The Contemplative Enneagram – Pathway to Presence, Wholeness and Peace

~ A Healing Paradox ~

The Enneagram is a way to discover who you truly are

by understanding the thinking and behaviors

that stop you from being who you truly are.

We’re going exploring …

Want to join us?

SDI is a contemplative community. Presence is central to spiritual companionship. And wholeness and peace are benefits that come with contemplative life. This webinar series is designed to help spiritual companions – and all those curious about an active spiritual life – to go deeper with the Enneagram rather than to see it as a formula for categorizing ourselves and others.  

The Enneagram is both a departure and a coming-home.

Key Areas of Exploration:

• How the Enneagram may be used to help us grow more aware of ego concerns and release them
• How the Enneagram may enhance deep connection, compassion and awareness of the infinite
• How the Enneagram may be paired with contemplative practice in companionship to help people toward wholeness, healing and love

 

Our contradictions don’t have to limit us, they can make us whole.

What to Expect on the Webinar: Practical wisdom. There’s a reason you often see the words “contemplative practice” used together. This is because consciousness grows from commitment and regular engagement. But how best to do this? We must find our own answers, of course. That’s why the Enneagram is so useful. It offers a practice-based and flexible structure that can encourage contemplative wholeness. Many people find the Enneagram not only accessible but liberating. And they use it on their individual spiritual journeys as well as in their calling as they offer spiritual care. Our focus: This series will concentrate on how the Enneagram and contemplative practice can be used together. Where we can, we will try to demonstrate what that combination might look like using a number of modalities from spiritual direction and yoga to energy medicine and meditation. Our goal is to give you practical guidance using personal stories that teach – including frank discussions of what has worked and what hasn’t. SDI webinars focus on experiential learning. We want our participants to open, expand and engage their hearts. We want you to finish this webinar series with a felt-sense of a deeper relationship with the transcendent, God, Spirit, or however you term the ground of all being. We believe that the better you connect with the transcendent, the better you connect with yourself and all beings.  

Our every-day life isn’t mundane by nature or definition.

Presence can transform any moment.

Who Might Benefit We imagine most people who join us on this learning journey will have some knowledge of the Enneagram, but this is not necessary. Anyone may find deep learning if they engage with good heart here. The webinar series is designed for all those who offer spiritual care and for anyone who seeks fulfillment in life. We welcome people from all spiritual traditions and inclinations (and those who profess none). We welcome people of all abilities. One thing worth remembering — we imagine that those who will benefit most from this journey will be those who are curious about – or already embrace – stillness. (See below)  

Loss is not just a thief.

It also reminds us that nothing can make us incomplete.

We are whole beings.

No matter what.

Our journey is an awakening to this truth.

Course Description

Session 1 – The Enneagram & Spiritual Companionship – Inviting Presence: How do you bring the Enneagram into a spiritual companionship session? We’ll look at what works to welcome Presence and what might not. Experienced spiritual director and certified Enneagram coach Deb Horton will lead this session. We’ll explore the perspective of the directees – those people who are actually being companioned. Two volunteers will talk about their experiences. How does the Enneagram encourage contemplation? How can it be used in spiritual direction to support self-discovery? Session 2 – Embodied Practice – Yoga and the Enneagram: Enneagram professional and yoga teacher Abi Robins will lead this session. What steps can we take to bring the Enneagram into our day-to-day life? This session will look at how we can explore our issues through the framework the Enneagram provides while using the tools of Yoga to build a down-to-earth practice that can bring ourselves back into balance. As Abi says, “If the Enneagram is a map, Yoga is the off-road vehicle you need to take you on this journey.” Session 3 – Finding a Contemplative Practice that Fits You: Learn to identify the spiritual disciplines that work for you given your personal spiritual beliefs and based on your Enneagram type. Use deep listening and intuition to support the person you companion as they speak their soul’s  truth.  Led by Enneagram accredited professional and interspiritual minister & lawyer Rev. Nhien Vuong. Session 4 – Enneagram, Energy & Touch – A Mystical Connection: Led by Dr. Avon Manney, D.O, M.S., an Enneagram specialist and an expert in hands-on physical and spiritual care. This session will help get participants familiar with the Enneagram as a support for living an authentic life through awareness. Dr. Avon says: “I have been sensitive to the energetic states of others from an early age. It is no wonder that I was called to study Osteopathic Medicine.” Since then, she’s trained in a number of other healing arts, including working with the Enneagram, Reiki, Shamanic Healing and Buddhist Meditation. She uses body scans to detect sensations that can act as triggers. “The facilitation of healing through intuition and touch takes many forms,” she says.  

What is stillness?

It is any space where we accept what is.

It is letting go of disapproval and approval,

so that we may experience the limitlessness that is part of our nature.

The Enneagram can help us invite and embrace stillness.

Presenters

Deb Horton is a certified Enneagram teacher, coach and spiritual director. Board President of the Minnesota Chapter of the International Enneagram Association, she has built her spiritual direction practice in part through her affinity with and her training in the Enneagram. She also runs retreats and facilitates groups and is a certified teacher of the Embodied Present Process (TEPP). Her website refreshingly and openly refers to the personal qualities or “gifts” she feels characterize her approach to companionship: warmth, humor, creativity and open-heartedness. Quote: “The heart of my work … is about uncovering what keeps us from God’s Love and Wholeness.” Abi Robins (they/them) is a trained Enneagram Teacher who studied with Helen Palmer, Marion Gilbert, Peter O’Hanrahan and others through The Narrative Enneagram in Menlo Park, CA. Robins is also a CIAYT Yoga Therapist (intern) with the International Association of Yoga Therapists and studied at Yoga Yoga in Austin, TX. Abi’s teaching combines the deep and transformative insight of the Enneagram with the holistic and down to earth practices of Yoga Therapy. Robins seeks to share these two powerful systems to help people better understand themselves and those around them and live more fulfilling and meaningful lives. Her educational website is called the Conscious Enneagram. Reverend Nhien Vuong, J.D., M.Div., is a former Stanford Law attorney who left her San Francisco law career to pursue a calling to support the evolution of consciousness, helping others to experience a greater sense of inner wholeness, oneness with Spirit, and unity with all of life. As an interspiritual minister, Nhien offers a compassionate path of transformation without dogma path that honors and is rooted in each person’s unique background, temperament, and personal beliefs. A licensed & ordained interspiritual Unity Minister, Nhien served on the ministerial team at the historic Unity Temple on the Plaza, the founders church of the Unity movement which is located in Kansas City, Missouri, from January 2015 until September 2019. While still actively teaching and leading classes, groups, and retreats at Unity Temple, Nhien recently stepped down from her full-time associate position in order to share her Enneagram-based spiritual companionship with the larger world through the healing work of the Evolving Enneagram. She is an IEA accredited professional. Dr. Avon Manney received her medical degree in Osteopathic medicine, D.O., from the New York Institute of Technology and Medicine in 2006. Using sensitized touch, she is able to diagnose and treat restricted areas of the body which are commonly caused by stress, repetitive use, muscle imbalances, and/or injury. She is aligned with the nonprofit Gravity as an Enneagram specialist, where she uses “the Enneagram as a spiritual map for transformational work and alignment with Divine will. She works with others by guiding them into accessing their embodied intelligence. This work calls upon the cultivation of presence using meditation, body scanning, and the breath.” She also offers Reiki and Shamanic Healing. Dr. Manney firmly believes in the inter-connectedness of the body, mind, and spirit.  Her website is here.

Additional Information

Each session will run 75 minutes. Who may join the webinar? Everyone is invited to participate in SDI Webinars. Are CEUs available? SDI will provide a certificate of completion for self-reporting to agencies. More information can be found here:  continuing education units (CEUs).

This webinar series isn’t just a way to earn CEUs.

It’s a way to recognize ego boundaries – and transcend them.

The Enneagram isn’t a way to put labels on people,

It’s a way to give your curiosity wings.