For more spiritual practices coordinated to specific Enneagram types, see Contemplating The Enneagram. available May, 2020.
Background: An interesting game to play is “What if there were only type ___ in the world?” Twos love to help others. They have a great deal of trouble accepting help0 from others. If there were only twos in the world, I imagine them running around trying to help and support each other. And none of them getting to do it. Because all of them would refuse the help of others.
Like nearly any comment you can make about personality types, this is of course a generalization and an over simplification. But it gets at a fundamental reality for two’s: it is easier to give help than recieve it.
As the above thought-experiment demonstrates, giving and recieiving help are both vitally important. We couldn’t have one with out the other. This first practice equates this interdependence to the parts of the breath. Just as we could not have an inhale without an exhale, so too we could not have helpers with out those they are helping.
Somewhere, deep down, we might have this tendency to think, “Well, I can help other people… because they have an easy time recieiving help. I don’t need to be the person who takes help, there’s plenty of other people out there.”
This is an adventure in missing the point. Much of the spiritual work that needs to be done by twos is allowing themselves to be helped.
The Exercise.
Place your feet flat on the floor.
Inhale.
Exhale.
With the next inhale, think “I can recieve help.”
With the next exhale, think, “I can give help.”
For most of the time that you have devoted to this practice, repeat steps 5 and 6.
When you are ready, release these words. Sit in a time of wordlessness.
Type one’s often face an inner critic. A personality-within-a-personality that offers a never ending diatribe about all the things that they are doing wrong. Sometimes, it is helpful to meet this creation head on.
There are many ways and approaches to disarming the inner critic. One is to name it something ridiculous and personify it in a manner that is outragous. A second is to be more humane with it. On this account, we recognize that it once did us good.
The Exercise
Find an empty chair. Bring it near you.
Close your eyes and take three deep breaths.
Consider your inner critic and consider the power it has over your life. Ask yourself which approach would work best for taming it.
Now, personify your inner critic. See her or him sitting in the chair. Imagine the color of the critic’s hair. The timbre of their voice. See the clothes your critic is wearing.
Sit in silence with the critic for a time.
Tell the critic that it is no longer doing what it set out to do. Explain that it has worn out its welcome.
Dismiss the critic. Let it disapear.
Spend some quiet time alone.
For more practices curated especially for Enneagram type 1, see Contemplating The Enneagram, available in May 2020.
This email exploration is focused on three interconnected ideas: Transitions, Deconstruction, and Liminal Space. These three ideas grow increasingly specific and increasingly complex. Over these next three emails we will consider each of them.
Transitions happen every day, of course. Compared to deconstruction or liminal space, they are fairly straight foreward. Nonetheless, they are not easy. The transitions that we are hoping for in life are not the ones we notice much. Generally speaking, the transitions which cause us stress bring with them a host of unwanted emotions.
This is why we are beginning with 2 different forms of The Welcoming Prayer. There are many forces which conspire to “teach” us to live in denial of the feelings we carry. We hope that ignoring these feelings makes them go away. The reality is that the opposite is true: Naming and owning them can go a long way toward evaporating many of our most intense and unwanted feelings.
Create a safe, quiet environment for yourself. Turn down your phone and consider lighting a candle.
Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take a mental inventory of where you are, right now. List the feelings you are experiencing. Do your best to engage this with a nonjudgemental attitude. Your feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Choose the feeling which seems to be the most impactful. Think, or say “Welcome ___________” (E.G. ‘Welcome, Fear. Welcome, sadness. Welcome, anxiety. Etc.)
Breathe once.
Say, or think “I let go of my desire for security and survival.’
Breathe again.
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire for esteem and affection.’
Breathe again.
Say, or think ‘I let go of my desire for power and control.’
Breathe.
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire to change the situation.’
If you wish, you can repeat this process for a second, troubling emotion.
We have recently made our entire audio file library available to everyone. There are numerous exercises on this page, including an audio file of the welcoming prayer we have been practicing these last couple days. You can find The Welcoming Prayer and other audio files here.
One of the figures who has been pivotal on my spiritual journey is father Richard Rohr. He has written many amazing books. The organization he began is The Center for Action and Contemplation. They feature a powerful daily email, classes, podcasts, and more. Check out the CAC here.
Thanks for joining The Faith-ing Project’s September Email Exploration. You probably know that this time around, the focus is on building a spiritual practice through times of transition, deconstruction and liminal spaces. These emails will launch every other day at 5 PM US Eastern Standard Time.
They will consist of 3 parts. This introductory section will introduce ideas relevant to building a spiritual practice of related to the topics of transition, deconstruction and liminal space.
The middle section will consist of the day’s suggested spiritual practice.
The bottom section will feature announcement and updates about other exciting events, generally those related to The Faith-ing Project.
Many of the positive outcomes connected to a spiritual practice will come up when they are practiced at least once a day. On the “off days” when no email arrives, it is highly recommended that you give a second try to the most recent spiritual practice.
It’s exciting to have you on this journey! Thanks for taking it with us. There are lots of ways to connect with me and I love hearing from participants. If you would like to share observations, please reply to this email, click the links at the bottom of this page, or send a message to otherjeffcampbell7@gmail.com
Background: This prayer become popular in the centering prayer movement. It was originally written by Mary Mrozowski. It is a method of recognizing, then releasing difficult emotions.
This is an important place to begin during times of transition. It is inevitable that lots of feelings, many difficult to manage, pop up in the midst of change. For this reason, our next exercise will be a similiar practice, designed to identify and welcome the feelings that pop up for us.
It is always advisable to read through the practice before beginning them. Notice that on step 5 today you will have a choice to make about the specific words that you use. Choosing which one you are going to use in advance will be helpful.
36 A
The Exercise:
Create a safe, quiet environment for yourself. Turn down your phone and consider lighting a candle.
Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take a mental inventory of where you are, right now. List the feelings you are experiencing. Do your best to engage this with a nonjudgemental attitude. Your feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Choose the feeling which seems to be the most impactful. Think, or say “Welcome ___________” (E.G. ‘Welcome, Fear. Welcome, sadness. Welcome, anxiety. Etc.)
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire to change this feeling.’ or ‘I let go of my ___________’ or ‘God, I give you my _____________’
Progress on to the next emotion, repeating steps 4 and 5.
When you have worked through these emotions, spend a moment doing a mental inventory, assessing whether you feel differently.
The exercise to be introduced Wednesday is an alternative Welcoming Prayer. It is exercise 36-B. If you would like to try it in advance of that email you can find it here.
So much of our suffering arises from the disconnect between how we recall the events of our lives and how they actually occurred. St. Ignatius of Loyola gave us a solution to this dilemma over 500 years ago. The spiritual exercise known as The Examen presents us with an opportunity to invite God into our recollections and seek out his presence in the details of our lives.Examining the Examen presents simple, step-by-step explanations of how to approach this transformative practice and encourages a playful, experimental approach to integrating this into our lives. Whether we review the last few hours or several decades of our lives, The Examen breeds a sense of peace, gratitude, and union with God. Let your journey begin. You can purchase the book here.
The goal of The Faith-ing Project is to enrich your spiritual life. Our hope is that this might be a gymnasium for the soul; a library for the spirit; and a toy store for the psyche.
If you’re interested in books more focused on spiritual practice without the exploration of deconstruction, take a look at the faith-ing project guides. Samples of some of the Faith-ing Project guides can be found here. If you would like to go straight to ordering the books at amazon, click here.
I am eagerly awaiting the premiere of the ‘Be Still’ app. In the meantime, I was quite impressed by their how-to page.
Work has been temporarily suspended on the upcoming Faith-ing Project Guide on spiritual practices specific to the nine Enneagram types. Samples of spiritual practices assigned to each of the nine types can be foundhere.
If you do not find what you are looking for here, click this link. Many of our resources, including audio files, strategies for bringing the practices home, contemplations built around the work of famous authors, and contemporary traditions can be found there.
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