Enneagram Integration Practice

“How do I integrate spirituality into my every day life? Throw out the concept of “spiritual life” and “everyday life.” There is only life, undivided and whole.”
~ Adyashanti

Spirituality is at times a dance of transcendence and one of integration. We reach for the stars, expanding ourselves into higher states of being by challenging ourselves to become more aware. We bring these stars back to our home in order to learn from them over time, integrating the new things they can teach us. With the galaxy of stars that is the Enneagram, we reach for new understandings of who we can become by discovering who we are. We integrate the new learnings and growth opportunities inherent to each of our types through overcoming the challenges our ego structures have presented to us. The more we overcome (transcend) our deeply entrenched identification with the limitations of our type, the more we integrate toward our goal—becoming our fully empowered, fully awakened, fully present Soul-selves.

The next step in that process, the final aspect in the Mind of the Enneagram work, is a previewing/reviewing practice that will help you integrate all that you have learned while forging a path of making the Enneagram a part of your “everyday life.” Before we begin, let’s review a summary of what you might have discovered thus far.

5As Practice: The UGP

In the 5As work, you discovered a new way of behaving that holds the power to break habitual, “automatic” reactions. Here are some key takeaways to review:

Allowing yourself to pause and collect your energy gives your response a space for mindfulness.
Reactions that are more mindful and conscious take into consideration a greater awareness of what underlies the creation of your reactions, allowing you to respond with your spiritual goals in mind rather than react to perceived threats.
The ego is a story-telling machine, and the 5As give you a way to disrupt the power of its stories to convince you of their truth, opening new possibilities to think, feel and act in ways that are more aligned with your soul.

Receptive Awareness

Approaching Receptive Awareness as an art is inherent in this practice of learning to witness your self with loving kindfulness. Through openness and curiosity about what is arising in the moment, your relationship to yourself eases, allowing deep spiritual growth to occur. Here are some key takeaways:

From the pain of loss of connection with your Essential nature in infancy and early childhood, your ego continually searches, through its distorted lens, for a way back to experience that sense of Beingness.
Your Enneagram type perspective combined with your unique life experiences shape the form of your reactivities. Understanding how your Enneagram perspective influences how you view the world is key to unlocking the disruptive, unsavory reactions creating suffering in your interpersonal relationships.
Being present and receiving the truth of your experience in the moment without judgment relaxes the patterns your ego has imprisoned itself in.

Taking Action

The importance of doing Enneagram ‘work’ vs learning about the Enneagram all comes down to taking action. Without application of the heart, the time invested in the Enneagram only leads to more mindstuff: theory, analysis, understanding. But spiritual growth is about wisdom. One can only obtain spiritual wisdom through their applying the principles learned through action with a willingness to lean into discomfort and the possibility of failure. The key takeaways are:

Taking action means bringing the contemplated Enneagram concepts from the head space down into the heart where they lead us through aligning with what is present and true for us in the moment.
The majority of the problems in your life stem from habitual behavior. Taking action requires stepping into unfamiliar or uncomfortable space to break a pattern that keeps you in suffering.
Taking action through the lens of the Enneagram helps illuminate the assumptions underlying your “reality”, so you can consciously choose new behaviors that create true freedom and happiness.

What we have covered in the program thus far regarding the Enneagram has been as comprehensive as a 5-week-program introduction as could be created and experienced in one’s busy life, but is by no means a comprehensive totality of what the Enneagram of Personality offers. Exploring the dimensions of the Enneagram can fill a lifetime, so if the Enneagram has resonated with you, you are encouraged to continue exploring it through its many offerings in the form of texts, podcasts, and videos. At the end of this page you will find recommended resources that share the perspective of this program—using the Enneagram for spiritual growth rather than as a way to become more identified with your ego personality.

Preview/Review Practice

This week’s practice is a process of daily contemplation and writing exercises that will seek to engender an ongoing use of your Enneagram perspective to decode your ego’s story making power, and unlock your Soul’s expression of Essence.

In your teaching email for this week, you will find your type specific practice to focus your journaling. For this week, you will not have an audio contemplative, but will instead be writing once in the morning as a preview for the day, and once in the evening as a review of the day as correlating with whatever aspect applies to your progress for the day.

As you contemplate your path each day in response to the emailed prompts, you may find it helpful to consider how the three previous practices are informing your growth. For example, perhaps you executed a great feat of effort in becoming more receptively aware. In your journaling you would want to write a review of what it was you did and how it benefits your overcoming your ego stories.

Another example might be you wish to take action this week on something big you’ve been too afraid to approach. Write the details of what you seek to achieve that day in your ‘preview’ writing in the morning and review what happened in taking that action in your ‘review’ writing in the evening.

You can review the specific practice pages at The 5As/UGP | Receptive Awareness | Taking Action