What is the Somatic Enneagram?
Our Enneagram type patterns give us a strategy for responding to everyday life; they protect us but they also limit us.
Our behavioural patterns stem from our somatic structure, which governs survival and well-being. When we perceive threats, cognitive, emotional and physical distress can result. Somatic Enneagram methodology is a way to understand and notice how we hold our type patterns in our nervous system.
Somatic Awareness practices enable us to build our capacity to approach, integrate and relax our reactivity, in the moment, as it arises. We can gently and respectfully approach, befriend and work with the hidden parts of ourselves in a much deeper and more life-changing way than we can through study and reflection alone.
Why work somatically with your type structure?
Studying the Enneagram system gives us an initial framework for self-understanding. But seeing the world through our type pattern offers only a partial view of the greater reality available to us.
Most of us have had moments when our type receded and we experienced a more expanded view of life. We realise that the external world is not able to provide this ..... so where else can we look?
When we turn our attention inward using Somatic Enneagram practices, we can learn how to work with the felt sense of our defences and reactive patterns as they arise.... we can start to release our somatic identification with our type.
Using this methodology we can be more gentle with ourselves when we are triggered and respond more consciously and flexibly to others. We can find relief from our suffering and a more expanded awareness and experience of ourselves, the world, and who we already, truly are.
What can working with the Somatic Enneagram bring you?
Somatic Enneagram training is full of attention practices, gentle physical activities and invitations to experience yourself in deeper ways through understanding how to work in more skilful ways with your nervous system. This enables you to recognise and work safely with long-held patterns and energetic responses that arise when triggered.
By learning to resource yourself in this process, you can release stored tension, allowing energy to flow more freely. Many people experience reduced internal distress, deeper self-acceptance, and an enhanced capacity to engage with their spiritual dimensions.
Experience a Somatic Enneagram taster!
You can work with the Somatic Enneagram individually or in a group. Contact me for a sample 1:1 session which will enable you to experience the Somatic Enneagram approach.
Contact me to find out about my one day, in person group introductions to the Somatic Enneagram during the summer season. These will give you an experiential taste of the Somatic Awareness methodology and how it can help you work with your Enneagram type structure.
Take part in Training Modules
Modules 1-3 of the Somatic Enneagram program give you a solid grounding in the Somatic Enneagram method, with loads of practical exercises to help you self-regulate, work with your defence system somatically and access subtle energies which can free up your responses to stress.
In Modules 4 and 5 you experience how your type structure was formed, coming to realise that there is more to life than the structural way you’ve come to live with yourself. Here you are invited to challenge yourself and gain deeper understandings so you can choose a different, less-conditioned way of responding to life.
Dive into an Inward Turn Retreat
In the INWARD TURN Retreats, we practise together in a retreat environment to loosen the grip of our type structure and learn to become more receptive to reality as it actually is. So there's less theory and more practical experience of your inner landscape.
For beginners' retreats you simply need to know your Enneagram type. For more advanced retreats it's good to have done some Somatic Enneagram work first.