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Notes and the Melody Part 6:
Composing the Tune
By Mario Sikora
“…from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful…”
Charles Darwin
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 people.
Those principles are:
1. Less is More and Simple is better than Complicated. (Corollary: Give them the
notes; let them play their own melody.)
2. A “secular” and scientific Enneagram is needed for the business world.
3. Remaining Static is the problem; becoming Responsive is the solution.
4. Focus on growth rather than dysfunction. (Corollary: You can’t change who you
are, but you can change who you will be.)
Past installments in this series have appeared in the pages of the Enneagram
Monthly addressing the following topics:
• Part One—the underlying philosophy of this approach.
• Part Two—the “Strategies,” the fundamental theme for approaching life at the
heart of each Ennea-type.
• Part Three—the Instinctual Biases.
• Part Four—the inner triangle of the Enneagram, which represents the process
by which we develop unconscious, habitual behaviors and the Awareness to Action
Process, a method by which we can modify those behaviors.
• Part Five—the Core Qualities and the Accelerators, and described the core
quality and accelerator found at Point One of the Enneagram.
(All file 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.
You're in trouble when you find it's hard for you to smile,
A simple song might make it better for a little while.
Sly Stone
The core quality at Point Seven is “Joy,” a feeling of inherent well-being
independent of stimulation. The last article discussed the infant’s tendency to
express happiness through a smile and, later, a laugh. Often, this expression occurs
in response to the smile of another, but it is just as often spontaneous and
independent of interaction with others. The child is not yet capable of rational
thought, so he is not amusing himself with stimulating thoughts. He is expressing
something from inside; something natural and essential. To see an infant coo-ing
alone in its crib is to witness the acorn-version of Joy.
My son, Alec, will be two years old at around the same time this article is
published. Alec is a sprightly wisp of a boy, all shining eyes, gap-toothed grin, and
perpetual motion. Since he started demonstrating characteristics of personality at
about six months of age, there has been little room for any interpretation other than
that he is a Seven. Alec is, and always was, different from his brothers—he simply
glows with an inner …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.)
Life’s experiences will accrue, some of which will be unpleasant, and this will have
a tamping effect on Alec’s 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 joy—optimism, light-heartedness, 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.
Don’t misunderstand me—Sevens 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 life’s 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 chase after what one doesn’t 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, let’s 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 smells—
the 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 don’t 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 people’s 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
evolved—giving 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 non-conscious. 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 phenomenon—“knowing” something without being aware of how we know it—
is 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.”)
Alec’s younger brother, Alexei, will be six months old when this article goes to
print. He has recently begun to learn things—most 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 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 Adrian’s 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
parents—if we are lucky—do their best to keep us from hurting ourselves. The
unintended consequence is that we learn to doubt ourselves when we shouldn’t.
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 situations—catching a ball, driving a car on a familiar
road, making small talk by the water cooler—are comfortably handled intuitively.
Larger, more-critical situations—who 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
Five’s 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 I’ve 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 harm’s way, catching a ball.
Conscious practice allows us to create patterns of effective unconscious behavior.
Here’s how.
Learning follows four typical phases:
1. Unconscious incompetence (“I don’t even know that I don’t know how to do
this”),
2. Conscious incompetence (“I now see that I don’t 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-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 doesn’t 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 responsive—permeable, adaptive, and expansive—rather than
static—calcified, 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 (Note--For a copy
of Figure one, send an email to info@mariosikora.com)).(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
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 in—the corporate world—I keep
things simple and focus on strategies found at the client’s 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. (Note--For a copy of Figure Two, send an email to info@mariosikora.
com))
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 intra-personal problems or identify a specific developmental path. Let’s look
at how this works for the Type Seven.
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 is 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 can’t 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 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 I’d like to close this installment by returning to the quote with which we started. It
is taken from the concluding paragraph of Charles Darwin’s “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 Darwin’s 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 man’s 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 can’t 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 don’t 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
one’s 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.
(3)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”
point—commonly 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.
Composing the Tune
By Mario Sikora
“…from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful…”
Charles Darwin
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 people.
Those principles are:
1. Less is More and Simple is better than Complicated. (Corollary: Give them the
notes; let them play their own melody.)
2. A “secular” and scientific Enneagram is needed for the business world.
3. Remaining Static is the problem; becoming Responsive is the solution.
4. Focus on growth rather than dysfunction. (Corollary: You can’t change who you
are, but you can change who you will be.)
Past installments in this series have appeared in the pages of the Enneagram
Monthly addressing the following topics:
• Part One—the underlying philosophy of this approach.
• Part Two—the “Strategies,” the fundamental theme for approaching life at the
heart of each Ennea-type.
• Part Three—the Instinctual Biases.
• Part Four—the inner triangle of the Enneagram, which represents the process
by which we develop unconscious, habitual behaviors and the Awareness to Action
Process, a method by which we can modify those behaviors.
• Part Five—the Core Qualities and the Accelerators, and described the core
quality and accelerator found at Point One of the Enneagram.
(All file 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.
You're in trouble when you find it's hard for you to smile,
A simple song might make it better for a little while.
Sly Stone
The core quality at Point Seven is “Joy,” a feeling of inherent well-being
independent of stimulation. The last article discussed the infant’s tendency to
express happiness through a smile and, later, a laugh. Often, this expression occurs
in response to the smile of another, but it is just as often spontaneous and
independent of interaction with others. The child is not yet capable of rational
thought, so he is not amusing himself with stimulating thoughts. He is expressing
something from inside; something natural and essential. To see an infant coo-ing
alone in its crib is to witness the acorn-version of Joy.
My son, Alec, will be two years old at around the same time this article is
published. Alec is a sprightly wisp of a boy, all shining eyes, gap-toothed grin, and
perpetual motion. Since he started demonstrating characteristics of personality at
about six months of age, there has been little room for any interpretation other than
that he is a Seven. Alec is, and always was, different from his brothers—he simply
glows with an inner …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.)
Life’s experiences will accrue, some of which will be unpleasant, and this will have
a tamping effect on Alec’s 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 joy—optimism, light-heartedness, 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.
Don’t misunderstand me—Sevens 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 life’s 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 chase after what one doesn’t 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, let’s 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 smells—
the 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 don’t 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 people’s 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
evolved—giving 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 non-conscious. 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 phenomenon—“knowing” something without being aware of how we know it—
is 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.”)
Alec’s younger brother, Alexei, will be six months old when this article goes to
print. He has recently begun to learn things—most 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 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 Adrian’s 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
parents—if we are lucky—do their best to keep us from hurting ourselves. The
unintended consequence is that we learn to doubt ourselves when we shouldn’t.
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 situations—catching a ball, driving a car on a familiar
road, making small talk by the water cooler—are comfortably handled intuitively.
Larger, more-critical situations—who 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
Five’s 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 I’ve 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 harm’s way, catching a ball.
Conscious practice allows us to create patterns of effective unconscious behavior.
Here’s how.
Learning follows four typical phases:
1. Unconscious incompetence (“I don’t even know that I don’t know how to do
this”),
2. Conscious incompetence (“I now see that I don’t 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-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 doesn’t 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 responsive—permeable, adaptive, and expansive—rather than
static—calcified, 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 (Note--For a copy
of Figure one, send an email to info@mariosikora.com)).(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
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 in—the corporate world—I keep
things simple and focus on strategies found at the client’s 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. (Note--For a copy of Figure Two, send an email to info@mariosikora.
com))
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 intra-personal problems or identify a specific developmental path. Let’s look
at how this works for the Type Seven.
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 is 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 can’t 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 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 I’d like to close this installment by returning to the quote with which we started. It
is taken from the concluding paragraph of Charles Darwin’s “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 Darwin’s 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 man’s 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 can’t 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 don’t 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
one’s 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.
(3)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”
point—commonly 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.