Hi, my name is Justin Heap and full disclosure, I am a certified Enneagram coach, whatever the hell that means, let's be honest. But I do have several years of Enneagram work behind me and I can say with all honesty it's only made me more patient in talking about this tool and the complex ancient history really that has become the Enneagram as we know it. Now there's hundreds, if not thousands of Enneagram podcasts out there, right? So the focus of this episode will not be a recap of any of those podcasts, many of which could be rather helpful. I encourage you to check them out.

I jokingly mentioned Ian Morgan Cron in the beginning and his podcast called "Typology" is actually a stellar resource that I highly recommend. Instead, I would really want to talk to you about talking about the Enneagram, if you will, that is, I want to take a bit more meta approach and explore the impact of this philosophy, some of the dangers inherent in the Enneagram as a trend movement. I'm miming air quotes right now and hopefully see what patterns emerge as we hold up things like meditation, contemplation and spirituality too.

Of course, it's still helpful to have a cursory definition of the Enneagram, especially because most everyone you talk to, right, if you talk to 100 people, you're going to get probably 100 definitions. I really am of the persuasion that the Enneagram is best understood maybe as a map of the human psyche. And though the tool that we're using, the visual circle with the nine points and the lines, the tool that you are probably familiar with is not ancient.

The philosophies and the traditions that it flows out of and even borrows from really is an amalgamation and understanding of humanity and consciousness and virtues and holy ideas. All of these things that do find their birth or genesis in really ancient traditions. So it does live in this sort of in between place. There's much older psychology tools, especially when you consider Freud or even Jung, the tools that they were working on predate the Enneagram as we know it in its nine symbol visual personality map tool thing.

But the history of the Enneagram does go back very far, specifically through things like Kabbalah, which is the more mystical branch of Judaism, as well as some of the more traditional branches of Judaism. And then even through like early Greek and Egyptian thought as well. And there's records and remnant of the philosophy even specifically through Asia Minor, through Syria and through some of the more eastern Christian influences like the Desert fathers. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of maybe thought, leadership or philosophical development that flows into the Enneagram. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This is not really a podcast about the history of the Enneagram. Maybe we'll do that one in the future and I'll circle back and dive in a little bit deeper. But suffice it to say, it's an important, really helpful tool that I particularly use as a means of becoming more self aware. And for me too, that idea of becoming more self aware is tethered to this notion of becoming much more kinder and compassionate with ourselves.

And I found the Enneagram to be incredibly enlightening. And then there's a lot to be said, too about the ability for the Enneagram to help us on our journey of iconoclasm—that we would become iconoclasts: iconoclasm being the destruction of deeply valued and longheld symbols or pictures of an idea or pictures of a thing that we sort of idolize or make icons of. And again, this is maybe getting a little into the weeds or maybe a little granular. But the idea being what pictures have we created of ourselves? What images do we have in mind, in our own hearts and in our own heads that we are holding on to that may or may not be accurate or at the very least they're not the full picture, right?

The Enneagram is often illuminating in terms of revealing to us these really dark or sometimes really bright sides of ourselves. And there's a lot to be said about the Enneagram as a tool, a means by which we break down those images and we even begin to tear into the illusions that we have created to protect something like what we would refer to as our false self. And being that this is the first proper episode of Lines and Shapes, maybe I should just pause briefly and say this is all language that I hold dear that I use often; it's language that you'll become familiar with if you tune in.

The idea being that we know we have created so many barriers and really complex, intricate ways of protecting ourselves, protecting ourselves. And oftentimes, of course, that begins in childhood and lots of psychologies and behaviorism and humanism, I mean, so many foundational therapies all find, you know, their catalyst in this kind of early childhood development, oftentimes subconscious and so on and so forth.

But the Enneagram can be a terrible and wild gift at just simply showing us sometimes in reflective ways like hey, this is how you typically respond in order to protect your true self. And we know that because if you've been familiar with and again, it's gotten so trendy but if you jumped into any sort of Enneagram test, be it narrative or more of a multiple choice kind of based thing, you probably are familiar with some of the accompanying, like shame, that sort of creeps in there. When you see yourself represented, which is also even, it's funny, I say that out loud when you see yourself represented, that actually speaks of icon anyways.

But when you see yourself represented in a way that is not super pleasant or delightful or good or wholesome, we tend to feel shame in that and even that which I do not support any shame based methodologies or practices. But even that is a sign that's our ego really responding and just kind of jumping on front and trying to shut that down. Or at least it often can be. Okay? Boy, I don't know. I got into a lot there. I probably should refer to my napkin of notes.

I think that the enneagram as a trend is very dangerous in the same way that doom scrolling is dangerous, you know, in the same way that Instagram filters are dangerous or snapchat filters. I shouldn't pick on just Instagram, right?

But they're dangerous. Not because they're inherently evil, it's not because it's often an action that's going to maybe appear or actually be harmful, but we know that lurking beneath that is an element of harm, often self harm. It just usually takes time before we see those consequences unfolding.

Doom scrolling would be a really good example that the more we invest our mental real estate and time, we become anxious, sometimes even fearful. And when we're looking at folks who are always using a beautifying instagram filter, we begin to shift our focus away from our true self, our true appearance. And we begin to wish and want and desire to look flawless. And even the image, the icon that we're seeing in someone else on the other side is not even their true self, right?

And so we get stuck in this whirlpool of comparison that leads to condemnation, self condemnation. And that's dangerous. Dangerous because it can often become incredibly self righteous. It's like an act of becoming self righteous in that we begin to place ourself in this psychoanalytical judgment seat.

Oftentimes it becomes so easy to make assumptions about friends or someone else. The reason for that maybe now is a good time, I guess, just to transition. I don't know. This is what this podcast is, you guys. But the reason that becomes so easy is because we are responding to caricatures of the enneagram. These comic, fake, generalized, magnified, distorted, perverted scenes of the enneagram, and specifically shallow scenes at that. This is not the depth of the enneagram that folks are making into a trend. It's not the hard inner work, it's not the sole care work of the enneagram. Not all. That's not fair. Many of these instagrammable nine swiping carousels of pro homo graphics are just, they're a hollow, falsified and shallow picture. And again. It really ends up resulting in us thinking that then we have seen ourselves and that is the image that we have to live up to if this is what a type one is or this is how a type seven should be. Or that's why you act the way you do. You're a nine. So you're going to always narcotize and you know you're a seven, so you have to be extroverted.

But, the reality of the Enneagram is vast. And so if you jump in, you really jump in. You will learn very quickly, though, you might understand the Enneagram. You do not grasp it in its entirety because, there again, it's a map of the human psyche. And so the closer you get, it's like falling into this massive map and it has incredible terrain, deep valleys and soaring mountains that you're just, you can get lost in it.

And so all that to say, I do find the Enneagram as a trend movement just dangerous. And quite frankly, I'm kind of over it. Well, I mean, I guess I've always been over it. So sometimes I don't always tell people that I am an Enneagram coach because they're going to rightfully, maybe jump to a conclusion and it's just like, yeah, I'm not really on board with that. I'm much more interested in the long and slow journey into the vast world that is the Enneagram, which is really a conversation about becoming more self aware and destroying some of those false pictures and those false beliefs, breaking through those illusions to see, as Rohr would say, really real reality.

Which reminds me a bit of of Ken Wilbur and his philosophy and psychologies around integrated theories. And his idea is that we would come to see that many, if not all of the boundaries that we have created and live within the world are actually just illusions. And so he's always trying to get us to well, he and Integral Theory is always trying to move us closer to this reality as it is really reality.

Maybe we'll do a separate podcast on Integral Theories, which I've become super fascinated with and really have enjoyed learning more about in the last couple of years.

But something that I want to go back and touch on though, is this idea that the Enneagram as a tool helps us become discerning destroyers of those false pictures and images, so on. Iconoclasm, which reminds me of the current status of much of spirituality and maybe specifically within Christianity, maybe specifically American or Western Christianity, but the current fascination might be a good word around "deconstruction" and how there's a lot of there's a lot of energy given to that for sure right now. Books and podcasts and interviews and churches doing series and different folks talking about the thing. And I think that's all well and good and there's definitely folks on all kinds of different sides of the thing.

There's a spectrum, no doubt, but maybe we could stop for a second and just simply appreciate the idea that even as one is deconstructing, they're also simultaneously rebuilding, reconstructing something around them in their space at the exact same time, you know, they're taking away blocks and they're carving out real mass.

And as they're doing that, though, they're still left with something. And I think a lot of fear around deconstruction is that you're left with nothing and it's emptiness and it's annihilistic almost right, and that's just not real. That's just not the case. Whenever I hear folks who talk about this, especially more so out of fear, I often just want to come alongside them and patiently, kindly tell them, even from my own experience, having gone through deconstruction, or maybe you still am going through deconstruction, I guess, but there's nothing necessarily to be afraid of now. I think there are some real indicators of health that we can also attribute to a journey around deconstruction. Things like, are you going through that process with some folks who you trust? I think that's really important. I think that's really wonderful and vital. It wouldn't be great to go through that process by yourself, though you might be. That was pretty much my experience. And that, you can be sure, is one of great loneliness and sometimes feelings of despair and sometimes feelings of imposter syndrome because you're kind of always having to talk out of both sides of your mouth because you're deconstructing over here in the night, and then by day you're expected to rattle off these particular checklist items of doctrine or belief or whatever the case might be. And if you don't have a safe space to deconstruct with people who you trust, that can be hard. But all that to say, the desire is a human desire to get at the heart at the core, to tear down any false images.

And that is a worthy endeavor. For those who would count themselves as followers of the Christian way of Jesus, it might be helpful for you to hear and to know you're in good company.

And if God, the source of life, is as eternal, infinite, magnificent, grand and marvelous as you and the whole world has said, then how could we not be led into seasons of deconstruction?

I mean, to not deconstruct, to not tear down false images, to not go in search of really real reality, would imply that everything we have learned up to this point has been accurate, good and true. And my friends, that's impossible. That's just not the case. It cannot be.

And so, deconstruction like iconoclasm or the breaking of certain illusions, false beliefs, lies, et cetera, the search of that, like what the enneagram teaches as well, right? To try and get behind all of these things, to go back further and further and further and down and down and down into this abyss, maybe the desert Fathers would refer to it as that is a worthy pursuit. And as you deconstruct, as you tear down, as you take away, there is something left still. There's something else that you are simultaneously building, making, creating, which leads me into a very different thought altogether.

The reason that there's a spiritual nature to innovation is because we understand there is this source of all life which is reflective of a creative nature, which is inherently builds into innovation. And as we ourselves are drawing inspiration from the world around us, from the natural world and from the supernatural world, even at that, we being spiritual beings who feel and think and intuit things as we together live and move in the world, it's as if we are reaching into that thin, liminal space, into the infinite, in order to gain insight, inspiration, right?

And as we do that, it's almost like this blending of these two worlds, which again, Christianity would refer to as this kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God that the Jews believe was not somewhere out there or up there, but rather right here. Right here in this luminal, thin, numinous and luminous space. And so, as we live and move in this way of creating and dreaming and being inspired, it's as if we are pulling into our present this cosmic and expansive, all encompassing, timeless source of creation.

And we know, therefore, right like innovation is found in the infinite. I'll often say we know that new ideas are possible and will continue to be possible precisely because this nature of creation, that nature reflects this in a myriad of ways from the cosmic reality that we are literally never in the same place twice, because the universe is always expanding and moving. But we also see it in the atomic structures of everything that we know is in this field of vision and sight. And so innovation then becomes what I would often describe as an act of moving into God, moving into the infinite, asking what is possible, which only comes from this belief, this faith that there is infinite out there.

So we move into God, whether we name it or not, when we ask the best questions or dream of exploring the impossible. Creativity is theological. Theology is creative. I had written in some post some time ago somewhere that it is in God that we get lost and found as creatives. It is in her that we live and move and have our being.

Anyways, I didn't know how long this episode would be, but I have wandered through a few different thought forests at this point. I should probably consult my notes again. Let's see here. What did we say at the beginning? I think we covered everything.

I guess the only thing I didn't cover was that I do offer an experience around the enneagram and coaching towards a greater self awareness and compassion and kindness. It's called Nine Spaces and it's a program or a series of meetings that are really comprised of integrated listening sessions, I am currently accepting folks on a waiting list. It was a little bit overwhelming and super exciting, but that's just how I'm doing it. So if you are interested in securing a spot that is essentially receiving some enneagram coaching, though, I would like to. It has my own spin on it, right? You know, and to be to be part of these integrated listening sessions where I spend a good deal of time listening to your story, that you and your voice would be truly heard and reflected back to you in a way that is helpful. I also draw in some of my work with systems thinking as well as some applications around creativity and spirituality, for sure, but all in service of greater self awareness. So the goal of Nine Spaces is not to solve a problem, it's not to raise money, it's not to make you a better speaker or anything like that. It is truly that you would become more aware of those bright spots in your life and lean into them. And that you'd become more aware as well of what is illuminated and that you find out is more of the shadow dark sides too. And how we often seek to hide behind our ego and those ways that we have built up so many protective layers over so many years. So if you're interested in something like a Nine Spaces offering and you want to jump into that, please reach out to me. You can hit me back at podcast@justinpheap.co. Or you can also just find information on the website justinpheap.co/ninespaces. So with that my friends, we'll call it a wrap and see how the rest of these topics shake out. Until then, stay curious.