Nine Keys to Forgiveness: Finding your way through the Maze

Nine Keys to Forgiveness:  Finding your way through the Maze

Forgiveness is misunderstood, especially among people of faith.  How often have you heard the saying “forgive and forget”?   If only it were that simple.  

Declaring forgiveness is hollow if you cannot release the pain inflicted on you. It's meaningless if you keep passing on your pain to someone else. But when you let go, a sense of relief and freedom washes over you, paving the way for a brighter future.

If you do not release the pain, and this is not about forgetting, you will suppress the pain until it adversely affects your health.

Most of all, forgiveness takes time. It can be a lifelong process, but that doesn’t mean everything will be resolved.

The Enneagram is a powerful psychological and spiritual tool that can help you tap into the wisdom within and around you. Understanding and accessing the three centers of intelligence, sensations of the body, the emotions of the heart, and a quiet mind, can unlock the potential for forgiveness, both for yourself and others. This transformative process can lead to healing and the restoration of relationships, making the Enneagram a fascinating and inspiring journey of self-discovery.

 

You will benefit from learning from the wisdom of all nine types.

 

Here are nine ways to forgiveness through the Enneagram: 

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Getting Real with Spiritual Bypass: Finding Your Path to Freedom

Getting Real with Spiritual Bypass: Finding Your Path to Freedom

Spiritual bypassing, a phenomenon that can hinder your physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental health, is often unknowingly encouraged on social media and even used as a marketing tool. However, it's important to understand that avoiding self-reflection and emotional processing can impede personal growth and well-being. By acknowledging and confronting your blind spots, fears, grief, and disappointments, you are not alone in your journey. You are supported and understood.  Getting real with spiritual bypass will reveal new paths for your life.

Let’s begin with a definition of spiritual bypass I find helpful from an article by Ingrid Clayton, Ph.D., in Psychology Today.

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Nine Ways to Recover from Burnout (Through the Lens of the Enneagram)

 Nine Ways to Recover from Burnout (Through the Lens of the Enneagram)

Are you feeling down, lacking energy, unmotivated, depressed and have feelings of hopelessness?  Maybe you are burnt out. 

Burnout gradually catches up with you when you fail to notice what is happening inside you. 

Maybe you are in a relationship where you feel like you are walking on eggshells.  Maybe you are in a job that under-uses your skills. Maybe you feel stuck in life and don’t know what to do.

Learning to face your reality while hard can be the critical step to move you towards healing. Learning the Enneagram can help you find your way to healing.

The Enneagram is a powerful spiritual tool to help you notice what is happening in your internal world. Through discerning your Enneagram type, you will discover what happens to you when you get stuck in the limitation of your ego.

Here are nine ways to begin your healing journey through the lens of the Enneagram.  We will begin with the wisdom of the body center. 

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Recovering from Spiritual Burnout: what it is and how to handle It

Recovering from Spiritual Burnout: what it is and how to handle It

You are a spiritual being, whether or not you consider yourself religious. Spirituality is all about connecting with a unifying loving force more significant than you.

Anytime you are out of balance with Spirit, you will not make the best decisions.

Spiritual burnout is when you start to feel depressed and hopeless and have the feeling that God has abandoned you. You begin to wonder if life is worth living. You walk around with a sense of heaviness. You find it more and more difficult to do anything.

Spiritual burnout builds up over time. If you are not aware of your gradual decline, you will start to get used to it, and the longer you stay in it, the harder it will be to get out of it.

The only way out of it is to learn to be more self-aware. The Spirit sends wisdom through the sensations of your body, the emotions of your heart and a quiet mind. Your work is to become more familiar with your three centers of intelligence.

Paying attention to your centers will help you find liberation.

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Ten Steps to Beating Burnout: A Guide to a Better Life

Ten Steps to Beating Burnout: A Guide to a Better Life

We live in a chaotic world. It is hard to separate our work and business life because of smartphones, computers and social media. Beating burnout is a lifelong process.

People expect to hear back immediately when they text or email you. Organizations pressure their employees to produce and expect them to work overtime at home.

Churches put more pressure on their leaders to keep their doors open. As congregations decline, more expectations are put on their ministers.

How pressured do you feel to work on your days off and your holidays?  Do you fear losing your job if you don’t put in the extra hours?

More people realize that it is not a badge of honour to overwork.

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Five Ways to Cultivate a Healthy Masculinity and Femininity

Five Ways to Cultivate a Healthy Masculinity and Femininity

We live in a complex world, yet we want to divide people into two genders. We expect men to be masculine and women to be feminine. 

With modern psychology, we have learned that we have both within us. It is a like a continuum with masculinity and femininity at either end of the spectrum. Most of us land in the middle of the continuum. We all need a healthy masculinity and femininity.

Until recently, children have been raised to behave in specific ways depending on their gender identity. Girls were brought up to be caring, maternal, gentle and obedient to parents, particularly men.

Boys were considered tough, assertive, violent, and controlling. Boys grew up with the belief that they were superior to girls. You still hear the excuse for male violence with the saying, “Boys will be boys.” We still see signs of this in our society with a high rate of violence against girls and women.

Women and men are both hurt by this sexist divide. We are forced into being people we are not. When women are not permitted to be strong, assertive and outspoken, they often take out their anger on other women. 

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9 Ways to Detox Your Soul through your Body, Heart and Mind

9 Ways to Detox Your Soul through your Body, Heart and Mind

 You are a complex being. Your life will flow when you pay attention to your soul. To do this work requires patience, determination and commitment.   Doing a soul detox is difficult, but the results are life-changing.

The Enneagram is a great tool to help you do this work. It is like a spiritual map to show you how and the type of work you need to do. The Enneagram is not enough in itself. You must find practices that will help you connect with your soul through your body, heart and mind.

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Finding God Within Ourselves

Finding God Within Ourselves

What is God

God is a big word. You and I have different images of God. When I refer to God, I am talking about an energy/force within and around you that connects everything, both animate and inanimate.

It is the higher power within us that speaks to us through our bodies (sensations), hearts (emotions) and heads (quiet mind).   

God is a loving force that seeks to bring out the best in each of us and sustain a world where all life has a chance to thrive.  

There is the spark of God in each of us. It is not something we earn. It is a gift given to us to be used wisely and with compassion.

The good news is that God is within all of us.

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Why Being Self-Loving Makes You a Better Partner

Why Being Self-Loving Makes You a Better Partner

What does it mean to love yourself and be a better partner? Have you found a way to love yourself while ensuring you meet all your needs? Can you love yourself as much as you love your partner and kids?

How good are you at loving yourself? Do you get plenty of sleep, eat healthy food, exercise, pay attention to your emotions, enjoy time with friends and family and get help when needed? How you answer this question will reveal your strengths and growing edges around self-love.

If you are struggling to care for yourself, first, you must get over the belief drilled into you as a child that you need to always put the needs of others before your own. The pressure to put others first is especially true for women who are expected to sacrifice themselves for the needs of their families.

You get into relationship problems when you expect others to meet your needs. The reality is that you are responsible for your happiness. When you love yourself, you ensure that you are getting your needs met. You are no longer relying on another person to make you okay. Being grounded in your body, heart, and head help you be a better partner.

In any relationship, you need balance. Yes, there will be times that you will happily go out of your way to help another person when they are having a rough time. It only becomes a problem when you are always the one to give up your life for them.  

In a healthy relationship, there will be a balance over time. You will both be there to support and encourage each other. No one will take advantage of the other.

Here are Eight ways that loving yourself helps you to be a better partner:

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