The Way Forward

How does the Enneagram shed light on our differences and teach us how to move forward in the face of uncertainty?

Today, in America, half of our country is celebrating and half are grieving.

Over the past seven years, I have deeply studied the sacred framework of the Enneagram and the rich wisdom that lives within it. It has taught me so much about myself, people, human behavior and the world.

Though the Enneagram doesn't have the capacity to take away my pain and grief I have about the brokenness of our world, it does help me understand it and hold an enlightened perspective that brings peace when all parts of me feel shattered and confused.

The Enneagram teaches us that we can all be looking at the same thing and see something completely different. While we cognitively “know” this, the Enneagram makes this reality so… real. And it also, gives us an understanding of how we land on these different perspectives.

The wisdom within the Enneagram articulates the nature of our egoic mind – one that is dualistic — that has a compulsive need to label things as right and wrong, good and evil in order to survive.

This is an innate survival tactic of our minds.

However, our egoic mind does not leave space for the third way – for nuance, for complexity, for ambiguity, for exceptions, for love.

In our egoic mind, that which is dualistic, we can only see two forces – chaos and order. And how we catagorize things as chaos or order depends on our past stories that have shaped us.

But there is always, always, always a third force present. We just have to be willing to see it, to sense it.

Some may call it spirit, God, the universe, the way, truth, the Divine Flow, balance, Essence or the nondualistic mind.

This third force is necessary for any forward movement.

This third force is LOVE.

Love lights a pathway between chaos and order. It helps is rise above the labels of good and bad, right and

I don't know about you, but the theories of my ego, dualistic mind have been proved inadequate too many times. Those labels have failed me but love has always prevailed.

It is always the answer.

It invites a new perspective.

Love does truly conquer fear. Love conquers the dualistic mind. But choosing love, this isn’t easy. Choosing love is the work.

So in the coming days as we look for the way forward…

Let us love our neighbor and smile at the stranger.

Let us love ourselves by giving ourselves space to grieve, if that is how we are feeling.

Let us offer grace to those with different perspectives.

Let us marvel at the sunrise and the birds chirping and the snow falling and the laughter of a child.

Let us rest and then rise — no matter the outcome — because the work is never finished. The work has only just begun.

Let us remember that the work is not about winning, the work is about breaking free of the egoic perspective so that we may build a more inclusive, loving, peaceful, just and truly liberated world. The work is love and may it continue with us.