My son and I recently downloaded an app where we could “find” virtual augmented animals around a local hotel. We had fun trying to see how many there were.
At one point, my son wanted to take the pictures, so he told me where to pose, and we got…this.
I was supposed to be petting the tiger. But it wasn’t there, and I was depending on the information I was receiving to know how to stand and where to put my hand. It wasn’t there. It looked very real through the phone screen, but it wasn’t the whole story.
How often do we do this? How often do we rearrange our approach to life and circumstances, react in our thinking and having imaginary conversations with others, or feel all kinds of ways to things to something where we don’t have all of the information?
Even if we DO have a good idea of what what’s going on, we’re still looking through filters we don’t know we have. The Enneagram shows us the ways each type focuses their attention and how this limits us. Did you know that your conscious brain is aware of around 25-40 bits of information every second, but there’s 11 MILLION bits of information coming at you, every second?
If I decide my goal is, “I must find a way to get close to this tiger”, then I’m overly focused on something that’s not real. If my hand gets close enough, I’ll touch air. Sure, it would be an awesome picture, but just as fake. Think about all the real, true, tangible beauty surrounding me in this picture—the green plants, the palm trees, the sunlight.
The Enneagram shows us how we get stuck, for sure, but it also shows us the ways we can start to let go of our over-focusing, our narratives of fear that keep our experiences closed off. It helps us look up and see more of the whole story surrounding us.
Unbound Coaching 