Essential Aspects and the Wisdom of the Ancient Enneagram Part 5
February 26, 2026
Essential Aspects and the Wisdom of the Ancient Enneagram Part 5
In the 1980s, I was an assistant professor of behavioral science for a medical residency program of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. For eleven years, I made rounds with the Family Practice residents every morning in the hospital. My job was to educate beginning physicians in bedside manner, understanding the psychological situation of their patients, and how to deal with their own stress levels as physicians.
One morning in the early eighties, a fight broke out in a patient’s hospital room. Mr. Jones, I will call him, was around eighty-years-old and was deteriorating so rapidly that he was not expected to live. Having been crippled early in life, he wore a leg brace which now stood in the corner of his hospital room. During life, Mr. Jones had not realized his own worth and instead, used his disability and guilt to control his family. Two different factions of the family arose: his daughter’s family and his son’s who Mr. Jones had always pitched against each other. Mr. Jones enjoyed being the beneficiary of his grown children’s competition to be the most loyal and favored child. Sadly Mr. Jones could not find his worth in any other manner.
The fight? It occurred in Mr. Jones’ hospital room and even out in the hallway. He had passed away earlier in the morning and the two sides were fighting over their deceased father’s leg brace. The brace obviously symbolized their father and fighting over the brace was a continuation of their life-long competition to be their dad’s favorite, even though he had died.
Sadly, his children viewed their father’s brace as a representation of Mr. Jones. But the brace was not the man’s real essence, it was only a symbol of his disability which his children confused as a symbol of their father’s essential self. The disability had become such a part of Mr. Jones’ pain body that he had identified with the disability. His real essence had been covered over with the role of being a disabled victim. This role was a poor imitation of the truly beautiful soul he really was.
What is our own essence? Would we ever be confused with one symbol of our life or would our essence be such a spiritual energy that it is beyond the material? Would disabilities, talents, money, or possessions ever be confused with our true essence? Do we ever confuse money, status, or possessions for our true self?
Spiritual practice: If you realize your essence, how would you describe it?
Self-inquiry: What are some ways you may know your essence in even deeper ways?
Prayer:
Dear God, Bring me nearer to the real qualities that my soul lives for. If I can be nearer these qualities, I can be nearer to you and all my brothers and sisters. This is my prayer today, dear God.
