With a newfound practice of self-awareness and an openness to seeing what we had been blind to, we arrive at Point 3. Here we are able to take an honest inventory, seeing more clearly, more truthfully, the parts of our defensive strategy that have caused problems for us and those around us. Now our life experiences can help us as we own how we have seen the world and responded to it and notice the patterns that emerge. The Enneagram’s type formulations can be a great help here as they shine a light on the motivations, the gifts, and the defensive strategies associated with each type acting as a kind and honest friend to re-direct our efforts when we are tempted to fall back to sleep.
In the last Insight I shared Rohr’s use of the analogy of first constructing our house and then taking a clarifying second look to evaluate the cracks in its construction. This all important second look highlights the shift towards self-awareness at Point 9. This shift is the pre-curser to the work we have before us at Point 3 this time around. With that awareness we must now get to work on the de-construction and the re-construction. Another analogy that is helpful to understand the work at Point 3 is given to us by Enneagram expert, Mario Sikora. Recognizing that we have all created stories that prompt us and support us in the creation of our defensive Strategy, here at Point 3 Sikora invites us to re-write those stories, but this time do the editing with courageous truthfulness.
Rohr, Sikora, and the Enneagram in general are all inviting us to look again at all we created and find what we have misunderstood. We need to look for the places we have come to over-protect that no longer need protecting, the places we have not allowed for ourselves that we can now inhabit, and the places in which we have let go of what is most important to us and settled for much less.
Whether we are re-constructing our house or rewriting our story the work requires deep honesty and time. This means we will be rounding the Inner Triangle again and again, but hopefully each time in this clockwise direction. The work at Point 3 requires us to drill down into seeing things (ourselves, others, and life itself) more accurately. Seeing accurately is challenging work. We need to become aware of the underbelly of what is going on with us. We need to understand how pain has been driving us, limiting us, and blocking us as we constructed and wrote and then use all that awareness as we re-construct our house, as we re-write our stories. It is with this emphasis in mind that Sikora calls Point 3 “Authenticity.” Here we want to get closer to and live out the truth of ourselves.
So what more, you may ask, could the Inner Triangle offer us now that we are aware and exploring? Well stay with me to find out about the goings on at Point 6. – Sali