In my work, self-alignment plays a central role and means something specific. When I talk about self-alignment, I am speaking primarily of two things:
1. Aligning Desire with Positive Emotion
The first kind of self-alignment that I teach is the alignment between your desire and how you feel about your desire.
Desire simply means “what I want”, and the clarity that matters most throughout all of life is always clarity about what you want. The details of this change, and so you must keep current by aligning yourself emotionally with whatever it is that you want now.
Desire is a cornerstone of human experience and is the primary evolutionary force shaping our world, so it’s worth understanding.
Here’s the simplest way to put it:
When you want something and you feel good (eager, expectant, deserving, clear, easeful, certain, optimistic, hopeful, peaceful) about wanting it, you are in self-alignment. Your emotion is aligned with your desire.
When you want something and feel bad (uncertain, doubtful, undeserving, guilty, ashamed, confused) about it, you are out of self-alignment. Your emotion is misaligned with your desire.
When you know what you want, you feel clarity. When it feels good to know what you want, you are in alignment. This describes every powerful vision of every leader who has ever lived.
You will never extinguish your desire, and you will never be finished wanting more, and so you are wise to get into a good-feeling relationship with desire and wanting.
2. Aligning Your Three Operating Systems
The second kind of alignment that I teach relates to three distinct modes of engaging yourself and the world. I call them the three operating systems:
your cognitive self (thinking)
your emotional self (feeling)
your sensational (somatic) self.
Each of these three operating systems is important, and each has its own language and function. When all three are well understood, well maintained, and well aligned, a person can operate at full capacity with maximum effectiveness and well-being.
Most people, however, are accustomed to relying primarily on just one of these three operating systems or modes, occasionally engaging a second if absolutely necessary, and ignoring the third altogether.
The nature of these three operating systems is that no single one can be used at full potential unless all three are finely tuned and harmonized.
The possibility exists to master all three, and to learn to move comfortably and nimbly between them, using each one intentionally and to maximum benefit, depending upon context and circumstance.
Where you find yourself right now – your circumstances, your personality, your thoughts and beliefs, your feelings and emotions, your patterns of relating to yourself and others… all of it – makes perfect sense.
There is a perfect logic to who you are. It is an indisputable logic. And the same is true for every person on the planet (including your partner), which is kind of weird, because they might believe things that seem opposite to what you believe.
The point is, you don’t have to argue for who you are, good parts (wanted, by you) or bad parts (unwanted, by you). And you don’t have to argue with others about who they are.
When a new client or client couple begins working with me, they often come with an initial expectation that they need to make a case, sometimes an elaborate case, for why they are where they are: why they believe what they believe, why they’re stuck where they’re stuck, and especially why they feel how they feel. They expect that it is necessary for them to create or understand elaborate webs of connection between their past experience and their present experience, and they sometimes seem to expect that I will be judging them or rating their proficiency, or that my job is to help them vivify this web of connection between past and present experiences.
I actually approach each new client, and indeed each new conversation, with the assumption that there are excellent reasons for feeling the way you feel. There’s a perfect logic to it. We actually need to spend virtually no time down that path.
What I want to know is not how do you feel and how did you come to feel this way, but rather, how do you WANT to feel, and how do we move you in that direction now. So rather than building evidence to support a case that is a foregone conclusion I encourage you to jump as quickly as possible to the part where you get clear about what you want. Your entire experience is all logical, all valid, all understandable… what now?
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You belong. You just do. You are worthy. You just are. Your very presence here confirms your worthiness and your belonging. The same energy that birthed this planet, all the planets and stars, indeed the universe… this same energy animates you. You are that.
Many people struggle in their relationships for a feeling of worthiness and belonging, but that’s not where you find the most potent versions. Two people might come together and celebrate their intrinsic belonging and worth with one another (these are the most creative and joyous relationships) but people can not give this to one another in the same way that we discover it in ourselves.
When we remove our focus from trying to obtain a feeling of belonging and worthiness from the other (or provide it to them), and redirect that focus into discovering, affirming, and celebrating it within, then we become ready for the kind of relationship that is abundance rather than scarcity, clarity rather than confusion, satisfaction rather than disappointment. But not everyone is ready for this. If you are, great, enjoy! If you are not, may this message serve as a gentle reminder, an invitation, an idea maybe worth considering.
When couples know their enneagram personality types they get deep insights into their relationship dynamics. First and foremost, I see the enneagram as a system for understanding, appreciating, and managing differences between people in relationship. Obviously this has profound implications for relationship work, and it’s become a cornerstone for my work with many couples.
If you’ve worked with me personally in the past few years, then we’ve probably talked about the enneagram together. If you have not worked with me, but have been following my writing, then it’s time for an introduction to this powerful system for self-awareness and personal growth.
I’m going to provide a brief introduction to the enneagram, and then give you links to some of my favourite enneagram resources, including the Enneagram Global Summit online event that is happening right now (it’s free, and really worthwhile).
1 THE REFORMER The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
2 THE HELPER The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive
3 THE ACHIEVER The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious
4 THE INDIVIDUALIST The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental
5 THE INVESTIGATOR The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
6 THE LOYALIST The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
7 THE ENTHUSIAST The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Distractible, and Scattered
8 THE CHALLENGER The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational
9 THE PEACEMAKER The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent
On the surface, the enneagram is a personality typing system that offers us nine primary “types”, and then many sub-types depending on how deeply you want to go into it. One of the things I love about it is that it is very accessible for beginners, and it also has enough depth and complexity to keep you engaged for a lifetime.
One of my enneagram teachers (and a leading scholar), Russ Hudson, notes that people are attracted to the enneagram initially because they see themselves mirrored in it. We find ourselves reflected in the type descriptions, and there’s an immediate and satisfying sense of being validated or being “seen”. And when a type description matches our partner, we feel amazed to see them so accurately described!
But beyond this initial intrigue, there’s a deeper challenge waiting. Once we discover our type, we (hopefully) become compelled to WORK with our type. Each of the different enneagram types is a kind of map for how we keep ourselves stuck in a particular pattern. Our personality type is simultaneously a beautiful gift, and a prison of sorts. Working with the enneagram helps us understand the gifts of our type, and can help us liberate ourselves from the limits that our type places upon us.
Interest in the enneagram has exploded in the past five years, and this popularization has had predictably mixed results, including a fair bit of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. To save you time and get you on the right track, I’ve curated a collection of my favourite enneagram teachers and resources for you here. Although there are some differing opinions and approaches within the enneagram community, the list below only includes the most well-respected people and organizations working with the enneagram.
Enneagram Resources
Enneagram Global Summit (The Shift Network) – This is happening right now. It’s free, and it features an incredible selection of the world’s leading enneagram teachers and collaborators; the best of the best. I especially liked the conversation with Dan Siegel on the intersection between the enneagram and interpersonal neurobiology. (Recordings will probably be available.)
The Enneagram Institute – This is arguably the most established and well-respected enneagram organization. This is the place to take your enneagram assessments to find your type. You can read a short description of the types here.
RussHudson.com – Russ Hudson is one of the world’s leading enneagram scholars, teachers, and authors. I recommend his seminal book “The Wisdom of the Enneagram”. Watch the short video of him describing each type; it is very sweet and gives you an immediate sense of his style.
BeatriceChestnut.com – As an author and teacher, Beatrice Chestnut provides her own welcome and unique approach to the enneagram. Check out her enneagram podcast, “Enneagram 2.0” with Uranio Paes. I also really like her videos on youtube where she organizes panel discussions for each enneagram type.
(Note – I may receive a modest referral compensation from one or more of the links in this article. This in no way influences my recommendations.)
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