Posts tagged: Enneagram

BARACK OBAMA ENNEAGRAM ONE: A MAN OF LAW

By , June 4, 2009 4:42 pm

The Enneagram is a well-regarded personality measure dividing people into nine distinct personality styles: One: Critic, Two: Helper, Three: Performer, Four: Individualist, Five: Observer, Six: Loyalist, Seven: Enthusiast, Eight: Challenger, Nine: Peacemaker.

While other Enneagram experts have identified Obama as an Enneagram Nine or Three , expert Clarence Thomson of Enneagram Central stands by his decision that Obama is an Enneagram One: A Man of Law.

Thomson describes the Nine Personality Styles, including Enneagram One: The Critic. Each description describes the undeveloped and developed aspects of each style:

“Ones search for what is wrong and how to fix it. When stuck, they are rigid, moralistic and angry. When free, they are supremely moral, compassionate and reliable. Their life is about goodness: its absence or presence.”

Here are excerpts from Thomson’s article in the Out of the Box Coaching Newsletter :

“President Obama, in my opinion, is a style One. Ones tend to be idealistic, guided by clear convictions of right and wrong, and work oriented. Every style has certain strengths and limitations. Style One is, in one way, unduly humble. Ones have a tendency to erase their personal feelings and unite, almost merge their personal agenda with the demands of an ideal or law or tradition or principle.

If you ask Ones what they think, you will get your answer consciously or unconsciously filtered through principles that are larger than themselves and may be inherited from a book or tradition.

It is probably not accidental that Obama would study constitutional law. He will make his decisions based not as much on personal convictions as on the wisdom of the law. He will be a lawyer all day long. He may have some charisma, but he will not be ‘chatty’ or intensely personal. He will have charisma, but not really panache.”

And later in the article:

“Obama’s idealism is not based on evidence. It is based on an inner conviction that right can and must prevail. This is a two-edged characteristic. On the one hand, it enabled him to work as a community organizer with defeat scribbled on every wall and etched in every defeated face. He kept going against the evidence. This could get him into trouble if he has a policy that is not working. He may believe it must work, even against the evidence.”

Learn all about the Enneagram Nine Styles at Thomson’s website and take an Enneagram questionnaire, and also visit his colleague Mary Bast’s Enneagram and Coaching website,  Break Out of the Box, for a wealth of descriptions helping you identify your personal style.

Find a variety of Personality Tests at our Creative Edge Focusing (TM) website.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads: 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

HOLIDAY FUN AND STRESS RELIEF: FREE PERSONALITY TESTS, 12-STEP HELP WITH ADDICTIONS AND CODEPENDENCY, GRIEF WORK

By , December 20, 2008 1:59 pm

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm) SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources. Meet some of them below as we give suggestions for surviving and enjoying the holidays.

FREE PERSONALITY TESTS FOR FUN WITH FAMILY

Got some extra time on your hands? Family and friends to entertain? You could spend some time in the Individual Differences: Personality Tests section at Creative Edge Focusing’s website. You’ll find websites offering free and fun versions of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Enneagram, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and info on EQ, the business version of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence. Play around with several tests. Compare among family members. Of course, these are free versions, for fun. It is more important to think about yourself and others from a variety of perspectives, “shake up” fixed images, than to put anyone in a “box.”

HELP WITH HOLIDAY ADDICTIONS OR CODEPENDENCY?

Unfortunately, the holidays can also stir up alcohol addiction and codependency as families gather. See Recovery Focusing by Suzanne Noel for a gentle combination of Focusing with the 12-Step Programs.

HOLIDAYS INCLUDE GRIEVING WHAT IS MISSING

The holidays can also include some grieving for what or who is missing. Take the opportunity to use these moments to discover“The Meaning in Tears” and to allow yourself to notice “Being Touched and Being Moved: The Spiritual Value of Tears” . Try out the simple Five Minute Grieving: What To Do If A Friend, Colleague, Loved One Starts Crying” .

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING ™ INSTANT “AHAH!” E-COURSE

For four weeks, we practice one Instant “Ahah!,”, one Relaxation Exercise, and one Getting A Felt Sense Exercise, with e-reminders and tips each week. Our purpose:Helping you incorporate Listening and Focusing into your everyday life.  Subscribe here.

INTIMACY, SEXUALITY, CREATIVITY, SPIRITUALITY

You might want to try Instant “Ahah!” #8 Sharing Your Day: Instant Intimacy as a simple way to get and stay connected with your significant other, regardless of surrounding turmoil. Here is a mini-course on Intimacy and Sexuality if you want to spend special time over the holidays.

You might want to try Instant “Ahah!” #9 Focusing on Creativity: From Blocks To Predictable “Ahah!”s or #10 Focusing on Spirituality: Being Touched and Being Moved. Read about Focusing and Creativity and Focusing and Spirituality

E-Newsletter Archives Now Available!

Anyone can also access the e-newsletter archives from the Free Resources submenu at Creative Edge Focusing.

AND USE THE CREATIVE EDGE PRACTICE E-GROUP FOR SUPPORT DURING THE BREAK

The Creative Edge Practice e-group for actual practice and demonstrations of Listening/Focusing is becoming a wonderful place for tender reflection, space for Focusing any time of day or night (knowing it may be some hours before you get a response), with the knowledge of a warm, Listening space out there, and interesting discussions about what we learn during the turns.

Please join us if you want company over the break! See instructions below.

Two E-Groups, Creative Edge Practice and Creative Edge Collaboration

In order to increase safety, and hopefully participation, there are now two separate Yahoo e-groups.

Creative Edge Practice is a closed group, where people can feel safe for the vulnerability of sharing Focusing experiences and responding to others with Focused Listening responses. The only requirement: a willingness to introduce yourself upon entry into the group, so everyone knows who is in the group. Further active participation is welcomed but not required.

Creative Edge Collaboration is an open group for discussion and networking around projects related to the spread of listening/focusing to various audiences and throughout the world.

You can visit the homepage of each by clicking on the link and join from there as well. You can choose “emails only” and do not have to start a yahoo account, although accounts are free.

SELF-HELP PACKAGE: MANUAL, CDS, DVD DEMONSTRATIONS

If you order the Self-Help Package, you can use the Intuitive Focusing CD to follow Dr. McGuire as she speaks these exercises and view four actual Listening/Focusing Partnership sessions on DVD.

THE GIFT OF INNER SERENITY: FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, FAMILY

Happy holiday, trusting in the wisdom of your body!

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

LISTENING/FOCUSING SKILLS: GREETING ANGER WITH EMPATHY

By , October 17, 2008 11:24 am

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

This month: From Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, p. 7, #2.Active Listening: Short-Circuiting An Angry Confrontation.

Radical Idea: Greet Anger With Empathy!!!!

As I’ve gone through the week, I’ve realized how radical this idea and how worth saying again: “An angry person is a hurting person. Try responding with empathic understanding (Active Listening) instead of attacking back.”

I guess I have become an expert on anger, hurt, and empathy because I am a person who can become really, really angry when I feel betrayed or otherwise blindsided by those that I trust. I’ve come to some understanding about this “personality style” by studying the Enneagram. Of the nine styles, I am an 8: The Challenger, The Boss. “How does an 8 Enneagram cross the river? She jumps in and starts swimming upstream.”

8s are great managers and bosses, but they can also scare people with their anger, assertiveness, bluntness. As an 8, I don’t really know how to “play games,” to be indirect. Give me directness, even anger, anytime! Let me know where you are coming from. Don’t hide or seem to go behind my back. You can imagine the vicious cycle for 8 bosses: they get angry because others are being indirect, seeming to hide, going behind their back — and their anger leads the others to become more indirect, more hidden.

Anyway, from a lifetime of experience, I can tell you that the angry 8 is just a hurting child underneath. While the 8 can look terribly strong and take on any battle, this strong front takes a toll. Like anyone else, the angry 8 responds to empathic understanding (see Enneagram links to find your own personality style).

Read through the examples in Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual #2: Active Listening again. What if the husband had attacked back when his wife came at him with anger: “Shut up! You can’t imagine what my day has been like.” Now, two people with their hackles up, attack and attack back (until one of them can respond with empathy: “Okay, I get it. You’re saying you had a really bad day and are needing some empathy and understanding.”(you can download complete chapters on the Interpersonal Focusing Protocol here, from the links at top of page, English and Spanish.

Practice Active Listening In Non-Stressful Situations

Of course, in order to respond with Active Listening in an emergency, you’ll want to practice it in less stressful situations until it can become an automatic response. You can do this through our Self-Help Manual and Demonstration DVD. And you can also learned Active (or Empathic or Focused) Listening as part of a Listening/Focusing Level l class. See Resources for teachers below

Self Help Package

To really learn about Reflection, read Focused Listening at Creative Edge Focusing (TM). To begin practice in a serious way, purchase The Self Help Package, a manual,CDs, and a DVD with four Listening/Focusing Sessions you can study. The manual will help you to find at least one other, and, hopefully, a small group with whom you can start a Focusing Community, supporting each other as you practice Listening and Focusing.

E-Support Group

If you haven’t, also use the sidebar icon at Creative Edge Focusing to join the e-support group so you can share your experiences, ask questions, and participate in demonstrations.  

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-E-course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING NEWS AND GOODS: Creativity, 12-Step, Art Therapy, Enneagram, Focusing Partnerships

By , October 6, 2008 4:14 pm

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

NEWS AND GOODS BELOW: The Many Applications of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening!!!

On Creativity: Writing From The “Felt Sense”

Here is a quote from an author about being guided, not from the logical “all-ready known,” but from the “felt sense,” the “intuitive feel.” The Creative Edge can carry implicit in it “the whole thing,” just waiting to be articulated into words and images that capture and grow forward from it:

“From that point on, the tale ran on its own legs, and turned into something I didn’t expect. It turned into the book it always should have been, a real book, where plot, character, and theme all worked together to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. It turned out to be about something, beyond itself. It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.”

Lois Bujold, Cordelia’s Honor, NY: Baen Publishing, 1996, Afterword, p.479

Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy: Accessing The Body’s Wisdom

There is a wonderful new book in the works which combines Focusing with Art Therapy for the professional therapist, and with artistic creation for the rest of us. Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy :Accessing the Body’s Wisdom and Creative Intelligence by Laury Rappaport, long-time Focusing teacher and professor.

To learn more and pre-order this book visit: www.focusingarts.com/articles.html  
(reviewed by Cornell, The Focusing Connection Newsletter, Aug. 2008)

Bringing Focusing Into The Enneagram

Mary Bast, long-time executive and life coach and expert on using The Enneagram (link to free tests) in coaching, has written an article on using Creative Edge Focusing with various personality types in her August, 2008, e-newsletter:

http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/AugustNews08.pdf  

The Creative Edge by Mary Bast
Out of the Box Coaching Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 8 August 1, 2008

In our chapter on Fours in Out of the Box: Coaching with the Enneagram, Clarence and I wrote “You’ll establishmore rapport when you witness their pain, show yourempathy, honor their unique way of seeing things, andfocus your questions on how they feel.” We alsosuggested that “Twos respond better to feelback than tofeedback.”

Nonetheless, when concrete results aren’t obvious whilecoaching someone with heightened emotions, I sometimeswonder if I’ve been helpful by simply listeningdeeply, though my clients have assured me suchlistening feels right.
I try not to be too pushy about moving to solutions (otherwise I can become very Three-ish, wanting both results and evidence of my success), but I have often used Focusing as a way to help clients move through their kinesthetic experience of emotional pain and into imagery that has the potential to heal symbolically.

So I’m especially pleased to be in contact with Dr. Kathy McGuire and to learn more about her Creative Edge Focusing —
Among the many free articles at The Creative Edge website, those on grieving have been especially helpful to me when coaching Fours, Twos, and other clients experiencing strong feelings—

I’m also intrigued with her Focused Listening, which combines Gendlin’s Focusing with Carl Roger’s Reflective Listening. In previous newsletters I’ve written about Symbolic Modeling, a right-brain technique where the coach stays within a client’s metaphor landscape without leading the client, by using “clean language”-responses that elicit the client’s own resources to generate healing at a symbolic level. Now that I’ve had almost a full year of practice with Symbolic Modeling, however, I find the methodology somewhat difficult in contrast to the clarity and simplicity of the four basic responses in Focused Listening —

Finally, I am touched by her discussion of “The Focusing Attitude.” After summarizing this attitude as one of empathy, respect, and non-judgmental acceptance, she shares the metaphor used by Fathers Pete Campbell and
Ed McMahon, creators of Bio-Spiritual Focusing, to convey the “Caring, Feeling Presence”:

“Imagine you have found an abandoned infant on the steps of your hospital.
Imagine how you would, through your bodily attention, convey complete
acceptance and love and safety to this infant: “You are totally wanted in this
world and safe with me.” Now, turn this same kind of loving attention toward
your inner experiencing.”

I’m convinced the creative edge of change involves working with metaphors and-lovingly and with trust in our clients’ innate healing capacity-following the trail through kinesthetic, auditory, and visual imagery to those metaphors.

Find the entire article, archives of her monthly e-newsletters, and a wealth of actual examples of applying Coaching to the nine different personality styles of the Enneagram, all at Mary Bast’s wonderful website.

Recovery Focusing: Using Focusing To Work The 12 Steps

Here, as she continues to apply her model for Recovery Focusing in an actual addiction rehab center, Suzanne Noel gives us more wonderful examples of the power of Focusing in reaching even those in the early stages of recovery from addiction.

Suzanne describes the difference between teaching/learning the 12-Steps through an intellectualized “head” approach, vs. using Focusing to take the words of each step deeply down into “bodily felt experiencing,” where experiential “Ahah!”s arise as Focusers make words and images freshly from their own unique inner experiencing. Here is learning at a deep, body/mind level. Suzanne says:

I am continuing to “Focus Into” the Steps at the Rehab and am also putting it into practice by Focusing with a specific partner in Recovery Focusing. In my Recovery Focusing partnership I “hold” the Step in a Focusing way to sense it rather than “think it”. Amazingly powerful!

I will offer you a short glimpse into how I worked Step Two at the rehab last week. (We had already done readings and discussions on this Step in the past, as well as spent time with their sense of Sanity in a session several weeks ago.) This was a new, fresh visit to Step Two. Though I cannot recall much since it was last week, here is a brief description of what I did with the group of Spanish Narcotics Anonymous –most of whom are 18-20 years old (sadly):

Session Title: Our Bottom & Step 2

(First we ground ourselves.)

Here are the invitations I offered them:

Take some time to remember how you were the last few months before coming here. Just be with that a while. Recall a memory, a moment in time, an image of yourself, as how you were during “the worst of all that”.

(Share with Group.)

E. Crying and dirty in the rain, after spending all night on a terrible cocaine high, in which he stole from someone, beat up his friend, etc.

I. The horror of mixing so many drugs at one time — heroin, cocaine, pills — and the paralyzing result of all that, the epileptic-like seizure that resulted.

R. Seeing his two buddies injecting heroine in the back seat of his car, and realizing that this is where he was heading, from snorting heroin to injecting it.

P. A rage in which he destroyed a lot of things in his house.

(There were more people there, but these are the ones I have most clearly in mind.)

Now, remember that though we do have a disease, there is a solution. We can live a better life through the 12 Step Program & Fellowship.

READ STEP TWO:

2 Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Now, take some time to think of a Higher Power.
How is that Higher Power, for you?
Go inside yourself and wait for an image or metaphor or feeling that may come that captures your inside sense of that Power Greater than yourself.
If nothing comes to you, that is normal, and just fine.
(Sometimes one or two may say, “Nothing is coming” but as they stay with it, something suddenly comes and they say: “Oh, I got it!” and are anxious to share.)

(Share with group).

E. Arms opening up the clouds, as if pushing them aside and saying “come to me”.

P. An image of the planet. Earth. And “Nature”.

I. (I can’t recall now, but remember something about a light. This person’s higher power is, in general, a light.)

R. Did not get anything. (He is new and highly distracted.)

Now, think about all that is implied by the word “sanity”.
Invite your body to feel into all that about “sanity”.
How would it feel to be a “sane” person.
How does it feel in your body, especially in your chest and central body area?
Invite an image or metaphor or gesture or a phrase to come to you that captures that. Take your time.

They each had a very meaningful sense of what “sanity” meant to them in that moment.
I can recall how their faces looked, the dignity they were feeling.
Unfortunately, I did not take notes.
The only one I do recall is E. who saw himself on a beach, with a girlfriend, with a diploma from having studied.

(Note: A few have gotten unmistakable “in the body” felt senses, but often they get images. I allow whatever comes to come. I plan on furthering their Focusing by inviting them to check that image with their middle area, to feel it inside, but right now I do not wish to “pressure” or add too much more to what they are already getting.)

I sometimes Clear a Space with the group, especially asking “What is in the way of working this Step?”. Then, we pick one and hold that.

I have asked them to “recall a happy time in their past” so they re-experience a body sense of that memory before going into the “Powerlessness” of Step One.

As a matter of fact, I am glad I followed my sense that it was best to precede work on Step One with a positive sober experience (some of them had to look way back in their past). This allowed me to compare and contrast and to bring them closer to that positive experience at the end of the session.

Focusing into their Powerlessness and unmanageability gave them a disturbing body sense of that — which is actually a good thing in recovery. We do not wish to forget where we came from, but we do wish to have courage to change and hope & faith that there is a “solution”.

It’s exciting work.

Focusing appears to calm them down. There is an intimacy and quietness and sense of wellness when we come together for Focusing. Most of the other classes jangle, are full of distractions.

It is very challenging, especially when new people arrive.
There are many difficulties involved with the environment itself. For my last class, I locked us all into the small kitchen. 🙂

Yes, challenging and difficult, but I feel blessed to be able to share with them my — and their — “experience”, strength, and hope, all of which seem more — hmm — FELT through Focusing!

Thanks again.

Blessings to all.

Suzanne Noel
www.innerwisdoms.com  

Read Suzanne’s article on “Recovery Focusing” at The Creative Edge Focusing (TM) website.

The Power of Focusing Partnership Exchange

At Creative Edge Focusing TM, I place an emphasis upon the power of Focusing Partnerships, Focusing Groups/Teams, and Focusing Communities to transform, not only the Self, but relationships, the workplace, and the local, national, and international community. Here are two articles from Ann Weiser Cornell’s The Focusing Connection newsletter, Sept., 2008) (subscribe here and also find back issues), where people report on the surprising gifts they received when they went from Focusing Alone to Focusing Partnership Exchange:

Some Insight and Reflection on the Role of Companion in Focusing by John Sabbage

I have noticed that Focusing with a companion is not just easier, it is richer, it offers a treasure that is different and seems more whole than Focusing alone. And it is this sense of wholeness that I want to explore —

There is a ceasing of ‘I’ or ‘you’ in this perspective, a kind of acceptance that something is Focusing and something is listening and there is a wondering in me about that whole thing. What is happening here? Two sparks of humanity finding ways to hold within themselves often apparently polar opposites of parts. All the parts of ourselves seek to live forward, to protect and make safe the precious aliveness. Often these seem at the outset to present opposite and sometimes quite painful and conflicting answers to the how of living forward. Yet through the patient questioning and accepting of what a something is not
wanting and what it is wanting, so its desire to live forward into all that Life implies is revealed and felt. As companion, there is a truly wonder-full sense of gratitude and awe to be witness. As though another’s shift in felt sense towards self-acceptance is also my own, and by implication Life’s own.
John Sabbage may be reached at johnsabbage@btinternet.com

The Power of a Focusing Partnership by Jo Hainsworth

— Focusing is being with someone while they process. In sitting with someone in this way, I’m experiencing how powerful it can be, and it’s proving to be an invitation to me to find within me the ability to be with my own feelings in the same way. As I sat on Skype, simply listening and reflecting back the key content of what my partner was saying, initially I felt disempowered, and wondered how on earth he could possibly resolve the issues he was facing in his life. I just kept on listening and reflecting back, and by the end of the 25 minute session, I had tears come to my eyes as I listened to my partner enthuse about how amazed he was at what he had learned about himself, how the process had unfolded, as someone simply listened to him and reflected back some of what he was saying —

I believe that the Focusing Partnership model is one of the most sustainable
models that can help us to move forward in our lives. After completing a simple
course and learning how to Focus and how to be a Focusing Partner, you can form a partnership with someone that doesn’t cost a cent, and gives you ongoing support to go within and find your own answers for the rest of your life. In this world of high tech, fast moving specialization, it’s a relief to find that we all have the ability to help each other to move forward, not by offering advice or trying to help them to resolve their issues, but by doing something any human can learn to do – shut up and listen!!!! —

Quoting her teacher Suzanne Noel:

“Keeping someone company as they learn Focusing is such an honor for me – it’s like following someone as they journey into their deepest self, a space of not only aliveness, but creativity as well. I only hope more and more people are able to fully experience the power of focusing partnership, this unique relationship with ourselves and with another that redefines authentic intimacy and may be the next evolutionary “carrying forward” of human beingness.”

Jo Hainsworth established the Self Healing Portal last year to get free information out to people to assist them on their healing journey. You can find the SelfHealing Portal at www.selfheal4me.com

The Self-Help Package from Creative Edge Focusing TM, with manual, CDs, and DVD, gives you everything you need to start your own Focusing Partnership and, perhaps, build from there to a Focusing Group or Focusing Community.

The Creative Edge Practice e-group provides active support and advise.

Of course, taking a Level One Listening/Focusing class or workshop from a Certified Focusing Professional in your local area can speed you on your way and also perhaps provide the core group for carrying on as a self-help group.

Subscribe to Cornell’s Focusing Connection newsletter at her website. www.focusingresources.com  . Ann has been publishing it for well over twenty years, for a very reasonable cost, and always with the cutting edge in short articles on Focusing and Listening.

A Poem on The Power of Focusing Partnership Exchange

I have written about the experiences of “agape,” love for the unique Otherness of another person, which arise frequently during Focusing Partnership Exchanges. The boundary between the Focuser and Listener seems to drop as they enter into a space of “We and Something Greater”:

Empathy and Agape: The Creation of Love

Intense spiritual experiences of the love known as Agape also happen regularly through the experience of exchanging Listening/Focusing turns in a Focusing Partnership or Focusing Community. Through the use of Focused Listening,I am able to set aside my own stereotypes and prejudices and really enter into the world of the other person. In these moments of empathy, when the Focuser touches upon her deepest values and most profound truths, as the Listener, I am often moved and touched by the absolute uniqueness, yet universal humanness, of the Other.

In these moments, often with a sheen of tears in our eyes, it seems that the boundaries separating one person from the other drop, and we stand together in a shared, sacred space. I believe this is what is meant by experiencing The Christ Within The Other or Universal Oneness. For me, there is no more sacred experience. (from Creative Edge Website: Spirituality)

In closing for this month, a beautiful poem, again from Suzanne Noel, created out of her “felt sense” as she tries to articulate this sense of participation in Focusing Partnerships:

FALLING FROM HEAVEN

Be quiet for me.
Behold me.

As the quivering sea beholds the silent moon
and transforms her
into dancing rivulets of color.

Move me like that. Just like that.

I will sway
until I sing myself
into my song.

I have been calling for you
since long ago,
long before the fog embraced my shores,
before day and night
were squeezed rigid with noise,
long before
my silence fell into its own silence.

As I behold you now,
I have finally heard you.

Sing your song.

I will sway with you
as you sing yourself into it.

You see,

It really is all about me.
It really is all about you.

We are
luminous and liquid,
together. Falling from Heaven.
The vast space between us
is insignificant
in this clear cool air.

Be quiet for me.
Behold me.

Suzanne Noel
www.innerwisdoms.com  

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

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 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

DIVERSITY TRAINING 2: FOCUSED LISTENING AND THE ENNEAGRAM — MEETING YOUR SHADOW SIDE

By , April 28, 2008 6:58 pm

DIVERSITY TRAINING: UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES

Within this strand on Interpersonal Focusing, I am going to place the emphasis upon Personality Style Instruments, coupled with Empathic, Focused Listening, as a method for Diversity Training within organizations.

Listening/Focusing Turns To Increase Empathy

Besides educational material and workshop experiences typical of Diversity Training workshops, Round-Robin Listening/Focusing partnership turns in small groups can provide a safe place for co-workers to come to understand each other’s experience.

As Intuitive Focuser, one person “senses into” and articulates their experience in terms of ageism, sexism, racism, or their MBTI or Enneagram style, in a personal way. As empathic Focused Listener, the person next to them uses Focused Listening to “say back,” simply reflecting their understanding of the other’s words, learning to set aside judgment and prejudice and concentrate only on hearing how it is for the other person, their inner world.

Turns can proceed around the circle, each person having 10-20 minutes as Focuser and then as Listener for the next Focuser. Empathic understanding, a deeper form of change than any educational information, is the natural outcome of such exchanges.

Visit my blog Learning Listening/Focusing Partnership and look at the top for link to a free download of Chapter Three from my self-help manual, Focusing in Community (Focusing en Comunidad), which gives explicit instructions for exchanging Listening/Focusing turns. Order the complete Self-Help Package for only $39, including the manual, CDs with Complete Focusing Instructions, and DVD demonstrations of Focused Listening.

Understanding Personality Differences Can Bridge The Gap

We tend to think of Diversity Training as coming to understand “the other side” in terms of gender, ethnic, and age differances. However, exposing co-workers to understandings of differing personality and leadership styles can loosen their prejudices and broaden their appreciation of all kinds of different people.

For instance, while 60-70% of males score as Thinkers on the Myers-Briggs (MBTI), that leaves 30-40% of females who are also Thinkers, having this in common with the opposite gender. Same for the 30-40% of males who score as Feelers on the MBTI — sharing their experience as Feelers can bridge the gender gap.

The goal-oriented, organized Judging type can come to understand the creativity, spontaneity, and playfulness of the Perceiving type whom they have only judged as “irresponsible.” The Extrovert can come to understand the Introvert’s need for quiet escape during lunchtime and after work. Click here for Week One: Myers-Briggs and Keirsey Temperament Sorter for links to informal tests of these dimensions.

The Enneagram: Looking At Your Shadow Side

While the MBTI stresses the positive, our “differing gifts,” The Enneagram also helps us to take a brave look at our shadow side, our personal demon, and the motivations driving us. There are nine basic personality types, refined by degree of interaction with the other types. One author names them as 1.The Reformer, 2.The Helper, 3.The Motivator, 4.The Artist, 5.The Thinker, 6.The Loyalist, 7.The Generalist, 8.The Leader, and 9.The Peacemaker. However, complexities involve leaning toward one”wing” or the other and passing into a different type when ideal vs. under stress, etc.

My favorite new website for great insight into the Enneagram is by Dr. Mary Bast, long-time coach and Enneagram expert. Here is her introductory description from www.breakoutofthebox.com  :

“What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a practical psychological system that describes nine different views of the world. Each of us has a central way to make sense of reality, a set of personality patterns that help us cope but also narrow our perceptions. If you’re not sure which of the nine worldviews is yours, click Personality Test on the right, but take the results of any test as tentative. I can help you confirm your Enneagram style and your blind spots as well as your gifts.”

Her website includes descriptions of the nine personality styles, charts showing the basic needs driving each style, the different variations within each style, and the interaction between them. A free PDF download gives a quick summary along many dimensions derived from a variety of Enneagram theorists.

Bast includes Claudio Naranjo’s naming of the nine styles and their “Driving Force and Development Need,” their “shadow side” in need of transformation.They are:

1. The Idealist: Anger
2. The Mentor: Pride
3. The Star: Vanity
4. The Innovator: Envy
5. The Synthesizer: Hoarding
6. The Partner: Fear of Fear
7. The Futurist: Gluttony
8. The Advocate: Lust/Excess
9. The Diplomat: Indolence

Notice, for instance, that the 9.Diplomat, who may pride themselves on being the ultimate Peacemaker and harmonizer, has a “shadow-side” of Indolence, laziness, lack of engagement in living, loss of self-development in giving over to the opinions of others, not having an “opinion.”

The 8. Advocate, seeing herself as fighting for the rights of all underdogs, has a “shadow side” of Lust/Excess.

Which are you? What is your shadow-side? How about your boss, co-workers, family members?

You can find out at www.breakoutofthebox.com  . Bast includes many case examples from her life-time of coaching experience, showing some light-hearted ways to deal with one’s shadow side. For instance, an 8. Leader, who scares and overwhelms her staff with her overly assertive and confrontive style, is asked to hand out squirt guns to her staff at meetings so they can let her know when she becomes over-bearing.

Descriptive essays, and, best of all for me, poems by many authors help capture the “gist,” the “intuitive feel” of each personality style. Spend an hour or so on her site, and you will find yourself, your family, your coworkers exactly captured.
There are a variety of theorists with somewhat differing “takes” on The Enneagram. Riso’s book, Discover Your Personality Type: The New Enneagram Questionnaire (Houghton Mifflin, 1995) provides a simple description and test for exploring your Enneagram profile. However, Helen Palmer’s work with the Enneagram can lead to somewhat different results. Again, try several tests and see what you learn:
www.enneagramspectrum.com  (free quiz, good articles like “Enneagram Styles As Personality Paradigms”)
www.enneagraminstitute.com  (Riso and Hudson; free and paid tests; lots of info)
www.enneagramworldwide.com  (Palmer; $10 test; lots of info)
www.similarminds.com  (lots of free Enneagram-based informal tests; test combining Enneagram and MBTI)
www.pulsarnet.com/cw  (Great Enneagram Handbook download, showing how each style would “cross a river”; lots on Conscious Relationship as well)
www.breakoutofthebox.com  (Mary Bast’s summaries, case examples and poetry capturing the “intuitive feel” of each style)
Exercise for the week: visit the websites and take several versions of these tests, with friends and family and coworkers if possible, discussing varying personality styles discovered.

Intuitive Focusing Turn On Your Enneagram Style

If you would like, do a Focusing Turn on your “shadow side” and other learnings once you have guessed at your style:

1. Clear a Space: Relax and come into your body by following your breathing.
2. Get A Felt Sense: Ask yourself,” How is this personality style reflected in my life? How does this “Driving Force” manifest in my work and relationships?” Set aside any thinking and wait quietly, for at least a minute, for the “intuitive feel” of “that whole thing” to form in the center of your body, around your heart/chest area.
3. Find A Handle: Slowing look for some words or an image or gesture that exactly capture the “feel of it all.”
4. Resonate and Check: Go back and forth between any symbols that come and the “felt sense,” the “feel of it all,” until the symbols and “felt sense” fit exactly, with a sense of “Ah, yes” and some tension release.
5. Ask An Open-Ended Question: Ask a question like “And why is that so important to me?” or “And where does that come from in me?” or “And how do I feel about that whole thing?” and, again, set aside what you already know and wait quietly, at least for a minute, for the “felt sense,” the murky, unclear Creative Edge to form in your body.
Again Resonate and Check until you find symbols (words, images, gestures) that exactly “fit” the bodily-feel.
6. Receive: Take some time to receive and integrate anything new that has come, appreciating your body for sharing its wisdom, letting new insights settle in.

Then, you can choose whether to stop or begin another round of Focusing: Asking An Open-Ended Question, Letting a Felt Sense Form, Finding a Handle, Checking and Resonating until “Ahah!”, symbols and bodily-feel come together.

See blogs under Category: Conflict Resolution in the sidebar to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

CREATIVE EDGE EDUCATION: ADHD, SCHOOL DROP OUT, JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

By , December 29, 2007 2:58 pm

Creative Edge Education pays special attention to the needs of students with ADHD and other non-traditional learning styles. It  joins with Juvenile Justice in prevention of school dropout and juvenile delinquency.

The Creative Edge/ Differing Gifts model  can apply to all education, but the education of those children labeled as  having “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or “Attention Deficit Disorder” and other learning differences  is an urgent area needing response.

  “Attention Deficit Disorder” simply defines children in terms of their “deficit” in the ability to participate in and benefit from traditional, passive, obedience-based education. These children receive a positive definition for their “unique abilities” in the Myers-Briggs and Keirsey definitions of differing temperaments and learning styles. The child with an SP, hands-on learning style, called The Artisan by Keirsey, can excel in an active, independence-based, hands-on learning environment, steered toward careers which maximize the use of these special skills.

In a traditional classroom, where obedience and passive learning are the watch word, the Guardian children (who make up one-third of the typical classroom) have an advantage, while the Artisan children (which, according to Keirsey, make up another one-third of every classroom!):

  1. Are doing the “wrong thing” all day long, given their inability to “sit still, listen, and obey.” Their behavior is just the opposite, a need to learn by moving, and by their own hands-on, trial and error, not by passive listening. The medications like Ritalin help them to “sit still,” to conform to the traditional model.
  2. Are being punished all day long for doing the “wrong thing,” ending up in time-out, in the hall, in detention. Their self-esteem and trust in themselves to make good judgments are destroyed, encouraging them to identify themselves as “losers,” “bad kids.”
  3. Are pushed out of school and into school dropout, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, drugs, and other high-risk behavior.
  4. Become our lower-tier of “working class poor” or jobless people.

Needed instead: Hands-on and other learning approaches which respect their different learning style and lead to careers which they can thrive in.

Of course, legislation at the national or state level specify academic content which must be learned by every student, as an attempt at holding educators responsible for delivering an equal product to all learners. This seeming conflict with a Creative Edge model, which aims at maximizing the unique, creativity-motivated learning of each child and producing creative, innovative, self-motivated and collaborative adults, must be given attention in finding compromises which work to the advantage of each child.

Join the Creative Edge Collaborators yahoo group  for further brainstorming with interested others, find “one small step” people are willing to do, create action plans for carrying out our mission, and use our power as a concerned “group” to approach legislators, foundations, whoever has the power to bring listening/focusing into education.

The goal? Having training in PRISM/S and The Creative Edge Pyramid as a cost- and time-efficient part of curriculum for teaching “emotional” and “social” intelligence as basic to “human literacy.”

Download Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time taking some of the Personality Tests and discovering your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

Download our Instant “Ahah!”s Mini-Manual (“Ajas” Instantaneos en espanol) for ten exercises bringing Listening and Focusing into your everyday life starting today.

Download our complete Intuitive Focusing Instructions to start practicing Relaxation, Getting a Felt Sense, and Intuitive Focusing today!

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

CREATIVE EDGE EDUCATION RESPECTS DIFFERING GIFTS

By , December 23, 2007 10:53 pm

In business settings, there is great appreciation for the fact that teams need a balance of people with different skills, interests, and talents. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one personality test widely used in organizations to help co-workers come to appreciate the “differing gifts” each brings to the table and to avoid conflict by respecting these differences. The MBTI helps businesses to hire personnel, organize teams, and increase conflict-free collaboration.

The MBTI is also widely used in education, to identify students’ differing gifts and to offer guidance in terms of career choices utilizing various gifts. The MBTI, has proved highly valid in predicting future career choices and guiding students into careers which are a good fit for their particular skills, talents, and interests (Myers, Gifts Differing, 1980).

Kiersey’s Please Understand Me, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and Mel Levines’ All Kinds Of Minds all offer additional perspectives for appreciating the “differing gifts” of each child. See Personality Tests for thorough descriptions and sample tests from these models.

The Career Academy model for high school education, sponsored by the federal Department of Labor in the USA, allows students to become exposed to a variety of possible career choices through hands-on, real-life activities. It also helps students to specialize in an area of interest leading directly into actual jobs or next-step accreditation programs, such as community colleges and technical schools, as well as colleges and universities.

Read Dr. McGuire’s article, “Don’t Fight ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Failure, and Juvenile Delinquency” .

Spend some fun time with holiday company, taking some of the Personality Tests and comparing your “differing gifts,” your Temperaments, your varying Multiple Intelligences, your Shadow Side in the Enneagram.

Learn more about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening and Experiential Focusing Therapy at Creative Edge Focusing’s website, filled with free downloads on creativity, spirituality, collaborative thinking, parenting, innovation in business, and many other aspects of application of Focusing and Listening skills at home, at work, in your community, and globally.

See actual demonstrations of Listening/Focusing in our Self-Help package, a manual in English or Spanish, four CDs of Focusing Instructions, and a DVD with four demonstrations of actual listening/focusing sessions — everything you need to start your own Listening/Focusing Partnership or Support Group or to incorporate these basic self-help skills into existing support groups.

In the side bar at Creative Edge Focusing, subscribe to our free e-newsletter for weekly reminders to practice Relaxation and Focusing exercises and join our free yahoo group, Creative Edge Practice, for ongoing demonstrations, practice, and support.

Find classes/workshops/phone coaching in our Listings section or Coaching/Classes/Consulting with Dr. McGuire

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

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