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Hey, good people. Chris Huarts here. I want to welcome you back to Enneagram Map Makers, where we chart the unexplored interior landscape of the ego. I hope you're enjoying this first season where I'm hoping to provide context to the Enneagram through honest conversations with my teachers, many of them the great legacy teachers and innovators who've made significant contributions to the development of the Enneagram of personality over these past 50 years. I. I understand that for some of us, some of these. These names may be new. And hopefully what we're able to do in introducing you to some of these titans of the personality system is to give you a sense of its growing and evolving story and its nature. Because a lot of us who are working with this teaching today are really standing on their shoulders. And so I wanted to honor them. I wanted to center them and really get out of the way and let them tell their story. Now, I mentioned this in the COVID 19 bonus episode, but just to put this in context, most of these conversations were actually recorded prior to the pandemic that we find ourselves in. And I didn't want those to go on without that at least being known, because it seems like in some ways where we're talking at a different point in time, at a different world that we were living in that. That we won't be able to go back to. And rather than allowing these episodes to be distractions, what I was. Was hoping is that they could be something that we could use to replace maybe some of the bad news or some of the things that. That actually facilitate the drumming up of our anxiety or our fear, our worry and distress. And so we wanted to put something beautiful and good and positive out into the world as a bit of accompaniment, as a bit of sort of supporting our own becoming. Because we know this, know that the world is changing in real time. And as much as we're trying to make sense of these changes and what they're going to mean for us, we have an opportunity here to realize that as the world changes every day, we have the freedom to shape what it becomes by shaping who we become. And that shaping of our own sense of self, that shaping of our soul, is one of the gifts that we're going to contribute and give to the new normal, the new we, whatever that might be. And so, as we're practicing now for the new normal, let's bring the best of ourselves forward. Let's create the kind of world that we want to live in. Now. That sounds great, and that sounds like the luxury of the person who is. Isn't bundled up in fear and worry and uncertainty. And so I've had to learn, actually over these past few weeks, I've had to actually admit to myself that I'm tired. And in my tiredness I react, I don't respond. But I've also had to be honest and relanguage what I mean by tired. I'm not tired from working too many hours, from being on too many trips. I'm not tired from sleeping in. And that kind of lethargic energy that comes from the second or third or fourth day of a vacation or holiday. I'm weary. And I think a lot of us are experiencing this, a different kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from doing too much or too little, but I think it's coming from all these changes and adjustments that require new ways of living. And so as we're entering these new realities, as we're navigating these new ways of living, I wanted to drop a little bonus episode out there to encourage us, encourage us in this time and encourage us in this space because I think we need it, because I know I need it now. I also know that I'm better at encouraging others, I'm better at caring for others than I am for myself. And that's caught up to me. The course of my life and my humanitarian work. I paid the consequences of caring for somebody else better than myself. And I had to check that in myself even this past week, right? Been pretty concerned for all the little kids in my life who are even less equipped than I am, or most of us are, to make sense of all of these changes. Their tender little hearts really are so vulnerable. And coincidentally, I'm struggling to find that same compassion for my own tenderness and my own vulnerability. So I'm trying to make these conscious efforts to cultivate an honest relationship with my own inner child. And as I try to hold this inner child with compassion, I've been reminded of one of my nieces, right? She was born in 2009, name was Claire. And when she came out, when she arrived, right, the miracle of this perfect little tender soul, the. The miracle of new life. She did not cry like most babies do. There was this groaning that eventually turned into a kind of heaving or sobbing. And as I sat there and I. And I saw this new little baby just groaning, it was almost unbearable for me. It was too much, right? Well, the nurse told my sister in law, my brother, that this sort of substitution for the crying of a child they called lamenting Right. And she was making this adjustment from the safety of the womb to the world that she was just sort of thrust into. And I feel like a lot of us are in this place of groaning. We're in this place of transition, this liminal space of uncertainty and not knowing what's next. But I love this idea of lament. I love what we understand lament to be. It's a simultaneous grieving of what's wrong and hoping for what could and should be. And so as we lament, let us be reminded that we are being reborn, that these groans that we are suffering, these groans we are experiencing are for the new tomorrow. Now, I want to be honest. Some of us aren't groaning. Some of us aren't lamenting. Some of us, our inner child, it's actually throwing a tantrum. We're angry. We're having these honest emotional outbursts expressing our frustrations of not being in control, of not getting what we want, or simply of being afraid. And we know this tantrums. And the little kids in our life and the little ones that were tasked to care for, it's just an eruption of their deep sadness that they can't language that they can't be honest about. It's their eruption of trying to process and deal with the pain that they don't know how to be present to. And I think a lot of us are maybe not groaning or lamenting. I think a lot of us might be actually throwing a tantrum and that's okay. Just like a little baby, a small child who's throwing a tantrum, we also need to hold our inner child and let ourselves know that we will be okay, that we are loved, and that we can be compassionate even towards that part of ourself. So yes, some of us are groaning, some of us are throwing tantrums, and some of us are just flat out weeping or crying. So my, my little niece, when she was 4 or 5 years old, she. She came down to the, to. To the office of the nonprofit where I work and I had this, this, this wood carving of, of the Weeping Buddha, right? This, this hunched over, balled up figure of, of a body in anguish. And little Claire looked at, at that, that statue of the Weeping Buddha and she says, what? What's that? And I said, that's the Weeping Buddha. And she's like, why is he crying? And I said, he's crying for the pain of the world. She said, he doesn't have to do that if he doesn't want to, and kind of stomped off. And I Paused there for a quick second. I was like, that's true. We don't have to weep for ourselves. We don't have to weep for the pain of the world if we don't want to. But man, some of us, that's the only place we feel like we can go. That's the place where we feel the safest right now. And so I remember talking about this with my therapist. I remember talking about bringing my own pain and my own tears into awareness. And remember my therapist used to try to tell me to imagine my own inner child, imagine the five year old version of myself, to imagine myself as a baby. And he would put his hands out there and he would interlock his fingers and he would say, now hold that baby and let it cry and hold that part of yourself and let it weep. And look, if I'm honest, I'd kind of roll my eyes, try not to bite through the bottom of my lip and play along. And because I was trying to play along, of course I was never present to my pain. I wasn't letting myself weep because I tried to play along. It never really was therapeutic, it never really helped until I realized, and I remembered that there was a little child that I used to have to hold in her suffering. So my first job right out of university brought me to South India. And this is in the early to mid-1990s. And with a small group of folks from Bombay and Chennai, we launched the first pediatric AIDS care home in South Asia. It was the first home in those eight countries in that part of the world for kids who are born HIV positive or kids who had been orphaned because of the global AIDS pandemic. And because I was the only single guy working at the home then, I often got called in when we were short staffed to overnight shifts for kids, especially for the kids who are super, super sick. Well, there's this little girl, Bimala. She had been brought to the home. She was just 2, 3 months old, HIV positive, and she was really, really ill. And I remember I had to take a few shifts, I had to take a couple overnight shifts to sort of help change her diapers and feed her and make sure that I could be present to her suffering. And so I remember the first evening I showed up, Victoria, one of the folks that I'd worked with, had left several diapers just in case, left some milk and a few blankets. They put a little car out beside the cradle that Beamola was laying in. And you can imagine how this went, you know, every 20, 30 minutes, every 15 minutes, this poor little girl would just wake herself up with her own tears, sobbing from her suffering, and would try to hold her against my chest to keep her warm. I would try to comfort her however I could. And the truth is, there's nothing I could do to take her pain away. There's nothing I could do other than be present and allow for my presence to be some sort of balm to her suffering. And so when I think of Bimala, it's easier for me to take the image of her into my palms, to hold her and to let her cry, and to simply let her tears be what they are. And so I think that's where I'm at. And I think that's where a lot of us are. We're groaning, we're lamenting, we're throwing these tantrums and we're weeping. And we need to hold our own inner child. We need to hold the vulnerable parts of ourself with compassion. And so there's a practice that I want to offer you, I want to introduce, that may be new for some of you or maybe an old worn in and familiar practice, but it's called the Loving Kindness Meditation. And this is something that I've carried with me and taken along when I don't know what to do with my groans or my frustration or my tears. The Loving Kindness Meditation is a kind of mantra. And it can be two or three simple phrases that you just repeat over and over and over again, aligning with your breath. And so sometimes when, when I need to recenter, when I need to find my ground, I return to a practice that sounds like this. May I be filled with faith, may be a source of hope. May I be aligned with love. May I be filled with faith. May I be a source of hope. May I be aligned with love. May I be filled with faith, May I be a source of hope. May I be aligned with love. And after falling into a natural cadence here, after allowing these lines to really find their place in my heart, in my mind and my breathing, I'm able to successively include others in the practice. And that's really what the practice is designed to do, to offer ourself compassion, to offer others compassion and to extend that compassion, that loving kindness to the world. And so when you do this, it's often a practice that, that we start for ourselves, we start for our inner child. We start for our own vulnerabilities. And after repeating these gentle mantras, these, these two or three lines over and over for ourselves, and maybe spending three or four or five minutes doing this. In a second stage of this practice, we bring in to this a teacher, a mentor, a guide, someone who's taught us about loving kindness, about self acceptance, about compassion. And we offer this practice for them. May you be filled with faith. May you be a source of hope. May you be aligned with love. And after we offer this for a teacher, for a guide, for, for a mentor for a few minutes, we then bring someone into this practice whom we care for deeply, who loves us deeply. We sit as if they're with us. We offer this for them. May you be filled with faith. May you be a source of hope. May you be aligned with love. And after gauging this practice, now let's say for five or six or seven or eight minutes, hopefully our hearts are opened. And so sometimes the fourth stage of this practice includes finding the courage and the grace to bring someone who's been difficult for us, somebody who's harmed us, maybe betrayed us or wounded us. And we practice this for them. May you be filled with faith. May you be a source of hope. May you be aligned with love. And at this stage, hopefully our hearts are full of compassion and resonance with loving kindness, aligned really with love for ourselves and everyone. So that in the final and fifth stage of this practice, we bring into this meditation the people in our zip code or postal code, or the people in our city. We bring in our extended community, our family folks near and far, or we bring in those around the world, those who are also suffering, those who are lamenting and groaning, throwing tantrums and weeping. And we offer it as a collective practice of loving kindness. May we be filled with faith. May we be a source of hope. May we be aligned with love. Now, for the last couple years, I've been working on a book that comes out this spring, the Enneagram of Belonging. And what I'm trying to do here is to really make the point that if there's any aspect of ourself that we don't allow to belong, then the truth is no part can fully belong. And I think what's easy for us is to make room for that inner child. And what's difficult is to make room for that inner critic. But we know this, the inner critic also belongs. The part of ourself that groans also belongs. The part of ourself that throws a tantrum also belongs. And especially the part of ourself that's weeping right now belongs. And so in this book, I tried to develop and write 9enneagram type specific loving kindness meditations. Loving Kindness meditation For each of the nine Enneagram. Enneagram styles to sort of help bring forward that loving kindness, that compassion that. That nurtures that self acceptance. And so what I'd like to do, and hopefully my publisher doesn't get too fussy or grumpy over this, because this is kind of a sneak peek, is offer you a guided practice where I'll take us through these nine loving kindness meditations. For each of the nine Enneagram types, there'll be a link to this chart in the show notes and so you can find that online. But if you're listening, you. You may want to pause once we get to your type and scribble down the three lines that are written and offered for you. And while you. You have that on pause, I. I would just say align those with your breath, go over those inside your heart, Offer those to yourself, a teacher, a loved one, someone's difficult for you in a world. And really let this practice wash over you and really let this practice facilitate that loving kindness that we all need right now. So I'm going to just go through this, and I'll go through each of these nine mantras for each of the nine types. We'll read through these in three waves. The first for ourself, the second wave for someone else, either a teacher, a loved one, or someone who's difficult. And finally, we'll read these for our shared humanity, for the world that's suffering this pandemic together. And so, if you're able, find a posture that's relaxed but attentive. If you're able, maybe sit with your back upright, your legs folded, or firmly on the floor as a symbol of your rootedness in this moment, find your breath Remembering that it's three deep belly breaths or just 11 seconds of intentional breathing that helps reset the nervous system that reminds us that we are here, this present moment. We'll begin and end with the sound of the bell. For type one, may I be at ease. May I breathe peacefully. May I find freedom and rest. For type 2, may I offer love. May I receive love. May I love myself. For type 3, may I own my worth. May I own my value. May I be embraced by love. For type 4, may I see myself. May I know myself. May I love myself. For type 5, may I be here now. May I say yes to silence. May I learn to let go. For type 6, may I embrace my fears. May I embrace my faith. May I embrace my courage. For type 7, may I be free. May I be content, May I rest in this moment. For type 8, may I be open hearted. May I be loving, May I be vulnerable. And for type 9, may I be present. May I own my power. May I have inner peace. And now let's bring to mind a mentor or teacher, a loved one or someone who's hurt us or that we we may have difficulty with. And we practice this for them. For type ones, may you be at ease. May you breathe peacefully. May you find freedom and rest. For type 2, may you offer love. May you receive love. May you love yourself. For type three, may you own your worth, may you own your value. May you be embraced by love. For type 4, may you see yourself. May you know yourself. May you love yourself. For type 5, may you be here. May you say yes to silence. May you learn to let go. For type 6, may you embrace your fears. May you embrace your faith. May you embrace your courage. For type 7, may you be free. May you be content. May you rest in this moment. For type 8, may you be open hearted. May you be loving. May you be vulnerable. Type 9, may you be present. May you own your power. May you have inner peace. On the third reading, we practice this for our community, for our world that needs to find its center and return to a place of peace. So for ones, may we be at ease. May we breathe peacefully. May we find freedom and rest. For twos, may we offer love. May we receive love. May we love ourselves. For threes, may we own our worth, may we own our value. May we be embraced by love. For fours, may we see ourself. May we know ourself. May we love ourself. For fives, may we be here now may we say yes to silence. May we learn to let go. For sixes, may we embrace our fears. May we embrace our faith. May we embrace our courage. For sevens, may we be free. May we be content. May may we rest in this moment. For eights, may we be open hearted. May we be loving, may we be vulnerable. And for nines, may we be present. May we own our power. May we have inner peace. I want to thank you for joining this bonus episode, this Enneagram Map Makers episode on A Guided Loving Kindness Meditation. Thank you for being a part of this first season. And as we continue to wade through these uncertain waters, may our ups outweigh our downs today. And may every minor victory feel like a breath of fresh air and reminder that hope is real.