In this life, there is a fundamental existential paradox:

On the one hand, we are one with all things, inseparable from the timeless and formless field of infinite possibility (sometimes called Essence, Source, The Universe, God, The Field, etc.)

AND, on the other,

we are each unique, specific humans living in finite bodies in a world with many limitations and distinctions between “self” and “other.”

Our human processing systems find it quite difficult to hold both of these as true.

So we forget.

In doing so, we also forget the truth of our inherent worthiness + value + validity.

This creates a wound.

To keep this wound from overwhelming us, we learn ways to create a sense of autonomy & control + connection with others + predictability & security.

When we do this automatically and unconsciously, we focus most of our attention on very specific aspects of reality.

This leads us to lose sight of our true nature.

Instead of living authentically, we learn to cover our shame by denying our pain, playing small, and people-pleasing to create a nice image of ourselves.

These are coping skills, and they act like a bandage, keeping the wound somewhat protected and the pain contained.

Our system loves repeating what has worked. So we do.

But our bodies continue to work over-time to keep us from feeling the pain of the original wound.

You’ve now had decades of practice directing your energy in specific ways that have helped you carry on with your life.

These have led to certain beliefs about who we are and how the world works.

Anything that doesn’t line up gets pushed out of awareness to keep these beliefs in place and to not open up the deepest wounds.

Everything in our instincts told us not to. In fact, our egos told us there was no wound.

So we didn’t develop the skills to heal the wound.

We may have identified all sorts of problems with the world around us, with other people, and even with ourselves, and offered many ideas about how to solve these problems with the skills we already had.

But we didn’t have the tools to navigate the emotions that come when we approach the wound or the skillful means of cleaning it out and removing old irritants.

By the time we ever hear the word “Enneagram” these patterns of self-forgetting, managing the wound, and avoiding triggering the wound had become ingrained.

When you found your core type, you probably started seeing more clearly how these patterns and aptitudes show up in your life.

In fact, they likely seemed so familiar that you confused them for who you are.

With the wound hidden deep within your unconscious, you didn’t notice that you have been avoiding much of yourself.

You haven’t allowed yourself to meet the wounded parts of you, which, within them, contain many gifts, ready to potentiate when we meet them with curiosity and compassion.

The Enneagram outlines the Defense System, which helps us understand how we keep ourselves from going where it feels too dangerous to explore.

Our Defense Mechanism automatically runs when we fear tending the wound would be too challenging to our sense of identity and too disruptive to the things we like about how we’ve built our lives.

When we bring compassion to the parts of ourselves that have been dwelling in the shadowlands, their gifts transform us.

On some level, we know this — that we will never be the same — and so we stay away.

Until we’re ready and willing to experience something outside of what we can currently imagine.

The psyche and the spirit and the body have to be willing.