The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence

by Russ Hudson

Explore the full scope of the Enneagram to illuminate your greatest wisdom, become your truest self, and face life’s challenges with fortitude and grace

“Who am I, really?” It’s such a fundamental question of human existence that entire schools of philosophy, spirituality, and scientific pursuit have been founded to ponder it.

Of these, the Enneagram is one of the most robust and informative tools for investigating some of the deeper layers of the self, yet the full power of it is not always taught. Leading scholar Russ Hudson teaches, “Too often, the Enneagram is viewed as a set of simple personality types that lock us into fixed ideas about ourselves. In reality, it’s a dynamic tool for transformation.”

With The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence, Hudson shares an in-depth audio training on how to use this powerful system the way it was originally intended—as a pathway to deeper self-knowledge and spiritual attunement. Rather than providing a simple explanatory guide to the Enneagram’s nine personality types (such as the Achiever, the Investigator, or the Enthusiast), Hudson offers an in-depth training in the potential of the entire system. And when you understand the Enneagram as a whole, you will discover new avenues to emotional literacy, greater compassion, and the recognition of all life’s inherent gifts.

Here you will learn:

· Why attachment to a single personality type obscures the full purpose and potential of the Enneagram
· How to investigate and discern the purpose of lifelong survival strategies
· Each personality type’s polarities—from passions to virtues, fixations to holy ideas
· How the Enneagram reveals deeper truths about our interconnectedness
· What different levels of self-development look like for each personality type
· How to bring the experience and lessons of Presence into everyday life

Including guided meditation sessions tailored for each personality type, The Enneagram is an invitation to think beyond self-made boundaries and gain insight into your ongoing challenges, greatest strengths, and highest path of growth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Audiobook, Mental Health, Personal Development

Audio CD

Published January 26, 2021

Reviews

[Danielle Shroyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I’ve been trying to think about who the best target audience is for this and I think it’s perfect if you have a little basic knowledge of the Enneagram but you’re ready to dive into some of the more nuanced work. I imagine I’d miss the nuance if I was too new to the conversation. If you’re well versed, it’s still worthwhile; just know you’re listening for how this truth *feels* more than it being conceptual or new. The last chapter on the missing piece is a great way to end.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this course, Russ' style and content. It's the enneagram narrative that I've found the easiest to understand and digest. In particular, I felt that he was exceedingly balanced about the strengths and weaknesses of every type in a really helpful way.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully articulated, broadly spiritual approach to Enneagram concepts. It includes short meditation practices in every section. I appreciated the soft, kind, and thoughtful narration. This is much more focused on growth than “diagnosis” and is one of the more mature breakdowns I've heard, even though it occasionally sacrifices clear organization or intent (which is a perk, it just may not be a great introductory text for someone). I also appreciated its agnosticism.

Notes

We hear the word passion and we probably think it means being passionate. But the traditional meaning of "passionate" was not that. It comes from the word passio, and it means our core of suffering… this passion is what drives a lot of our ego mechanism. We are trying to deal with that suffering by compensating for it, by healing it, by trying to override it… Our passion is one of the main reasons that we avoid being present, because as we start to get more present we start to notice the pain that we are in.


(1) Opinions serve the function of being boundaries. It's a defensive move. Boundaries have to do with our instinctual nature, our body. The more we're out of touch with our body, the more we will assert opinions. We will be shielding ourselves with opinions and being right. We are protecting the vulnerable heart. But perhaps we don't want to go through the rest of our lives wearing medieval armor.

(2) My inner work is to notice how and when I lean into others and how do I come back into my own axis, into my own center, from which I can feel the real connections. One of the gorgeous things that happens when I do this as I start to have the freedom to let each connection be exactly what it is in that moment. I'm not trying to make it anything more or anything less. I can celebrate and enjoy each human communion. I'm not trying to make that relationship into something to prove something about myself anymore, because I'm with myself, I feel the love, I feel the relatedness, I feel the beauty of my human journey.

(5) Clarity isn't just internal to us, it's a property of presence and therefore it's transmitted between us. This clarity can be contagious, just like confusion can be. So the last part that's the gift here is related to the love of truth, wanting to know the truth, wanting to understand the truth and that recognition of truth being a vehicle of compassion.

Real compassion comes from seeing the truth of our predicament, someone else's suffering or difficulty. Seeing the truth of our human condition.

(5) A more helpful thing to look at is what I call retention. That the five fixation for me is retention. This is the notion that if I just remember enough, if I retain enough knowledge and information, if I can hold enough skill and facts in my head that somehow this will finally make me feel confident to come out of hiding, to come out from behind my walls and rejoin the human race and participate and have something to contribute.

(5) I'm putting in all my bets on the head center. I'm drawing on emotions to make my thoughts feel more vivid, powerful, and real. The four was the opposite, using my mind to keep my emotions going in a certain level of intensity. Now I'm using and The five emotions to make my thoughts as vivid real as physical reality. I'm living in my thoughts, so I want them to have energy and I draw that out of my emotions.

What's missing is the body center, the belly, just like the four. And like the four I benefit by engaging the kinesthetic sense.

(5) Non-attachment also gives purpose to all the things we've learned. So as we grow into the higher side of five, all that knowledge is in service of what will help human beings, what will help this world. But you really get the feeling that the attachment is the mind seeing clearly how reality is, what our place is in the greater cosmos, and this in union with how that affects our heart, what it brings us too.

As a five I keep retreating and contracting. The shadow is frenzied activity, the lower seven. A kind of acting out, compensatory behavior. It's pointing to something I actually need for my development. Empowerment and energy and leadership of eight. The eight and the five come together, and now the five has a voice because I'm grounded and involved.

(6) We have these knowings, we have these senses of a bigger purpose in life and then our cynical mind jumps in. We obliterate the opening. Skeptics have a place, but when it becomes a blank way of being, it is precisely a way of keeping ourselves in the box. Cynicism is the mind trying to protect the heart from further disappointment or hurt.

(7) Suddenly the cold was just an experience. I wasn't in reaction to the cold, and then I could savor everything that was beautiful about that moment. I have the sense my deeper self is made of the moments that I saved. My soul is constructed from the moments in which I was awake with my heart available.


We will often turn our spiritual practice and our path into some sort of defense against seeing what's going on with us. The ego is brilliant at transforming things into things that serve the ego. Ego has a role to play, it's part of our total consciousness. The problem is not so much that we have ego patterns it's that we get lost in them. It's that we forget there's anything else to what we are.

Nothing about growth is comfortable or convenient

[Maria (Ri) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been learning about the Enneagram since the 90s. Hudson offers fresh updated perspective and clarity in this audio from Sounds True. I appreciate his encouragement of seeing each type within yourself. I also found real value in his description of the why of the inner lines for each type.

[Aqua Rask]

I didn’t care for the ‘meditation’ part for each enneagram point in this audiobook, but the rest of the information was interesting and well delivered.

[Deanna Maddox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book that I’ve read on the enneagram that talks about the essence qualities! I appreciate the different approach.

[Esha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I could give it 6 stars.

[Maggie Obermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive listen from one of the most knowledgeable Enneagram teachers. Russ is exceptionally articulate, compassionate, and clear. He is one of the best teachers I’ve ever heard.