Type 1: Architects of the Ideal with Tessa Bielecki

Summary

Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward
Episode: Type 1—Architects of the Ideal with Tessa Bialecki
Date: May 1, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode marks the start of a nine-part exploration of the Enneagram on "Everything Belongs." Focused on Type 1, the "Architects of the Ideal," the episode weaves together foundational contemplative Christian teaching from Richard Rohr, personal stories from Tessa Bialecki, and group reflections. Listeners are guided through the inner dynamics, gifts, and shadow sides of being a One, while the interplay between wounds, wisdom, and the journey from order into disorder and eventually “reorder” is mined for spiritual meaning and practical growth.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Enneagram as a Spiritual Tool (03:50–05:18)

• Host Mike Petro introduces the season’s Enneagram focus and frames it as a tool not just for self-understanding, but for solidarity and discernment:

  "It focuses on how our wounds can lead us to our wisdom and to discerning our work in the world." (01:33)

• Drew Jackson offers a compelling lens:

  "I'm starting to wonder if the Enneagram is, for me at least, helpful to think about it as nine different ways that we try to experience love. We're all wounded." (04:31)

2. Understanding Type 1: The Perfectionist/Reformer (05:18–13:18)

• Richard Rohr identifies Ones as idealists, fiercely motivated to create a moral, just, and orderly world—according to their personal definitions.

  "Ones are idealists, motivated and driven on by their own definition of perfect." (05:18 – Richard Rohr)

• Ones are haunted by “demanding voices” and often have a hard time accepting imperfections—especially their own.

  "They can spur on others to good work and mature and grow, but they have a hard time accepting imperfections, other people's, and above all, their own." (05:40 – Drew Jackson)
  "I was a good little boy...helped the nuns...thinking then they would love me. Of course, I never thought of it that way, but now it's obvious." (07:22 – Richard Rohr)

Family Origins of Oneness

• The classic family setup is a moralistic, perfectionist parent who is “stingy with praise.”

  "There's always a right way to do everything. That's not right. You can't do that. That's wrong. Extremely moralistic. And then she put a whole religious overlay to it." (08:14 – Richard Rohr)

3. Wounds & Worthiness Games (09:03–14:31)

• The core wound of a One: “We automatically see what's wrong.” This hyperawareness leads to a longing for perfection and fears of being unacceptable unless things are right.

• Richard links his entire teaching to this dynamic:

  "All my work is trying to solve that problem. Why do I say everything belongs? Because by nature, I believe it doesn’t belong." (09:03 – Richard Rohr)

• Enneagram Ones constantly battle "the accuser" in their own minds, leading to relentless self-critique:

  "Inside ones, court is continually in session. They're their own prosecutor, defender and judge. The conflicting voices keep nagging them." (13:30 – Drew Jackson referencing Rohr's book)

4. The Gift and Shadow of Moralism and Order (14:35–22:49)

• Moral zeal, while powerful, can curdle into resentment and irritability.

  "Resentful is a better word...because we don’t allow ourselves to be consciously, deliberately angry. That’s a bad boy." (18:21 – Richard Rohr)

• On Christianity’s Enneagram One shadow:

  "Anyone who's been influenced by Christianity right now needs to understand the Enneagram One because Christianity has become a very Enneagram one oriented religion." (20:55 – Drew Jackson)

• The problem of “purity cultures,” not only religiously but in many spheres—activist, academic, etc.—emerges from a belief that "something is wrong with you and you have to do something to make it right." (21:33–22:01)

5. The Path of Healing for Ones: Serenity, Forgiveness, and Acceptance (22:49–32:24)

• Ones are invited to move from conditional love to unconditional love by granting the forgiveness they yearn to receive.

• Quote from Ram Dass via Drew:

  "You're perfect just the way you are and you need some work." (28:10)

• Rohr's wisdom:

  "The only perfection available to us is the ability to love our imperfection." (28:28 – Drew Jackson quoting Rohr)

• Ones ultimately bring gifts of "patience, compassion, forgiveness" when they’ve done their inner work. (25:34 – Richard Rohr)

• As Ones age, the spiritual task is “to let it be while holding on to your ideals.” This involves embracing the tension between care and detachment.

  "Lord, teach us to care and not to care. That's where I'm at now, living right in that." (31:28 – Richard Rohr quoting T.S. Eliot)

• Contemplative practice:

  "Practice of smiling towards reality" and learning “to serenely bear” imperfection. (32:23–34:21)

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Part Two: Tessa Bialecki and the Lived Wisdom of Ones

1. Tessa’s Introduction to the Enneagram and Oneness (37:31–46:12)

• Tessa discovered her One-ness not through theory, but in her impeccable wood pile (“that’s a One!”), and later how she instinctively organized and fixed things around her.

  "If you need anybody to make order out of your chaos, I'm your gal." (42:29 – Tessa Bialecki)

• She sees her One-ness less as moralism, more as the urge for order, beauty, and high ideals.

  "For me, being a One is primarily about order ... order in spatial order. I must have tidiness and order in my spaces..." (43:49)
  "The idealism and vision of high ideals ... when someone doesn’t live up to that, or worse, when I don’t live up to that, I beat myself up." (43:49)

2. Order Out of Chaos—Gifts of the One (46:53–48:03)

• The ability to create order, both spatially and relationally, is "a huge gift."

  "That's the first thing God did, was make order out of chaos ... that's a huge gift for people." (46:53 – Tessa Bialecki)

• Her “two wing” adds warmth, making celebration and connection as important as work.

3. Childhood Patterns and Wounds (48:14–51:46)

• Tessa did not experience overtly moralistic parenting, but rather emotional unavailability—driving her to achievement and caretaking for affirmation.
• The loss of siblings (her beloved Down syndrome brother, and her younger brother’s tragic early death) forged an inner connection between grief and anger, feeding her need for external order to compensate for inner chaos.

  "I was not trying to be perfect because of signals from my parents that I had to be perfect. I had an emotionally unavailable father... If I was trying to perform well and be perfect, it was simply to get attention." (51:46)

4. Leadership, Community, and the “Fixer” (55:08–58:53)

• Her gifts translated into forming contemplative communities—turning vision into actionable routine, making lists, building both “inner and outer” infrastructure.
• The shadow: exhaustion and the trap of “endless fixing.”

5. Loving Awareness, Presence, and Partners (58:53–62:27)

• Ones may struggle to relax or be fully present, always compelled to "fix."

  “I have suffered a lot and made the people around me suffer a lot...The one has a hard time relaxing. The one has a hard time being present." (58:53 – Tessa Bialecki)

• Receiving wise friendship from a Nine taught her to let things be:

  "The mouse is dead." (60:11 – advice from her wise Nine friend; her mantra for surrender)

6. Prayer, Love, Nature: Wildness and Inner Growth (62:27–68:56)

• Nature, especially the scarred and thriving saguaro cacti, becomes icon and teacher for accepting imperfection and embracing one’s wounds:

  "I was living in Colorado and I moved to Tucson... I kept being drawn to the saguaros that were scarred...I kept photographing these and being awed by the fact that they not only survived, but they thrived. How strong they were, how enduring they are and how beautiful the scars were." (64:47–67:04)

7. Betrayal as the Path to Wisdom (69:43–75:16)

• The shattering loss of her lifelong spiritual community and betrayal by its founder was the crucible for her deep brokenness—and transformation.

  “I tried to fix it and I couldn't. And so, believe me, that stopped me from fixing. The mouse was more than dead. The mouse was stomped on and obliterated. And it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” (72:37 – Tessa)

• The most important counsel: go outside, let the land hold your pain and participate in your healing.

8. Wisdom for Ones (76:05–79:29)

• "Forgiveness is not reconciliation." Keep moving forward, let grace do its work, and seek healing in your tribe and natural places.
• In later life, the glory is in celebration, presence, and resurrection after loss:

  "Now it’s all a blessing. It’s just a blessing... I get to do something like this and share a bit about where I’ve been and love people through a podcast. And it’s all about loving and it’s all about giving and it’s all about celebrating the joy of being alive. Amen, Brothers, friends, amen." (78:02–79:29 – Tessa)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Richard Rohr:

  • "All preachers are preaching to themselves. And I think I have been my whole life." (23:13)
  • "Whoever is willing to serenely, serenely remember, serenity is our gift. When we triumph over our perfectionism, we're more peaceful than anybody else." (16:55)
  • "The only perfection available to us is the ability to love our imperfection." (28:28, echoed by Drew)

• Drew Jackson:

  • "I should forgive myself for not being ready to forgive yet?" (29:24)
  • "Job's court is continually in session. They're their own prosecutor, defender, and judge." (13:30)

• Tessa Bialecki:

  • "If you need anybody to make order out of your chaos, I’m your gal." (42:29)
  • "I was the big party girl. I was the one always calling for celebrations and breaks." (46:53)
  • "Forgiveness is not reconciliation...You forgive yourself because you're your own worst enemy and your worst critic is the one in your head." (76:05)

• On the gift and wound of the One:

  • “It’s exhausting being a one. Really exhausting.” (58:53 – Tessa)
  • On “the mouse is dead,” as the mantra to let go of fixing (60:11)
  • “You have to be broken in order to realize that imperfection and brokenness is beautiful.” (73:43 – Tessa)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Enneagram Ones: Framework and Wounds: 03:50–14:31
• Inner Voice and Healing Path: 13:18–26:53
• Order, Anger, and Shadow: 18:21–25:25
• Spiritual Practices for Ones: 34:09–35:28
• Tessa Bialecki’s Encounter with the Enneagram: 41:16–46:12
• Order out of Chaos—Gift of Ones: 46:53–48:03
• Childhood, Grief, and Oneness: 48:14–54:49
• Brokenness, Betrayal, and Resurrection: 69:43–75:16
• Aging and One-ness in Later Life: 78:02–79:29

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Thematic Threads & Final Reflections

• Ones gift the world with order, vision for justice, and a drive to make things better, but suffer when perfectionism becomes self- or other- torture.
• The mature path for Ones (and for all influenced by "one-ish" cultures) involves surrender, embracing imperfection, and allowing wounds to become wisdom.
• Both Richard and Tessa show through testimony and practice how brokenness can be the ground of healing and unexpected joy.
• Closing invocation: The Serenity Prayer, as Ones (and all of us) are invited to "accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (86:27)

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To Consider

• Where do you encounter your “inner accuser” and how might you greet it with compassion and serenity?
• How do you relate to order, idealism, and the drive for improvement?
• What might it mean to love your imperfections, and to "smile toward reality"?

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For further reflection and resources, sign up at cac.org/belongs2026.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to a podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org@the center for

[Elizabeth (Development Team)]

Action and Contemplation, we believe that transformation is for everyone. My name is Elizabeth and I'm on the development team here at the cac. I'm grateful for the generous support from listeners like you who give freely and joyfully to to make this podcast possible. Recently, Mary Lou, a listener from our community, shared this message with us.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Words cannot express my gratitude for the CAC's podcasts. I started listening a few years ago on my daily walks, and they have enriched and deepened my faith and my life. I feel as if I can listen to the episodes again and again and again and always discern something new.

[Elizabeth (Development Team)]

If CAC's programs, including this podcast, have been meaningful to you, we invite your financial support. Every gift, no matter the amount, helps listeners like Mary Lou engage with wisdom that calls us towards healing, wholeness and deepening love. If you'd like to partner in this work, you can make a gift by visiting cac.org that's cac.org support thank you for being on this journey with us,

[Mike Petro]

Friends, welcome back to the Everything Belongs podcast with Father Richard Rohr. Each season we've explored an aspect of Richard's deep teachings, usually focusing on one of his books. So far, we've looked at Falling Upward, we've looked at Eager to Love, and last season we looked at Richard's latest book, the Tears of Things. Each episode we travel over to Richard's house to unpack some wisdom with him in his living room. And then we're joined by a guest who helps us live the teachings forward to explore and expand on Richard's wisdom in new ways by asking new questions emerging in our rapidly changing world. This season we're exploring the Enneagram, a a contemporary tool that draws on ancient wisdom, a tool of discernment, solidarity and self discovery that focuses on how our wounds can lead us to our wisdom and to discerning our work in the world. Today we begin our journey through the nine numbers of the Enneagram, and we start, of course, with Richard's own number, the Type one. In the second part of our episode, we're joined by contemplative practitioner, teacher and pioneer Tessa Bialecki, who shares with us about how being an Enneagram one helped her build monastic communities in Arizona, Colorado, and Ireland, but how she later weathered a betrayal that totally defeated her sense of order and control, and what wisdom she learned from that that she can Pass on to us. But first, let's head over to Richard's hermitage. I've got snacks in my pockets for Opie and a fist bump for Paul. And I'm so excited for us to learn from Richard about what it's like to be a one, what their wounds are, what their work in the world is, and what wisdom these wonderful ones have to offer to all of us. From the center for action and contemplation, I'm mike petro.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm paul swanson.

[Tessa Bialecki]

I'm carmen acevedo. Butcher.

[Cassidy Hall]

I'm cassidy hall.

[Richard Rohr]

And I'm drew jackson.

[Mike Petro]

And this is everything belongs.

[Drew Jackson]

Richard, it is so good to be here again with you today. Thank you so much.

[Richard Rohr]

Good to have you.

[Drew Jackson]

Thanks for welcoming us in. Paul, good to see you.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Great to be back.

[Drew Jackson]

You know, Richard and Paul, I've already shared with both of you that at times I have felt like my life is a dance between mystical breakthroughs of unconditional love and then falling back into the worthiness games that I play when I feel like I need to earn that love. Starting to realize that's not unique to me. I think a lot of people experience that.

[Richard Rohr]

Almost everybody.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, that's comforting. Yeah, that's comforting.

[Richard Rohr]

It just takes different forms. Yeah. Yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, I'm starting to wonder if the Enneagram is, for me, at least, helpful to think about it as nine different ways that we try to experience love. We're all wounded.

[Richard Rohr]

That's good. Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, good.

[Drew Jackson]

Origen talks about how we're all wounded, but those wounds can become health bestowing wounds.

[Mike Petro]

Right.

[Drew Jackson]

And each wound gives us wisdom. And that wisdom leads us to our work in and on ourselves and in the world if we can avoid the trap of those worthiness games. So today we're super excited to ask you about wounds and their wounds and the worthiness games that they play on the way to figuring out what their wisdom in their work is. So, Richard, you Write the type 1 is about the need to be perfect. Ones are idealists, motivated and driven on

[Richard Rohr]

by their own definition of perfect.

[Drew Jackson]

By their own definition, perfect caveat. That's helpful.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, because if they're motivated and driven on by a longing for a true, just and moral world, they have to decide what a true just and moral

[Richard Rohr]

world is first, which they spend far too much time doing.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, my God. Well, you say they're honest and fair and they can spur on others to good work and mature and grow, but they have a hard time accepting imperfections, other people's, and above all, their own yes.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Drew Jackson]

I gotta say, that sounds exhausting.

[Richard Rohr]

That's a good insight.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

That's why I'm tired.

[Drew Jackson]

I'm just tired from being a one. Only when they're focused and at rest can they accept living in a still, imperfect present and trusting in the gradual growth of the good. In Christian terms, the kingdom of God. Richard, I'm so excited for this conversation. You've mentioned John Calvin is an example of A1.

[Richard Rohr]

Almost all reformers.

[Drew Jackson]

But the example of the one that I'm most excited about is you.

[Richard Rohr]

Okay.

[Drew Jackson]

Because you are an enneagram one. So that makes this a very personal episode, doesn't it?

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, it's easy to start with the one for me.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I want to begin by reading something

[Paul Swanson]

that you wrote about being a one. You say from an early age, ones try to be model children. Starting back in their tender youth. They internalize the voices that demand, be good, behave yourself, try hard, don't be childish, do it better.

[Richard Rohr]

All of those, all of them.

[Paul Swanson]

You go on to say it is if they had decided even then to earn the love of everyone around them by meeting such expectations and being good. Then you also mention often one of the parents of a one is moralistic, perfectionistic, or eternally dissatisfied. Stingy with praise. This parent takes above average goodness for granted. The little ones were precocious achievers because they didn't want to lose the love of their nearest and dearest. Richard, was this you growing up?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes, that was a quick, confident yes. I was a good little boy. And I helped the nuns and stayed afterwards to clean the blackboards. And God, I was obnoxious, just pleasing everybody, thinking then they would love me. Of course, I never thought of it that way, but now it's obvious, so it worked. It gets you a lot of friends. We desire to be a good boy and we don't understand bad boys. Why would you be a bad boy? You're not getting any payoff like I'm getting Richard, how did that show up

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

in your family life? You know, in that quote, you talk about a parent being perfectionistic, moralistic. That would often kind of have a huge impact on a kiddo who's a one.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, it was definitely my mother. She demanded a lot of us, the four of us kids. There was always a right way to do everything. That's not right. You can't do that. That's wrong. Extremely moralistic. And then she put a whole religious overlay to it. Probably why it went off to a seminary. This is a perfect way to be a perfect person. Oh, it's all built on such delusion

[Paul Swanson]

to dive in a bit further on the Enneagram one. You've talked to us about how our understanding of the Enneagram is rooted in the way of the wound, the idea that the wound is the way. Richard, what in general would you say is the wound of the Enneagram One?

[Richard Rohr]

We automatically see what's wrong. We don't even. It's no cogitation to think about it. It's immediate. A little alarm bell goes off if anything is lazy or late or loose. Reality is not as it should be. You see, all my work is trying to solve that problem. Why do I say everything belongs to. Because by nature, I believe it doesn't belong. Why does everything have to fall upward? Because I fear. There's no hope for me if it doesn't, because everything is falling. And how much of my teaching is about mercy, compassion, forgiveness? There's no hope for me if that isn't true. It guides everything I teach. The looking for the medicine. And the medicine is to not just allow, but to choose imperfection, to dive into it and make it a gift.

[Drew Jackson]

Is that why you hang out with Paul and I so much? Just need that imperfection? One of our students once asked me, what is the best book that Richard has written for an Enneagram one? And I said, well, probably everything he's ever written. Really?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Drew Jackson]

And then I said, read Tears of Things because it was the most recent one. And I think Tears of Things really speaks to that in some ways, lamenting

[Richard Rohr]

everything, forgiving everything, because it's all imperfect.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Do you think that's why you were drawn to St. Francis? Because here's a man who rushes towards the leper to kiss him, embracing imperfection.

[Richard Rohr]

I'm sure I would have never figured that out when I was young. But the one operates with body, knowing, immediate, instinctive, intuitive. It's not in the brain. It's not mental. It's instinctual. And that's why it's hard to change or fix, because you're there before you know it. But it's our greatest gift. Like my whole public life, I preached without notes. And it just always was instinctual, what I have to say. And if my instincts were right that day, it was a good talk. It's not thought through. So we're not really logical people. We hope we're not illogical. But you who think things through, we're always a bit of a mystery to you because we can't do that. We just get to the conclusion without any ratio Reason I'm going to continue

[Drew Jackson]

to meditate on this through the conversation. I already said what's been really helpful for me is to think about worthiness games. Richard, what are the worthiness games that the ones get caught up in to prove themselves worthy of love? Right.

[Mike Petro]

Good.

[Drew Jackson]

Good enough.

[Richard Rohr]

They always have a moralistic tinge to them, which makes me very much resent moralistic people because that's me at my worst. And I forever don't want to be that way. But on a deep shadow level, I am that. It takes very subtle forms and I resent it in other people. I don't allow other people to be moralistic. I dislike John Calvin because he's me at my worst.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, that's funny.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah. He made Christianity so moralistic. Seeing Francis, as you said, was not moralistic. He was perfectionistic, but with his own unique criteria. Was it poor, was it humble? That was his form of perfection.

[Drew Jackson]

And he didn't start out that way. Right. Like initially, he loved only the beautiful and he didn't want to look at anything that was ugly or outside his sense of how things should be.

[Richard Rohr]

You've got it.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, I'm thinking about this passage from your book. It says, for ones, the demanding voices within them never fall silent. Ones try to be good so they won't be punished. They want at all costs to stop their conscience from condemning them. Inside ones court is continually in session. They're their own prosecutor, defender and judge. The conflicting voices keep nagging them. They bicker, interrupt, contradict and correct one another.

[Mike Petro]

Anybody who isn't a one can hardly

[Drew Jackson]

imagine how exhausting it is to go through this inner trial. You know what this reminds me of? You and I share this love of the book of Job. And in the book of Job there's this character, Satan, which means the accuser. And then the whole book of Job is driven by accusations. Satan accuses Job, Job accuses Satan. Satan accuses God, God accuses Job, and on and on and on. Job's friends accuse him. I'm wondering sometimes if the insight there is that all of us have an accuser in our head who's constantly telling us we're not doing is good enough.

[Richard Rohr]

Good, intense.

[Drew Jackson]

What does the voice of the accuser sound like to the enneagram one?

[Richard Rohr]

You know, it's because of my old age now I'm about to turn 83. I've worked on it so hard that I don't give it much voice anymore. But it's still there. I don't know how both are true. It's still there whispering. But I just don't believe it. I don't trust it. I don't like it. But in middle age, when I hadn't done any of that work yet, it just was a domineering voice. How can I be a better friar, a better priest, a better man? It's always how to do it better. And impatience with people who aren't trying as hard as I am. I don't even understand it. Why wouldn't you try?

[Mike Petro]

How dare they?

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah. Yeah. We exert a lot of energy trying to be perfect by our criteria. I keep adding that it's not necessarily objective perfection at all. It's just what we think today.

[Drew Jackson]

It sounds a lot like how you describe order or construction, those stages of growth, Right?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes. Very good.

[Drew Jackson]

Sounds like ones are the.

[Richard Rohr]

We're the order people. And that's why I spent so much time legitimating disorder, because the undoing of that was my salvation. The letting the world be a bit disordered. Not too much. So we've got a lot of contradictions. If the truth be told. We live on the edge of hypocrisy, as most religious people do. We're attracted to religion. It gives us purity. It gives us rightness, righteousness, which is the last thing we need more of.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I'm sure there's a lot of ones right now listening, wondering, what is that work that you did in that middle period of life to accept grow beyond the internal accuser Constantly chattering in your ear.

[Richard Rohr]

You keep seeing it and it doesn't go away. It just takes more subtle forms. It's why yous probably overuse that quote from Therese, who, along with Francis was my major feminine teacher. Whoever is willing to serenely, serenely remember, serenity is our gift. When we triumph over our perfectionism, we're more peaceful than anybody else. I'm enjoying that in my gazing now in my old age. And it's been my salvation when I'm starting to hate myself because I'm doing it wrong again. I'm not perfect. When I could serenely bear that instead of hating myself for it, I'm free.

[Drew Jackson]

That's beautiful. Explains to me why it really is. Yeah. And it helps me understand why everything belongs would be such a profound thing for me. Yeah. When that accuser is pointed inward, which sounds exhausting, and you are constantly living in a state of self critique and trying to be good enough. And then I wonder about when that accuser gets pointed outward. You know, you write that ones are angry because the world is angry, resentful

[Richard Rohr]

is a better word.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, interesting.

[Richard Rohr]

Because we don't allow ourselves to be consciously, deliberately angry. That's a bad boy.

[Drew Jackson]

So two things. First of all, there's this quote I love from Carl Jung in answer to Job where he says irritability, bad moods and outbursts of affect are classic symptoms of chronic virtuousness.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, yes.

[Drew Jackson]

In other words, you're cranky because you're just so pent up because you're trying to be good all the time.

[Richard Rohr]

That's one. They're sometimes rather unpleasant to be around. Well, and then they're picky.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

What?

[Richard Rohr]

It's terrible.

[Drew Jackson]

I've never experienced you as picky, Richard.

[Richard Rohr]

I hope so.

[Drew Jackson]

So what happens when that gets pointed outward? The anger, the resentment, pointing out at all the imperfection in the world? In your book you say that comes out in a lot of ways. Comes out in resentment. Comes out in over performance. Even workaholism working to make things better. What does it look like for an Enneagram one to deal with their anger or their resentment?

[Richard Rohr]

You know, I mentioned so many of the religious reformers were ones. We're always reforming. There's formation, there's reformation. We're making the imperfect thing right, correcting it. Now, our big fault is when something isn't right, we just. Damn it. We have to point it out. We have to point it out. It's just if we don't only keep our mouth shut, we'd be much happier and we make more friends, too. No one likes someone who's a constant critic. You all know people like that. They will correct you on anything and everything.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I call those folks professional correctors. Doesn't matter what's happening. They have a way that's right to offer a correction needed or unneeded.

[Richard Rohr]

And it's terrible to be a parent because you think that's your job, which in a way it is, to point out to your children. Now, that's all right. Darn. How do you do that without being picky, moralistic, demanding, telling them they're not right? I would think it's very hard to be a good parent if you're one.

[Drew Jackson]

Chi Chi Agaram is an Enneagram teacher that I have a lot of respect for. And she says that anyone who's been influenced by Christianity right now needs to understand the Enneagram One because Christianity has become a very Enneagram one oriented religion. And this connects, I think, with what you're saying about the reformers. And Richard, to me, I go back to what I've heard you talk about as purity cults or some people talk about purity culture, talking about that. We don't mean that sexually or just sexually. It's this idea that there's a belief that there's something wrong with you and you have to do something to make it right.

[Richard Rohr]

To make it right.

[Drew Jackson]

Right. And you have to believe or do the right thing to correct it. It might be original sin or the fact that you were born rich, or the fact that you were born poor, or the fact that you're a man or you're a woman or you have insecure or avoidant attachment. Whatever it is, something is wrong and you're working hard to fix it mentally and physically. And then you might become the perfect evangelical Christian or the perfect Catholic and you're judging everyone else for their stuff.

[Richard Rohr]

It's all in your own mind.

[Mike Petro]

Right.

[Drew Jackson]

Or you might be the perfect activist or the perfect progressive Christian or the perfect liberal and you're telling everyone else how to be like me better at that.

[Richard Rohr]

But no one likes that.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, Richard does that. Do you see that? That, that's sort of a driving force in our entire culture.

[Richard Rohr]

It really is. It's. It's made so much of Christianity very unattractive to many people. It's like unitive language becomes moralistic language instead of unitive. It's not about being one with God. It's about pleasing a taskmaster. That's a completely different energy, completely different task.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, it makes sense, Richard, that you, as an enneagram one, would have given us so much as a teacher, because you're working to heal those wounds. And in a lot of ways you're offering us a story about Christianity that is an antidote to that perfectionistic, moralizing, purity oriented narrative.

[Richard Rohr]

All preachers are preaching to themselves. And I think I have been my whole life. But it's worked out well in terms of, you know, yesterday's daily meditation was from Ezekiel, where Ezekiel says God is just being true, not to any criteria outside himself. The only criteria God has is himself, which is infinite love reminds me of. And that's the new covenant in Ezekiel's language, to move from conditional love, where there are conditions always on what's lovable, to unconditional love. There's nothing that makes something God has created unlovable. It's inherently and always and forever lovable. It's the new covenant. And very little of Christianity is the new covenant. Most, because most of us came from a oneish world, we just can't believe that love could be free.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Right. You Set up a great kind of dichotomy of how this plays out. There's a criteria of God's eternal love. And then you look at that purity culture, where the criteria is group belonging. If you act a certain way, there are rewards for it. Where the group will support you in that, even though the goalpost is wrong. And I think that that's part of it. When the community doesn't have God's eternal love as the end all, be all, it becomes these smaller factions of here's the criteria to be righteous.

[Richard Rohr]

Wow.

[Paul Swanson]

Well, you know, Mike and I aren't ones as much as we try to be. But even so, we.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I think I can speak for you

[Paul Swanson]

that we're relating to a lot of this.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah. I mean, so much.

[Richard Rohr]

Sure you do.

[Paul Swanson]

And it sounds like an Enneagram. One can wrestle with the need to

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

be perfect and overachieve.

[Paul Swanson]

They have a lot to teach the rest of us about our own perfection.

[Richard Rohr]

If they've wrestled.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

If they've wrestled, they've done the work.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Paul Swanson]

They've come to that serenity that you spoke of.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Paul Swanson]

And the voices that tell us that we aren't quite good enough, they're there. What is the wisdom of an Enneagram one?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

What do they have to teach the rest of us?

[Richard Rohr]

Patience, compassion, Forgiveness. That's perfection. Forgiving reality for being imperfect. All reality. And that expands the longer you live, where it's still the same as it was before. Now the person early on the journey thinks you're becoming lackadaisical, thinks you're allowing evil, thinks you're not demanding enough of people. And that's the way it looks from that viewpoint, from the early first half of life viewpoint, you can't tolerate that. I have to. Or I can't live. I've gained nothing by hating Emmy. Impure person. However you want to define impurity.

[Drew Jackson]

I mentioned the accuser in the Book of Job earlier. And another character that gets mentioned briefly and then mentioned again in the New Testament is the advocate. Yes, the person who defends us, the inner voice. What does the voice of the inner advocate have to say to an Enneagram one? You've kind of been answering that this whole conversation, but I have to ask again.

[Richard Rohr]

That forgiveness that you've learned to rather readily grant to the world, you finally grant to yourself. Fortunately, their 1ishness protects them from being vengeful even as young people, but it doesn't heal the vengeance toward themselves. You still tend to be very hard on yourself, but rather Easy on other people. I could see that in myself. I learned to be forgiving somewhere in the middle, in the 50s or 60s, but for really forgiving myself and not being so demanding, that's where the 70s and the 80s, which looks like lackadaisical to a lot of people. It's like he's a liberal. He's saying everything is beautiful in its own way. It sounds naive, it sounds dangerous to the person just starting in their zealotry, in their righteousness. They only admire other people who are zealous. Be careful.

[Drew Jackson]

Ram Dass used to say, you're perfect just the way you are and you need some work. And I love that. I always tell you, Richard, my favorite thing that you've ever written, and that's top of a long list of favorite things, is what is it? The only perfection available to us is the ability to love our imperfection.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes. Yeah. That's our perfection. Such genius or God hid perfection the last place the perfectionists will look for

[Drew Jackson]

it in hearing I should forgive imperfection. I should forgive injustice. And that doesn't mean condoning it. And that doesn't mean not working to make it better. We'll talk about that in a second.

[Richard Rohr]

That's the mistake that many people make. Go ahead.

[Drew Jackson]

But for a one. I sometimes wonder, Richard, does forgiveness come like a grace? Like it shows up? When it shows up, someone's going to hear this and they're going to go, I should be forgiving. And then they're going to work really hard to make themselves forgive and repress their anger and resentment.

[Richard Rohr]

Or an ought. Once you go back to the shoulds and the oughts, you're back in early stage one, the mature one. It just comes naturally. It's just, why would I not?

[Drew Jackson]

Can I forgive myself for not being ready to forgive yet?

[Richard Rohr]

You're probably in process. You wouldn't ask it that way. You're in process. Good for you.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh my gosh.

[Richard Rohr]

That's all you could be is in process. As a 40 year old man.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, 50. Getting old, Richard. So what is the work of the

[Mike Petro]

Enneagram one for the rest of us?

[Drew Jackson]

What do ones give to the world, especially when they're healthy?

[Richard Rohr]

They really, because they honor order and disorder and that's reorder. They tend to very often have a healthy ego structure. People know that a one will be reasonable. Well, not in the rational way, but in the human way. That we don't trust the vengeance of the eight. We don't trust the performance of a three. We don't trust the Laziness of a nine. And all of that good mistrust can make us very balanced people. That's how people see us.

[Drew Jackson]

Sounds like ones love the four, though.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, does it? The rug has been pulled out. The reason we like the four is because you're perfectionistic about aesthetics.

[Drew Jackson]

True.

[Richard Rohr]

And that's very beautiful to us, people who admire a beautiful painting or a beautiful architecture because of that love of doing it right, doing it well. Anybody who does it well.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Richard, as you've spoken now in your

[Paul Swanson]

early 80s, you've shared this before about.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

It feels like living in the third half of life. What is the task for an enneagram one as they age, to let it

[Richard Rohr]

be while holding on to your ideals. Like, I have to do that right now with this war, this new war. I have to believe that, and yet I have to allow that. And I'm better, I think it's honest to say, I'm better at the allowing. I don't have to be an activist marching in protests. I hope some of our people are, but I don't have to do that. It looks like passivity. It looks like giving up. It looks like not caring. None of which are true. That's the third half of life. T.S. eliot says, Lord, teach us to care and not to care. That's where I'm at now, living right in that.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

The tension of the opposites.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes, yes. Well.

[Drew Jackson]

And I think about you talking to us about the ones and your own. You're very honest about this in the book and in our conversations. Propensity to see what's wrong. And now I think about you sitting out here in the front yard, staring at that dumpster that has I love you spray painted on it and gazing. That's gotta be something to look at. Something that so many others would see as ugly and to let that be a part of your mystical encounter every day.

[Richard Rohr]

It even surprises me. I don't have that knee jerk resentment toward things that I did as a young man. Whatever was broken are not yet finished. Like in my last book, I call a set of the prophets, like John the Baptist, unfinished prophets. I don't have to call them bad prophets. They're just. They're unfinished.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Would you call it almost like a deepening in solidarity with the crucified Christ?

[Richard Rohr]

Of course. Of course. The crucified Christ has his hands nailed open to say an ultimate final yes to everything, to the whole world, his final message. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's so brilliant. Most people don't know what they're doing. They're not malicious. And when I gaze, I grin toward reality.

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, I like that a lot.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, I like that.

[Drew Jackson]

You literally will smile when you're gazing.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah. Right here on my front porch.

[Drew Jackson]

That's amazing.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, for the closing thought, you've talked about leaning into forgiveness. You've talked about the practice of smiling towards reality. Is there any other spiritual practice you would offer for Enneagram Ones?

[Richard Rohr]

We have to choose to know that our definition of perfection is no more than our definition. It's not loving reality, it's loving our perception of reality, which everybody does, by the way. But the One is really driven on that journey by showing himself, herself, wrong again and again and again with people I defined as perfect. How wrong I was in my judgments over and over and over again. And it kept me from being loving, it kept me from being accepting, kept me from mercy. But now it doesn't even feel like mercy. It just feels like survival. And my living now is more merciful. I don't know if that makes a bit of sense.

[Drew Jackson]

That makes a lot of sense.

[Richard Rohr]

What's coming out about it? That's a good word.

[Drew Jackson]

That's what we came here for. Thank you Richard so much for all that wisdom. For everyone listening who's an Enneagram One. For everyone listening who's been shaped by

[Richard Rohr]

a culture, you're forgiven for being the One.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah. For everyone who's shaped by a one oriented culture and for everyone who wants to learn about and from Enneagram ones, this has been awesome. Thank you Richard.

[Mike Petro]

Thank you Paul.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you for being such good students.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you Richard.

[Mike Petro]

Everything Belongs will continue in a moment.

[Podcast Announcer]

Foreign. How can you embrace the prophetic path? Explore that question in our online course the Tears of Integrating the Prophetic Path based on Father Richard Rohr's best selling book of the same name. In this self paced online course you'll take a deep dive into concepts like radical grace, collective evil and the Alchemy of Tears. We hope you'll join us. Learn [e-mail] tearscourse that's C A C.org T E A R S C O U R S E the Divine Exchange online course from the center for Action and Contemplation is back and better than ever. This is now a self paced course featuring live calls with CAC's team. Spiritual seekers will explore the Christian wisdom tradition through contemplative practice, reflection and embodiment guided by the teachings of Cynthia Bourgeau. Learn more and [e-mail] divine. That's cac.org D I V I N

[Richard Rohr]

E.

[Mike Petro]

Welcome back to Everything Belongs. Our guest, Tessa Bialecki is a contemplative writer and teacher who leads lives as an urban hermit in Tucson, Arizona. She also serves as co director of the Desert Foundation. You can find her books, her Fire and Light podcast and seasonal [e-mail] and sandandsky.org both of which you can find in the show notes. Oh, my gosh. Tessa Bialecki, Paul Swanson, it is such a joy to get to see sit down with the two of you today on the Everything Belongs podcast. Goodness gracious. Thank you so much for being here.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Oh, well, this is a thrill to think that I could talk to both of you at once. I'm usually talking to one or the other of you, but two is how am I going to stand this ecstasy?

[Paul Swanson]

Well, it's definitely shared ecstasy. And one thing I love, I love origin stories. And Tess, I was thinking about how you and I first met. And if memory serves, my recollection is we met at the Wild Goose Festival and we met in the line for the Porta Potty.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yes. Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

You were coming out. I was going in.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Okay, you were coming out. I was coming in. And you made the crack about how the Porta Potty was like a monastic cell and you didn't know who you were talking to. You were talking to somebody who lived in a. The equivalent of a monastic cell. But you didn't know who I was. Was hilarious. I had no idea who you were.

[Paul Swanson]

That's right. I love the auspicious nature of that meeting because immediately after that I was going to your talk. And I think about that as the starting to this beautiful friendship and the way that you have, you know, poured so much life and wisdom and guidance into my own journey. But like all good things, it starts with the natural needs of a Porta Potty.

[Tessa Bialecki]

That's right, the human thing.

[Drew Jackson]

So great. Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

Mike, how did you first connect with Tessa?

[Mike Petro]

Y' all met on the line for a bathroom. Tessa, you don't know this, but you and I met in the New York City subway system because I started listening to an audiobook that you had recorded, which I think was called Wild at Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Uh huh. That's it. That's it.

[Mike Petro]

And you sort of were my first big introduction to Christian mysticism. So this was a huge influence for me. And then years and years later, you, Paul and I were all attending a talk on desert spirituality in Arizona.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yes.

[Mike Petro]

And Paul kept saying, oh, I'm gonna go grab a drink and have a chat with my friend Tessa. And it was only at the very end of the event, I went, oh, my God, you're Tessa Bialecki. And I was so starstruck.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Oh, yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

Cause, yeah, it was such a huge moment for me because you'd had such

[Mike Petro]

a huge influence on my journey.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah, it was hysterical for me. I felt like a big rock star, you know? And we've been collaborating ever since. Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

We became fast friends and bonded deep, not only over our love of the desert and the mystics and maybe some mezcal in there, but also how we heal and grow from loss and betrayal in our families and in our spiritual communities. So it's been such a rich dialogue.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

And what a gift it is to have friends like the two of you in this life. Speaking of origin stories, Tessa, this season we're talking about the Enneagram. You've told me that you came to the Enneagram later in life and wish you'd found it earlier. We'll get to that story, but I have to ask, do you remember how you first encountered the Enneagram?

[Tessa Bialecki]

I'm not sure. I had several friends who were actually Enneagram teachers, but my first vivid memory is of one of these friends visiting me in the log cabin that I was living in, where I had gone for healing after the traumatic experience of leaving my community. And he saw my wood pile and how my wood pile was stacked. And I just remember he pointed and said, that's a one. And so was the vision of my wood pile. And then, of course, then we talked about it, and I did not want to own being a one. Once I found out about the numbers, I sort of thought I was a four. And it took me a while to admit that I was indeed a one. But I want to nuance that, because, yes, I'm very by the book in some ways, and in other ways, I feel a little different.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah, there's something about that 1 and 4 connection. Richard and I talked about that earlier in the episode. Should you ever decide to write a book called the Vision of My Wood Pile, I'll be very excited to read it.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my wood pile was perfect. Absolutely perfect. As are all my kitchen cupboards and my desk and my file cabinet. If you need anybody to make order out of your chaos, I'm your gal.

[Paul Swanson]

That's fantastic. I have a couple rooms I could have you come over and work on.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah, I love making order out of chaos, and I Do it very fast. And for me, it is fun. It's always been fun.

[Paul Swanson]

Well, making order out of chaos is a perfect tee up for, I think, talking about being a one in the Enneagram, I want to read first here how Richard defines the Type 1. He says the Type 1 is about the need to be perfect. Ones are idealists, motivated and driven on by longing for a true, just and moral world. They are honest and fair, can spur others to work and mature and grow. They are often gifted teachers who strive to go forward setting a good example. They have a hard time accepting imperfections, other people's, and above all, their own. Only when they are focused and at rest can they accept living in a still, imperfect present and trusting in the gradual growth in good, in Christian terms, the kingdom of God. How does this relate to you? And what does it mean for you to be an Enneagram one?

[Tessa Bialecki]

You know, when I hear that and I read other things about the One, it seems like there's an awful lot of emphasis on moral perfection and on right and wrong from a moral point of view. And that does not characterize me. That isn't how I was set up. For me, being a One is primarily about order, and it's about order in spatial order. I must have tidiness and order in my spaces. They won't necessarily be free of dust, but they will be ordered. So order is important. The other thing is, you see ones described as perfectionists or reformers. I would use the word orderer or organizer. I would use the word fixer. I've spent my life fixing. And when I lived in community, we wouldn't have known about the Enneagram. Which is why I say, I wish I knew it sooner. My community would. They would play tricks on me. So they'd be coming over, they'd get to my hermitage before I was there, and they would slightly move a figurine on the shelf, I mean, a fraction of an inch. And then they would time how long it would take me to see it and set it right nanoseconds. So there's that gotta fix it. Gotta be right spatially. And also relationships have to be right, personal relationships, which is related to the spatial relationships. Third thing I see, I would call me as a one, the idealist. That's where the perfection is in the vision of high ideals and the wanting to be living out of those high ideals. And then when someone doesn't live up to that, or worse, when I don't live up to that, I beat myself up, which, of course, then Translates into making other people's lives a lot harder, because I want them to be perfect also, but not morally, just in terms of noble ideals. So that's how I would see the one.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, my gosh, I can't wait to unpack all of that with you. When we talk about the Enneagram, we talk about turning our wounds into wisdom. And sometimes we come in so strong on the wounds, we can overlook the fact that every single orientation on the Enneagram has a gift to give to the world and to all the others. And you've already said this so well, that you make order out of chaos. I'm wondering about making meaning out of chaos or reorder, to use Richard's language, out of chaos. What do you think the gift of the Enneagram? One, the mature Enneagram one. What is the gift that they give to the world and to the other numbers?

[Tessa Bialecki]

See, I think making order out of chaos is a huge gift. And, you know, when I first learned about the Enneagram and I was learning what was wounding about that, you know, I really had to work with that and realize, you know, that's the first thing God did, was make order out of chaos. That's what creation is all about, was making order out of chaos. That's a huge gift for people. And then I think a lot of ones can be grim, especially if it's the moralistic kind of one. But I've always been a pretty cheerful one, and I think that's because of a strong two wing, which softens me. Or when I'm at my best, then I go to the seven. So I was the big party girl. I was the one always calling for celebrations and breaks. So I would both drive myself and other people hard to get the job done. But then, boy, would we celebrate when the job was done. So I think that's part of the gift of the one.

[Paul Swanson]

Well said. You know, I'm gonna dip back in some of your own personal history here to go back to childhood. I'm coming in hot with another quote from Richard. I want to see if this relates for you.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Okay?

[Paul Swanson]

Richard writes, from an early age, ones try to be model children. Starting back in their tender youth. They internalize the voices that demand, be good, behave yourself, try hard. Don't be childish, do it better. It is if they had decided even then, to earn the love of everyone around them by meeting such expectations and being good. Often one of the parents of a one is moralistic, perfectionistic, or eternally dissatisfied. Stingy with praise. This parent takes above average. Goodness for granted. The little ones were precocious achievers because they didn't want to lose the love of their nearest and dearest. Tessa, does this connect for you at all in your family of origin and the childhood that you had?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yes and no. I certainly was a model child and. Oh, precocious achiever. Oh, yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

I mean, still precocious.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Oh, just achieving all over the place. But again, there wasn't that moralistic part of it for me. My parents were very relaxed about upbringing, and my religious life was. My Catholicism was not moralistic and punishing. I had none of that. I find this a very difficult question. I think for me, it. The best I can understand about it is I'm the oldest child, so right away, there you have a setup. I was the oldest of five siblings and the youngest, who was nine years younger than I, was, a downs syndrome child. So from a very young age, I had tremendous responsibility for him, for my youngest brother. I mean, I thought nothing of it at the time. I loved this brother, and it wasn't a chore for me. But objectively, when I think about it, I'm like 10, 11, 12, and I have big responsibility every afternoon after school for taking care of that brother for hours on end. So I think that was part of it. The other other thing, I think that for me was part of it. I was not trying to be perfect because of signals from my parents that I had to be perfect. I had an emotionally unavailable father. He was either yelling or he was totally silent. And so he scared me. I didn't know him. There was absolutely nothing nurturing that ever came from him until the end of his life. And then that man transformed, probably more than any other human being I've ever known. He did his inner work and was just extraordinary. But he was totally unavailable to me as a child. I have a sneaking feeling that even my mother was emotionally unavailable. And so if I was trying to perform well and be perfect, it was simply to get attention and talk about stingy with praise. I don't remember getting any. I got it in school in spades. But I don't remember praise from my parents growing up. That's the setup. Not that I had to be morally perfect and I'm being punished for not being a good girl. They're just not paying enough attention.

[Mike Petro]

I told Richard in our previous conversation that my life has been this dance between these experiences, mystical experiences of total unconditional love, and then coming out of that and for some reason feeling like I would need to play these worthiness games to prove that I deserved the unconditional love that I was getting. And something you and I share in common that heightened that for me was again, as you mentioned, being the eldest sibling and being responsible for our nuclear family members. And then on top of that, another thing that you and I share is this experience of losing some of those nuclear family members early. I'm thinking of mystical experience, responsibility, loss. Did that heighten this thing that we're describing about this oneness that wants order out of chaos?

[Tessa Bialecki]

I think absolutely. So in my story, what happened is first, that beloved little boy, the down syndrome child whose name was Richie, died of leukemia when he was 8 at home in my parents arms. And I was the only sibling there. My other siblings were not there. And then on September 4, 1962, the brother, who was just one year younger than I, was killed in an automobile accident. And he was driving the car and there were four other boys badly injured in the car. And we never processed it as a family, never got any help, never spoke about it. And two weeks later I went to college. I left the family and went to college and all that pain was stuffed. And I know, you know, as I explore the enneagram, that the big emotion is anger, which is deeply buried for me. There are tremendous connections between grief and anger, so that the anger is much more expressed as sadness than anger. And I would keep being shut down by people for one reason or another because I was trying to tell the wrong people who weren't in a position to help. So I think that's kind of the buildup of the anger probably started in early childhood because I'm not getting the right kind of affection and affirmation, first of all from parents. Then you bring all the grief in over the deaths. So then I stuff that and I shut down even more. And I think that's so chaotic interiorly, and I don't even know it, that then that reinforces the making order on the outside.

[Mike Petro]

Wow, that makes so much sense why you would move to order as your superpower.

[Richard Rohr]

Holy moly.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah, there's too much chaos, emotional chaos.

[Paul Swanson]

How did all this help you build contemplative communities that you've been a part of? I'm thinking particularly of the Spiritual Life Institute. How did all those experiences and those kind of flashpoints and ongoing processes play a role in how you helped build that contemplative community and others?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yes. So in college I met a man who had created something called the Spiritual Life Institute. That's a whole big story. But I joined him and it was more just an idea in his head when I arrived. And of course I had no idea about my gifts. I was only 22 years old. I graduated from college, I worked for a year in Washington D.C. and then I joined him in the Arizona desert. That was where we started our first place. And we started a second one 10 years later in Nova Scotia, Canada. And then we started a third place in Colorado and then we started a fourth place in Ireland. Well, I wouldn't have understood it at the time, but you need a one to get the job done. And so first of all, I want to say I think the most important thing I could do as a one is a one knows how to look at an ideal or a vision. And then I think it was Helen Palmer who said, one can develop a step by step methodology. Well, I knew how to take this big vision that Father William had. And I remember asking the question, okay, how are we going to live this out on a day to day basis? And I was able to translate that into how would we live a rule of life on a day to day basis? And then as other people came to join us, then how would we form them as contemplative monks? Contemplative Carmelite monks. It was just an instinct. I mean, this was not hard for me to do. It was like second nature. Well, of course, what we have to do is this, this, this, this. So I would say that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is because we kept moving into dumps, basically. Like the Nova Scotia place was an old hunting and fishing lodge. Ireland was an old run down manor house with these broken down outbuildings. And I would know how to go in, look at this mess and make the lists. Ones are the list makers. And we make them not only for ourselves but for everybody else around us. And so I would know how to do that. How are we going to clean up this mess? How are we going to turn these rundown cabins at an old hunting and fishing lodge, turn them into hermitages and make this a contemplative center? I could do that. And of course I had a lot of help to do it, but I knew how to set it up. I happen to love bookkeeping, of course, because it's cut and dried and life is so full of gray. Bookkeeping is black and white and I like it. It's restful for me to do bookkeeping, but it was both the outer and that inner in terms of the way of life and the spiritual formation. So I want to emphasize that it Was both the inner and the outer. And they go.

[Mike Petro]

I think for a lot of ones, they have such a strong sense of how the world should be, their sense of order, that they're sometimes living in that idea and not being fully present to life and reality. What can you tell us as a one about your quest for loving awareness and presence?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Whew, boy. Just the way you're phrasing it is challenging. I have suffered a lot and made the people around me suffer a lot because of that idealism and living in an ideal world, wanting everything to be ideal and high noble ideal, like chivalric ideal, high gospel ideal. There's a big link between the code of chivalry and the gospel. So the one has a hard time relaxing. The one has a hard time being present because of it's got to be better. We have to improve on it. So one of the best things that can happen to a one is to have a best friend who is a nine. And I do. And that is my friend father Dave, whom you both know and love as I do. Well, this is a great gift because the one is so heavily programmed about shoulds and oughts and perfection, and the nine is just flowing with the way things are. So I have just learned so much about being present, Just being associated with a guy who is just present. Well, once I got onto the fact that I was a big fixer, that I was fixated on fixing, and I was so tired of it. So tired of it. It's exhausting fixing everything. And one day I just threw up my hands and I said, I'm always trying to build a better mousetrap. Now, why would I come up with that image? Who knows? And Dave, my number nine marvelous friend who knows me inside out, he just looked at me and said, tessa, the mouse is dead. And that's become like a mantra for me. I just tell myself when I'm getting flustered, the mouse is dead. So all I have to do is just be. There is nothing to fix. I don't need a better mousetrap. I've already done the job. All I have to do is rest in being. But that has been a long, hard journey for me because I feel like I've only been doing it for, I don't know, maybe 10 years. I'm gonna be 81. And I feel like I'm just getting onto it, you know, after years of getting the job done and trying to make everything perfect for everybody else. So it's exhausting being a one, really exhausting.

[Mike Petro]

It sounds like you Need a one to get it done. And you, you need a nine to learn to feel fine.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Oh, nines are frustrating to work with for a one, let me tell you. And that's part of why I value the Enneagram so much, because studying it and Dave would drive me nuts. And we've had all these open conversations about it. He would be perfectly fine with my saying that. But once I understood how A9 operates, then I stopped beating myself up trying to get him to perform the way I thought he should perform and could relax into and appreciate the way he does things. But then he had to move a little more my way as well.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm just thinking right now about the inner work of the Enneagram one, which I know you have done in spades. And Richard talks about, you know, these three things that really help A one being prayer, love, and nature. And what I love about those three as examples is those are things you cannot necessarily control. Prayer, love, and nature are all wild in their own way.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

And when I reflect on your life and how you've lived it and how you've continually deepened and sought that out is clearly shaped by prayer, love, and nature. How have they shown up for you, Tessa, and helped you grow?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Well, like you said, it isn't controlled. I was trained in my monastic life. We didn't so much have structured programs for growth. The phrase we used was let life do it. That life presents the teaching tools to you. Now, Paul, you would know a lot about this. As a father of children, we don't have to try very hard. I believe that life, through divine providence gives us what we need. So, of course, here I am. I was in a community of prayer, so all the structures were there, and that has just continued for me. I don't know quite what to say about the love part. It's what I referred to earlier. The one wants right relationships, so puts energy into friendship. Friendship is very important to me. I write lots about it and use St Teresa of Avila as the great example of the importance of friendship on the spiritual path.

[Paul Swanson]

This is such a fun question to kind of dance with as I think about how you've spoken about prayer and the communities of love. And, of course, nature is a big piece of. I know. Of your life. And what's popping in my mind right now, too, is how you and my daughter share a love of saguaro cactus.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Ah, yes.

[Paul Swanson]

That seems to be almost an icon for you of your relationship with nature. Can you speak a little bit about how nature has impacted your own sense of Growth on this path.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Yes. And the aspect of nature, I think that's the most important is the changes through the seasons. So ones don't do change. Well, we don't like change. We like our routines and we like things to be the same because we like the order. Yes, there's beautiful order in nature. Nature's also very messy. I've been keyed into the seasons all my life. Summer, fall, winter, spring, which are really the seasons of our soul. The outer and inner landscapes are one. And it's the way nature gracefully moves through the changes of the seasons. It's important for everybody, but I think especially one who doesn't like to see change and doesn't see change change as simply inevitable and as natural growth. So that would be one way of the way I have found nature healing and helping me integrate. And the other is, of course, the saguaros. I was living in Colorado and I moved to Tucson. I needed to get back to the desert for sure, but I needed to get back to Suaros. Why? Wasn't necessarily clear to me. And for a long time it wasn't clear to me. It's only become clear in the last couple of years here. I kept being drawn to the saguaros that were scarred, that were damaged and broken. And I kept photographing these and being awed by the fact that. That they not only survived, but they thrived. How strong they were, how enduring they are and how beautiful the scars were. And finally I made the connection that because I was so broken. And we'll talk more about how that happened. And I was seeing beings, and they are beings. The local indigenous people here, the Tohono Ohotom, consider the saguaro's people. I do too. I have names for them. They're my friends. I talk to them. I visit the same ones regularly. If you came to visit me, I would introduce you to my friends. So there's just so many things to learn from the saguaros. And only this last weekend, since I knew we were going to be talking about enneagram1, I realized, so the one has a hard time appreciating and living within perfection. Well, I realized over the weekend, you seldom see a perfect saguaro. Their beauty is precisely in their imperfection. Maybe when they're young and they're just one straight column, they're perfect and they look alike, but once they start really growing and putting out arms, they're all over the place and they're all different and they aren't perfect. And so the fact that I Love them so much, and I spend so much time with them. I'm realizing, you see, that's partly how nature is healing. I'm not consciously, okay, I have to heal this one wound in me. Therefore, I am going to go out and turn to nature. I'm just doing it naturally, and the process is happening, and the healing is happening, and the growth in me is happening without my even knowing it. You know, Thomas Aquinas said, God draws us according to our nature. And so when you follow those instincts, or what the South African Bushmen call the tappings in your heart, and I've done that all my life, you're led to where you need to be to grow and to heal. And that's what's happened with me and all of nature, but very, very profoundly, most profoundly with the saguaros.

[Richard Rohr]

Wow.

[Mike Petro]

Well, Tessa, first of all, I love that. And having been in those saguaros, I so deeply appreciate it. And then speaking about brokenness and wounds shifting to deeper waters, in our conversation with Richard, we discussed this idea from an Enneagram teacher, Chichi Agaram, who talks about how Western Christianity is a very one driven religion. Many of us have been hurt by religious leaders that let us down. And I know that you're currently working on a memoir that tells just such a story. Can you share just a bit with us about what happened with Father McNamara and those communities? And your wounds

[Tessa Bialecki]

gotta be brief because I know this is just one little part of this whole podcast. So this would be my biggest wound and the source of biggest healing simultaneously. And that's really important that people understand that it doesn't matter how devastating the wounding is, is there is healing. And I actually became non functional for almost two years. I think that's very important to say. So what happened to us is I found out, you know, out of the blue, shock, shock, shock. Overwhelmed by shock and trauma. I found out that our founder had been acting out with multiple adult women over years. And I thought we were going to survive this crisis, and we didn't because it unleashed. Talk about chaos. Just unleashed incredible chaos. Everything broke down. All the relationships broke down. Paul, you were asking about my inner work as a one. Well, I think that a huge amount of how I needed to change as a one happened in one fell swoop. When everything broke, I was absolutely shattered. The community fragmented. Father William, as my ideal religious person, mystic, was no longer who I thought my idealism shatters the relationship, shatters the community shattered. I shattered. And as a fixer, I tried to fix it. I thought I could fix it. I tried to fix it and I couldn't. And so, believe me, that stopped me from fixing. The mouse was more than dead. The mouse was stomped on and obliterated. And it's the best thing that ever happened to me. There's so much to say about it. You're going to have to read the memoir. You're going to have to listen to the podcast that I did with Mike Petro on Healing with a Thousand Faces. I zero in on this. It's most of what we talk about. The only thing I want to say here is that Mike said it right. Wounds are way into wisdom, our way into healing. And more specifically, I know, Mike, you and I have talked a lot about betrayal. The poet Robert Bly says betrayal is actually the way to wisdom. And of course, this wound, for me was very much betrayal. Not only was it a dose of, you can't fix everything, because some things are just so broken, they can't be fixed. God can raise them from the dead. God rose me from the dead. That's how I would describe my healing. I died, there's no question about it. Which is also why I love those saguaros, because I also pay attention to the ones that are dying, and there's something extremely beautiful about their surrender to their dying. And then I rose from the dead, and I didn't do that. So, I mean, you have to do a certain amount of work yourself. And by golly, I did that work. But in the end, it's grace. And in the end, we are raised up, we rise like the phoenix. Jacques Maritin, the old French philosopher, had this image of Christ as the phoenix of the five wounds.

[Richard Rohr]

Wow.

[Tessa Bialecki]

So it's not a majestic, glorious bird phoenix that you see, like Dumbledore's fox, you see the five wounds in the resurrected Christ, you see the scars in the saguaros. You see my woundedness. And that's all right. Again, you have to be broken in order to realize that imperfection and brokenness is beautiful. I try too hard not to be broken. And finally, I mean, what was coming at me was so terrible that it broke me. I want to say that to people. I was broken. If you had known me then. One of the most important teachings, one of the most important things my therapist said to me was, your pain is so big. Don't stay inside. Live outside as much as you can and give your pain to the universe. So I really came to love that land where I was living. I was living in this log cabin outside of Crestone, Colorado, at The time. And I spent as much time as I could out there out, and I was giving my pain to the universe. So that land was very beloved because it was that land that took my pain. It was that land that helped heal me. And that's the power of the land. The land is living and we're in living relationship to the land. And the land is part of our healing.

[Mike Petro]

First of all, thank you for sharing that. That is so powerful. It hits me in my bones. Your willingness to be vulnerable and open about it and share that with us is sanity making and life saving. So thank you. I know for so many Enneagram ones, they have this strong sense of right and wrong, or as you've described, this profoundly deep sense of order. I feel like betrayal in particular is such a heavy hit for a one as it is for all of us. What advice would you give to anyone listening who has had someone they loved, someone they trusted, maybe even someone they idealized deeply betray the their sense of order and trust and goodness?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Aha. Well, as Bly said, betrayal is the way into wisdom. Now, I only read that after I'd been moving there. And it isn't the end, it's a step. I had to keep taking steps on behalf of life, which again, one is very strong and determined. And the oneness, that kind of strength helped me put one foot in front of another, helped me get out of bed, help me take the steps. I don't want to discourage people. I want to encourage you by saying how long it can take. It took me a long time. Very hard work. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. You do not necessarily reconcile with those who have betrayed you. It is not about getting back to the way things were. There is no going back to normal. There is only the new. And the new may be without those others in your life. And most important for a one, you forgive yourself because you're your own worst enemy and your worst critic is the one in your head. And so you have got to forgive yourself. Just put one foot in front of another and keep going and find your tribe, find the places that are going to be healing for you. Pay attention to your dreams, pay attention to the tappings in your heart. All of this is part of the healing.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you, Tessa. So I'm thinking about, you know, you mentioned you're about to turn 81. And what for you is the biggest difference about your experience as an Enneagram one now that's different from previous iterations of your life at this stage of your life?

[Tessa Bialecki]

Well, the work is over on one Sense, Yes. I still work hard. I mean, I write, I do podcasts. I have to clean my apartment, I have to pay my taxes. I have to balance the books. Aging already brings the lessons and the blessings. You don't have to do anything. You just have to get old. And I don't even think of myself as old. People have to remind me that I'm old. I'm 81. I expect to live to 96. My dad lived to 96. I could beat him, but I don't know. I don't want to. But anyway, I've got a lot of years left. And they're joyful and they're celebrative. And mostly it's that sense of resurrection. And gosh, I tried so hard for so long. I don't regret anything. I wish I'd done some things differently, but I learned from all of that. And now it's all a blessing. It's just a blessing. I mean, I get to talk to guys like you, you know, I get to do something like this and share a bit about where I've been and love people through a podcast. And it's all about loving and it's all about giving and it's all about celebrating the joy of being alive. Amen, Brothers, friends, amen.

[Paul Swanson]

That personal, passionate presence comes through in every conversation with you. So we're so grateful that we had this chance to take a few laps around the Enneagram One with you.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Well, thank you. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to look back at the Enneagram One, because I'm still learning and undoing.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah.

[Tessa Bialecki]

Thank you guys. Love you both lots.

[Paul Swanson]

Love you too.

[Mike Petro]

This was so great, Tessa. Oh my gosh, wonderful ones in their oneness. Cassidy, wow. Those two conversations, great, great episode.

[Cassidy Hall]

And so amazing to be able to see myself in the one. Now I'm wondering, what am I? Am I one or am I five?

[Drew Jackson]

It's so true.

[Mike Petro]

Richard legitimately had me halfway convinced that I was a one. And it's this recognizing my own oneness, that this deep internal sense of right and wrong and the wrestling with the inner voice of the accuser. And as Tessa talked about the desire for order. But I gotta tell you what really, really hit me, especially in our conversation with Richard, what really hit me was this idea that Western religion is very one driven, so of course it would hit all of us. And recognizing the special role in one's ability to help us heal when they work on their healing themselves. And how wild to think that maybe one of the reasons Richard has been so successful is because all of his books and teachings have been addressing that. He's talking to his own oneness and putting his healing in the service of healing the world.

[Drew Jackson]

Did that hit you that way?

[Cassidy Hall]

Oh, my gosh. This has given me a totally new understanding of Richard's work. I've been thinking his life's work, his writing, his teaching, these lessons in order, disorder, reorder, or in being non dualistic, these are all lessons and teachings that he also needed himself. And that really resonates with me, knowing. Knowing the lessons I need to teach myself or preach to myself and sometimes the ways, those are our gifts to the world. Or, Mike, as you say, our wounds lead to our wisdom.

[Mike Petro]

Absolutely. And then to hear Tessa talk about her own strength in bringing order to chaos, but then this experience of crashing into a season of life where no matter how hard she tried, she could not fix, she could not bring order. Of course, that reminds me of Richard's teaching in Falling Upward that we've explored in this podcast, that sooner or later, if we're on any kind of a classical spiritual schedule, we will fail at something, or something will fail us. And I'll bet all the ones in the audience can feel that, the impact of that moment where no matter how hard you try, you cannot make it work. But I think all of us feel that, and I was so, so, so encouraged by Tessa reminding us that even though that feels like a death, there really is a resurrection on the other side of it.

[Cassidy Hall]

That's right. And I think ones have a particular gift in teaching us something about the contemplative path. And Mike, I think you said in this episode that nature is harmonious but not orderly. And that makes me think about Tessa talking about her particular relationship with nature and thinking also about Richard talking about gazing, talking about looking out his window, and the ways that this order that exists in nature or this harmony, the ways that the one has to kind of look at that with open hands and hold that with open hands. And I think that special relationship with nature is also a special relationship with contemplation. And the ways that they teach us to be in the presence of challenging things where we can't control it and we just have to hold it in all its beauty and complexity.

[Mike Petro]

Gosh, I love that so, so much. And so I think the great gift of the One to the rest of us is that they do get things done and they do bring order out of chaos and point us towards justice and help things make sense. But then it sounds like the great task of the One is to navigate that moment where their best efforts fail, where they don't have control. Richard says that suffering is so very frequently linked to our lack of a sense of control. And I can hear the One in Him when he writes and says that. And yet the Ones can trust that there is healing and growth on the other side of that failure and show us how to walk that path. So for everyone listening, I would encourage you to find the Oneness in yourself, to wonder how you've been shaped by. By one shaped religion, and ask yourself, how do I attempt to create order and justice in my life and in the world? When has that been defeated? What can I learn from it? I think on the other side of that defeat, we don't stop trying to make love more real in the world around us, but we probably do it a little bit differently. What do you think that sounds like?

[Cassidy Hall]

You know, in some of our readings, we've talked about how one of the gifts of the One is serenity. Is that right?

[Mike Petro]

Yes.

[Cassidy Hall]

And, you know, I'm thinking about the Serenity Prayer, and I'm thinking about again, this back to holding things with open hands. And so I'm wondering if one of those questions is, how can I make love more real with my open hands?

[Drew Jackson]

Oh, that's so good. That's so good.

[Mike Petro]

Friends, there's so much to cover as we get deeper and deeper into the Enneagram. One of the things that we didn't discuss in this episode in Richard's teaching is that in health, an Enneagram one will move deeply into aspects of an Enneagram seven. And in stress, the Enneagram one will dissolve into aspects of the Enneagram four. We just want you to know that at the end of the season, after we've covered all the numbers, we will come back and talk about the connection and the movements between them. Please do sign up to receive our monthly bonus resources and discussion questions so you can keep on chatting about the Enneagram with your friends and conversation partners. And of course, you can sign up to receive that@cac.o r g b e l o n g s 2026. That's cac.org belongstoy 2026. And as we let you go, I think, Cassidy, you nailed it. Why don't we go out on the words of that Serenity Prayer as something that all of us can sit with?

[Cassidy Hall]

I think that's a great idea, Mike. So let's pray this together. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. I encourage you all to read this slowly to yourself, maybe even notice where you feel it in your body and what word or line carries the most meaning for you. But in addition, I've been considering a lot what happens to my body when I find myself in one energy. I tend to get a little tight and clenched. And so in our additional resources email this month, you'll also be able to find an embodied practice, practice I wrote that we can all do together.

[Mike Petro]

Right on. Hey friends, thanks for listening to Everything Belongs. We'll see you next time as we step into the Enneagram 2 and learn how twos can take their wounds, turn them into wisdom, and find their work in the world. Thanks a bunch everybody.

[Corey Wayne]

Thanks for listening to this podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation, an educational nonprofit that introduces seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. To learn more about our work, Visit [e-mail] Everything belongs is made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters and

[Mike Petro]

the shared work of Mike Petro, Paul

[Tessa Bialecki]

Swanson, Drew Jackson, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Jenna

[Elizabeth (Development Team)]

Kuyper, Izzy Spitz, Megan Hare, Sarah Palmer,

[Tessa Bialecki]

Dorothy Abrams, Brandon Strange, Vanessa Yee, Cassidy

[Corey Wayne]

hall and me, Corey Wayne. The music you hear is composed and provided by our friends Hammock, and we'd also like to thank Soundon Studios for all of their work in post production. From the high desert of New Mexico, we wish you peace and every good.

[Podcast Announcer]

Do you feel called to walk a more contemplative path? The center for Action and Contemplation is an educational nonprofit supporting the journey of inner transformation. Our programs and resources will help grow your consciousness, deepen your prayer practice, and strengthen your compassionate engagement with the world. Learn more about our resources such as publications, podcasts, email series and [e-mail]. Want to go even deeper into the teachings of Father Richard Rohr? Subscribe to our free Daily Meditations to receive special spiritual and contemplative wisdom in your email inbox each morning. In 2026, our daily meditations theme is Good news for a fractured World. Learn more about this theme and [e-mail] daily26 that's cac.org d a I l y 26. Take your journey of greater awareness to new depths with this free download from cac. Get tips for creating lifelong practices with gazing agape in this one hour conversation. Find inspiration as Father Richard reflects on the spiritual epiphanies he's had on his journey from a young Franciscan to a contemplative author and founder of cac. Get your free video at cac. Org Gazing. That's cac. Org gazing.