: Ennea “Defects” (Part 2)