jeff miller
@mjmille7
jeff miller
An expanded awareness enables us to bring more of ourselves and thus more resources to bear on whatever problems or difficulties we may be facing.
(The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 40)
Remember the virtue of your type is Engagement (action).
When you are present and awake, you are dynamically involved and in contact with each moment.
(Understanding the Enneagram, 61)
Remember that the Passion of Nines is sloth, or really a not wanting to show up in their lives in an active, self-initiating way.
They go on automatic pilot, so that life becomes less threatening to them.
Watch for this tendency in yourself today.
(The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 327)
Philosopher George Santayana on why we follow the crowd:
“A man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body.
He may like to go alone for a walk,
but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.”
By solitude, the desert mystics didn’t mean mere privacy or protected space, although there is a need for that too. The desert mystics saw solitude, in Henri Nouwen’s words, as “the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs.”
we don’t have to have a cell, and we don’t have to run away from the responsibilities of an active life, to experience solitude and silence. Amma Syncletica said, “There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, a
... See morePeace of mind is an oxymoron.
When we’re in our mind, we’re hardly ever at peace;
when we’re at peace, we’re never only in our mind.
The early Christian abbas and ammas knew this and first insisted on finding the inner rest and quiet necessary to tame the obsessive mind.
What is your wing?
Are you more self-confident like an Eight or
more principled like a One?
Today, notice how your wing qualities enrich your personality.
(Personality Types, 370)
The best essays begin with curiosity, not certainty; they're a journey of discovery for both writer and reader.