The Notes and the Melody, Part VI:

Composing the Tune

By Mario Sikora
( 2006 Mario Sikora)
from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful Charles Darwin Part Fivethe Core Qualities and the Accelerators, and described the core quality and accelerator found at Point One of the Enneagram. (All five of these articles are available online at www.mariosikora.com, or in pdf format by sending an email to info@mariosikora.com.) This article will discuss the core qualities and accelerators for Points Seven and Five; describe how all of the aforementioned pieces work together to create a coherent system for creating growth; and then provide an example of that system using Ennea-type Seven. Future articles will do the same with the other Ennea-types.

To recap thus far: Working in an environment with a different set of needs (namely, the corporate world) and being by temperament indifferent to the gentle sound of rustling angels feathers and earnest tones that accompany much of the talk about the Enneagram, I have focused on constructing a pragmatic way of presenting the model. As I have written in the past, the needs of a business audience are different from the psycho-spiritual audience and I have found four principles to be useful when presenting the Enneagram to any group of results-oriented You're in trouble when you find it's hard for you to people. smile, Those principles are: A simple song might make it better for a little 1. Less is More and Simple is better than while. Complicated. (Corollary: Give them the notes; let Sly Stone them play their own melody.) 2. A secular and scientific Enneagram is The core quality at Point Seven is Joy, a needed for the business world. feeling of inherent well-being independent of 3. Remaining Static is the problem; becoming stimulation. The last article discussed the infants Responsive is the solution. tendency to express happiness through a smile and, 4. Focus on growth rather than dysfunction. later, a laugh. Often, this expression occurs in (Corollary: You cant change who you are, but response to the smile of another, but it is just as you can change who you will be.) often spontaneous and independent of interaction Past installments in this series have appeared with others. The child is not yet capable of rational in the pages of the Enneagram Monthly addressing thought, so he is not amusing himself with the following topics: stimulating thoughts. He is expressing something Part Onethe underlying philosophy of from inside; something natural and essential. To see an infant coo-ing alone in its crib is to witness this approach. the acorn-version of Joy. Part Twothe Strategies, the My son, Alec, will be two years old at around fundamental theme for approaching life at the same time this article is published. Alec is a the heart of each Ennea-type. sprightly wisp of a boy, all shining eyes, gap Part Threethe Instinctual Biases. toothed grin, and perpetual motion. Since he Part Fourthe inner triangle of the started demonstrating characteristics of personality Enneagram, which represents the process at about six months of age, there has been little by which we develop unconscious, habitual room for any interpretation other than that he is a behaviors and the Awareness to Action Seven. Alec is, and always was, different from his Process, a method by which we can modify brothershe simply glows with an inner those behaviors. Copyright 2006. Mario Sikora. All Rights Reserved. 1 www.mariosikora.com

something that has lightness and brightness to it. He exudes Joy. Immature, acorn-version joy, but joy nonetheless. But even at this early stage one can see the glow becoming more and more dependent on external stimulation. The light is still there, but it is becoming increasingly augmented by toys, interaction with his brothers, or simply running in circles. Despite our best intentions, he will read subtle signals from his parents that in some way stunt his Joy. We will not respond to his smiles quickly enough; my wife will grow weary of playing Ribbit the Frog for hours at a time; I will not stand still long enough while he hangs on my leg and circles endlessly, each time stepping directly on an arthritic toe. (Before you judge us too harshly, the kid is delightful but he really is exhausting; you spend a day with him.) Lifes experiences will accrue, some of which will be unpleasant, and this will have a tamping effect on Alecs innate joy, just as it does for all of us. Like all Sevens, however, he will both retain an element of this joy as a central aspect of his character and yet feel an estrangement from it more acutely than the non-Sevens among us. Aspects of immature joyoptimism, lightheartedness, good-humor, an ongoing search for new stimulation, etc.will be mixed with the feeling that he is lacking internal joy and needs to look outward for it. Sevens begin to grow when they practice the Accelerator of Enjoyment, creating an environment fertile for the nurturance of mature Joy. Now it would seem that if anyone knows how to enjoy life it would be a Seven and that enjoyment should not be something that they have to practice. This is often not the case, however. Dont misunderstand meSevens know how to find pleasure in life and their lives are often spent in search of pleasure and avoidance of pain, as the Enneagram literature is quick to point out. What they often fail to do, however, is take the time to be present and appreciate what they are experiencing right now. Sevens are looking for the next buzz, the next source of stimulation, the next thing that they can get excited about. This constant search for stimulation does not leave an opportunity for the Seven to develop mature Joy, that quality of inherent and unassisted well-being.

(It is important to note, as was pointed out in the last article, that we all experience the estrangement from or stunting of all of the core qualities and what applies to Sevens in this regard applies to all of us, independent of type. We all live out of touch with the right here and right now, but Sevens perhaps more so.) Sevens begin to reconnect with Joy when they learn to slow down, focus, and enjoy what is right in front of them instead of what is off in the distance. Among the very important things that Sevens neglect to appreciate and take enjoyment in is themselves. Despite the superficial self-confidence and mildly charming self-centeredness sometimes displayed by Sevens, Sevens tend to carry a bucketful of insecurities and self-doubt behind the smiling mask. In their private moments they focus on their shortcomings and inadequacies and their desire to hide these lead to further propping up of the mask and avoiding any situation that would expose their flaws. Striving to be excited, in addition to serving as a comfortable preferred strategy for addressing lifes challenges, becomes a means of distracting themselves and others from their self-perceived deficiencies. To match the Sevens yin of external optimism, excitement, and pleasantness is the yang of internal disappointment, dissatisfaction, and irritation at the failure of reality to live up to the fantasy of expectation. They rarely show this side of themselves to others and it is certainly not what we think of when we are thinking enneagramatically. This dissatisfaction, however, is the natural byproduct a life spent striving to be excited rather than resting in mature, inherent Joy. The effort to recapture something that comes from inside by searching outside is sure to lead to frustration. Sevens, then, are like one quaffing a fine wine, growing increasingly jovial on the outside but secretly exasperated that they are unable to grasp the subtleties of the grape that their companions are talking about. In order to not be found out as the frauds they fear they are, they keep the party moving with stories and antics and drama, and then they are gone. Things begin to change for Sevens when they learn to sip deliberately rather than gulp, when they let life rest on their palate before turning into a warm glow in their bellies. Practicing enjoyment helps them achieve this. Learning to pause, pay attention, and rest with what one has rather than

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chase after what one doesnt are critical skills for Sevens to develop. There are any number of ways to develop these skills but I typically recommend two to my Seven clients. The first is simple mindfulness meditation. There are many methods of meditation that will suffice and the key is consistency rather than duration. That is, I would rather see a Seven meditate for five minutes every day than try to tackle thirty minutes and find it so unbearable that she can never face the cushion again. The second is a simple sensing exercise. Pick something you do every day, and then practice involving as many senses as you can. For example, lets say you have oatmeal with strawberries for breakfast every morning. Rather than simply wolf down your oatmeal as you read the newspaper or regale your family with tales of how delicious the oatmeal is, consciously involve in turn as many senses as you can. First, focus on the look of the oatmeal and the strawberries, contrasting the bright reds with the pale oatmeal and the crisp white of the bowl. Next, focus on smellsthe sharp tang of the strawberry, the warm milk smell, etc. Then move to taste, feel, etc. Two minutes of this is a great start. John Coltrane said that the proper way to listen to a jazz record was to play it once and let the sound wash over you. Then listen to it again, focusing only on the bass. Next, focus on the saxophone, and progress through each instrument individually. Finally, listen to it again, letting the sound wash over you. Coltrane was advocating the kind of enjoyment we are talking about. (Practicing this exercise with the opening track from his A Love Supreme is a great start.) I dont know what you mean when you say Big Mind and Little Mind. First of all there is the brain. Jiddu Krishnamurti There is a famous medical case discussed in neuroscience literature in which a woman suffered brain damage that impaired her short-term memory. Much like the character in the film Memento, she was unable to form memories of events that occurred after the injury. Each time she visited her doctor, he would hold out his hand and introduce himself anew as if it was the first time they met. If he left the room, even momentarily, she would forget who he was and he would have to

introduce himself all over again. One day, the doctor decided to try an experiment: He hid a thumb tack in his hand before entering the examination room. When she shook his hand, she was pricked by the tack and recoiled in pain. The doctor apologized profusely and left the room after calming the patient. Upon returning a short while later, the patient again had no recollection of the doctor, but she refused to shake his hand. She refused to shake his hand at subsequent visits as well, but when asked why she would offer weak justifications, such as explaining that she feared she would spread a cold or catch germs from the doctor. She had no resistance to shaking other peoples hands, however. The point of retelling this story is to show that the brain processes information in ways that we are not consciously aware of, either because we have habituated the behavior and no longer need to be consciously aware of it or because we do not have the capacity be consciously aware of it. The first situation happens through repetition. If you do something enough times it becomes automatic. The second situation occurs because of the way the brain evolvedgiving us the capacity for mental function before giving us the capacity for consciousness of those functions. (See Part Two for more on this.) Therefore, we have the capacity to process information, store experiences, and manufacture responses in ways that are nonconscious. We simply do them, not really understanding why. There is a reason, but the reason is formed through cognitive functions that are not connected to the parts of the brain that we have conscious access to. This phenomenonknowing something without being aware of how we know itis Intuition, the core quality found at Point Five of the Enneagram. (Merriam-Webster Online defines intuition as the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.) Alecs younger brother, Alexei, will be six months old when this article goes to print. He has recently begun to learn thingsmost importantly how to soothe himself to sleep at night by sticking his fingers in his mouth or reaching for the pacifier. Today, Alexei naturally and unconsciously soothes himself with his fingers, but he is still figuring out how to wrangle the pacifier. Manipulating an external object is a more-complex task than sucking on his fingers and he is figuring

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it out with some effort struggling to coordinate emerging mental skills with emerging manual dexterity. Soon, however, he will be popping the pacifier in and out, literally in his sleep, as if it were an appendage. As we grow, we develop the ability to intuitively process more complex situations or tasks. The oldest of the three Sikora boys, Adrian, is three and a half and can catch a ball thrown from a short distance. Last summer, a thrown ball would bounce off Adrians chest as his arms flailed together a beat too slowly. In a few years he will be chasing down pop-ups as effortlessly as you or I shoo away a mosquito. While they are the easiest to describe, it is not only physical activities that we learn to perform intuitively; the brain is constantly habituating thinking processes and carrying them out below the surface of our awareness. We intuitively step away from a dark alley, resist getting onto an elevator with someone who looks wrong, and turn one direction rather than the other when lost. We all have the experience of knowing something without being sure why we know it. Once again, however, the socialization process inhibits our trust in our intuition. As children we think we know what is best for us based on what we feel, but our parentsif we are luckydo their best to keep us from hurting ourselves. The unintended consequence is that we learn to doubt ourselves when we shouldnt. And the bigger the risk is, the more we doubt ourselves. We stop relying on our inner knowing and we begin to consciously analyze our circumstances and figure out our responses. Casual situationscatching a ball, driving a car on a familiar road, making small talk by the water coolerare comfortably handled intuitively. Larger, more-critical situationswho should I marry, where should I live, what car should I buy, etc.are pulled into consciousness for analysis and resolution. Again, this is as it should be. The problem, which is typically one of efficacy rather than dire consequence, occurs when situations that can be handled intuitively are forced into the conscious: Decisions are delayed or deferred and opportunities are missed. In the business world this phenomenon is called paralysis through analysis: deadlines are missed, market opportunities come and go, time is wasted. This is the central dilemma found at Point Five of the Enneagram. Again, it occurs for each of us,

Ennea-type Five feels the disconnection from intuition most acutely. Rather than trusting inner knowing based on experience, they step back and analyze, weigh options, and cogitate. This stepping back, or detaching, leads to the Fives not actually doing things, robbing them of opportunities to internalize actions and processes and further reinforcing the need to step back and analyze some more. Mature intuition, because it is based on internalized experience, takes time to nurture, just like the rest of the core qualities. One way to assist that development is through the accelerator of conscious practice. The focus of the Five tends to be on observing from a distance rather than engaging and doing. They can nurture intuition by consciously practicing activities so that they develop the ability to do them naturally and unconsciously (that is, intuitively). When we practice something we carve neural pathways in our brain that allow for habituated behavior. While Ive written in past articles about the danger of habitual behavior and how to overcome it, I am not against unconscious behavior. I am against ineffective unconscious behavior. There are many times when unconscious behavior works for us: when swerving the car to avoid a collision, snatching a child out of harms way, catching a ball. Conscious practice allows us to create patterns of effective unconscious behavior. Heres how. Learning follows four typical phases: 1. Unconscious incompetence (I dont even know that I dont know how to do this), 2. Conscious incompetence (I now see that I dont know how to do this), 3. Conscious competence (I now see that I know how to do this), and 4. Unconscious competence (I no longer pay attention to how I do this). Making this cycle conscious is what the accelerator of conscious practice is all about. It means not just practicing something, but practicing deliberately in a structured manner.1 Here are two examples: Beginning martial artists spend countless hours practicing their techniques individually, executing thousands of single kicks, punches, and blocks until they develop adequate coordination. Then they will string the individual techniques into sequences called kata or forms and practice pre-

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arranged combinations with an opponent. Eventually, they will practice free-style sparring. The martial artist who is new to sparring will be trapped in his head, constantly thinking about what his opponent is doing, might do, and how he will respond. This will cause his movement to be hesitant and stiff, and he will easily be defeated by a more experienced fighter. Eventually, however, with enough practice the martial artist will begin to unconsciously act out his training and experience. His movements will be natural and relaxed, he will find himself automatically executing the techniques he has practiced countless times at just the right moments. He has learned to fight intuitively. Fives are often plagued by an inability to be decisive. They want one more piece of data to analyze, one more variable to factor, or one more day to consider the evidence before being ready to act. This capacity for patient analysis is a gift and has great potential benefit; it is also the source of frustration for many people who expect decisions from Fives and it is the most common behavioral inhibitor of Fives careers. Fives (and others who struggle to be more decisive) benefit from consciously practicing making decisions, starting small and working up to larger matters. I sometimes urge Fives to pick a simple decision they have to make each day, such as what to have for breakfast, what kind of coffee to have, or what to wear to work, and put a short time limit on themselves. Rather than deliberate for the 30 seconds they may usually take at the Starbucks counter (at the risk of being thrashed by the large and irritated Eight behind them), they limit themselves to 10 seconds. Since the stakes are relatively small, the Five doesnt lose much by making a decision he later regrets. As time goes on, he can move to larger and more complicated decisions to practice. Despite our view of ourselves and rational creatures, most decisions are based on emotion, and there is a specific feeling that accompanies decisiveness. It is important to learn to recognize the feeling that accompanies this exercise. This feeling can then be deliberately recalled in the future as a useful aid in making more important decisions. What typically happens, however, is that practicing decisiveness eventually makes it an unconscious skill that no longer needs to be practiced.

The goal here is not to make anyone rush to decisions; there are many times when that is a mistake. The goal is to develop the ability to be more decisive when the situation requires. Practicing being decisive at Starbucks today helps one be more decisive in critical matters tomorrow. Putting It All Together The first mistake is in thinking that there is a self; the second mistake is in thinking that there is not. Sunryu Suzuki Ultimately, happiness and efficacy are found through working with your story so that it becomes responsivepermeable, adaptive, and expansive rather than staticcalcified, resistant, and closed. Any methodology or tool that helps you do that is a useful one. Taken together, the strategies, accelerators, and core qualities, combined an understanding with the instincts and Awareness to Action Process and mapped to the Enneagram, provide a rich but simple tool for conducting this work. It is common to place human experience on a vertical scale or continuum, and while any such map ultimately fails to fully represent the territory, they provide a useful metaphor. On this continuum, the responsive story is in the upward direction and the static story is in the downward direction (see Figure One).2 We move downward when we fall victim to the autopilot to uncertainty to story process and it causes us to start behaving in maladaptive ways. We move upward when we apply the strategies flexibly and appropriately, practice the accelerators, and nurture the core qualities. Each element of the model provides some grist for the mill of growth. People of every personality type benefit from working with the elements found at each point, whether they connect with those points via the inner lines of the Enneagram or not. Thus, for example, Eights benefit from working on Objectivity, the core quality found at Point One, even though they do not connect with Point One via the internal lines of the diagram. The beauty of the Enneagram is that it can be used to provide a guide for prioritization rather than as a mere map of fixedness. That is, proper use of the Enneagram does not define our boundaries and limit us; it shows us where we are stuck and points to how we can most effectively become unstuck. This focus

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Figure One: The Responsive Story and the Static Story

Responsive Story

1. AtA Process applied to the Strategies 2. The Accelerators 3. Nurturing the Core Qualities Autopilot/ Uncertainty/ Story

Static Story

on the most important issues is consistent with the 80/20 rule described in Part One.3 Again, because of the environment I typically work inthe corporate worldI keep things simple and focus on strategies found at the clients Enneagram point and the two connected to it by the inner lines. However, all of the elements can be paced on a matrix that provides an easy reference tool for a given type. I find very few coaching

challenges that cannot be traced back to the matrix in some form or other. (See Figure 2.) Generally, then, we thrive when we continually work on making our story more responsive. More specifically, we can look to the Enneagram to resolve specific inter- or intrapersonal problems or identify a specific developmental path. Lets look at how this works for the Type Seven.

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Figure Two: The Matrix for Type Seven Getting Stuck

Enneagram Point Strategy Overdependence on striving to be Excited. Accelerator Tendency to be dissatisfied, grasping, and distracted rather than practicing Enjoyment. Lack of Conscious Practice. Polarization of Acceptance; either too much or too little. Core Quality

Seven

Joy stunted.

Five

One

Awkwardness about or underutilization of striving to be Detached out of fear of being bored or boring. Habitual reliance on striving to be Perfect to reinforce preferred strategy.

Intuition stunted.

Objectivity stunted.

Getting Unstuck
Enneagram Point Strategy Deconstruct outdated attitudes about striving to be Excited; reconstruct more effective attitudes. Deconstruct outdated attitudes about striving to be Detached; reconstruct more effective attitudes. Deconstruct outdated attitudes about striving to be Perfect; reconstruct more effective attitudes. Accelerator Core Quality

Seven

Practice Enjoyment.

Nurture Joy.

Five

Practice Conscious Practice.

Nurture Intuition.

One

Practice Acceptance.

Nurture Objectivity.

The three strategies most significant to Sevens are Striving to be Excited, Striving to be Detached, and Striving to be Perfect, the strategies found at Points Seven, Five, and One, respectively. Striving to be excited is the Sevens preferred strategy. That is, it is the central cognitive, affective, and behavioral approach they take to life. This strategy flavors everything they do and is at the heart of all of the traits commonly associated with Sevens. Striving to be detached is the neglected strategy for the Seven. They typically have an adolescent relationship with this strategy. Most of the time they resist using it because it feels contradictory to their preferred strategy. Other times they act out the strategy in immature ways, detaching and hiding almost petulantly from the demands and expectations of others. (Every Seven I have met has an intense privacy streak, keeping a

part of themselves to themselves. They may be the life of the party while they are there, but they cant wait to go home, close the door and curl up so they will not be disturbed.) Striving to be perfect is the support strategy for the Seven. They use the perfectionism found at Point One to improve their ability to be excited. For example, they may work to create order in their surroundings that will allow them to have fun without worrying about messy distractions, they may become demanding and critical of others who they see as impeding their contentment, etc. It is important to understand that we all apply the connecting strategies in both positive and negative ways, which is why I find the common terminology of stress and security points or directions of integration and disintegration unsatisfying. The goal should never be to become

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more like another type or less like another in any way, it should be to apply the strategies in effective, healthy, and adaptive ways.4 The insecurity felt regarding the core qualities of Joy, Intuition, and Objectivity can also cause problems for Sevens. Essentially, they have three critical and deep-seated fears: That they will not find Joy inside themselves (and thus look for it futilely everywhere else), That they cannot trust their Intuition (so they stay trapped in the rapid-fire thoughts and plans buzzing through their heads), and That they cannot be truly Objective (so they cling to opinions that may not be fully formed or jump from opinion to opinion with each new observation). These insecurities a downward pull on the continuum toward a static story. Practicing the Accelerators of Enjoyment, Conscious Practice, and Acceptance in the ways described in this article and the Part Five helps to nurture the core qualities and move the Seven up the continuum. When working with a client, I find that the root of whatever behavioral challenge we are discussing will eventually be found in one of the boxes of the matrix for their type. Thus, when working with a Seven, we eventually find ourselves discussing one of the issues charted in Figure Two. It is critical that the coach be open and let the client find his or her way there, rather than leading the client there directly. The coach must also be open to the possibility that something else entirely is at play. The matrix provides a great resource, however, for working with oneself or someone else. Future articles in this series will discuss the Accelerators and Core Qualities for other types and describe the interplay of the elements of this model for each type, but Id like to close this installment by returning to the quote with which we started. It is taken from the concluding paragraph of Charles Darwins The Origin of Species: from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful in which Darwin marveled at the endless complexity and diversity of life, of the countless species descended from one or a few. This strikingly beautiful phrase bursts into my consciousness often and unexpectedly. It may be

the formal post-Elizabethan lyricism of the phrase, the alliteration, and the symmetry that make it so memorable. It may be how it so compactly summarizes the often unappreciated importance of Darwins ideas. (He got it right! said James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, in an interview with Charlie Rose. For the first time in history, someone accurately explained mans role in the universe. Everyone else was wrong!) Or it may be how it captures, however inadvertently, the essence of the human condition. When working with the Enneagram it is easy to focus on the similarities and repetitiveness one encounters in people as they play out their type. There are times when I fear I may run into traffic headlong and screaming if I have to listen to one more Nine explain why he avoids conflict or an Eight justify her verbal abuse of coworkers. Once you see the patterns of personality, you cant help but see them everywhere you look. But holding such a narrow focus is to miss the bigger picture. Instead of being trapped by the Enneagram, we should strive to celebrate the variety, the actions and words that dont fit the pattern. The purpose of focusing on a limited number of elements as this model does is to create a structure that can support variety and expansion. The strategies, accelerators, and core qualities are the notes, the Enneagram is the scale. Rather than grasp on to the details of personality type and fixate on a collection of traits, I urge the reader to use these notes to compose a new melody, something wholly ones own. There is grandeur in this view of life is how Darwin opened his concluding paragraph. I can think of no more fitting words to end mine. There is grandeur in this view of life. (Mario Sikora is co-author of Awareness to Action: The Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, and Change. He can be reached at info@mariosikora.com.) Footnotes 1 The August 2006 issue of Scientific American had an excellent article called Secrets of the Expert Mind that describes the value of this way of building skills. 2 There is no end point in either direction, really; it would seem that we can always be either more open or more closed, with death being the only true bookend.

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The Pareto Principle says that roughly 80% of the return on any investment of resources comes from approximately 20% of the invested efforts and that the final 20% of the return comes from the other 80% of the invested resources. I find that the greatest payoff for my clients is found in working with the issues at their Enneagram point and the point that Bob Tallon and I have labeled the

neglected pointcommonly called the security point or direction of disintegration. The other elements, while useful, provide less high-return bang for the developmental buck. 4 For more on the strategies, see Part Two of this series or the book Awareness to Action by Robert Tallon and Mario Sikora.

Copyright 2006. Mario Sikora. All Rights Reserved. www.mariosikora.com