07-23-2010, 01:01 PM
Lines of Integration
Now we get to the unique part of the Enneagram, which I find very exciting.
Types 3, 6, and 9 are equally spaced around the Enneagram circle. In the Enneagram diagram, they are connected with lines that form an equilateral triangle.
When a type 3 person fulfills his or her purpose, working hard to do their very best, the result is earned internal admiration for this valuable accomplishment.
Now, what can a person do with this confidence? How about moving on to the positive type 6 energy of healthy collaboration? If you have done your best, and other people in your group also strive to do their best, doesn't that give you the best reason to have a totally trusting and productive working relationship? This is what we see in the best of athletic teams, or the community spirit of the Olympic Village. It's what we see in groups of artists and musicians who each strive for individual excellence, and therefore can be totally open to each other's ways to step up their creativity.
It's what we see in business teams where any one worker or executive on their own would not be able to do nearly as much as they can do together. Apple's two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, are a great example. Jobs could never have personally figured out how to optimize a design to use fewer chips and work flawlessly. Woz could haver have personally figured out how to get funding, start a business and promote products. It didn't occur to Woz that a preassembled computer in a case could be a big seller. It didn't occur to Jobs to use a quirk in the color TV standard to double the resolution available from a single output device. Both designer and promoter were at the top of their game and pushed each other further.
It's also what we see in any field where experts collaborate at a level that challenges everyone to reach deep inside and pull out their previously hidden best (type 3). There are lots of examples of this in drama, such as many of the classic face-offs between characters in Star Trek with opposing points of view, and any number of comedy teams far funnier together than on their own.
Let's shift our starting point over to point 6. Take a type 6 person who has fulfilled their best work, of loyal service to a team with a worthy cause. Now, if somebody like that sees an issue, are they afraid to speak up about it? Not at all, because they know that they can always find others as loyal and dedicated as they are themself. Therefore, they are at peace with the situation... like an evolved type 9.
Moving over to type 9, what happens when a person is at peace with their inner connection with God? Well, this can inspire them to know that if they make mistakes, or a big splash, it's all OK because God's love is still with them. This takes away the fear of trying something new or ambitious. As a result, the healthy type 9 can then shift forward to living the positive self-development challenge of type 3.
This is the line of integration.
Unfortunately it works in reverse.
Let's take someone who is innately type 3. But they don't want to rise to the challenge of overcoming their own personal opportunity for growth. Instead, they want to be praised without the work, and what's more, they don't want any backtalk or criticism. They try to manipulate other people into giving them a false version of the peace of type 9.
Let's take someone who is innately type 6. But they don't value their own contribution enough to avoid throwing their pearls before swine. Not realizing the futility of their cause, they may slide back into the worst of type 3, maybe working extra-hard at providing singing lessons to the pigs. Great devotion to a worthless cause doesn't bring about either loyalty or admiration.
And let's take someone who is innately type 9. Maybe they lived in the days when abolition of slavery was starting to heat up as a political possibility. And not wanting to annoy the neighbors, they shut up about their conscience when it was time to speak out. In doing so, they slid backwards into a losing caricature of type 6's loyalty.
This is the direction of DISintegration.
In normal life, no matter who we are,
We should do our best so we can be proud of ourselves, like a healthy type 3.
We should be loyal to an equally dedicated team, so we can together achieve even more with mutual loyalty, like a healthy type 6.
We should celebrate our shared achievement and hard work with an appreciation of the moment's beauty and peace, like a healthy type 9.
And in everyday life, no matter who we are,
We can be tempted to seize unearned glory, like an unhealthy type 3 trying to bamboozle a limited God of toys and favors, just like a toddler trying to get Mommy to give cookies for toys never actually put away!
We can be tempted to work harder to buy loyalty of disloyal people, like an unhealthy type 6 trying to bamboozle a limited God of practical help, just like a teenager of a drunk Dad trying to be a good enough kid and student so Dad won't have to drink any more.
We can be tempted to pretend that appeasement brings peace in our time, like an unhealthy type 9 evading an uncomfortable truth rather than being the lighthouse of conscience and love that they should be.
These are ways we can be aware of attitudes, or states of consciousness, available to all of us at any moment throughout the day. Like a skillful carpenter, we can pick up and put down the appropriate tool at the right place. It's appropriate for the carpenter to use a tape measure to find a length, use a pencil to mark it, then use a saw to cut it. If the carpenter cuts first, then measures how they cut too much, what good is the pencil? The states of being described by the Enneagram should be a natural flow in all of our lives.
The Enneagram is not a static picture, but a representation of a moving flow of energy that should gently cycle throughout our lives without blockage. This only happens if we use each of these perspectives as an opportunity to reach up for the transcendence of enlightenment inherently there for us in each moment.
Now we get to the unique part of the Enneagram, which I find very exciting.
Types 3, 6, and 9 are equally spaced around the Enneagram circle. In the Enneagram diagram, they are connected with lines that form an equilateral triangle.
When a type 3 person fulfills his or her purpose, working hard to do their very best, the result is earned internal admiration for this valuable accomplishment.
Now, what can a person do with this confidence? How about moving on to the positive type 6 energy of healthy collaboration? If you have done your best, and other people in your group also strive to do their best, doesn't that give you the best reason to have a totally trusting and productive working relationship? This is what we see in the best of athletic teams, or the community spirit of the Olympic Village. It's what we see in groups of artists and musicians who each strive for individual excellence, and therefore can be totally open to each other's ways to step up their creativity.
It's what we see in business teams where any one worker or executive on their own would not be able to do nearly as much as they can do together. Apple's two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, are a great example. Jobs could never have personally figured out how to optimize a design to use fewer chips and work flawlessly. Woz could haver have personally figured out how to get funding, start a business and promote products. It didn't occur to Woz that a preassembled computer in a case could be a big seller. It didn't occur to Jobs to use a quirk in the color TV standard to double the resolution available from a single output device. Both designer and promoter were at the top of their game and pushed each other further.
It's also what we see in any field where experts collaborate at a level that challenges everyone to reach deep inside and pull out their previously hidden best (type 3). There are lots of examples of this in drama, such as many of the classic face-offs between characters in Star Trek with opposing points of view, and any number of comedy teams far funnier together than on their own.
Let's shift our starting point over to point 6. Take a type 6 person who has fulfilled their best work, of loyal service to a team with a worthy cause. Now, if somebody like that sees an issue, are they afraid to speak up about it? Not at all, because they know that they can always find others as loyal and dedicated as they are themself. Therefore, they are at peace with the situation... like an evolved type 9.
Moving over to type 9, what happens when a person is at peace with their inner connection with God? Well, this can inspire them to know that if they make mistakes, or a big splash, it's all OK because God's love is still with them. This takes away the fear of trying something new or ambitious. As a result, the healthy type 9 can then shift forward to living the positive self-development challenge of type 3.
This is the line of integration.
Unfortunately it works in reverse.
Let's take someone who is innately type 3. But they don't want to rise to the challenge of overcoming their own personal opportunity for growth. Instead, they want to be praised without the work, and what's more, they don't want any backtalk or criticism. They try to manipulate other people into giving them a false version of the peace of type 9.
Let's take someone who is innately type 6. But they don't value their own contribution enough to avoid throwing their pearls before swine. Not realizing the futility of their cause, they may slide back into the worst of type 3, maybe working extra-hard at providing singing lessons to the pigs. Great devotion to a worthless cause doesn't bring about either loyalty or admiration.
And let's take someone who is innately type 9. Maybe they lived in the days when abolition of slavery was starting to heat up as a political possibility. And not wanting to annoy the neighbors, they shut up about their conscience when it was time to speak out. In doing so, they slid backwards into a losing caricature of type 6's loyalty.
This is the direction of DISintegration.
In normal life, no matter who we are,
We should do our best so we can be proud of ourselves, like a healthy type 3.
We should be loyal to an equally dedicated team, so we can together achieve even more with mutual loyalty, like a healthy type 6.
We should celebrate our shared achievement and hard work with an appreciation of the moment's beauty and peace, like a healthy type 9.
And in everyday life, no matter who we are,
We can be tempted to seize unearned glory, like an unhealthy type 3 trying to bamboozle a limited God of toys and favors, just like a toddler trying to get Mommy to give cookies for toys never actually put away!
We can be tempted to work harder to buy loyalty of disloyal people, like an unhealthy type 6 trying to bamboozle a limited God of practical help, just like a teenager of a drunk Dad trying to be a good enough kid and student so Dad won't have to drink any more.
We can be tempted to pretend that appeasement brings peace in our time, like an unhealthy type 9 evading an uncomfortable truth rather than being the lighthouse of conscience and love that they should be.
These are ways we can be aware of attitudes, or states of consciousness, available to all of us at any moment throughout the day. Like a skillful carpenter, we can pick up and put down the appropriate tool at the right place. It's appropriate for the carpenter to use a tape measure to find a length, use a pencil to mark it, then use a saw to cut it. If the carpenter cuts first, then measures how they cut too much, what good is the pencil? The states of being described by the Enneagram should be a natural flow in all of our lives.
The Enneagram is not a static picture, but a representation of a moving flow of energy that should gently cycle throughout our lives without blockage. This only happens if we use each of these perspectives as an opportunity to reach up for the transcendence of enlightenment inherently there for us in each moment.