Meander Again: The PauseCast with Angie Arendt, on rebirth and community and the Enneagram

We start our meander with a reading from Richard Wagamese (Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) novelist, journalist, and mentor), a passage from his book "Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations" which I think is really about hope. How it’s not enough to be resilient if being so means bouncing back to the same place… what he wants for himself, and offers to us, is to reach Beyond resilience, to a new place of growth, each day. Angie and I wrestle with “resilience” and from this place I ask a few basic questions: do we need resilience to be capable of rebirth? And how does the Enneagram support rebirth? And finally, if personal development is an inside job, how does community fit in?

The funny thing about the Enneagram, and personal development in general, is that the work is both an inside and an outside job. Inside as we look at ourselves and our habits of behaving, believing, and so on so we can see how they serve us. Outside as we need support, and to be held to account, as we do the inner work.  And in community, in contact and communion with each other, we create something more than ourselves. 

Just as the Enneagram gives us a mirror to see ourselves, there is often a lot there about ourselves that we see that we just don’t like. And here’s where community comes in – as its best, community is a supportive place where people who care about us help us see who we are, and help us sit with those things about ourselves that we don’t like. In community, we get the strength to look at who we are, without judgement but with great kindness, enabling us to see how that serves us, or not. And then change, if we wish. Rebirthing ourselves... as we shift.

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to [email protected].  We believe these meanderings matter, and we hope you do too. So please share.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

milk and honey, by rupi kaur

"Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations", by Richard Wagamese

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

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