What Tragedy is Teaching Me About Death and Personality

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the world and its sorrows. A tiny sampling includes: The death of a friend in his early 20s and the widowhood of his pregnant wife. 9/11. The death of my precious friends’ two children at the hands of a drunk driver. And now, I add the ISIS attacks of November 13 in Paris to a list that is already too long.

In high school, the pain of my childhood expanded to include all the evils I saw in the world, the long litany of horrors that people have committed against each other since the dawn of history. It was too much to bear. At that time, the logical conclusion seemed to be that God wasn’t a very good God and, therefore, I wasn’t interested in believing in him anymore.

But that is never the correct conclusion. My sorrow did not improve. Well, it turns out that God is a good God. He kept whispering in my ear, “It’s going to get better,” even though I didn’t know it was him, and even when no evidence I could see supported the idea. He connected me with a woman who discipled me and helped me see God’s character and kindness through his history of mercy and second chances that we call the Bible.

Still, pain persists in the world. The joy and hope that I have in the core of my being, deposited there by the Holy Spirit, enable me to persevere. Most of the time. But when an overwhelming horror takes place, like 9/11 or November 13, my first impulse is to say to God, “I’m done. I don’t want to live in this horrible, painful world anymore. Just take me now.”

I said that to him last Friday night as the reports flooded in. And without me even asking, he showed up with his comforting love presence and just held me. For hours.

The next morning, as I was brushing my teeth, two thoughts came to me:

• As we become less identified with our personalities, we will fear our own death less.
• Death is not the enemy.

Here’s how I unpack these thoughts. We are thoroughly convinced that what makes us who we are is a particular combination of preferences, opinions, abilities and gifts. We walk through life locked into a particular set of patterns that we think define us. We become invested in our definitions, attached to them. Because we think that makes us who we are, we must defend them at all costs.

This defensive posture extends to death. It is the ultimate loss of self, as our personalities see it. Death is the enemy, then – an inevitability that we will fight against until our last breath. Even Christians, who believe that we are eternal creatures with an amazing eternity ahead of us. Most of us have gotten the idea that the goal of this life is to live as long as possible. But why?

Again, I believe it’s because we are so deeply identified with our personalities. According to one of nine different sets of patterns, we subconsciously fight to keep our “selves” alive. But if we can begin to relax those patterns by becoming aware of them, as the Enneagram teaches us to, we begin to see and feel our true selves that have been hidden for so long. We begin to sense that eternal part of us, the place in us where the Holy Spirit has taken up residence. We begin to feel our eternal-ness. And then our own deaths seem less scary, less catastrophic. We begin to understand in a more concrete, settled way that death is, in fact, not our enemy.

These thoughts have created a pretty radical shift in me. I have a lot more peace these last few days. I continue to grieve for the precious human beings senselessly murdered in Paris, and so many other places around the world. Yet now I am not so afraid of a similar fate happening to me. I will continue to let go of my personality, continue to identify with my true self, and what will be will be.

The “Win-Win” Scenario: The Beauty Behind the Cliché

Sometimes a phrase becomes popular because it represents a really good idea. And then it becomes so common that people begin to subtly change its meaning to fit their own understanding or their own needs – and it becomes so overused that it ends up as a cliché. It can even become so trite that it gets lampooned, ending up as the topic of comedy sketch or a symbol of the latest slick, corporate, heartless strategy. Such is the case with “win-win.”

However, just as with many clichés, this phrase represents a powerful concept. And this one carries with it profound implications for our lives.

To fully appreciate it, we first need to look at its opposite: the zero-sum game. In such a game, one person or team wins (that is represented as +1) and one person or team loses (-1). Add those numbers together, and you get zero. Now, you can’t take this too literally; a basketball team can win by 50 points, for instance. But the point here is that there is a win, and there is a loss. One team wins, and one loses. You can’t have two winners, and you can’t have two losers.

Okay, some sports have matches that can end in a draw! But that’s the exception to the rule, and no one is satisfied when that happens. THAT is really the point here: everyone is disappointed when there is not one winner and one loser. It feels incomplete; it feels like wasted effort. And that’s because our brains are conditioned to want a tidy zero sum at the end.

This idea has been around since the dawn of humanity. The story of Cain and Abel is perhaps the first zero-sum game on record: one winner, one loser. Everything from small skirmishes to full-out wars have been fought based on this premise. If you have the right to use that water source, I do not. If my people inhabit this land, yours cannot.

I saw a commercial recently for modern-day gold miners, and one of the series’ stars said, “There can only be one king.” My immediate thought was, “No, that’s not true.” That’s just an assumption humanity has repeated over and over until we rarely question it.

A zero-sum mentality is borne of two elements: the fear of scarcity and the ego. The fear of scarcity seems quite real. Are we not continually told that we lack adequate resources to care for the people of the world? Here’s an example that’s more personal: If someone else buys the last carton of milk, then there is none for me. Or, if I give away my last bit of food to someone in need, there won’t be any food left for me. That seems to make sense, right? Until we remember that God is exceptionally good at miracles, at making something out of nothing, or out of very little. A certain incident with loaves and fishes comes to mind…

That’s a whole blog post in itself, and I understand the potential “But what about…?” arguments that might arise. Let’s leave that for another day and go on to the other element undergirding zero-sum scenarios: ego. Back to the miner’s comment: “There can only be one king.” Well, why do you WANT to be king? Why isn’t it enough to collect the gold you find and move on? It’s because the ego (the personality) wants us to be the best at something—anything—to prove that we are worthy of the love and affirmation we all so desperately crave yet are convinced we don’t deserve.

So, to prove that I am the best at something, I have to be better than someone else, or than many others. Yet God calls us to the radical idea that we are already utterly beloved, that there is nothing we need to do—in fact, nothing we can do—to earn that love. We can’t earn the “bragging rights” of having displaced someone else to gain God’s affection. We don’t need to prove ourselves.

When I was researching this post, I saw next to “win-win scenario” this phrase: abundance mentality. Is that not the exact opposite of a scarcity mentality? Abundance is the assumption that underlies the win-win scenario. Here, there is not one winner and one loser. There are individuals or teams working together toward a common goal. There is no need to dominate. No one needs to be the king, or the queen, or the winner. Trust in the God of abundant love and abundant provision sets us free from the need to compete. Then we can focus on caring for and serving each other.

That’s what I call a win-win.

The Value of Sitting Still

I have what’s called a sitting practice. It’s pretty much what it sounds like: I practice sitting still! It would seem like sitting would be the easiest thing in the world, right? Something that requires no effort. Millions of people do it in front of the TV every day, specifically because sitting requires no effort.

But that’s not the kind of sitting I’m talking about. In sitting practice, I sit still in a QUIET environment that’s free of distractions. In this kind of stillness, I am not trying to do anything. Rather, I am trying to be.

This is much more difficult than it sounds. Because we are predominately controlled by our minds, our inner life is constantly full of chatter: memories, opinions, hopes, fantasies…The mind thinks this is what we need, but it’s not. When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? All this chatter is the mind’s nails. The mind can only try to fix what it perceives as wrong with thought, with mental doing. Quietness gives the mind nothing to do, and that’s at least uncomfortable, because it’s out of the norm – and at most, terrifying.

There’s a reason God did not say, “Let your mind race while you’re multi-tasking and know that I am God.” It’s because you can’t give complete attention to multiple things. The quality of your attention is very important. Instead, he said, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) because when you stop doing everything else, you can focus on knowing that God is.

I am not referring to prayer here. I am referring to knowing, to experiencing without actively doing. Active intercession, supplication and adoration all have their place, but it is not here. In this place of quiet stillness, I am making contact with the God of the universe who resides within me. I am actually, if I can let go of all that addictive mental doing, experiencing his is-ness, as it were.

If I take the time to get to that place, there is stillness and peace and joy that defy description. There is sudden clarity about the holiness and hugeness of God. I can feel and know by experience all the attributes of God that I have previously just read about. They become alive to me – and in me. And later, out again in the noisy world, they will become alive through me.

Last night as I sat in stillness, I was suddenly given the impression or understanding that being still before God is the equivalent of John leaning his head against Jesus’ chest.

Stillness is an act of love. It is whole in itself. Nothing more needs to be done. It is Mary choosing the better part. Action will come, but the lesson our fast-paced, start-up culture needs to learn is that the most valuable doing flows from being, not from thinking.

The Freedom of Not Knowing

When I was studying with Wycliffe in Texas, I had to take a class called “Intercultural Communication and Training.” One day, the instructor showed a Venn diagram that showed, essentially, what you personally believe, what another person or culture believes, and what is true (what God believes). This was a long time ago, and I’m not really doing the diagram justice, because it had a profound effect on me. It made me mad!

The instructor’s point was that we cannot know everything, and beliefs that we cherish might not be ones that God shares. This was very disturbing to me, because I felt sure (as a Head type) that with enough study we could know everything we needed to know and have rock-solid, irreproachable theology. I remember lamenting in class, “But I want to know absolute truth!”

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That’s not a bad thing. In a world where absolutes are less and less regarded and adhered to, wanting to know what is real and true can transform your sphere of influence. It’s just that book learning and correct ideas are not the whole picture. In fact, left to their own devices, they can lead to the harsh legalism that we’ve seen from time to time through history in every religion.

Experiencing God first-hand is not something you can adequately describe, is it? It’s a kind of knowing beyond facts, beyond words even. I used to sit in prayer and feel God’s presence come forth from the core of my being and think, “What does this mean? What am I supposed to do with this? What is the purpose?” So much Head in the way!

Since then, I have learned that God’s presence is sufficient unto itself. It doesn’t have to have a purpose beyond just being. There might be secondary benefits to lingering wordlessly in God’s presence—and there are—but the Presence is that it is. I don’t need to know the reason or the outcome anymore. I just enjoy it.

Now, I understand that this is not everyone’s struggle. I am speaking from a Head position (Types 5, 6 and 7). For us, study must be tempered with experience. It’s good for everyone to study, to memorize Scripture and understand what God’s word says and even know a bit of Church history to put things in context. But Head types will need to add in knowing God by experience (engaging their gut and heart centers) as well. This will help them overcome their fear of not knowing all the facts.

Gut types (8, 9 and 1) know God in instinctive, practical ways – but they are driven by anger, so they will need to balance their religious impulses with head knowledge and with the heart’s compassion.

Heart types (2, 3 and 4) can often connect to God at a deep feeling level easier than other Types, but a fuller knowing of God is available as they engage their heads in study and their guts in stepping into actions that they may usually feel inadequate to do.

There’s a book on my Amazon wish list that I’m really looking forward to reading, a classic called “The Cloud of Unknowing.” Just the title alone gives me joy, because it speaks to the reality that, even if we are fully using all of our Centers to know God, we cannot in our present state know him fully. He dwells in inapproachable light, and we catch glimpses of him if we’re paying attention. He doesn’t expect more than that. The day after Easter, I am reminded that God’s grace frees us from having to know everything. Just believing the little that we do know changes our eternity – both present and future.

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I Can’t Wait to Meet Myself

As I continue my daily journey of self-uncovery, facing the ongoing realities of how much my personality still controls my thoughts and actions and what I pay attention to, I wonder now and again what it will be like when I fully live from my spirit instead of from my mind. That is to say, when I finally meet my true self.

I have caught glimpses of her here and there, most often when I am quiet and still. She is calm and whole, totally without fear, resting in a universe that is kind and welcoming. She loves fully and easily. She has no fear, no worry, no regret, no anticipation. She exists in the perfect now of God’s eternity.

When I am in that state, it feels like how I feel when I am in God’s presence. That is not a coincidence, I have discovered. When I first started being quiet and still, my goal was not to be “religious” or to pray; it was just to observe the thoughts that distracted me from being present and to try to train my mind to stop having so many thoughts. As I practiced this daily, I eventually began to feel that familiar feeling of being in God’s presence while in prayer.

Does that mean I think I’m God? Certainly not! What I think it means is that it’s an example of how we are partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). When we find our true selves, we find that God is there. When we agree that Jesus came into the world to restore man’s relationship to God, the Holy Spirit raises our spirits from the dead. Our spirits had been dormant, muscled out of the picture by our minds, where the sin nature hangs out. When our spirits are resurrected, God moves in, as it were, and all that he is lives in us. We get to share in his divine nature, and it feels awesome! It feels like how life is supposed to feel.

Now, I’m not convinced anyone has managed to live completely free of their personality while still on Earth. Jesus doesn’t count because, at least in my current view of things, he didn’t have a personality. Because he did not experience the sin nature of the Fall, his mind did not fragment and flail about like everyone else’s does in childhood – which leads to the formation of personality. My strongest argument thus far for this point is that personality is based on the idea of lack, and for Jesus to feel a sense of lack would mean that he believed a fundamental lie about himself and about God. And that just doesn’t make any theological sense!

So, being an optimistic Type, or perhaps because I have witnessed a certain degree of transformation in my self and in others, hope springs eternal. Hope enables me to continue on this path that will one day lead me to my true self. I can let go of the egoic notion that I must achieve this during the Earth phase of my existence and trust the natural rhythm of my particular path. However long it takes, I know that the end point is the meeting of the true me that God has been waiting for the rest of me to meet. He may be more excited about it than I am.

The Genius of the Serenity Prayer

Most of us have probably heard the Serenity Prayer at some point in our lives by now. If not, you’re in for a treat:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

These three lines, if put into practice, will radically shift your experience of life. They comprise the very definition of what it means to be present.

Let’s examine the prayer line by line.

1. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

This is the key to being present. It’s also called allowing, not resisting, and my favorite: not arguing with reality. I’m reminded of the turn of phrase I sometimes hear when I ask people how they are: “Can’t complain. Wouldn’t do any good anyway.” Precisely! To accept what you cannot change is to live in constant serenity.

In a traffic jam, it does no good to curse or honk your horn or fume silently. None of these actions or attitudes can change the situation. If, instead, you accept what is—the traffic jam—you can sit in peace, waiting for the circumstances to change. Might even be a nice opportunity to be still and quiet…

2. The courage to change the things I can

There are many circumstances that you can change, however. If your job makes you miserable, you can change that circumstance in several ways: find another job, talk to your boss about how you could possibly make your job less miserable, or transfer to another position in-house. You could even do the inner work of coming to terms about what feels miserable in your job and change by learning to accept it.

I recognize that the last option is not always viable. If, for instance, what makes you miserable is that you know your organization is breaking the law or otherwise acting unethically, that’s not something inner work will resolve. What you can do is be courageous in leaving the company or even blowing the whistle. Which segues nicely into the third phrase of the prayer.

3. And the wisdom to know the difference.

This is the clincher. Some personality types act out of a need to take care of others, and some from a need to right injustice. Every personality has its motives, and because they originate in the mind, they are not always pure and therefore not always trustworthy. This is where the intervention of God’s wisdom comes in.

You may think, due to the particular tenets of your Superego’s message, that a particular situation is unjust – but no one else does. You may instead need to accept that circumstance and understand that your definition of injustice is not universal.

If you are in an abusive relationship, it is critical to recognize that you cannot change the abuser’s behavior. What you can do is courageously choose to leave that toxic circumstance. In this way, you fulfill both parts of the prayer. You accept the reality that the abuser’s behavior will not change, AND you change what you can – your relationship status, by getting out. The wisdom of God is able to cut through the lies of wishful thinking and of helplessness to bring much-needed serenity to your life.

I hope you’ll agree with me that the Serenity Prayer provides a brilliantly succinct roadmap to a peaceful life. May God grant you serenity, courage and wisdom on your journey.

Tapping Into Peace and Joy By Being Present

At last the holidays and the post-holiday catch-up and the million technical difficulties have passed, and I am blogging again. This week, I offer some thoughts on what it means to be present, why most of us aren’t most of the time, and three practical tools from my self-archaeology toolkit that you can use every day to add presence, joy and peace to your life.

One person, to whom I am most grateful, recently said of my desire to show people the way toward greater peace and joy, “Who cares?” His point was that people need God more than to focus on themselves. Well, I saw that I was not fully articulating my vision and my purpose behind my desire, so he helped me to clarify my messaging, as it were. So here is my clarified message: I want people to be present, not only so that they can have more peace and joy, but so that they can know their authentic, essential selves and give God maximum glory by living out their destiny.

If that message appeals to you, I invite you to watch the video: http://youtu.be/ISA_rMgYaYo

If you watch the video, I would love to hear your thoughts, rebuttals, aha moments etc., either in the comments below or beneath the video.

Detecting and Dismantling The Superego

We left off last week at the point where we discovered just how messed up the Superego’s nine primary messages are. They are based on fallacies, not objective and punitive in nature. The Superego gives you gold stars for obeying its mandates, like “Don’t wear that tie; it makes you stand out too much” or “Don’t wear that tie; it makes you look invisible” or “Don’t wear a tie; it makes you look desperate.” You get an inner “Yes” of approval and safety when you obey the seemingly all-knowing Superego. When you decide to do something different, like wear that tie anyway, you get a Superego demerit. That feels like an inner “Bad boy!” or “Bad girl!” and that feels unsafe. It doesn’t sit well, so you feel uneasy and are more apt to obey that inner voice next time.

Here’s what Riso & Hudson have to say about the Superego’s messages:

““…if we listen more closely, we may see that they are not only arbitrary and subjective but also coercive or damaging. They present us with increasingly impossible standards to live up to, for which we always pay a heavy price. If we feel anxious, depressed, lost, hopeless, fearful, wretched or weak, we can be sure that our superego is on duty.” (The Wisdom of the Enneagram)

Feeling anxious, depressed, lost, hopeless, fearful, wretched or weak is not our birthright as Christians. Rather, the kingdom of God (which, don’t forget, is WITHIN US) is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Superego is ripping us off of the true, real, good things that are rightfully ours. It means well, but its guidance is a substitute for the inner guidance that’s available from our spirits – where God abides in us.

Remember from the last post that the mind creates the Ego/personality and its own overlord, the Superego. This happens as the mind is frantically trying to replace a sense of lost connection with God and the true self in our early childhood, and this Ego/Superego combo is the best it can do. It serves us well initially and is in fact necessary for our human development, but it’s not meant to be our permanent state. What happens is that we become so identified with this combo that we think it’s who we are.

But it’s not. You are NOT your personality. That is not your authentic, essential self. So, the key to growth and freedom is to begin to disidentify with the false self. There are a variety of ways to do this. Here’s one: learn to distinguish and disagree with the voice of the Superego.

Any judgment, positive or negative, about yourself or others or situations comes from the Superego. I know this can be hard to hear for Christians, who want to reply, “But, but, isn’t it the Holy Spirit?” Here’s how to tell the difference. The Holy Spirit convicts without condemning; He never makes you feel devalued. And He never rips on other people! The Superego, on the other hand, will make you feel like you have failed, or like someone else doesn’t measure up. Even if you are getting a Superego pat on the back, it’s a back-handed compliment. For example: “Good for you for exercising today” actually means “You are not acceptable if you don’t exercise X number of times per week.” Any performance-based grading is Superego-originated.

So, learning to recognize this voice is crucial. I recommend keeping a Superego journal and writing down every message you hear it giving you. Do this without judgment of yourself; your true self is actually not involved in this process! Once you can distinguish this voice, it’s time to disagree. You can disarm the Superego by laughing at it, or over-agreeing with it. For instance, if you hear “Don’t eat that; you’ll get fat,” you can reply with “You’re right, Superego. In fact, I’m never eating again!” I used to laugh out loud at my Superego messages; now I do an internal, exaggerated “Ha ha ha!” or say, “Oh, Superego, you’re so silly.”

These reactions freak the Superego out! It doesn’t know what to do; it’s not used to being openly defied. It takes its job quite seriously; it thinks it’s saving your life. Injecting humor into this self-serious situation is great for diffusing tension and breaking the Superego spell.

You can also shout at the Superego, or tell it to shut up, or throw an imaginary hand grenade at it. Experiment! Each of us has a Superego with its own volume and degree of sternness. Some people’s are downright mean. I attended a couple of Diamond Heart trainings on the Superego, where I learned these wonderful techniques, and a man there said his Superego regularly told him things like “You’re a loser” and “No one will ever love you.” Ouch. Those are definitely messages that need to be shut down.

I do hope you’ll experiment and share your experiences below. Do your self the favor of letting go of the false burden, the impossible standards, of the Superego. Let me know if you have any questions, too.

Enneagram Type Nine: Keeping the Peace – Sort Of

Here we are, at the last stop on the Enneagram dial: Type Nine. Being last seems appropriate here, since when Nines are stuck in their personality, they think they’re no big deal and don’t really matter. But of course they do!

Nines sit at the top of the Enneagram symbol, and some teachers believe that Nine is the protopersonality type. That is, the original human personality type is Nine, and all others grew out of it over time during the course of human development. I can’t confirm or deny that, but it is interesting that many cultures that we Westerners would consider primitive have strong Nine characteristics. These include community, egalitarianism and the desire for a peaceful existence.

Nines reside in the Anger triad (8-9-1), but if you know a Nine, this will surprise you. They rarely, if ever, show anger. They seem very mellow, and they are amenable to just about anything. They would not even be aware of their own anger (for the most part) and would deny it as strongly as a mellow person can. But they are angry, all right.

Why? Nines are angry at being ignored. Why are they ignored? Because they don’t put forth their own desires as important. They are not forceful in their opinions, as Assertive types are, for instance. This is because they don’t want to rock anyone’s boat. If the group wants sushi for lunch but the Nine dislikes sushi, the Nine will acquiesce to the group’s desires in order to keep the peace. “It doesn’t matter” and “It’s not important” are favorite phrases of the Nine.

The Nine is called The Peacemaker or The Mediator. These roles are of great value in the world, but the desire for peace in the Nine most often arises from a desire to not lose connection with others. Loss of connection is the primal fear of the Nine and feels like annihilation, like negation of being. That’s heavy. That’s where the desire for unity and peace come from, and why Nines seem to never have a strong preference. Going along with what someone else wants is almost always less scary than staring into the void of non-being.

For this reason, Nines “fall asleep” to their own selves and to their own desires. This makes them sort of invisible, because they don’t contribute strongly like the louder or more assertive types. This strategy of “whatever” works a lot of the time, but eventually Nines notice that they are being overlooked or ignored, and then the anger kicks in. Humans want to feel significant, and Nines start to notice that other people may not think they are. They are most often passively aggressive, but sometimes a mellow Nine will EXPLODE in a rage that shocks those around him or her. Then, steam vented, the Nine returns to “normal.”

Conflict, understandably, is particularly difficult for Nines. A Withdrawn type, Nines will retreat from conflict into a beautiful Shangri-La of fantasy that Riso & Hudson call the “Inner Sanctum.” Only the “good” aspects of relationships are allowed into this secret garden, where the Nine can enjoy all the unity and community without real-world problems interfering. It can be said that Nines are often having a very different relationship than their loved one!

The passion of the Nine is sloth. Not that Nines are lazy in general – they are lazy about connecting with their own selves. Riso & Hudson explain that Nines think that in order to be connected to others, they must not be connected to their own selves. I was going to have lunch with a Nine friend and asked where she wanted to go. “Oh, I don’t care,” she said. I would not choose for us; I waited until she could actually get in touch with what she wanted. That can be very difficult for Nines initially, but it is a necessary growth step.

When Nines wake up to themselves and realize that they do matter, they bless the world with their welcoming demeanor and ability to listen. Nines do make great mediators and can be found bringing peace to situations large and small. Nines make you feel calm and welcomed. They, like the Apostle Nathaniel, are without guile.

Famous Nines include at least three presidents (Reagan, Ford and Lincoln), George Lucas, Audrey Hepburn and Walt Disney. Is there a Nine who’s famous in your heart that you’d like to share about? Or do you identify with this Type? Please share your insights and enrich our understanding of the beloved Nines!