A genuine deep dive into any exploration requires curiosity, courage, and challenge, but that’s not all. A fourth ingredient is comprehension— an intuitive grasp that deepens into complete understanding. The root of comprehension comes from the Latin prehendere, meaning “to grasp” or “to seize.”

The next step in taking the deep dive is courage. 

Courage is essential when we take a deep dive into the spiritual world because it brings new awareness that challenges, inspires, unsettles, and even disturbs us. Delving deeper can reveal truths we would rather avoid and challenge our behavior or attitudes. It may ask us to release old beliefs, dethrone some of our heroes, or recognize goodness in those we once judged. A deep dive can reveal our shadow and demand that we accept what we have resisted. Yet these awakenings bring consciousness. Without them, we can sleepwalk through life, and sadly, miss the true excitement of living the spiritual life.

The next step in taking the deep dive is courage. 

Courage is essential when we take a deep dive into the spiritual world because it brings new awareness that challenges, inspires, unsettles, and even disturbs us. Delving deeper can reveal truths we would rather avoid and challenge our behavior or attitudes. It may ask us to release old beliefs, dethrone some of our heroes, or recognize goodness in those we once judged. A deep dive can reveal our shadow and demand that we accept what we have resisted. Yet these awakenings bring consciousness. Without them, we can sleepwalk through life, and sadly, miss the true excitement of living the spiritual life.

Welcome to this series of Daily Reflections on The Deep Dive.

At the Institute for Conscious Being, teachers Barbara Sloan and Erika Jobes lead an advanced study described as “a deep dive” into the nine energies of the Enneagram. Their Master’s Certification Course builds upon the foundational Scholar’s Certification, guiding students into profound spiritual insight. Those who have taken Barbara’s and Erika’s courses are enthusiastic about the depth of wisdom they encounter. Barbara and Erika not only teach the more intricate principles of the nine energies and the best spiritual practices for each, they give in-depth live interviews to people from each energy. 

It was blackberry season, so with pots in hand, my brother Trevor and I made our way to the thick berry bushes where the wetlands met the dunes. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Gulf Shores, Alabama, was mostly unsettled with vast stretches of open beaches and vegetation that reached down to the Gulf of Mexico. We were two small boys picking berries along the dirt road near our family’s cottage in the dunes when suddenly, we found ourselves running for our lives.

They called it the “pamper pole” because you might need a diaper while climbing it. At a men’s spiritual retreat, I attended in the late 1990s, a 40-foot telephone pole was a test of courage and trust in oneself and in others. We were secured with ropes and harnesses, yet fear still had its grip. The goal was to climb to the small platform at the top and leap toward a trapeze bar hanging several feet away.

When the sexual syntony, or one-to-one instinct, is primary, life revolves around a deep one-to-one connection. The focus is on the bond between two people. It is a relationship marked by intimacy, trust, and mutual knowing. This may be romantic, but it can also take the form of a profound friendship, family tie, or partnership of purpose.

When our dominant instinct is social, we are finely tuned to the order and flow of relationships around us, such as our place in family, friendships, community, and organizations. We sense hierarchy, rank, and the subtle shifts of acceptance or exclusion. Those with this as their dominant instinct can feel the energy of a room, sense who holds influence, who feels left out, and where they themselves stand within the circle.

Our gut-level feelings are most acute in one of the three primary instincts: self-preservation, social, or sexual syntony (one-to-one). We are sensitive to all three, yet each of us favors one, making it the most developed and instinctively trusted.

Recently, at the gas pump, I realized I left my credit card at a restaurant in a town an hour away. My mind raced with worry that the card had been taken. Because of the perceived loss, I was under stress and forgot to pause to enter my body. My ego kept telling me that the worst-case scenario would occur, which only heightened my concern. As soon as I remembered to drop into my body, things changed. I became aware of a gut level feeling that everything would be okay. My worry evaporated. Turns out that, unlike the ego’s predictions, the card had been turned in and the manager had it in safe keeping.

From time to time, we may say to ourselves or someone else, “I have a gut-level feeling about this.” Sometimes our minds are unclear, and even our hearts hold mixed emotions. But the gut speaks with unmistakable clarity. We feel its message viscerally, deep within our core. The viscera are the soft internal organs of the body, including the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, stomach, intestines, and reproductive organs. When they are affected, we know it. These vital organs hold our most primitive and instinctual feelings.

I was about ten years old, walking up my street, when a younger neighbor named Tom came out from the wooded empty lots and said he’d found an enormous turtle. “Come see it,” he said, and of course, I followed.

Seeing a child’s eyes light up is a wonderful experience. When they finally understand something, grasp a concept, have an insight, or finally see what was hidden, they are a step closer to reaching the fullness of their life. For me, their most touching Ah Ha’s are those of the heart. 

After a lifetime of learning, you find yourself with a wealth of knowledge—perhaps even a wealth of wisdom. One of the natural fruits of living and learning is that we deepen and expand our worldview. Every new insight expands our comprehension of existence itself.

When I was nine years old, I met a set of my grandparents for the first time. It was a wondrous adventure sailing to England, my mother’s homeland, and meeting all the relatives I had only heard about. There would be hundreds of new things my brother and I would learn during the summer in and around Northumberland, with Mom and her family. 

As we live and learn, many of our most meaningful lessons are enlightening and heartwarming. They often turn into our most cherished memories. Perhaps your mother or father once pointed to a breathtaking sunset, and from that experience, you learned that the world turns. Maybe you watched birds build their nests and felt wonder stir within you. Or someone special may have taught you how to ride a bike or drive a car, and your world grew larger that day. Living and learning are not always about difficult experiences. It can include all the happy surprises and the Ah Ha’s of life. 

I learn something new every day. Many of those lessons are not pleasant, yet each one brings me into a deeper fullness of my humanity. We are all on a lifelong journey toward self-actualization, the unfolding of our true selves. But this “apex” of our identity is not a fixed peak. It continues to expand as we grow in consciousness, drawing us ever upward.

One of the first things we ever learn in life is trust. Our first course in trust might be called Nourishment 101, and we took it as infants. From our first breath, nourishment was essential, but we were helpless to provide it for ourselves. Our caretakers held our survival in their hands. We had to learn to trust them for food, warmth, love, and care. And food was the very first practical lesson. The feeding process itself became the laboratory for Trust 101.