You’re not new to inner work and you’re familiar with the Enneagram.

So you’ve likely uncovered some of your ego’s favorite thought loops, shame spirals, and go-to sources of existential dread.

The more closely you look, it seems that these ego patterns - mental, emotional, and behavioral reactions - play out in more subtle ways than your mind can grasp.

You’re psychologically “committed to growth,” but your Enneagram type’s patterns are wired deeply into your nervous system.

The world is filled with potentially overwhelming experiences and your nervous system is particularly attuned to any threats to your experience of autonomy, connectedness, and security.

In the face of complex interpersonal dynamics and unexpected life circumstances, you have mechanisms that push those highly charged experiences temporarily out of your awareness — so you can carry on with business-as-usual.

This automated system learned early on what "worked,” and it loves repeating the actions that will keep you alive and managing well enough without disrupting the status quo.

Your body is designed to automatically and unconsciously defend itself against what was overwhelming to you in the past by physically contracting against that perceived threat.

Without the conscious awareness you have now, your ego had decades to contract in the exact ways that were most important for you to survive the environment, relationships, and situations that you were exposed to early in your life — without alerting you to what it was doing.

By the time you found your Enneagram type, these patterns had become more rigid and restrictive.

When you began to paying attention to them, they likely seemed so familiar that you confused them for who you are.

But if you’re on this journey, you’ve started to recognize that you are so much more than your type.

As you wake up to this possibility, you can begin to practice noticing your patterns with more consciousness.

Through self-observation and practice, you get little tastes of what it’s like to have your essential nature shine through; how it feels when you see yourself and others see you for who you truly are.

And then, you bump into the unwritten rule: everything that could possible poke at your core wounds… does.

Your autopilot settings take over, causing you to brace against the life force energy that is designed to flow through you, ushering your unique gifts into the world for everyone’s benefit

That’s why, even with all of your hard-earned awareness, you keep encountering the same struggles.

The cycles of coping until you’re burnt out.

The repetitive issues in your relationships.

The difficulty of walking a spiritual path while being exceptionally human.