What is the Somatic Enneagram and a Somatic Awareness Practice?
So often we are not able to change the way we react and find ourselves repeating behaviors that are not giving us internal fulfillment nor contribute to creating lasting relationships. The promise of the Enneagram is that we can recognize patterns of behavior in ourselves and with others according to nine different views. This can help us have a greater understanding and compassion for the different ways we think, feel and sense. As we have added the Somatic (Soma means “body” in Greek) aspect of the cognitive emotional map transformation can take place through integration the three centers: Head, Heart and Body.
At the heart of our work with the Enneagram is the process of increasing awareness of ourselves— how and why we react as we do and where this is experienced. A critical part of that awareness is the “felt sense” in the body. We may be able to obscure and deceive ourselves by following our highly conditioned cognitive-emotional patterns. By listening to the body we can access these operating patterns at their roots. This enables us to free ourselves from automatically following these impulses and re-enacting our type patterns.
Marion teaches how to skillfully use the Somatic Awareness Practice. This practice strengthens our capacity to stay present longer with the uncomfortable sensation of the highly defended aspect of our type structures in order to free the life force contained within it. Ultimately this leads to a more peaceful and resourceful state of being with greater resilience and restore and balanced, grounded platform of receptivity in which we can experience our lives from present moment awareness. The relationship within reflects the relationship we have without.
When we have capacity to open ourselves to our lives we can experience a greater connection with our original state of who we are meant to be: open minded, open hearted and compassionate plus grounded in our physical presence fully in touch with the free flowing life force sustaining us connecting us with spirit.
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Prerequisites To Participate in the Somatic Enneagram Training and Certification Program
- This is a sequential program, from Module 1–5, and it is not a beginner’s program. Good self-awareness and sufficient knowledge of your own correct type is necessary.
- A sufficient, basic understanding of all nine types of the Enneagram system is advisable.
- This program is for those who want to dive more personally and deeply into their own growth and learning, as well as for those who want to pursue certification for their own professional or personal application.
- The program calls for a commitment to personal and professional growth and the desire to deepen understandings of the obstacles to self-observation, automatic patterns of behavior, somatic defense system, and the reactivity associated with one’s own type.Z
- This program calls for a commitment to an Inner Practice and its significance for creating the capacity to relax type structure.
- Participants are willing to take full responsibility for one’s psychological health and physical well-being and have the wisdom to seek professional support as needed. Participants also know when to send one’s clients to seek support from additional coaches, consultants, and/or counselors.
- For those who want to certify, previous Enneagram certification by an accredited Enneagram school is recommended.
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Five Training Modules
Module 1 | Basic Introduction to Somatic Awareness Practice
Learn the Foundational Elements and Somatic Enneagram Method through personal and panel inquiry. In this practice, we learn to use our body intelligence to relax type structure and cultivate inner resources, allowing us to return to a grounded and receptive way to experience ourselves, and meet ourselves, others, and the world at large more openly. Read Course Summary and Objectives >>
Module 2 | A Somatic Approach to the Defense System of the Enneagram
Learn to use somatic intelligence to recognize our automatic defense mechanism and the adaptive strategies of our type. This learning gives us greater freedom and choice in how we respond and react to life’s circumstances. Understanding what is driving our reactions and behaviors, and being able to contact them at the point of arising, is the foundation of this workshop. Our neurobiology is a hierarchical system and is designed to respond to prioritized needs first, which determines the automatic reactivity we seem to repeat over and over again until we build enough capacity, using “felt sense” awareness, to access the non-defended, available resources within. Read Course Summary and Objectives >>
Module 3 | The Enneagram: Experiencing Essence & the Survival Strategies of Type
Learn to use a somatic approach to distinguish personality from the experience of essence (Enneagram of Harmony), using the Categories of Perception of each Enneagram type (Enneagram of Process). Gain an understanding of the interfacing of the Law of Three and the Law of Seven in order to work with accessing the deeper wisdom of the Enneagram. This gives us an appreciation for and a connection with inherent wisdom qualities on the energetic plane. Develop the capacity to reawaken the intrinsic resources needed to metabolize deeper-rooted, conditioned patterns of automatic behavior, which are based on how we learned to survive in the beginning of our lives. Read Course Summary and Objectives >>
MODULE 4: Mentoring Program (2 days)
This module consists of practicing and developing the skill level required to recognize the obstacles to relaxing our type structure’s reactivity, from a somatic point of view. Training focuses on learning how to conduct the somatic-inquiry method and how to identify the client’s (another’s), as well as our own, non-verbal signals, including learning to listen to the language that both we and the client use, and to commit to using this specific language in the facilitation process. This module teaches us to utilize the Somatic Awareness Practice — the foundational pillars and the method — and how to facilitate the transformation process with one’s self and one’s client (another).
Module 5 | Enneagram of Transformation
This module focuses on a three-centers approach to moving around the Enneagram symbol, both counter clockwise and clockwise. Here we experience how we developed and formed our type as we traverse the symbol counter clockwise, and this is where we can come to realize that there is more to life than the way we live life. Here we can decide to seek a deeper understanding. At this point, we begin the renewal of our development as we traverse the symbol in a clockwise direction and explore the invitation of conscious transformation at the shock points at 3, 6, and 9, and finally between 8 and 9. This module’s objective is to guide ourselves into receiving the facilitation and support to be able to choose a different, less conditioned way of responding than our automatic, habituated reactions and behaviors, according to our type. This is possible thanks to the awareness cultivated of the somatic underpinnings of these patterns, which can be realized at each of the shock points.
To learn about the trainings, competency program and certification and how you can take part, or if you would like to host a training or certification program for your community, contact our team via email or call: 1 530 955 0800.