I don't know about
you, but I find change easy to envision and difficult to bring about in
myself. For one thing, I've found what feels like a seismic shift internally may be
barely perceptible to others. For another, my unconscious self is extremely
cagey and exquisitely clever at resisting the most commendable goals of my conscious mind.
When I put on my professional hat I can easily accept resistance to change as a normal
human response. But that doesn't stop me from searching for ways past it.
One of my favorite
stories about C.G. Jung is a reported dream where he was drowning in a vat of human waste
and calling out for rescue to his therapist, who stood above, saying "Help me
out!" Instead of taking his outstretched hand the "therapist" pushed
Jung's head down into the liquid, saying, "Through, not out." Isn't that exactly
what it feels like when you commit yourself to greater self-awareness and then you see
what you've gotten yourself into? "Get me out of this vat of shit!"
The psychologist Karen
Horney describes how, through "a variety of adverse influences," children are
not permitted to grow according to their unique needs and potentials. The resulting
insecurity leads to a basic anxiety which prevents us from true spontaneity and has
us create an idealized image. "Self-idealization," she writes, "entails a
general self-glorification and thereby gives the individual the much-needed feeling of
significance."
The resulting
"Idealized Self" alienates us from our real selves as it
increasingly filters how we see ourselves and seek to be seen by others. According to
Horney it's a natural and constructive urge to realize our potential, but we can only do
this by being truthful to our real selves. Ah, there's the rub. Because once
we really commit to self-actualization, we have to turn and face those aspects of ourselves
that don't fit the idealized image.
So we could think of
personality "types" as nine generic
Idealized
Selves. And perhaps our first step toward transformation is simply intellectual
understanding of our own type and its ramifications. Most people I know do find it easier
with the Enneagram system to "see" their Idealized Self operating. But to the
degree that our accustomed self-image is threatened, we unconsciously dig in our heels
against seeing ourselves as we really are, however well-intended the
commitment.
So it's really not
possible to access those discarded parts of ourselves through intellectual understanding
alone. One of the best ways to find what's buried in each of us is by exploring symbols
and metaphors: they cut past our linear, left-brain mode of analysis --
through dreams, fantasies, projections, or any method that works with
images. My favorite way to evoke the unconscious is through writing or
reading poetry. So I'd like to plant the seeds for transformation of the
nine Enneagram styles through poetic metaphor. Go past your intellectual barriers and stand in the paradox that each of these
nine poems represents:
Cape Cod Haiku