March 15, 2024

A splinter in our hand irritates us until it’s removed. Splinters may burrow underneath our skin and cause painful inflammation. The phrase “it gets under my skin” is a fitting metaphor for something or someone that, like a splinter, aggravates, annoys, bothers, disturbs, enrages, exasperates, incenses, inflames, infuriates, irks, offends, peeves, pains, provokes, rattles, or vexes us. We go into stress mode if we cannot extract the “splinter” by stopping the person’s irritating behavior.

March 14, 2024

If you dare to chunk your adult life for one day, you will have the rare chance to be free, full, and happy and want others to be, too. You will remember what it feels like to trust the mystery instead of the ego's plans. You will recognize the colors' brightness and aliveness and how every object and person stands out. You will feel the sun on your face and the rain on your cheeks. You will taste and smell everything as if it were the first time. You will be fully present.

March 13, 2024

We remember our fullness, freedom, and happiness when we think of ourselves as soul children when we lived in our essence. Of course, the ego eventually dominated us by the end of childhood, yet we kept our essence. Each person’s essence is a combination of many soul qualities referred to as essential qualities. But all essences have the same skeletal structure upon which these qualities flesh out.

March 12, 2024

It is nice to know about our ego type’s personality, but it is not who we are. We are actually made of pure being, the profound self we were born as. This is our essence, and the real Enneagram is about becoming conscious of and living from our essence instead of our ego type.

March 11, 2024

The earliest Enneagram teachings approach the nine personality types as primarily attached to our egos; therefore, they are also called ego types. The Enneagram assists us in realizing the personality/ego type that we most identify with. Each of the nine ego types has a stance that moves us through this beautiful and dangerous world. So, to discover our individual strategy for living is a leap into greater consciousness.

March 10, 2024

Many of us are drawn to children because they are so close to essence. Indeed, many of them are still totally in essence. They have not yet developed their ego, so all they have is their pure essence, soul, and soul child. But does that mean only the soul child can be in essence? No. You and I can be there right this minute.

March 9, 2024

The only way to know our essence is to shift from conceptualizing ourselves as our outer descriptors to experiencing our heart’s profound spiritual characteristics. So, let’s do an exercise that will take us to our depths.

March 8, 2024

Many say, “I hear about Essence, but what is it really?” In answering this question, it’s important to first know what essence is NOT. Our essence is not our appearance, social standing, education, gender, financial status, family background, personal history, ethnicity, accent, sexuality, accomplishments, mistakes, or personality.

March 7, 2024

On Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the attainment of self-actualization is near the very top.

Jungian psychotherapist Paula Reeves is the author of Women's Intuition: Unlocking the Wisdom of Your Body (1999). I was honored to have studied with Paula for years. There is a profound personal story of hers that she told to a small group of us. I refer to my notes from her talk.

March 6, 2024

Once we solve, to a reasonable extent, the problems of how to love, we turn to the next level of challenges: building our self-esteem, sense of purpose, and identity. It is difficult to attend to the problems of reaching healthy self-respect unless we are reasonably stable physiologically, out of danger, and have viable ways to give and receive love.

March 5, 2024

After we solve the problems of meeting our physiological and security needs, we progress to the next level of problems associated with loving, being loved, and belonging.

March 4, 2024

The second level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is safety and security. After solving the foundational problems of physiological sustenance, the next level is solving the problems of security. We may be well-fed, healthy, sheltered, and clothed, but if these are lost, we cannot exist. Therefore, human beings put immense emphasis on solving the problems preventing our being secure.

March 3, 2024

The first level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is the physiological sustenance of our body. This includes solving the problems of obtaining food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. If we cannot function physically, we cannot live.

March 2, 2024

Every level of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1954) has inherent problems. At the base of the pyramid, there are our body's physiological needs and those of others. Without solving the problems associated with physical well-being, we cannot progress to the other levels of the pyramid. On the next level are the problems of having adequate food, clothing, and shelter. Next, we must solve safety and security problems before we can progress up the hierarchy of needs.

March 1, 2024

An increasingly popular phrase these days is, “No problem.” For many of us, those words do not always fit the circumstances. For example, the table server will likely say, “No problem” when we request something, like bringing a glass of water. We are glad that bringing the water isn’t a difficulty. Yet, do we need the assurance that doing his job is not a problem for him?

February 29, 2024

“It was so beautiful that it took my breath." Have you uttered those words when you saw something so stunningly beautiful that you gasped with amazement? When we come upon something shockingly beautiful, our amygdala, the small part of our brain that senses sudden differences in our environment, sends the following warning to the brain: "What you see is out of the ordinary; get ready to run or fight." So, we gasp for more oxygen to fly away or fight through. But quickly, we perceive that the difference is an unexpected pleasure, not a threat, so we soon relax into the beauty before us.

February 28, 2024

The Hollywood film "Waiting to Exhale" (1995) is based on a novel by Terry McMillan. It's about upwardly mobile African American women and their relationships with married men. Each character has its own way of holding their breath until they land a relationship with a man who commits to them.

February 27, 2024

We have all heard the expression, "I am not holding my breath while waiting for it to happen." This means that, regardless of promises or predictions, we don't think it will happen, at least in the foreseeable future. In other words, if I hold my breath waiting for it to happen, I'd likely die of oxygen deprivation first.