The basis of Spiritual Freedom is to recognize that our personalities developed, through childhood and adult life, influenced by automatic and unconscious patterns. If you already know your Enneagram type, the question is, “How do we get beyond those patterns?“

The Narrative Enneagram’s Experiencing Spiritual Freedom retreat is one of the best ways to not only learn more, but experience who you are and who you can become. You’ll spend five days immersed in learning about and practicing you! The three-centered approach includes full immersion in your Enneagram type: the mental, heart, and body aspects of who you really are.

Learning, practicing, and experiencing who you are, through the Enneagram of Personality with the goal of expanding who you are. What a gift!

The ability to integrate what we learn about ourselves and from other types is consistent with science based clinical practices that have identified the nine developmental pathways. If we are open to doing the work, this experience can provide a very real transformation and appreciation of who we are.

If we are willing, our Enneagram work can take our personality into deeper realms and understandings, such as the Virtues and Holy Ideas. This freedom from our habitual tendencies and strategies (and angst) can provide a pathway to relax our typical habits of thoughts and emotions, allowing us to integrate other ways of being.

Being a Type One, a body type, I have learned to recognize the body tension and sensations that feed my anxiety and my ego. The tension fuels my need to “fix” and correct things. It’s uncomfortable. But when I participate in, and do the work of Spiritual Freedom, I end up in a calm, happy, relaxed, fun place after a few days.

This felt sense of peace, excitement, and joy shows up during the Spiritual Freedom work without my type efforting. It teaches me what calm and “funness” feels like and that it is possible to get there. I physically experienced pure joy due to the Spiritual Freedom work, and I want more of that.

The last night of the Spiritual Freedom sessions, I received an unexpected opportunity to practice this sense of calm in a comical way: 

I was alone after dark setting up for an outdoor party. This was in Tucson, Arizona. As I was distributing snacks on tables, a pack of about ten javelinas emerged sniffing around and approaching the tables. If you don’t know what javelinas (also called peccaries or skunk pigs) look like, search for a picture – they are not cute, sweet approachable looking animals!

I knew, from living in Arizona, that javelinas don’t see very well but have a good sense of smell. Although attacks on humans are rare, they can be dangerous if they feel threatened. My initial reaction was fear and anxiety, but I quickly pivoted to the calm place I had been in all day. I was able to think through the situation. 

Keeping my distance, I told the javelina’s “You aren’t invited to the party, you have to go away.” I stayed calm. I kept a careful watch and repeated, “Go away, you’re not invited, sorry!” And they turned around and left.

I noticed that I instantaneously switched from an anxious, fearful reaction to the javelinas to a calm, informed action. My inner place of calm and awareness was consistent with what I had been experiencing all day during the Spiritual Freedom sessions, and I had an immediate chance to put it into practice.

Bottom line, what better way, better location, better teaching, better non-judging experience, can provide us with such a gift? I highly recommend Experiencing Spiritual Freedom to anyone looking to take the next steps on their Enneagram journey.

I invite you to join us April 3-7 in Scottsdale, Arizona as we work towards our individual and collective spiritual freedom alongside others who are willing to do the same and have fun along the way!

Contributed by: Joyce Plaza, Self-Preservation Type 1

Joyce Plaza, MS, MBE is a Certified Narrative Enneagram Teacher and a certified International Coach Federation (ICF) Life Coach. She has studied the Enneagram since 1998 and taught Enneagram workshops to individuals, groups, and teams. Joyce has served on the Board of Directors of the Enneagram Association of Narrative Teachers (EANT) and The Narrative Enneagram (TNE), including serving as TNE Board President for 2019-2020. She has a particular interest in the intersection of science and the Enneagram. Her academic career includes extensive experience in education and training at many levels. She has a BS degree in Biology and two master’s degrees, including one in Bioethics. She resides in Pennsylvania.