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.

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.

Further Up Maslow’s Pyramid: Self-Esteem vs. Real Meaning

No, you’re not seeing double. I didn’t finish my thoughts on Maslow’s famous pyramid last week, so here it is again. I’m sure that’s terrible for SEO, but it must be done.

I left off talking about the three basic instincts. As I mentioned last time, it’s not wrong and in fact necessary to have these instincts, but the problem is that we get fixated on one of them. This causes an unhealthy preoccupation with that one, possibly to the detriment of the others. We are not whole as long as we remain driven by one of these instincts. This is why it’s important to know and understand what drives you. Sandra Maitri, in “The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram,” has a wonderful diagram showing the outline of an upside-down human being. Across the top of that outline are the three instincts, which have taken over. Another diagram shows the human right-side up, in which the instincts rest at the bottom of the outline. The Enneagram Institute has a paid test on the instincts to help you figure out your “stack”: the order of importance for each instinct to you.

It’s also important to understand how to get free of this imbalance. Once you know your instinct fixation, watch out for it. Observe it nonjudgmentally. Observing is enough to take its power away. I can prove this from experience. As a self-preservation Seven, I have always traveled with food and water everywhere I go – even to the grocery store – just to make sure that I don’t have to experience a moment of deprivation. (I do have low blood sugar, but still…) In fact, one of my friends calls me “The Walking Picnic.” Last year, I began to notice, to my surprise and delight, that I was leaving the house with no food packed in my purse, and even forgetting my water bottle! I had made no forced, Superego-driven decision to do this. It happened organically as I have steadily done the work of self-observation and awareness and become less afraid.

Now we come to the upper region of the pyramid, and here’s what I find really interesting. The top two bars of the pyramid, in my estimation, are really about the first and second halves of human life (to borrow Richard Rohr’s paradigm). The need for self-esteem is present throughout the earlier years, as we go through school being recognized for accomplishments that we think make us “special.” This is necessary to our psychological development. It gives us an idea of what we’re capable of and what society values.

However, I believe that the intention of God is that, eventually, humans begin to discover that the recognition isn’t enough. You’ve reached this rung, you’ve gotten these awards or achieved these goals and isn’t that great, but you sense something’s missing still. This should propel you to the tip of that pyramid toward self-actualization. Unfortunately, forces within and without conspire to keep you complacent, distracted, hopeless, driven to do more – whatever. Can you think of a being who benefits from humans not thinking about the meaning of life and their deeper purpose? Do you imagine that he’s pretty good at derailing people? The Superego doesn’t help, either, trying to convince us to stick to its carefully proscribed plan.

I’m reminded that the first washing machine was invented in a Shaker community, with the goal of freeing up more time to pray. Today, we have more labor-saving devices than you can shake a stick at, but how many of us calculate how many hours of labor we’re saving and devoting those hours to additional prayer? I’m not trying to be preachy; I’m trying to prove a point: getting to the second-half-of-life realization that there’s a deeper purpose to our existence can be tough. This is why some people retire and just feel lost; what they thought was their purpose—their job—is gone, and they don’t know how to replace it. Not a lot of people seem to get to the top rung of Maslow’s pyramid. If you’re reading this blog, you are probably on that journey.

The word “self-actualization” may give some Christians the heebie-jeebies, but I look at it as becoming your actual self: a person who experiences their purpose, meaning and inner potential. That’s a tall order. Sort of like climbing a pyramid – hard work, but what a view when you reach the top! Let’s encourage each other as we climb. As always, I welcome your thoughts in the comments below.