Learn to Inhabit the Present

Yesterday, I was walking down the hall and started thinking about something that had happened recently. I was concocting a response to that event, should someone ask me for my perspective. As I was creating a dazzling response in my mind, I walked right past the door I needed to go into.

Who hasn’t done this, right? It’s particularly scary when you’re driving and you realize you’ve been singing along to the radio AND thinking about the first thing you need to do when you get to work—and you don’t remember the last three miles.

While such distractions are commonplace and usually harmless, they are not truly benign. That’s because these events are indicative of the fact that most of the time, we live in the past or the future but not the present. I had been thinking about something that happened (past) and imagining how I would respond (future) rather than focusing on the present activity: going through the right door.

And that’s the crux of this post. In our busy, distracted, non-present lives, we tend to pay attention to everything but what’s in front of us. Often, even when we are paying attention to what’s in front of us, we see it through the lens of what has happened in similar situations before (past) or what might happen (future). Now, in terms of actual safety issues, like a snarling dog running toward you, past/future thinking is a helpful mechanism for survival. But driving to work? Not so much.

In fact, non-present orientation is detrimental to your destiny. Here’s why. Past and future exist only in the mind. That’s not some New Age platitude; it’s reality. The only time frame you can inhabit with your physical body is the present. But we are a mind-heavy culture following the fixations and compulsions of our personalities. Most of the time, we are on autopilot, reacting from the past and projecting into what might be based on our psychological patterns. These patterns taint or altogether smother our ability to see ourselves as we truly are – or God as he truly is.

Just as I was writing this by my favorite pond, I looked up and happened to see that the sunlight was hitting the ripples in the water in such a way that the reflected light hit the branches above so that it looked like pulses of electricity were traveling down the wood. It was beautiful and hypnotic. It seemed like the light was a living thing. All it took for me to notice this was to look up at what was right in front of me. This is the kind of everyday magic that is available to all who will learn to be present.

So, here’s an exercise. Sit somewhere in silence and just look at what’s around you. I recommend a setting of natural beauty, but if that’s not possible, your car or living room will do, too. Actually look at what’s around you. Your brain will get busy categorizing and judging everything within your field of vision – that’s normal. Then your thoughts will go to associations; something you’re seeing will remind you of something else, and you’ll be off on a rabbit trail. Come back from that trail and focus again only on what you’re seeing. No judgements, memories or imagination. Just look.

It sounds easy. It’s incredibly difficult, and it’s worth doing because it will help shut off the autoresponder that is your personality. It will help create a still space where you can hear God and begin to get a feel for who you might be when your personality’s not looking. And for the glorious, unique destiny God has dreamed for you.

Please try this exercise and share what you learned!

Book Review: “The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery”

Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile have done it. They have made self-awareness and spiritual growth seem less daunting with the way they have approached the Enneagram in their new book, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, available next Tuesday.

Who knew that a Four (Cron) could make you laugh out loud? But I did repeatedly. The book often reads like a comedy. But, as any good comedy writer or consumer knows, there’s got to be a deep heart at the center or the story falls apart. This book has plenty of heart, which makes sense – both authors are Heart Types (Stabile is a Two). While I and my fellow Head Type writers tend to focus on the facts or mechanics of the Enneagram, Cron and Stabile populate their book with hilarious personal stories that make you think, “Oh, yah – I know a guy/gal like that” and humanize a system that can sometimes be reduced to a list of traits.

The book begins with the wise words of St. Augustine, which always knock me out: “Grant, Lord, that I may know myself that I may know thee.” This is the core idea behind the book. We cannot fully know ourselves unless we know God, and vice versa. This quote is the reason I titled my audio program “Know Yourself to Know God.” In other words, the authors had me from the first page.

In the introduction, Cron refers to the origins of the Enneagram as “sketchy,” which I found refreshing and hilarious:

If its sketchy origins weren’t enough to spook the mules, there is no scientific evidence that proves the Enneagram is a reliable measurement of personality. Who cares that millions of people claim it’s accurate? Grizzly Man thought he could make friends with bears, and we know how that turned out.

We in the Enneagram community tend to view this model as sacrosanct and take it WAY too seriously. Elsewhere, the authors make sure to point out that the Enneagram is not THE answer, but a helpful roadmap on the road back to you:

That’s how I see the Enneagram. It is not infallible or inerrant. It is not the be-all and end-all of Christian spirituality. At best, it is an imprecise model of personality . . . but it’s very useful.

Amen.

The brief introduction of the Enneagram in the next chapter, “Finding Your Type,” does a deft job of providing the basics of the model without freaking readers out. The Enneagram is a complex, in-depth model that does a knock-out job of describing and helping to explain human behavior, but it can quickly become overwhelming to the novice. The authors are skillful at providing the bare bones, just enough to understand what’s going on in the rest of the book – and, hopefully, whet readers’ appetites for more.

From there, the authors explore each Type, starting with a list of 20 statements that capture the essence of what it’s like to be that Type. That’s a nice touch. Readers then get a look at each Type at its healthy, average and unhealthy levels, followed by a vignette starring that Type. We then get a look at the deadly sin of the Type and how it plays out in a person’s life, an “all about” section outlining the primary personality features and what the Type looks like as a child. Then we see how the Type shows up in relationships and at work – so helpful for loved ones and coworkers. Next come the Wings and stress and security points. And finally, my favorite part: Spiritual Formation, complete with 10 excellent recommended Paths to Transformation. Wonderfully spiritual and practical at the same time, these recommendations exemplify why I love this book and will recommend it forever.

The final chapter offers a beautiful quote from Thomas Merton, another of my faves, that reminds readers why this work with the Enneagram is so important. It’s not just about us understanding ourselves; it’s also about letting others be who they are and loving them in every moment. The authors speak of destiny on the last page, which you know from my tagline is what I’m all about, and this quote thoroughly cements my admiration and respect for them:

We owe it to the God who created us, to ourselves, to the people we love and to all with whom we share this troubled planet to become “saints.” How else can we run and complete the errand on which God sent us here?

Get this book. It comes out next Tuesday, and you can pre-order it before then as well. Here’s the link: http://amzn.to/2dsS76s. Read it immediately, and repeatedly. Buy copies for everyone you care about. You can entrust your own and your loved ones’ spiritual transformation to these two sets of loving, experienced hands.

Oh – almost forgot. They have a delightful, insightful podcast as well. You can listen to it here: http://theroadbacktoyou.com/ AND they’ve written a companion study guide for “The Road Back to You” that I haven’t read but am sure is equally amazing: http://amzn.to/2dsQJAO.

The Practical and the Spiritual in the Enneagram

I recently had a lovely interview with the wonderful Kevin Grossman of ReachWest Media. He asked me about how I first learned of the Enneagram, why I love it and teach it, and why I think Jesus is worthy of everyone’s attention. I hope that you’ll find a little time in your assuredly full life—maybe on your commute, as you work out, or when you’re ready to unwind at the end of a long day—to listen in.

ReachWest #24: Living Your Destiny and Giving Glory to God

 

Who Do You Believe About Who You Are? Part 2

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” I think this is the key question of humanity. How you answer this question determines the course of your life and of your eternity.

And I think the second-most important question is like it: “Who do you say that you are?” What is my identity? What is it based on? Do I have a purpose? What am I here for?

Saint Francis prayed: “God, who are you? And who am I?” In other words, he got it. His intimacy with and devotion to God led him to these two central questions.

In part 1 of this post, I wrote about who you believe about who you are. You either believe what God says about you personally or you believe your personality’s Inner Critic. We looked at the beliefs King Saul held about himself, how they didn’t align with what God said about him and how Saul’s beliefs lost him his destiny. To fail to understand who you are means that you will live a diminished life, that you will not walk in the fullness of your destiny. You will not live out the dream God dreamed for you.

Nobody wants that for themselves. So, an important step in not ending up like King Saul is to begin to distinguish between your Inner Critic’s voice and that of God. Believe it or not, they can seem really similar to the untrained ear. I take my clients through a more detailed process, but one of the steps in that process is learning how God’s word addresses the central lie you believe about yourself. This lie is not related to your conscious experience as an adult; it’s a lie that sits at the core of your being and formed one of the nine human personality types in you very early on. I call them the Core Wounding Beliefs.

Each Enneagram type has its own Belief, which fuels the Inner Critic’s chatter about you. Let’s look at the Core Wounding Beliefs for a few of the Types, along with Scripture that combats the lie by revealing the truth:

Type One: I have been kicked out of the Garden and now have to earn my way back. I must be good and right all the time, about everything.

Titus 3:5 – “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

Type Two: I am not worthy of love in and of myself; I must make myself indispensable to others in order to be loved.

1 John 3:1 – “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God”

Type Five: I lack the knowledge I need to survive in the world. I must study intensely to become an expert.

Eph. 3:19 – “…and to know this love that surpasses [head] knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

You may not resonate with these particular verses, and that’s okay. They are given as examples of what I’m getting at: it’s time to believe what God says about you and stop believing what your Inner Critic says. There are many, many verses that address our personalities’ wounds and can help us overcome them. My hope is that you will find key Type-specific verses for yourself that speak the truth you need to hear. Write them down. Tape them to your bathroom mirror and your steering wheel and everywhere else you can. Memorize them. Let them take root in you and do the work of setting you free from your Inner Critic and into your destiny.

Who Do You Believe About Who You Are? Part 1

The Apostle Paul uses the psalmist’s words to great effect in this quote from Psalm 116: “And in keeping with what is written: ‘I believed, therefore I have spoken,’ we who have the same spirit of faith also believe and therefore speak, knowing that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.” (2 Cor. 4:13-14)

Here’s what I want to focus on: we speak out, or sometimes just say in our heads, what we believe. Jesus understood this dynamic: “The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

So, the question is, what are you treasuring in your heart? Because we’re all about destiny and glorifying God here, I specifically want to look at what’s stuck in your heart about who you are. Because I’m going to make a bold statement that I think the above scriptures (and others) back me up on: God does not control your destiny; your thoughts do! He has a destiny for you, but you have free will and a heart full of mixed treasure, and your thought-treasure can sideline you from living out God’s dream for you.

King Saul almost missed out. When Samuel came to anoint him as Israel’s fist king, here’s what he said about himself: “But I’m only from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest tribe in Israel, and my family is the least important of all the families of that tribe! Why are you talking like this to me?” But Samuel was persistent, and so was God. Shortly thereafter, God sent his spirit on Saul – and he became a different man.

This was a good start for Saul’s destiny, but we know that his story does not end well. He gives away in the verses above the key to understanding his downfall: he thought of himself as a small man. Clearly, God did not agree, but Saul’s belief about himself superseded even God’s direct word to him. That’s a pretty strong belief! This is how powerful the Inner Critic is.

I’ve written in more depth about the Inner Critic here, so I’ll just say that it’s the judgy voice in your head that provides a running commentary on the world. “That guy’s an idiot.” “You’re an idiot.” “You’re awesome!” “Well done.” It provides you with its view of how life—and you—should be, rewarding or chastising you as it sees fit. It not only makes you feel bad or superior, based on its arbitrary rules, but it also does not track with God’s word. It has a different set of standards, and they are inferior.

Let’s go back to Saul for proof. His Inner Critic told him, “Hey, you’re no big deal.” He believed it even after he became king, and it’s obvious because he got jealous when people started praising David for also being a mighty warrior (1 Samuel 18:7). He also caved in to the troops and did not follow God’s clear instructions. If he’d felt strong and worthy inside, he would have told them all to shut up and be obedient to God’s word. Instead, his own words reveal what he believed: “I was afraid of the troops and obeyed them.” Not God. That disobedience lost him the throne – and Samuel’s friendship, and God’s fullest destiny for him.

So, where you get your information about who you are is pretty dang important. Getting God’s opinions about you into your heart is the most powerful thing I can think of that you can do to advance your destiny. Understand your Enneagram type (I can help with that), get to know the voice of your Inner Critic and overcome it with the truth.  Next week, we’ll look at specific Inner Critic messages for each personality type, along with scripture to help begin overcoming them.

The Destiny Thieves

F. Scott Fitzgerald is most famous for his third novel “The Great Gatsby,” and it deserves all the praise it’s gotten over the years. Fitzgerald was a wonderful writer and could have had a long writing career if it weren’t for two things: his addiction and his wife.

You see, Scott (as his friends called him) was an alcoholic by the time he finished college. He came from an upper-class family and married a socialite, which led to a non-stop string of parties and lavish living. His wife, Zelda Sayre, was also an alcoholic, so there was no interference from her about how much he drank. In fact, he was legendary for his extraordinarily heavy drinking. He was a member of what was dubbed “The Lost Generation,” and what he lost was the full power of his God-given ability to write – and ultimately, his life. He died of a second heart attack at the age of 44.

So, addiction robbed him of his destiny, but so did Zelda. Though various biographers will insist that she influenced Scott’s writing, she was actually a great hindrance to it, and on purpose. Hemingway, in his book “A Moveable Feast,” talks about how jealous Zelda was of her husband’s writing and how she consistently found ways to undermine it. When Scott would swear off alcohol so that he could write, Zelda would go on a bender that he would eventually join her in. And so on.

Now, it turned out that Zelda was eventually diagnosed with a mental illness (though there seems to be confusion as to her specific diagnosis) and she spent many years in specialized care hospitals. That could certainly account for her alcoholism, as a form of self-medication. No one chooses mental illness, and no one ever intends to become an addict of anything, so I am certainly not trying to cast aspersions on Zelda or Scott.

What I am trying to do is to say that there are plenty of things that are happy to distract us away from who God created us to be, from the joy set before us. Sometimes, that thing is an addiction. If that’s your struggle, please get help. You will never live out the fullness of God’s call on your life as long as you are an addict – to anything.

Sometimes, that thing is a person. The person might be well-meaning and try to “reason” you out of your destiny with fine-sounding arguments. The person might try to sabotage your destiny out of jealousy or fear. If you can stay away from people like this, please do. For the sake of your destiny. For the sake of all the people on the Earth whom you were meant to bless.

If you are married to that person, pray. A LOT. Contend in the heavenlies for your destiny and for your spouse. And try to keep in mind that people are brokenhearted and love imperfectly. Including you. I recommend writing down their litany of anti-destiny comments in a journal. It’s a way of putting those comments in jail. They are under your control now. Address them; explain to them why they are wrong. And then don’t think about them anymore. Just get on with your destiny.

Are there any destiny thieves in your life? How will you deal with them? Please share your thoughts in the blog comments below, on Twitter or on Facebook.

Three Myths About Destiny That Are Keeping You From Yours

Destiny is the central question of our existence. Once necessities like food, water and shelter are taken care of, once there’s some stability and time for thought, the human mind turns to the matter of destiny. Why am I here? What is life about? Is there a plan driving my life? Or am I missing out on that plan?

For Christians, it’s a particularly important topic. We’re all told that God knows the plans he has for us (Jeremiah 29:11), but if you’re like most of us, you’d like to be let in on those plans a bit more often! Because we like a plan. We want to know that we’re going in the right direction, that we aren’t just spinning our wheels with a lot of activity but actually doing the works that God created us for (Eph. 2:10).

But how do we know this? Sometimes we think we know exactly what we’re meant to do in life, but it ends up being quite different. I was sure I was going to be a single missionary in Africa my whole life, and then God sent along a cute guy named Tom Havlick and told me to marry him!

Aside from occasional moments of clarity like that, I’ve spent a lot of my life muddling along as best as I could, trying to love God and people but not sure where it was all leading. Well, over the last decade, I’ve learned some things that have been amazingly helpful to me with respect to destiny, and now I’m ready to share them.

I’ve been alluding to it for weeks, and now I’m happy to say that my webinar is about to launch! It’s called “Three Myths About Destiny That Are Keeping You From Yours!” In addition to busting those three myths, I’m going to talk about:

• The two different kinds of destiny
• What role we play in our own destiny
• The primary barrier to really living out the fullness of your destiny
• One key practice you can start immediately to overcome that barrier

The webinar takes place this Saturday, Jan. 16 at 9:00 AM PT. If you can’t make that time, sign up anyway and you’ll get a recording of the webinar that you can watch at your convenience. Here’s the link to the registration page: https://dearlybeloved.leadpages.co/destiny-webinar/

I hope to “see” you there! Let’s make 2016 a year of destiny for us all. Oh, and please feel free to share that link with anyone you know who’d like to learn more about this topic.

Dividing the Soul from the Spirit

Have you ever met someone whom you felt an instant connection with? Someone who just “got” you and believed in your dream? I have been blessed to know several people like that, and one of them was David Alsobrook. I found out recently that he passed away, so I thought it would be fitting to dedicate this post to him.

His message dovetailed with mine so beautifully, as you’ll see below. David had a knack for explaining deep truths with great clarity, and he had a life-transforming experience with God that left him in total peace for the last eight or so years of his life on Earth. I had grand plans for making him famous! We were going to do webinars together and eventually weekend seminars. I was going to drive sales of his books and do whatever else I could to get his beautiful message out and create a larger platform for him.

But it was not to be. His death is a great loss to me and, it feels like, to the world. We only knew each other by email and social media, and an occasional handwritten note, and only for a short time, but I remain determined to make him famous.

So, I’m going to quote from one of my favorite books, his final book, “You Can Be Free From Yourself: The Grace of Soul Transformation.” In these passages, he explains the difference between the spirit and the soul:

“You contact, commune and co-create with God here in your deepest part [your spirit]. This is where you know (rather than think, reason, imagine) and ‘the anointing he has given you, which is true and not a lie’ ‘teaches you all things’ and you ‘know all things’ here in your spirit (1 John 2:20,27).”

This is how he speaks of the soul:

“Your soul [is] the part of you where your human personality including intellect, volition and the origination of emotion are. This is the part of you where the sin-principled ego resides until it is dissolved.”

Well, that’s quite a difference! It’s clear that these two parts of us are very distinct. Your deepest part, the truest part of you, is not your personality; it’s your spirit. David goes on to say:

“It is your spirit where God initiates his work on you after he has taken up his residency in you in the person of the Holy Spirit. His work on you is primarily focused upon transforming your soul to the image of Christ in your spirit.”

This teaching finally made sense to me, and I hope it does for you as well, a verse that I always found poetic but didn’t really understand: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

Did you catch that? “…piercing to the division of soul and spirit”! Because they are not the same thing – and because they need dividing. As long as the soul and spirit are smooshed together (that’s a deep theological term), as is the natural state of all humans, that old-time concept of “mixture” is in effect. God’s pure Spirit has to wade through your soul, filtered through your personality, to get out, at which point the message or action is no longer pure. And wouldn’t it be awesome to not be in God’s way so that the unfiltered beauty and truth of God flow from you?

The word (logos, meaning expression of thought) of God can separate these two, and that’s a good thing. But that’s a supernatural occurrence, and not a common one, at least in my experience. Don’t get me wrong; I want that occurrence! That’s what happened to David Alsobrook, and that’s what I want for myself and for you and for all human beings. I’m not going to sit around waiting for it, though.

Instead, I will continue to ask God for this level of soul transformation WHILE I keep studying and putting into practice what I know of the Enneagram. Because the Enneagram gives me a blueprint of how my personality hijacks my true self, of how my soul smothers my spirit and all the good God stuff that’s in there. This knowledge helps me observe the difference between my soul and spirit, which helps begin to dissolve the power my soul has over me.

Another friend who’s gone home to Jesus used to say, “God heals two ways: fast and slow.” That’s how I think of soul transformation. I want the fast version, but I can’t make that happen. So I will pray for the fast version and stay on the slow route, using the tool of the Enneagram as a vital guide. I hope you’ll join me.

I recommend David’s book and Riso & Hudson’s “The Wisdom of the Ennegram” as good foundations. If you find yourself wanting a travelling companion, see my About page for ways I can help.

Moving Toward Destiny: Know Your Own Tricks

Today I’d like to talk about a way of looking at behavior characteristics that will help you more accurately type yourself if you are still having trouble with that. It will also help you to understand the forces that are working behind the scenes in your own and others’ lives. And that will improve your work and personal relationships. It will move you closer to becoming who you were meant to be. Heck, it’ll even help you feel more compassion for strangers.

I’ve talked about the Harmonic Groups before, and I’ve talked about the Hornevian Groups, so today I’m going to put them both together in a way that brings greater clarity to each of the Enneagram Types. I taught this recently in my monthly EnneaGroup, and people found it helpful. You may even feel, as you read through the list, a visceral sense of the energy of each Type, as one group member did. Observing someone’s energy (agitated, fast-paced, laid back) can help you understand their Type, as well.

You can go back and read about the Harmonic and Hornevian Groups, but I’ll also give a quick recap here: the Hornevian Groups describe how people show up in the world – that is, what their default behavior is to get their personality’s needs met. This is also referred to as their Social Style. The Harmonic Groups, on the other hand, describe how people react when they are not getting their needs met. This is also referred to as their Coping Style.

Here are the Hornevian Groups:

Withdrawn: 9, 4, 5

Dutiful: 1, 2, 6

Assertive: 8, 3 7

And the Harmonics:

Positive Outlook: 9, 2, 7

Emotional Realness: 8, 4, 6

Competency: 1, 3, 5

So, now it’s time to put them together. I recommend printing out a blank Enneagram symbol (you can get one here) and writing the group combos down for each Type. There just isn’t enough space in this blog post format to create a readable graphic, and writing it down will help you absorb the information better. Okay, here we go:

8 = Assertive/Emotional Realness

9 = Withdrawn/Positive Outlook

1 = Dutiful/Competency

2 = Dutiful/Positive Outlook

3 = Assertive/Competency

4 = Withdrawn/Emotional Realness

5 = Withdrawn/Competency

6 = Dutiful/Emotional Realness

7 = Assertive/Positive Outlook

So, how is this helpful? Well, let’s take a look, for instance, at the different ways the Positive Outlook group displays its strategy. Nines withdraw to their Secret Garden to maintain their positive, idealized view of their relationships and environment. Twos dutifully go out into the world to make things better for others by being there for them, empathizing with them and doing for them. Sevens assert their positivity on others with their outgoing demeanor and focus on having fun and cheering people up.

One Harmonic Group, three very different expressions. You may know that you are a Withdrawn type, and having a hard time determining whether you are a Nine or a Four. But here you see that the Four is an Emotional Realness type, and you know that’s just not you. Voila – now you understand that you are a Nine! Sometimes it’s just that simple (but not always).

In the same way, you may be having conflict with your spouse and trying to figure out what makes him or her tick. After looking at the Harmonic Groups, you know your spouse is an emotional realness type. Then, cross-referencing with the Hornevian Groups, you see that s/he is not a Withdrawn or a Dutiful. Voila – the only other option is Assertive. Type Eight! Now you have a much greater frame of reference for understanding your spouse, and you understand that s/he will respond to you more readily if you display emotional realness when conflict arises – and will then be much more likely to hear you.

Understanding the interplay of these two influences in your life will help you in your spiritual growth as well, which is really the entire point of this blog. So, if I understand that I am assertive and have a positive outlook, I will understand why I can sometimes be “aggressively happy” – in other words, forcing those around me to come up to my happiness level and refusing to acknowledge others’ pain. I will understand that I do this because my Basic Fear is being trapped in deprivation or emotional pain, so that my personality will do everything it can to quelch this fear. Once I understand this pattern, I can begin to observe it, and it will begin to lose its power over me. I will become a more complete human being, able to experience my own pain and that of others, able to empathize rather than just cheer them up. In becoming more complete, I become more like Jesus. I move closer to my destiny.

These are just a few examples that I hope will give you ideas for how useful the cross-referencing of these two groups can be. Remember: the Enneagram is not merely fascinating. If you are able to apply your understanding of it, it will transform you.

Are You Really the Master of Your Destiny?

After several months of ongoing battles trying to upload the entirety of my appearance on “The Barb Marshall Show,” I have decided to upload the part of the video that I’ve gotten to work: the last 10 minutes! Better a little than nothing, I figure. Sometimes winning the battle (in this case, with technology) means not fighting anymore.

So, what were the first 17 minutes about? Barb asked me about my difficult childhood (divorce, bullying) and asked me how I coped. I told her that, after believing in Jesus at age 5 or 6, I eventually rejected God for a time. My heart was broken from the ongoing pain I saw both in my own life and all over the world. If this was the world God made, I was not interested in him, and I told him so. Anybody relate to that?

Well, that didn’t help. Life only became more painful. However, I kept hearing this completely illogical little voice in my head saying, “It’s going to get better.” I eventually tried a new church and met a woman who became my mentor. She helped me really understand the love of God for the first time. Before this, I was just focused on knowing and following the rules. I shared that knowing the love of God changed me, as it inevitably does.

Barb asked me how I came to know my purpose in life. I shared about how I came across the Enneagram, another life-changing experience. I began to see, as I studied, that my thoughts and ideas and opinions were not my actual self, but rather a poor facsimile thereof. They created a very limited experience of life for me. I realized that my personality would not allow me to fully live out the destiny God had planned for me. That’s a tragedy, and it’s what drives me every day to tell as many people as possible what IS possible once they stop identifying with their personality. If more people were present to their own lives, living from their authentic selves, the world would be transformed.

Barb asked me how people can begin to live as their authentic selves, and I recommended that the place to start is to learn the Enneagram. Read a book (“The Wisdom of the Enneagram” is my favorite beginning book) or attend a workshop or group.

Then I explained that human beings are made of the spirit, soul and body. The spirit is the part of us where God dwells in us. The soul is made up of the mind, will and emotions – the stuff in your head. We need those parts on the earth, but it’s not who we are. That’s the big difference. But the personality resides in the soul, and we’ve gotten so used to hearing its voice that we assume it’s who we are.

I was talking about how we begin to lose contact with our true selves from infancy onwards when the first section of the video cut off. The second part, below, starts mid-sentence! “We were made in the image of God, and that includes all of the wonderful qualities and characteristics that God possesses…”

So, as you heard, destiny comes in two forms: general and specific. I do believe that there is a degree to which we are masters of our own destiny – not entirely, but neither do I think that it’s set in stone. Free will is a powerful thing. I hope you will use that power to learn the Enneagram and grab hold of your specific destiny.

Oh, one more thing: at the end of the show, I mentioned my audio program, “Know Yourself to Know God.” If you’d like to know more about it, click the tab at the top right of this site.