Thursday, December 12, 2013

“In the After Glow – Reflections on “Love, Spirit and Relationships” Part II with David Daniels and Russ Hudson


AEA December Blog – Robin Cameron – Part II
“In the After Glow – Reflections on “Love, Spirit and Relationships” with David Daniels and Russ Hudson

Interspersed throughout the Daniels/Hudson weekend were one-two-and three liners that themselves could be workshop-starters.  Here are my personal favorites:

When introduced to the Enneagram by Helen Palmer, I recognized the patterns that I already was discovering on my own.  DD

Early on, I discovered the typologies as what we do instead of being present.  I came to understand how my patterns take me out of myself, and how – when we meet those patterns with understanding, kindness, and presence – we don’t have to get rid of them but they transform.  RH

The hope for all of us is the personality becomes interwoven with the essential qualities, which allow us to live in the world relating with those higher qualities.  DD

We need to take in the implications of our patterns, which lead to the virtues and how we can stay awake to each other.  RH

The power of the Enneagram is enormous.  How do we live from presence, what does that require so that we become more whole?  That is what we are addressing.  DD  

The idea is to interrupt the fixations of these patterns so they can get to the real you.  It is not about fixing the other person!  RH

 Three basic aversive emotions are common to 100 million years of mammalian evolution: Anger (Rage), Distress (when you lose connection resulting in stress, pain, longing, shame), and Fear.  DD

We begin to understand our type is not our self.  We use our patterns and energy to manage the aversive emotions through distraction by reducing the frame of focus so we don’t notice something else; it shrinks down perception that was objectively overwhelming to us as kids.  It is good to know as adults where the volume control and on-off switch is.  RH

Personality tries to keep anger, distress, and fear away, thinking these things are wrong.  So we either amplify them or eliminate or run away from them.  The work is to get to what’s underneath.  DD

 So we learn ways to connect with ourselves to open up a field of awareness; we learn other ways of being with our aversive emotions.  RH

In life three great energies are always present – active, receptive and balancing/ reconciling energy.  In our modern life we go far away from receptive energy which is so necessary for presence and compassion. DD

When (our patterns are) running, our consciousness falls into narrowed-down, fixated, identified patterns and we’re caught in a dualized consciousness, which leads nowhere.  What the Enneagram teaches is the triadic pattern – that there is always a third component that drops out when we are not present.  The question then is what drops out when we’re stuck; and what drops back in when we are present?  Stasis is fantasy.  RH

We need good process with content, the 5 A’s:  DD (and RH)
Awareness – When we move out of the story into direct experience, we can work with our type’s pattern.
Acceptance – Operating from open heartedness in ourselves with grounded presence. 
Appreciation – When in our pattern and the conflict it produces, we feel no one appreciates us and feel put out.  The ego, wanting connection, creates more structure but not more connection.
Action – Action is where the content comes in through inquiry of the old no longer valid belief.
Adherence –  The hardest of all – the chance to practice and cultivate presence with devotion and regularity, to be awake to our reactivity, for the rest of our life.

The Law of 3 allows us to understand a different way of relating to ourselves out of stuckness.  When there is polarization within myself, if I can see/bring something else in, I soften and see the other differently.  Rigidity softens, I fall back into sacred mystery, sacred ground, and then the polarity softens from you/me to us.  And we’re opened to greater unity.  What we want to explore is how to do this in relationships.  Operationally!  RH

Riso’s rule/Hudson’s theory re what type is it best to be with?  Answer:  Healthy!  RH

The 3 centers (body, heart, mind) bring together three ingredients of presence:  sensation expands you out of your narrow view, the mind transforms, and the heart opens.  DD

Your direct experience is the only non-abstract thing here.  Everything else is an image in your head.  RH

In doing this work, the content is not complicated.  Self- observation is not thinking about the pattern but remembering to breathe etc. while the pattern is occurring!  DD

The more present we are the more there is neuroplasticity, and so more rewiring is possible.  Practice builds.  Befriending our reactivity is to invite presence back.  RH

Change the mind, change the brain.  The mind is relational. Patterns are reflected in the brain.  So that’s the hope of neurobiology.  DD

And coming fully circle – at the professionals’ meeting …
Owning our shadow stuff is how we take our place with each other.  This work can only go so far without a larger consciousness that includes forgiveness.  RH

The attribution theory says “My bad behavior is from circumstances.  Your bad behavior is because of your character!”  The problem goes from the individual all the way to the cold war. 
The foundation for Russ and me is that we have love and respect for each other.  We are fundamentally aligned.  DD

And so it was that for a memorable and historic weekend, we were called into that alignment and higher consciousness, with the invitation to this practice for the rest of our life. 

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