Circles of Friends and the Cloud of Witnesses

November 14th, 2024 | Click to Comment

Friends have always mattered, but I’m particularly aware of how important they are right now.  When the outer world is in upheaval, stirring up fear and anxiety within, the people whom we love and trust help steady us with their presence. Wise friends make it easier to calm the distracting agitation, hear the inner voice of wisdom, and act in a way that truly serves life.

A few days ago in the company of a trusted friend, I found myself releasing tears that I didn’t even know were there. I had no idea of the weight I carried until the shelter of our friendship allowed me to feel safe enough to acknowledge it. Feeling loved allows us to open our tender hearts. Each of us is carrying more than we know. Recognizing the state we’re in is how we release the burden of our human woundedness into the healing light.

Being aware of our inner state also helps us recognize both positive and negative aspects of ourselves, and to make decisions informed by what is best in us. It helps us recognize the difference between being manipulated and being informed. It allows us to know when our actions come from a place of clarity and wisdom, and when we’re being driven by destructive emotions and blinded by a too-narrow focus.

Outrage and judgment, grief and despair, are natural human emotions arising in many of us in response to the kind of leader this country has chosen to elevate. It’s important to make space in ourselves for these genuine emotions, and it is also important not to cling to them. We can allow emotion to move through us without our being consumed by it.

This is important, because however appropriate these emotional states may feel, they cannot sustain us. Neither can the agitation of an anxious mind, with its anticipation of doom and plans for catastrophe. We need a more steady source of fuel that does not burn us out. We need a connection to the quiet center within. The onslaught of analysis and outrage distracts us from connecting to the deeper wisdom that lets us know the next right step that is ours to take.

Many of us feel dismay at the prospect of dismantled safeguards and deconstructed institutions that may occur in the coming months. Nonetheless, the values that gave rise to those structures remain. Values such as education, justice, civility, and kindness are strengthened and preserved in the lived experience of individual people. We have the power to guard them at the micro-local level where we live our lives.

We all have a choice in where to place our attention and energy. I have limited ability to effect change at the national level, which is the focus of most news reporting. There are others in a better position than I to navigate those political waters; perhaps I can find ways to support them. Yet I do have agency. I trust that each of us has important work to do right where we are. In fact, that is the only place where we can work.

The fabric of American society is strained. Small tears are visible in many places. Our enemies exult in this. Finding what is ours to do, individually and in small groups, will yield actions that bring a new fiber into the weave of the beloved and vital fabric of our country. This new fiber, and the ways we find to thread it through the material of American life, will be created from a clear-eyed perception and response to the context of our everyday lives. It will be informed by the Source of life moving through us, grounding us in the ability to really see what is happening, surprising us with new possibilities, and supporting the day-by-day work of holding the fabric together. This fiber may be neither red nor blue. Part of the work involves recognizing that there is much more to a person than how they voted in the election. This, too, is something our enemies want us to deny.

We can’t know exactly what will happen in the coming months, much less years, and we waste our precious energy flinging ourselves at imagined outcomes. Our strength is needed for being present to whatever each moment requires of us. Our energy is needed for guarding our values. Our attention is needed for seeing others in their full humanity, remembering that our entire society is strengthened when we honor and guard the dignity of each individual. People are more complex than any one aspect of their lives.

And in the meantime, it is not only wise but glorious to take sustenance from this life, in the company of those we love, and sustained by the beauty of the natural world. We can be uplifted by those around us, and inspired by the words and the lives of those who have gone before us. There is a great cloud of witnesses who have shown us how to keep the faith. They are whispering, “Do not be afraid.”

Susan Christerson Brown

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Attending to What Matters

June 19th, 2021 | 2 Comments

A strong thunderstorm blew through the neighborhood a few days ago. It felled a massive maple tree that had offered shade on my regular walking route for years. But I’m just a newcomer. That maple had been part of the landscape for generations.

The huge tree seemed solid and enduring. The strength and stability amassed during all its years of growth appeared unassailable. But the power of the storm revealed otherwise. Its heartwood was rotten, and the appearance of strength belied the tree’s ill health.

The house beneath the tree was spared, fortunately, because of the direction of the wind. When the trunk splintered several feet above ground, it fell toward the street. Had it toppled in the other direction it would have crashed through the roof.

Now that the broken remains of the trunk are exposed to the light, it’s easy to see that the tree should have been removed years ago. But it would have been difficult to muster the will to remove such a magnificent presence. The branches offered welcome shade in the summer and glorious foliage in the fall. There must have been signs that the tree was unhealthy, though I certainly didn’t notice. It’s easy to let such things go for another week, another season, another year. Surely it will be ok a little longer. Until it isn’t.

Was it unimaginable that such a tree would violently break? Certainly not, though apparently the owner of the property didn’t see this coming. Or didn’t want to.

One of our most powerful resources is our attention. Where we direct our attention influences how we use our energy. “Where attention goes, energy flows.” What we pay attention to, and what we ignore, shapes our lives. We can choose what we will attend to, or allow our attention to be directed by longtime habits of thought, emotion, and behavior, along with the urgencies of daily life.

Internally, the things we habitually focus on (and ignore) compel us to keep repeating the same old patterns. Externally, all kinds of voices clamor for a foothold in our minds. Our wiser self knows what we need to pay attention to, but it takes real effort to hold on to that awareness. We need some kind of daily practice to stay connected to what our best self knows.  

When we’re not paying attention to our lives, we miss what’s really going on. We overlook the new growth asking to be cultivated, and ignore the danger of familiar but rotten practices whose time is finished.  

In order to be present to our lives we must be present to ourselves. There is no clarity about what’s happening in our interactions with others or in the events of our days unless we’re also aware of what’s going on within. Attending to our inner self allows us to see more clearly and respond more effectively to what’s happening in the world. It makes us less susceptible to manipulation, and frees us from the patterns that confine us.

Life is all about change. It’s easy to miss those changes unless we can be fully present, receptive to what’s really going on. Bringing our attention to what’s happening in this moment, rather than getting caught in our familiar thoughts and emotions, allows us to see what’s in front of us more clearly.

Maybe there’s something we need to do differently. Maybe there are aspects of how we live that were once solid but now need to be removed. Showing up fully, with the courage to pay attention, is an act of love. It’s when we’re truly present that we can perceive accurately, respond appropriately, and do what needs to be done.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Why I Work with the Enneagram

May 14th, 2019 | Click to Comment

When I began studying the Enneagram, it was to understand more about myself and others. The Enneagram is great for making sense of why we do what we do. But figuring out our type is only the beginning of what is possible. I continue working with the Enneagram because it offers a path toward transformation.

Diagram of the Enneagram

To briefly explain, the Enneagram (from the Greek ennea, meaning “nine”) names nine basic types of people, with nine different essential gifts and inherent challenges. We have access to all of these human traits, but our Enneagram type colors how we process our experience. Our type is the lens through which we view the world.

Understanding our Enneagram type makes possible a new level of self-awareness. Appreciating the basic human longings that motivate the nine Enneagram types naturally cultivates greater compassion for ourselves and others.

But it’s important to remember that our essential self has no Enneagram type. Our type is the coping mechanism we formulated long before we were conscious of what we were doing. Our type is the way we found to make our world ok when our essential well-being felt threatened. 

Our type structure helped us when we needed it. As life unfolds, the consciousness and self-awareness that makes us human also gives rise to a sense of self-doubt and disconnection. As we grow up, there comes a time when we lose our natural connection to the joy and vitality of being alive. Or to put it more poetically, we inevitably experience being expelled from the garden.

When that happens we work to overcome what we perceive as our shortcomings, and we do this in the nine basic ways named by the Enneagram. We reach for our strongest gift, believing it’s up to us to create or earn a sense of connection, safety, or worth.

Understanding our Enneagram type helps in those moments when those deeply ingrained automatic patterns show up. We begin to notice when habitual impulses try to take over, and we learn to pause. In the space created by that pause we can be more perceptive. We can consciously choose what to do. This is the path toward transcending our type structure and becoming free.  

In this way, noticing our type structure in action comes to serve as a bell of mindfulness. When we realize we’re being driven by old patterns, we can learn to respond differently. Instead of automatically following our habitual escape patterns, we cultivate the ability to stay present. In doing this we lay down new neural pathways and begin developing responses that we consciously and freely choose.

Working with our type patterns helps us to wake up. We learn to see more clearly and act more effectively. We experience how the divine life force sustains us. We learn to differentiate between our true self and our conditioned responses. We become less susceptible to toxic influences, whether in the form of external situations or internal patterns. Instead of relying on unconscious coping mechanisms we learn to be present to ourselves and to the situation as it is, and to act from a place of higher wisdom.

I haven’t mastered all of this, of course, but I’m grateful to be on the path. Working with the Enneagram has placed me into the flow of life in a way that brings a new level of beauty, meaning, and connection.

I’d love to serve as your companion as you make your own Enneagram journey. Write to me at susan@mildlymystical.com with your questions or to schedule an Enneagram typing interview. I’m happy to meet you at my office in Lexington, Kentucky or online via Zoom.

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