Enneagram Growth Practice Type 1

Growth for Type 1: The Perfectionist

Basic Essential Practice: From a grounded, receptive, openhearted and non-judgmental stance, notice how tension and suppressed anger or resentment over what is wrong and needs correcting can overshadow your life. Can you sense how your driving energy of anger often in the form of resentment or tension is associated with your version of what is right and good. This stems from your core belief that to be loved, valued, and secure you must be good and right and improvement oriented. When you stop to notice this and breathe down into your belly center to bring yourself back to the present moment you can do the work of inquiry. Then what does your reactive anger tell you about judgmentalness and non-acceptance and your need to release from these and appreciate disparity and dissimilarities as just differences, yes just differences, and your need to reconnect to acceptance and your own desires. Then you can coach yourself into releasing from judgmentalness and into what you truly value and want. Remind yourself to notice how others respond when you don’t hold anger and resentments over differences and errors.

 

Free Enneagram Guided Audio Meditation Practice for Type One (1) Perfectionist Personality Growth with David Daniels

 

 

Additional Key Themes for Reflection: Simply stop for a minute or so 3-4 times a day to center and reflect on one of the following:

What the mind sees as wrong or needing to be corrected. Simply stop to notice how your mind repeatedly goes to error and what you judge as needing correcting and practice discerning what really needs correcting.

Inner critical voice. Simply stop to notice the judgmental edge and bodily energy in your inner critical voice and how often it is present and practice softening and releasing from it.

Judging others and being judged. Simply notice how often you are in reactivity in your body and how this points to judging yourself and feeling judged. Then inquire of yourself about just releasing from judgments that are just associated with old no longer valid beliefs.

Short Reflections for Reclaiming the Essential Quality

With openhearted kindness toward yourself, simply practice several times a day for a minute or so saying and living one of the following each for a few days at a time. Do these all with the receptive energy encompassed in the “may I.” Recall that the higher quality or virtue for type One is serenity, or calmness and untroubledness in the present moment.

  • May I realize that there is little to improve; much is perfect as it is.
  • May I be at peace with differences.
  • May I realize that serenity comes with congruence or correspondence of things as they are in the present moment.
  • May I be at ease with imperfection and with things the way they are, knowing that this brings serenity.
  • May I let go of judgment with self-forgiveness knowing this does not mean I capitulate, condone, or agree with any particular behavior.