Meditation is a PRACTICE

My husband recently asked me to write something for him because, as he put it, “I’m not good at that.” The response that flew out of my mouth surprised me: “You don’t get better at it by not doing it!”

This is what I call a “divine duh” moment. It’s a thing that you may not have articulated, but when you hear it, you instantly know it’s true. So true, in fact, that it seems on the surface to be a “No duh!” statement – except that its implications are too profound to dismiss it as a truism.

As soon as the words came out, I thought of meditation (or, for our purposes, also called Centering Prayer). That’s because I know it’s a common complaint that people have regarding meditation: they just don’t feel like they’re any good at it. And because I was thinking of one particular friend who dislikes the practice because it feels like failure to her; it’s hard to measure progress, so it just feels like a waste of valuable time.

However, that’s just the personality talking. Did Yo-Yo Ma set his cello aspirations aside after hitting a few bad notes? Did Simone Biles give up gymnastics after her first few falls from a balance beam? Did Tiger Woods hang up his clubs after a few weeks of attempting the perfect swing?

No, or else we wouldn’t know their names. But this isn’t about fame; it’s about practice. These people really wanted something, and they were willing to be less than perfect to start. Or, in some cases, for a long time. They put in untold hours of practice.

The goal of meditation is not to be perfect at it. The goal is to create a quiet, still space that enables you to hear, feel, even see God. Sure, it’s frustrating to attempt this and get nothing but a head full of noise and distraction, particularly when your goal is deeper union with God. But that’s a worthy goal whose very attempt is success.

In other words, if you practice meditation and “fail” at it, you have succeeded. The attempt is success. Because stillness and quiet must be practiced; they are not natural behaviors for us. But they can be learned – not by avoiding them, but by practicing them.

So, the question to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to do something that I’m probably going to feel bad at in order to get better at it so that I can encounter God at a deeper level?” That’s a question only you can answer. I sure hope it’s “Yes.” God longs for you with a longing beyond words, and he is waiting in stillness for you.

Confused about how to start? Here’s what I do. I go to a place that’s quiet and has a door. I close that door and sit with a straight back. (This is so you can breathe easier.) I close my eyes and welcome the Holy Spirit. As thoughts come to me—and they will—I notice them and release them; I don’t start making the grocery list or rehearsing the conversation. Let those thoughts go and pay attention to the sound and feel of your breath. There’s nothing magical about breathing; it’s just that focusing on this helps you to stay focused on what’s happening right now rather than on grocery lists etc.

I also use an app from the Centering Prayer folks. It’s handy because you can set a timer—start with five minutes if you’re new to meditation—and you can choose from a wonderful array of chimes, from Gregorian chants to lutes to singing bowls! Anything to help this sometimes-hard practice, right? Do this every day. Yes, every day.

Please share your experiences, frustrations and breakthroughs regarding Centering Prayer. We all learn from each other.

We Are Desperately Afraid That We’re Unlovable

I had a really painful relationship conflict earlier this year, and though I’m mostly over it, the sharp sting of it has been jabbing me at random in the last two weeks. The sadness comes screaming back in with startling force. After the third episode, I figured that I needed to process this conflict a bit more.

Here’s what I realized, as I’ve realized many times before: When you get to the root of relationship issues, it’s really about fear. The reason this conflict was so painful was that the nature of it suggested to me that the person didn’t actually love me. This sent a tsunami of fear through me, because a) humans are meant for relationship but, more pertinent to the point here, b) we are all desperately afraid in the core of our being that we aren’t worthy of love.

So, this conflict reinforced the key lie of our existence, and I was devastated. As a Fear Type, the worst-case scenarios began to spiral up. Gut and Heart Types react differently, but the point is that we all share the same core lie.

How did this happen? How did we end up with this lie? I believe it comes from our fundamental disconnection from God. We were made for relationship with him, but our sin nature separates us from him. And that feels horrific. It’s an unlivable feeling. So our psyche kicks in and says, “I’ll handle this. I will make rules for you to follow so that you will be acceptable to the world. Just follow me.” And voila – the personality comes into being.

Now, when we say yes to Jesus, who alone is able to deal with that whole sin nature thing, that core lie doesn’t go away. Our eternal selves get saved, but our minds don’t automatically, do they? The concept of sanctification exists exactly because while the spirit’s salvation is instantaneous, the soul’s (which includes the mind) is not.

There is a huge gap between what our heads know and what our hearts know. That gap is created by the personality. So, we can have all kinds of good theology in our heads and still be devastated by a relationship crisis. We can “know” God loves us unconditionally and still “know” in our inner being that we’re not worthy of love and had better behave or else.

One of my favorite verses is one that is perennially taken out of context: 1 John 4:18. “Perfect love casts out fear.” Most people use this to combat fear in general, because they don’t understand the context provided by the rest of the sentence: “because fear has to do with punishment.” John is trying to help people understand grace and the nature of God’s love, not telling them to stop being afraid of spiders etc. The next sentence makes this quite clear – I’m quoting the New Living Translation because it’s so beautifully plain: “If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

We fear punishment because our personalities are based on a system of Law that does not understand perfect love. We fear that we are not inherently lovable because we know in our core that we are incapable of keeping the personality’s Law.

So, I’ll bring this back to my own story now. I was hurt and deeply saddened by this conflict, but those emotions were covering over the deeper emotion of fear. I fear because I have not been able to fully grasp just how beloved I am. I know all the right verses, but they have not yet worked their way down to the part of me where the lie of unlovability lives.

How can we change this dilemma? As I said, knowing Scripture is a huge part of the answer, but another huge part is understanding how our particular personality operates. This is why I study and teach the Enneagram and why I practice stillness every day. Greater self-awareness helps us to overcome fear of not being lovable. This makes interpersonal conflicts much less scary. I am convinced that this self-knowledge and these practices help us experience “his perfect love” and even be able to extend that kind of love to others. That’s a journey worth taking, in my book.

The Post-Election Cleanse: How to Center and Move Forward

Well, we made it. The election is over, and we survived. It’s likely that half of you are elated at the seemingly miraculous Trump win, and the other half are devastated by the Clinton loss. For some, you didn’t vote for either of the two main candidates because you were already devastated that these were the choices you had. But we lived through it and now, as Hillary Clinton, president-elect Donald Trump and Barak Obama all said, it’s time to heal the divide.

Now, most of us aren’t in positions of political power; we aren’t the power brokers who can reach across the aisle and make concessions to push deals through. Instead, I’m talking about healing your own heart and any divides you may have created in your relationships at work, at church and at home.

Easier said than done, I know. But here are a few practical things you can do to cleanse your emotional system:

1. Practice stillness: Let go of the noise of news commentators, social media and the voices in your head (especially the Inner Critic). It’s super-easy right now to be gloating and snarky or angry and disappointed; choose not to take that wide path. Sit quietly, eyes closed, with just your own presence. Feel your own breath. Reconnect with the feeling of existing in the eternal now of God.
2. Pray: I’m talking the time-consuming, real-deal, speaking as well as listening kind of prayer. Do some soul-searching. After all, that’s where your personality is, the source of all conflict. Ask God to show you where you missed the mark in how you interacted with others, and if you’re in pain, give that to him. He loves to take it away. If there’s somebody you need to forgive, do that.
3. Mend fences: You may have been right on every point. You may even have received divine revelation about God’s will for this election (which I totally believe is possible, by the way). But, as The Enneagram Institute’s Russ Hudson says, “The cost of being right is love.” For every unloving social media post, send out two filled with compassion and hope. If you’ve argued with someone, what kind act of service can you render them? Write a note or tell them in person that your passion overcame your compassion and that you’d like to start over.
4. Take a break from responsible adulthood: Whether or not your candidate won, it’s been a long 18 months with a lot of emotion and sometimes hard decision-making. Here in California, for instance, the voter guide was 223 pages long! That’s a privilege and an awesome responsibility, and it makes us tired. So, if you haven’t already, do something for yourself that is joyful and life-giving. Me? I’m going Christmas shopping with family this weekend.

If you have any other suggestions on how to get centered and move forward, please share them!

How Personality Poisons the Golden Rule

I heard a great story the other day while listening to Suzanne Stabile and Ian Cron’s Enneagram-based podcast, “The Road Back to You.” Suzanne’s daughter told her, basically, that as she interacted with people at her job, she was realizing that the Golden Rule—Do to others as you would like to have done to you—doesn’t always work.

Now, before you accuse any of us of blasphemy, hear me out! The Golden Rule is a much-beloved maxim throughout the world. It’s one of the last vestiges of Christianity’s influence on culture that everybody knows, whether they love Jesus or not. I get that.

And Jesus certainly knows what he’s talking about. He never said anything that wasn’t true. So, I understand that it sounds like blasphemy to say that this rule doesn’t always work.

But here’s the thing. Jesus was speaking at a very high level. He was talking about basic, over-arching things that people need to do to survive in society together, and he was talking about the condition of the heart as well. He gives this rule as part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is all about learning how to love people, especially those who are being unkind to you. Jesus’ call to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile are pretty radical in this context.

This bit from Dictionary.com, of all places, is helpful: The Mosaic law contains a parallel commandment: “Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person.” Don’t kill someone, because if someone killed you, that would be hurtful to you. You don’t want someone stealing your stuff, so don’t steal theirs. The Golden Rule underlies the majority of the 10 Commandments.

So, then, why doesn’t it always work? It doesn’t always work at the individual, person-to-person level because of personality. Our own fixations cause us to avoid certain things and gravitate toward others, and these fixations can be polar opposites of those we’re trying to love.

For example, as a Seven, I don’t like to acknowledge pain. If I’m starting to feel down, I want someone to come along and cheer me up, rope me into a fun adventure or exciting conversation. This is my default for how to “do unto others” who are sad. But a Four doesn’t want to be distracted; she wants to fully feel those feelings and know that I see her pain and can hold a space for her to express it. And a Two wants to sit and talk, and maybe cry, about what’s making him sad.

My default, then, of how I want to treat others based on what works for me is not always appropriate. Sometimes it is, but often not. This is yet another example of why it’s so helpful to know the Enneagram. Knowing your own fixations and knowing others’ types helps you see what it is that others truly need from you in a given moment. Another way to say it is that the Enneagram helps you love people better.

So, keep blessing your enemies and not stealing or murdering, and also please start learning how to love and serve others better with the Enneagram.

How Love Changes, and How it Stays the Same

I’m planning a birthday trip to visit my family soon, and it’s bringing up some pain. Over the past five years, several deaths, the needs of an aging grandparent and the fallout from an addiction have changed my family’s dynamics significantly – and not for the better. They aren’t all located in one town anymore, and even if they were, separate get-togethers would need to be organized based on who is speaking to a particular family member and who is not.

I’ve done some initial communication with family to figure out a schedule that makes sense, since I’ll be doing many hours of driving on my own (my sweet husband will be on call for work that weekend and can’t come) and am trying to break up the trip so I’m not driving 6½ hours on July 4. So far, two of the responses I’ve gotten sounded, to me, like “Yah, maybe we’ll get to hang out. We’ll see.”

Well, that doesn’t feel too good! My Enneagram Seven impulse is to think, “Forget you, then! I’m not even gonna try. I’ll go where I’m wanted.” In other words, to flee from the sadness. Find something fun to distract myself.

But because I do know the Enneagram, I can see this pattern and am choosing to reject it. Instead, I will let myself feel this sting, mourn over the way our family used to be and, eventually, accept the current reality.

It’s not instant, though. I feel like I have lost love. When my Grandpa Frank died, one thing that really hit me was that there was one less person in the world who loved me, one less person who prayed for me every day. My loved ones have taken on different responsibilities in keeping with the different stages of life, from helping raise grandchildren to caring for aging parents.

So, their love has shifted – sometimes away from me, I realize. This is normal and natural, but I’m still not used to it. I’m used to being well liked, to people being excited to see me during my one or two trips home each year. As a Seven, I think the current situation reinforces the false idea at the core of my being that I am alone in the world; there’s no one to support me and I’m going to have to meet my needs myself.

Yet I know, cognitively and often experientially, that I am indeed NOT alone in the world. I feel and rest in the unstoppable love of God regularly. That is a beautiful anchor for me. However, that “I’m on my own in this scary world” lie is so deep that it will take a long time to uproot completely. Knowing it’s there, though, so that I can watch for how it pops up in my life, is invaluable. This is what knowledge of the Enneagram enables.

In addition, God made us for relationship – first with him and then with others. So it makes perfect sense to feel loss as others’ love and attention shift away. But this morning, as I was feeling this loss, God reminded me of the people he’s brought into my life in the last few years – new people to love and be loved by. Love may shift, but it does not diminish. In short, He is on the case of love on my behalf. I am indeed not alone. Not ever.

Different personality types respond to the loss of love differently, from being enraged to steeping themselves in sorrow to refusing to acknowledge it and so on. I’d love to hear how you have dealt with or are dealing with the loss of love in your life, especially in light of your Type.

Loving the Whole Self: A Grateful Response to Richard Rohr

I am a great admirer of Father Richard Rohr. Though he and I differ on some points of theology, he has tremendous wisdom and grace to share. So it was this past week, when he published a blog post titled “Loving the Whole Self.” It is part of a series on the Enneagram, and I am so moved by it that I want to share sections of it with you and add my thoughts as well. Here goes.

“The Enneagram’s root sins or passions can be seen as nine different ways of “missing the mark” (hamartia), nine ways of being disconnected from God’s Presence—our essence—here and now. By viewing our Enneagram compulsions as reminders to return to presence, we can become aware of the Divine Presence in us and around us and we can share that love with a hurting world.”

It occurred to me this week that one of the primary reasons that God hates sin (and perhaps, ultimately, the only reason) is that it hurts us, his beloved. And so he calls us to turn away from it (metanoia; repent), remember our belovedness and turn toward him who calls us beloved. The Enneagram is supremely helpful in this ongoing process, as it helps us see our own particular disconnection from God’s presence.

“The Enneagram refuses to eliminate the negative…We only have the courage to face our deep illusions when we are entirely loved and accepted by God…So, with great irony, our faults are the crack that lets grace in, exactly as the Gospel teaches. We must bring our root sin to consciousness rather than deny or repress it. We can only heal our wound with kindness and compassion, not judgment and condemnation. This is how Jesus treated sinners, such as the woman caught in adultery (see John 8:1-11).”

We are raised with this idea that, since God is perfect and cannot look on sin, we must not look on it in ourselves; doing so would be too scary. I love the oft-misinterpreted verse, 1 John 4:18: “Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” That second clause is usually left out, but that’s the real key. Once you understand how dearly beloved you are, you are not afraid to look at what is not perfect in you – and you are even able to love yourself entirely in each moment. Yes, we work toward a sin-less life, but we understand that we can only be who we are at any given point in time. And we can have grace for that, in ourselves and then also in others – back to the idea above from Rohr that “we can share that love with a hurting world.” Love makes room for imperfection.

“Teresa of Ávila said that the sinner is actually one who does not love himself or herself enough. We do not see or admire the whole self; so we split and try to love the good self and reject the bad self. But Jesus told us to let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest, lest we destroy the wheat by trying to pull up the weeds (see Matthew 13:24-30). The Enneagram allows us to see and embrace our shadow, the part of us that most carries our shame.”

Yes! If we loved ourselves like God loves us, it wouldn’t occur to us to do anything that hurts us or others. The Enneagram helps us more clearly see the weeds and not be horrified by them; it helps us let go of shame, denial and harsh judgement.

“We all have a little of each personality type in us, allowing us greater understanding and compassion for others. But for our own transformation, we must recognize that we tend to have a primary set of blinders, a primary delusion, a capital sin…Even though this way of perceiving reality doesn’t reflect the True Self, it seems to ‘work’ for us, giving us false energy and purpose.”

That last bit makes me shudder: “giving us false energy and purpose.” I have lived in false purpose for many years, and the reason that I teach and write about the Enneagram is to help others escape that falseness and live out their true destiny.

“It’s sobering to realize that even the best things we’ve done were done for self-serving reasons. But it’s liberating to know that God knew this all along, loves us anyway, and actually used our sins for God’s purposes. As Paul puts it, “Precisely where sin abounds, grace abounds even more” (see Romans 5:20).”

Isn’t that amazing? God knows our journey, and his eternal bigness is able to work in and through our brokenheartedness. (Had to pause to cry for joy while writing this.) So, again, follow God’s model and have kindness for yourself. And for others. Everyone is fighting a hard battle.

“Maintaining this self-image, this false self, becomes more important than anything else. This is where the Enneagram can help us to recognize this game for what it is and to disarm ourselves – to abandon the defense of the false self that we have created. We are letting go of what only seems good and discovering what in us is really good.”

One of my favorite sayings, one which I had on my whiteboard for a long time, is “There is nothing to defend.” Defensiveness exists where the personality, the false self, feels threatened. The Enneagram helps us catch ourselves in the act of defending and opens the possibility of saying no to the personality’s patterned responses. Freedom to be truly who God made us to be – what could be greater, more powerful, more satisfying, more glorifying?

This is the kind of life I am beginning to live out, and I want it for you, too.  If you’re ready to begin the journey to your authentic self and the fullness of your destiny, contact me at heath@uncoverydiscovery.com.

Enneagram Type Two: Love That is Only Sort of Love

Last week, we looked at Enneagram Type One, so on we go around the dial to Type Two, also called the The Helper, The Servant or The Caretaker. Those terms all sound nice, don’t they? These roles are valued and lauded in our culture, and are particularly rewarded within Christianity, which can make growth and transformation for Twos particularly confusing and difficult. But more on that later in the post.

The Two rests within the Heart Center, which seems lovely and appropriate for givers – until we remember that the primary emotion of the Heart Center is shame. What is the Two ashamed of? At their core, Twos have believed the lie that they are not loved for themselves alone, and that perhaps there is no love in the world.

Think about that for a minute. That’s heavy stuff. Think about a time when someone hurt you to the point that you felt unloved; that felt terrible! That is the unconscious feeling that Twos operate under, that they try desperately to make not true. Because the idea that you are not worthy of love is terrifying, and worse still the idea that the universe itself may be ultimately loveless.

Consequently, Twos determine to become the love in the universe that they fear does not exist, to prove that feeling wrong. The Super Ego message for Twos is, “You are good or okay if you are loved by others and are close to them.” Twos are extremely adept, as though their lives depended on it, at seeing need and knowing how to meet it. Relationships are critical to Twos, and others appreciate Twos because they always have the right words and buy the perfect gift and can always be relied upon for help. If you have a Two friend, that is the person you call first when you need an understanding ear, a shoulder to cry on or help in a crisis.

How could any of that be bad? Well, it’s not inherently bad; it’s just that Twos unwittingly love and serve in order to make themselves indispensable to others. It does not come from a selfless place; they expect relational intimacy and gratitude in return. If you have ever neglected a Two relationship, you will hear about it – subtly at first, and more vocally if they get mad enough. “After all I’ve done for you!” is a stock phrase for Twos who feel under-appreciated.

This is not mere pettiness. It truly does feel like a life-and-death matter if relationships are out of order, if Twos do not feel that they are loved enough by the other person. If they feel a relationship is in jeopardy, they will crank up the “love” in an attempt to shore it up. The unconscious goal is to create dependency so that they will be the “special friend” that the other comes to for love. That is why the name of this post is “Love That is Only Sort of Love.” Though we feel genuinely loved by Twos, and though they may sincerely feel love for us, it is not at all like the unconditional and selfless love that God continually dispenses.

However, as I mentioned earlier, if Twos are in at least a place of average emotional health, we don’t see the conditional nature of their love—and they don’t realize it, either. In the Church, always in need of helpers, Twos are held up as examples of God’s love. They get a lot of props for getting their own needs met because it looks like they are selflessly meeting others’ needs. There’s a brain tweak, right?

It’s enough to make you spin out on this reality and question everyone’s motives. But that is not the point. The point is to have compassion for those who are not able to love unconditionally, to try to do for Twos what they cannot do for themselves. That’s a tall order! Unconditional love is so hard for all of us, as we have few models of it on the Earth. In other words, don’t judge the Twos. They are just trying to survive.

In all this striving to survive by loving, Twos typically neglect their own needs. That’s because they learned the unconscious message that it’s not okay to have your own needs; that would be a distraction from paying attention to others’ needs. As a result, Twos often have no way to vent their own feelings and frustrations. They tend not to take care of their physical or emotional bodies and often suffer from over-eating as a way to self-comfort.

At their healthiest, though, Twos are models of what true, Godly love is like. The Apostle John is such an example. He even refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”! (Though that may be a way for the author to avoid referring to himself by name in the Gospel he wrote.) In fact, I have heard John referred to as “the love apostle.” There is an extra-Biblical story that John would travel to various churches and give a three-word sermon: “Love one another.” He would just repeat than phrase until people got it and began to actively love and serve each other right there in the gathering! And his treatise on love in the fourth chapter of his first epistle is stunningly beautiful and powerful. I encourage you to read 1 John 4:7-21 again and experience it as a Two who understand real love.

Is there a Two in your life? If so, you are blessed with a constant friend. Rejoice in that. Or, have you discovered yourself in this post? Rejoice in the holy aspect of recognizing how important people are – but don’t forget to include yourself in that recognition.