The Adult Chair Podcast: Wisdom Of The Enneagram

The Enneagram is a personality typing system that helps us to identify more clearly who we are, and is an exciting tool that is gaining in popularity all over the world. Today on the show Ramona Reid blends the wisdom of the Enneagram into the Adult Chair. Ramona shared with us how she experiences the Child, Adolescent, and Adult through the lens of the Enneagram and the commonalities of the two models and how they enrich each other. This was an enlightening episode that will surely take you deeper into self-awareness.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the Adult Chair on RashPixel FM.

I am Michelle Schelfont.

And today I am going to be chatting with a very special guest about the Enneagram.

In fact,

I'm going to be talking about,

Or we are going to be talking about,

How we deepen the understanding of the Adult Chair using the wisdom of the Enneagram.

So I have a special guest today.

But first you can find out more about the show at TheAdultChair.

Com.

And you can subscribe for free by signing up for the mailing list or join us anywhere the finest podcasters serve through the quick search for the Adult Chair.

You can also join the conversation on Facebook or Instagram and make sure to request to join the Adult Chair private group in Facebook.

It's a fabulous,

Fabulous way to learn how to practice the Adult Chair model.

It's a beautiful group.

You guys know how much I love it.

I also want to share one more thing before we get started,

Just some business here.

A lot of people are wondering where you can find episodes of the Adult Chair podcast.

And if you're looking for a very specific episode,

You can go on my website.

You can go right to TheAdultChair.

Com and there's a search bar there.

You can type in anything,

Whether it be Inner Child or the Enneagram or Love Addiction,

Anything like that.

And all the podcasts will pop up that are related to that particular topic.

So it's a very easy way to find shows.

And that's all I've got for you as far as business goes.

And I want to jump right in now to our interview with Ramona Reed,

Who I actually had on,

Gosh,

It was maybe a year or so ago,

A year and a half ago.

It's episode 51 and we talked all about the Enneagram and how to live authentically using the Enneagram.

So today we're merging the two together.

And Ramona Reed is the owner of the Nashville Center for Alternative Therapy.

She is an intuitive Enneagram coach and speaker.

And she also has a radio show in Nashville called The Holistic Revolution.

So welcome,

Ramona.

Thanks,

Michelle.

It's awesome to be here.

And I'm excited that I have this book of yours in my hot little hand.

That's actually one of the reasons I wanted to come is to grab these books because I use it and reference your adult chair model so often at the center.

And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today was to tell you how often I do reference it and to give you the commonalities between the two different models.

So I'm really excited to be here.

You've been on my show a couple times,

Holistic Revolution,

Talking about things and I've been on your show.

And I just think that this marriage is really beautiful.

It is a beautiful marriage.

There's no doubt about it.

So I can talk first about the Enneagram in general,

Although if you want a more comprehensive look at it,

Please go back to that episode 51 of the adult chair because we really went into it and I talked about all of the different types.

But just as an overview,

The Enneagram is literally nine types.

Enneagram means nine types.

And it's a personality typing system similar to some people know about Myers-Briggs or the disc test that some corporations use.

It's similar in structure to that,

But it has its roots in like pre-biblical antiquity.

I think the first time it was mentioned was I've read was in Homer's Odyssey.

Like it's really,

Really old stuff.

Some of the concepts go back to Sufism.

So but what it's become back in the 60s and 70s is more of an amalgam of philosophy,

Psychology,

Spirituality,

And we've really been learning and developing it more and more and more.

I'm fairly new to it and sort of just fell in love with it as my own process.

I wanted to learn about myself.

And so I was introduced to it and started learning all about my type.

And then I wanted to know all about the other types.

And then it just became this natural progression of,

Well,

I want to use it in my practice to help people.

And in the same way that I use the adult chair in my practice to help people.

And the more I learn about the adult chair and the more I learn about the Enneagram,

The more I see that there's all of these different concepts that work together.

So I'll just describe the Enneagram briefly.

It asserts that we're one of these nine,

Or I should say we're dominant in one of these nine different personality types.

What that means is we have energy that we go to or that we're the source of that's one of these nine different types.

That doesn't mean that everyone on the earth is only one of nine different types.

There's lots of variations.

There's lots of levels of health.

It's a movement as well.

It's not a static approach.

If you guys,

If you want to put up a picture of it on your website or somewhere where people could see it,

They'd be able to understand that it's a very circular movement.

It's not just like one type.

If you have a picture,

I will put it up and we can actually add it to our show notes.

If you have a picture,

That'd be great help for people.

Yeah,

I will definitely do that.

So basically it asserts that we're one of these,

We're dominant in one of these types and the three basic ways that we can divide the types is into centers.

We all have all three centers.

We all have a heart,

A body,

And a mind.

But these types are split up into three types are considered body types,

Three are heart and three are mind.

What that means is the body types,

The eights,

Nines,

And ones,

And again,

For more information,

Go back to episode 51,

But eights,

Nines,

And ones have a relationship with wanting autonomy.

They're the gut types,

The instinctual triad,

And their primary emotion is anger.

The heart types,

The twos,

Threes,

And fours are part of the wanting mirroring or attention triad,

The heart triad,

And their primary emotion would be shame.

And then the fives,

Sixes,

And sevens are part of the mind triad or the thinking triad,

And their primary,

They're interested in security and their primary emotion is fear.

Now this isn't to say that a two in the heart triad can't be afraid or experience anger or that the eights don't have shame that comes up.

Again,

This is a movement,

So we're going to feel all of the energy of all the different types at different times in our life,

But one of them we're dominant in.

And this is where it kind of gets fun with the adult chair because what happens is,

I love this sort of thing.

When we're born,

We have these essential qualities.

This is like our child,

Right?

We have these essential qualities that are just beautiful and they show up for us.

And it's these core emotions and these just core energies of things like vitality,

Connectedness,

Unity,

Guidance,

Attunement,

Sweetness,

Joy,

Abundance,

All of these different things.

And we have specific ones on our specific type.

What happens is when we're little,

We lose touch with the fact that we're the source of this,

Something will happen.

We realize something's wrong,

Whether it's like a trauma that we have happen or maybe it's just we lose touch with ourselves and decide where is that essential quality.

So is that when we put a mask over it,

Would you say,

Or what happens?

We develop a coping mechanism out of that.

And can we use,

Do you mind if I use type seven?

I mean,

This could be fun.

That's me,

I'm a type seven,

So you're going to put me under a microscope.

Yes,

Of course.

You know I disclose everything on air,

So please do.

Go right ahead.

Use me as an example.

So the type seven,

Little seven,

Little Michelle,

Okay,

So little type seven,

The essential qualities of you when you're born and other type sevens are the sense of freedom and abundance and joy and what will happen invariably when we get out of touch.

So wait a minute,

So you're saying then we're born like that,

Like those are our main qualities?

The ones that we value as important,

Kind of the lens through which we see life.

This is what's important to me because this is you.

Gotcha.

So those essential qualities show up in our life whenever we're quiet,

Whenever we're in presence.

They just show up and we're the source of them and not just the source of them for ourselves but for everyone else.

Like for me,

You are the source of abundance and freedom and joy.

Oh,

That's so cool.

That's why people love to be around sevens.

Love that.

Healthy sevens.

Are you saying I'm an adult?

No,

You're a very healthy seven at times,

Just like we're all healthy at times,

Right?

Okay,

Yes,

Of course.

And then we dip into our adolescent.

Of course,

Yes we are.

So these essential qualities are innate.

When something happens,

We lose touch with these essential qualities and then we try to recreate the illusion of the loss of those qualities outside of ourselves.

So again,

We're not recreating the essential qualities because they're inherent.

We're creating the illusion of the loss of them.

So little baby seven's like,

Uh-oh,

Something's wrong.

I need to create abundance and freedom.

I need to create joy.

So then the adolescent will come in,

Which is our coping mechanism,

Our winning formula,

Our strategy to make that happen.

And so for the seven,

That would be gluttony.

And these terms are so reductive because I don't want to just say that only sevens exhibit gluttony.

It's not that.

It's more of an idea or an energy of I need more things.

I need to experience all these things.

And there's an immediacy to it and there's an energy around it.

And that's your adolescent.

That's what the flavor of your adolescent is,

If you're a type seven,

Is the coping mechanism to get back to those childlike essential qualities.

Got it.

Okay.

That makes so much sense.

So when you're not present,

You're going to experience your passion.

It's called an enneagram.

So you've got essential qualities,

Child.

You've got your passion,

Your adolescent.

And these terms you'll find are familiar because they say a lot of that the seven deadly sins actually comes from this concept of the passions and the virtues.

So the seven's passion would be gluttony.

Well,

That's how your adolescent shows up.

My adolescent shows up because I'm a type one as resentment or judgment or control because I lose touch with my essential qualities of understanding the gray area and wisdom and discernment and ethics.

I lose touch with that and I have to then create those things by being controlling.

That's my adolescent chair.

Oh,

That's so cool.

Yeah.

I do see how it blends.

It really does blend quite nicely with the adult chair.

Right.

So we need to understand what our child looks like because not everyone's child chair is going to look the same.

And so when we say,

Well,

How do I get in touch with my inner child?

I was just listening to one of your podcasts earlier today.

How do I get in touch with my inner child?

Well,

What is the thing about you that makes you feel like the source energies,

Either the deep sadness or the deep joy or whatever it is,

It's going to be different based on your enneagram type.

So if you can find out your enneagram type,

Your dominant type,

You can understand how better to get to your inner child because you'll know what those qualities are that you're trying to create outside yourself from your adolescent.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

So then what happens is if we can kind of flesh out and understand our adolescent a little bit better,

Then we're going to know how to find the antidote to that,

Which is our virtue.

So for you,

The virtue is sobriety or sometimes called causeless joy.

So if you realize that you're flitting from one thing to the next and you're making a lot of possibly saying,

Yeah,

I'm going to show up to this and this and this,

And maybe you want to show up to all of them and you might end up looking a little bit like the flaky seven,

But you just want to help everybody out and please everybody and not be tied down and you just want to experience all the things.

Well,

If you can notice that you're doing that and that that's your coping mechanism,

Then you can remember,

Wait a minute,

Sobriety,

Causeless joy,

I'm the source.

That's inside of me.

And you can kind of kickstart that process as well by noticing the flavor of your adolescent share.

How do we,

Then how does the actual adult part of us like fall into the whole Enneagram model?

Well,

There's different ways.

I mean,

Everybody is going to have a different pathway out of their ego.

For instance,

If you're,

If you are one of the types that,

Um,

The open boundary types,

Let's say,

And again,

Please get more information from episode 51,

But types four,

Five and nine are considered open boundary types.

What that means is they feel all the things,

They see everything and it's overwhelming or they merge with people in that open energetic boundary way.

If you are one of those types,

You need to get in touch with your body to find your way back to your essence or to your virtue.

So if you're,

Let's say for you,

You're a seven,

You're one of the assertive boundary types along with,

Along with the three and the eight assertive boundary types.

And you'll know what I mean.

You walk in a room and people can feel you walk in a room,

Right?

That's just how sevens are.

You kind of lead with this energy,

Right?

So your pathway out of your adolescent chair is actually to open your heart and to find vulnerability.

So true.

Yep.

So true.

And then when you do find that vulnerability and you do open your heart and everyone's pathway out is different,

But it's a pathway to presence,

Right?

You open your heart,

You're vulnerable,

You're more present.

What do you find there as a seven?

What do you find there?

When I'm more open?

Yeah.

And more present?

More vulnerable specifically.

Oh,

Well my child is there.

So you're talking about?

Yeah.

So you remember that you're the source of those essential qualities and then that virtue of like,

I don't have to do anything to attain joy.

I don't have to do anything to attain freedom.

I am freedom.

I am abundance.

I am causeless joy.

That's right.

That's your virtue.

So it's this process that's actually a threefold process and it's a lot more in depth than this,

But I just wanted to find a way to kind of marry it to the adult chair.

The enneagram and the adult chair work so perfectly together because each of these really important parts of the process have a mirror in this other practice.

And I tell people all the time at the center,

If they come in and they want to do an intake to try to figure out how to break through blocks,

That's one of the things I showed you earlier.

That's one of the first things I'll tell them to do.

Get in touch with Michelle Chalfant or go online and listen to these podcasts and understand this language because it's going to help inform your understanding of the enneagram and your understanding of yourself and your process.

And what's cool about the adult chair is you have an actual concrete thing to do,

Like find out who your inner child is and have a conversation with them.

So it helps me as well in enneagram coaching to give them different language to help kind of highlight the different parts of the enneagram.

Love it.

So we were talking earlier about triggers.

You're talking about how you can use the enneagram for triggers and I did that episode where we were referring to that episode where I was completely triggered and then did a whole show on it,

Which was episode 98 if you want to re-listen to the trigger show.

But you said you kind of put it through the lens of the enneagram,

Which I thought was kind of fascinating.

Can you share a little bit more about triggers?

Right.

So and I'm also,

We also have a parenting group at the center and this is what this kind of reminds me of is how we oftentimes we assign the source of our triggers as our kids.

Sometimes it's our partners,

Sometimes it's our jobs,

But we'll just stick with one.

Let's just say kids.

Right now it's summertime.

Kids are home with us.

So we might find ourselves becoming more and more triggered right now because what we assign as the source of our triggers is right there in front of us.

The actual truth,

The beauty of this is they are our gurus.

Our kids are,

They're not our triggers.

Our kids are something we need to look at to see what we're mirroring back at ourselves and they're brilliant at that because they know us so well.

And so when you're talking about a trigger,

What you need to figure out first is that you're not talking about another person.

So when people are saying,

I'm triggered by this,

How do I overcome this?

We're really actually looking for how do I change them or how do I fix my reaction to them?

But triggers are 100% about ourselves.

Totally agree.

It's a shadow deep,

Deep within that we're not aware of.

And I,

I triggers are actually,

I think a good thing because it's a way to see what's going on in the unconscious mind.

But what we typically do again is say,

Oh,

It's your fault.

Why did they do that to me?

And we want to shut them down.

So,

But even if you don't have children,

Anybody that is getting triggered by anyone,

We need to look inside first.

It could be traffic.

It could be money stories.

It could be any,

It could be weather.

It could be not getting your way.

It doesn't have to be kids.

You're right.

It just seems like kids are a really easy one to go to.

And that's why this parenting group is because we want to be good parents.

And what we really need to do is be really good parents to our inner child.

But we use it as like,

No,

I want to be a good parent,

Especially the type two,

The helper.

I want to be a good parent to them.

I want to give them love when really we need to focus back on ourselves.

So when you're dealing with triggers,

What you really need to focus on is the part of yourself that just got triggered and then say,

Thank you,

Trigger.

Thank you,

Child.

We don't feel like doing that in the middle of a trigger,

But yeah.

No,

Because they're the ones that are going to allow us to wake up.

It's true.

My daughter is the source of almost all of my awakening because she points out the things in me because I no longer assign her as the source of my problem.

As soon as I start feeling my temperature rise and that kind of clenching in my gut,

I can't believe she's being defiant.

It's like,

Oh,

I wasn't allowed to be defiant.

There's a part of me that doesn't feel her.

There's a part of me that needs to be in control.

So she's just mirroring that because if it wasn't me,

Then her behavior wouldn't be triggering me.

If it wasn't already inside of me and something I needed to deal with,

I would just let it roll off my back.

Right.

Exactly.

Oh yeah.

I was talking to you about,

I just went to dinner the other night with a few friends and I don't know the person that they were all kind of discussing,

But all of these three people were having an issue with this other person who wasn't there.

They were all talking about,

And these are pretty evolved people and we ended up talking about it later and being like,

Wow,

That was fascinating.

What they were all doing is they were all describing this person and how she's this way.

Like,

Oh,

She just triggers me this way.

But I realized looking at it and again,

I don't really know this person,

They weren't describing the same person.

They were describing behavior that was exactly mirroring something they saw in themselves.

Like one of them was like,

Oh,

She's just so scattered.

Like it really bothers me.

The other one was like,

She's just so forceful.

It really bothers me.

And then the other one was like,

Yeah,

She's not very kind and that really bothers me.

I'm like,

That doesn't sound like the same person.

And then I looked at the people that were saying it and I'm like,

Oh,

I can describe you in your shadow side as those ways.

And so we weren't really,

The person that they're talking about is irrelevant because that's not the problem.

The problem always points back to you and it's like,

What are you seeing in that person and what is it mirroring in yourself?

And that's the most frustrating work right there because as soon as,

And I kind of like learned a little bit of that from Byron Katie,

The whole idea of loving what is,

Turn it around.

If someone's really bothering you,

Lean into them because people want to like,

No,

I'm going to set boundaries.

I'm not talking about if it's like a physically abusive or emotionally abusive thing,

But if there's somebody that you're like,

Oh my God,

She just really gets on my nerves,

Then you have to stop and be like,

Oh,

What am I doing that gets on my nerves?

How is this mirroring something that I do?

The Enneagram is huge for that because that adolescent is the one that's triggered.

And so if you can see,

Like I said,

The flavor of how you get triggered,

You're going to look at your passion.

So your trigger is probably going to become,

I don't want to be tied down.

I don't want to lose options.

I don't want to feel managed.

I want to make sure that I.

.

.

You're smiling.

That's very true.

Right.

And so if you can pay attention to that and be like,

Oh,

That's my trigger.

Oh,

That's myself.

That's my adolescent.

What am I trying to create outside?

I'm trying to create more freedom.

So it sounds like it goes back to,

Again,

What we were born with.

I don't remember what you call it.

Not the three.

Essential qualities.

The essential qualities.

So those get covered.

So we are born,

Every number within the Enneagram gets born with these essential qualities,

Right?

And then they get covered up at some point throughout our lives.

Well,

We lose touch with them.

Yeah,

They're always there,

But we forget that they're there.

And then we try to go on this holy quest for them.

It's like,

That's the thing that's important to me is like for me as a one,

It's serenity.

I need to find serenity.

It's like,

Wait,

I am serenity.

When I'm not in my adolescent,

Which is judgment and resentment,

I can be serene.

There's a lot of gray area.

There's a reason for everything.

I don't need to reform.

I don't need to fix.

I don't need to be perfect.

A lot of inner criticism with the one,

I don't need that.

I am the source of serenity.

If I can remember that by knowing again,

The flavor of my passion,

Which is judgment and resentment,

Where do I feel that in my body?

How do I get in touch with my adolescent?

Which that's what that looks like for me.

For a two,

That adolescent is going to look like pride or giving.

For the three,

That adolescent is going to look like vanity or deceit.

For the four,

It's going to look like envy.

For the five,

It's going to look like avarice or withholding of.

For the six,

It's going to look like anxiety.

For the eight,

It's going to look like lust.

I mean,

It's going to look different.

For the nine,

Sloth.

If you can find yourself in that passion and be like,

Oh,

That's just my adolescent trying to fix things,

Then you can remember,

Take a minute,

Come back to presence,

Take a deep breath.

You'll feel those essential qualities because they're you.

They haven't gone anywhere.

So true.

It's such a game.

We think it's outside of us,

Which is why every high level spiritual teacher always says go into the pain,

Sit with what you are feeling because it's about going inside and finding out the truth behind it.

The adolescent doesn't want us to go inside.

The adolescent wants to protect and keep us separate from,

And it's just a coping mechanism,

But the child's got all the answers.

And so that's why,

Funny enough,

Your kids triggering you is so appropriate because it's actually something you really need to listen to your own kid inside of you.

Like,

What do I need?

And that brings you back into balance,

And then your virtue will show up.

So for the virtue for you,

Like I said,

Causeless joy or sobriety.

For me,

It's serenity.

Those things show up.

That's your adult.

And you'll know you're in your adult chair if you're experiencing that virtuous state.

Oh,

This is good stuff.

Yeah,

It goes really deep,

And there's more to it than this.

I mean,

There's instinctual variance as part of the enneagram.

There's all the different,

Like I said,

Levels of health and movement.

Like if you're a seven,

You're going to move into one or into five,

Depending on if you're in health or if you're in stress.

And you're going to pick up on energies.

And the point of this isn't to say,

Learn everything there is to know about your type so that you can have this clean,

Nice little box that you can live in.

The whole point is to expose what's already going on behind the curtain and see it for what it is,

And then see that it's not real.

And then we realize after that that we actually are all of the energies of all the numbers.

So this is where you're going to find,

Oh,

You're two energy,

You're three energy.

It doesn't matter what type you are.

We have all of this inside of us.

But our ego shows up,

Or our adolescent,

In certain specific ways.

And so understanding the enneagram is going to understand your adolescent and flesh it out a lot more than just saying,

My adolescent chair.

It's like,

Oh,

My adolescent chair looks like this.

It's really controlling.

Oh,

My adolescent chair is actually giving up all control and being like,

Never mind,

I don't matter.

Or my adolescent is really angry all the time,

A wrathful.

Or my adolescent is like,

You get to see what your,

This is why it flushes it out so cool for me that you have this resource is because I can be like,

This is what this is.

Your passion is your coping mechanism.

We don't have to tether to it.

Why would we want to know more about our stuff like that and then just tether to it?

We want to learn so we can ascend it.

So when you say passion,

Though,

What do you mean by that?

Right.

So it's not the definition of passion.

Yeah,

Because I'm thinking of the definition of passion.

I'm like,

That's not exactly what you mean when you're using that word.

Right.

I'm using like pathos,

Like pathology,

Like passion in the way of like passion to Christ.

Like the old kind of version of it is the thing that trips you up or the thing that shows up in your ego.

That's your passion,

The thing that you like fixate on,

Which is your adolescent.

That's the passion.

So it's essential qualities is like your child,

Your passion or your pathos or your shadow side is your adolescent in this model that we're just kind of making up here.

And then the adult would be your virtue.

And so you'll know which chair you're in based on how you feel in your body and whether you're in touch with yourself or whether you've taken a moment to meditate or get back to presence in whatever way.

And again,

Each type does that in different ways.

You're going to do it by being more vulnerable and open hearted.

I'm going to do it by meditating and quiet the monkey mind and the body or the open boundary types are going to do it by getting in their body.

So there's different centers that are out of balance in the enneagram.

Your center that's going to be innately out of balance because you're a seven or you're dominant in type seven is your heart.

Mine is my mind.

It's not going to be in balance because I can feel and do all day just as you can think and do all day.

Right.

What's missing is the heart for you.

So when someone then again,

I'm trying to use the right terminology when using the enneagram.

You said the goal is to,

I'm hearing you say,

I think the goal is just to become aware.

It's just awareness,

Just raised awareness because you don't exactly ever reach the end point,

Which is what clients ask me all the time.

I'm like,

What have we done?

I'm like,

When you're in the grave,

You're done.

So there isn't a point,

But it sounds like with more raised awareness,

Again,

With anything in life,

But very specifically with this enneagram,

You can catch it much faster and you notice where you are.

Yes.

You slow your reaction time.

I should say you quicken your reaction time.

Now at this point,

I can't.

It used to be that I would create chaos in my life and then maybe a couple months or even a year later go,

Ooh,

That was mine.

That was my bad.

I shouldn't have done that.

Maybe.

And that was if I was being really healthy.

And then it was,

I learned a little bit about the enneagram and then it was like,

Oh God,

Look what I did last month or a week ago.

But now because of this more information,

I can still,

I'm of course always going to find myself,

My adolescent is going to always show up.

The goal isn't to,

Like I said,

Ascend into the heavens and become like Jesus or Buddha.

It's like we're human.

We need to have some compassion for our process.

Of course,

It's going to always show up.

I'm going to always have this show up probably.

But what I can do now is I can either in the moment,

Like you've talked about in your podcast,

In the moment,

Wait a minute,

What am I feeling?

This isn't real.

This isn't essential.

This is me trying to control everything or fix things.

Or even better,

You know what?

Next week I've got a really stressful schedule.

I look a little bit busy on Tuesday.

I bet I'm going to have more likelihood of getting into my adolescent share that day.

So maybe Monday night,

Why don't I do some meditation?

Why don't I spend some time on myself?

I can kind of like,

I can preemptively take care of myself and not have to go so deep into my coping mechanism or my adolescent share because I have this knowledge of where I go when I'm stressed.

Yeah.

So you're in your adult responding versus reacting from that adolescent share is what I'm hearing you say too.

And then getting curious,

Where am I?

What am I doing?

And I know,

And the one thing I really don't hear you say is I don't blame myself.

That's again an adolescent trait.

Yeah,

So you're just raising your awareness and making a new choice and saying,

Okay,

Let me try this instead,

Which is all adult.

And there is no end game really.

I mean,

I think it just gets easier or it gets more aware.

You get more aware.

But I feel like it's like peeling an onion.

There's always going to be other layers,

Which is why it's fascinating for me to keep learning all these different things is because once you peel back one layer and you're like,

Oh,

Wow,

I feel better about myself,

Then it's like,

Uh-oh,

There's the other stuff.

I didn't even know I had that there and then it shows up and then we use these tools and we work through those.

But we do that with compassion instead of with blame,

Self judgment,

Those types of things,

The shame game,

All of that.

We just are like,

Oh,

This is just my Enneagram type.

This is just my adolescent.

We don't have to make it mean something.

We like to make it mean something about ourselves.

But it's like,

No,

This is just what I do because I'm a human being.

Yeah.

I have to say when I attended your class,

Was it a group just for number sevens?

It was fascinating to sit with a group of sevens and we were all the same.

It was wild to sit and you were asking us questions and we all had the same issues.

We all over,

You know,

What was the word?

Overcommitted.

And then at the last minute,

Like,

Oh crap,

We got to get out of this somehow.

Every single person in that group had the same sort of issues and that was fascinating.

So I would encourage all of you to find out what number you are and where can they do that?

So we're going to post something for sure in the show notes,

But isn't that there's some online links,

Right?

There are.

Yeah,

There's some online testing and there's a lot right now on the Enneagram.

It's kind of exploded.

Yeah.

That's what I was just going to say.

I have so many clients that keep coming in,

Which is really where the show came from again to do part two with you is so many clients come in and say,

Do you know what type I am?

How do I find out what my type is?

And it seems like the Enneagram has really just suddenly exploded in the last couple of years.

One thing I want to tell you first is how not to find out your type.

I don't want you to go to somebody who knows the Enneagram and ask them to tell you what type you are because you're doing yourself a disservice because part of this process is in building that muscle inside of yourself that's able to become aware of your shadow side on your own and also become aware of your essential qualities that are beautiful.

Like there's a process there that creates its own level of growth as we do that.

So you can take the tests and that will be helpful in starting the conversation,

But I wouldn't become addicted to those results.

There's some good tests like Enneagraminstitute.

Com has 144 question tests.

I think it's,

I don't know,

10,

12 bucks.

There's other tests you can do online that are free,

But again,

That's just the beginning of the conversation.

And there are some that are free online that have like 20 questions and they were not accurate the way that I,

You know,

The ones I've typed.

I've typed as a two,

A seven,

A nine,

A six,

A one,

And then that's fine.

The best way I would say to find your type is to get a book like Wisdom of the Enneagram by Rissa Hudson or a book like the Nine Personality Types and to read about all the types.

You'll find yourself in there and where you're going to probably find yourself most likely is your adolescent chair or your passion because those are the ones that usually people are like,

Oh ouch.

Okay.

How do you know me?

And when you,

And you spoke something that was really important,

You said I was in a room of all sevens and we were all the same.

And that,

That's an interesting point because absolutely you're not all the same,

But what you noticed and recognized in each other that was the same are your essential qualities,

Your passion,

And your virtue.

But what's cool about learning about the Enneagram is as soon as one other person learns their type and then they enter the conversation,

They've just added into the lexicon of the Enneagram because all of a sudden there's Michelle who's all the other things that aren't just seven and you just made seven richer for me.

Yeah.

You've just made it make more sense.

You've put your own taste on it.

I have to say I felt like even more self-acceptance when I heard everyone else in the room have the same things going on it.

And I was like,

Oh,

That's just me.

You know,

When we do,

I find some as humans,

It just not a certain group of humans,

But as humans,

We try to be like other people.

Like I wish I was more like so-and-so.

Why can't I be more like so-and-so?

But when you sit in a group of people that pretty much are the same,

At least the same number,

I really walked out of there and I thought,

I'm okay.

All these little idios I have or the things that I do or how I show up in the world,

I'm really okay.

It just took that to a new level for me.

So it was really a great thing.

We do a lot of comparison and that just creates a lot of shame and blame and judgment anyway.

But yeah,

You're not going to be the best one.

You're not going to be the best six you can be,

But you can be the highest level of development you can of a type seven,

Which is this,

It's not the caricature of the seven that you're talking about.

It's not the non-committal flying in and leaving seven.

The seven that is a beautiful,

Healthy seven is someone like when you're from your adult chair,

You're able to be engaged.

You're able to be heartfelt.

You're able to be vulnerable and present.

And also you're able to feel complete and total joy and freedom and abundance coming from yourself,

Not having to create it.

And we love our healthy sevens,

Just like we love all the different types that are healthy.

So yeah,

You can only be the highest level of yourself.

Why would you want to be a healthy two?

You wouldn't.

No.

And I love that it helps us to point into where we need to be working,

What we need to be working on or where we need to be looking in our own lives.

Well,

This has been enlightening for me.

Again,

I love this stuff.

Thank you.

Is there anything else you want to add?

Oh,

No.

Just thank you for doing what you're doing.

Thank you for having this book so I can give it to my clients.

And actually the book or the e-book and all of the amazing things that you do online because I'm not just trying to butter you up.

You know how important this is to me that this resource exists because people are waking up,

People are growing,

And they're using these things combined,

The Enneagram and the Adult Chair combined to really get in touch with these parts of themselves that they've always labeled as wrong or bad.

It's like,

No,

How can we be more compassionate?

So thank you for having this tool.

I appreciate it.

Well,

You're welcome.

We look forward to your book coming out on the Enneagram.

Let's just.

.

.

Okay.

So at the end of the year,

Let's have that book out.

All right,

Everybody.

So Ramona.

Yes.

So do you do,

Again,

Phone sessions,

International Skype sessions,

Tell people in case they want to find you,

Let people know,

Do you have any groups coming up?

Talk about like what do you have that you're offering right now in your center or what do you do?

Right.

So I have my radio show Holistic Revolution on WXNA,

Which is if you're in Nashville,

It's 101.

5 FM,

But most people probably aren't.

You can stream it at wxnafm.

Org or you can listen worldwide to the TuneIn app.

And that's every Tuesday at 2 Central Time here in Nashville.

But also we have it archived.

So on my website,

And the web address is mynashvillecenter.

Com,

I have all of my episodes archived.

I talk about the Adult Chair.

I talk with you.

I talk about the Enneagram.

I have a podcast I did with Susan Ruth that's on that archive.

So you can learn more about the Enneagram there or again,

Go back to episode 51 that I did with you,

The Adult Chair episode where we really talk about comprehensively what the Enneagram is.

The other thing we do here in Nashville is we have a monthly meeting.

It's usually the first Thursday of every month.

That's at 7 PM Central Time.

And I have some stuff online on an Enneagram at NCAT.

Now that's E-N-N-E-A-G-R-A-M at NCAT.

That stands for my center,

Nashville Center for Alternative Therapy.

You can join that closed online group similarly to the Adult Chair online group where we can discuss everything Enneagram in there.

And then the other thing I do is Skype consultations or in-person consultations on the Enneagram.

So if you've got a block in your life that you want to work through with the Enneagram,

You can Skype and do that.

I've been excited to be able to provide that for about the past eight,

Nine months.

That's been really fun.

So anywhere you are,

You can go on my website and book one of those sessions.

Awesome.

And I have referred a lot of people to you and the feedback has been amazing.

So thank you because again,

I think we need this.

So for listeners of the Adult Chair,

Audible is offering a free audiobook download of your choice with a free 30 day free trial to give you the opportunity to check out the service.

If you go to audible trial.

Com forward slash the Adult Chair,

You can get the book of the day by Ramona or it's not by Ramona,

But her recommendation is the Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Hewarts,

H-E-U-E-R-T-Z.

And you can download that book for free.

It's such a great service you guys,

Audible trial.

Com forward slash the Adult Chair.

And through this book,

You can learn a lot more about the Enneagram.

It's a beautiful,

Beautiful way to learn about the Enneagram as well as again,

Blending it now with the Adult Chair.

So this has been a really cool show.

We want to thank you again.

Thanks.

Thank you for being here with us.

So,

Okay everybody,

That's all I've got for you.

And this is again,

Michelle Schelfant and I will see you right here next time seated firmly in the Adult Chair.

Reviews

Very interesting namaste 🙏 ♥

Wow!! Love this! Incredibly helpful! Thank you!

Very interesting. Will look for Episode 51. Thank you.

A wonderful and productive merging of these two systems.

Awesome subject..will go online and catch pod 51..
Thank you..
Namaste

You are a true gift and blessing to this world🙏🏻💚🌍😇
Metta🌺
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