HBLU Healing from the Body Level Up

What I want to know is
When you fall down
How do you respond?
Do you pretend
That you have not fallen?
And if you do
Do you deny the grace
That is your place
When you fall?
Do you experience just how small
You really are?
Or deny the very essence of
The truth/that truth
And in that act
Deny yourself
And not tend to your garden?
What I want to know is
When you fall down
How do you respond?
Do you frown
Not knowing that you've grown?
Do you groan at the naked pain
And curse the Gods as a refrain?
Or do you refrain
>From wallowing in the pain
Experiencing exquisite pain
A labor
Leading
To creative
Birth?

The purpose of this paper is to describe the Essence Process, a process for transforming the fear contained in the deepest psychological wounds of the personality. These wounds manifest in fundamentally limited world views (which is what we believe personality to be) and fundamentally compulsive behavior that is driven by these world views and is often out of the conscious awareness of the person. We have found that after people experience this process, their world views expand, and they have more behavioral flexibility and choice. They find it easier to permanently clear life experience trauma and to grow through the developmental epochs of their life. The Essence Process allows people to find that they are more than just their personality structure and life experience. It leads to knowing that true identity includes a person's sense of individual and universal self-aware consciousness, experience of aliveness, and sense of personal (soul) mission and contribution to the world.

The best model that we (the authors) have found to describe the dynamics of personality structure is the Enneagram, a system seemingly derived from the Sufi spiritual tradition. On the surface, the Enneagram is a useful model for understanding people and can be used in a practical way for improving relationships in many contexts. More deeply, the Enneagram system links behavior and motivation with personality structure and Spirit (Essence) in describing 9 different personality types each driven by a central compulsion. We noticed that the compulsions that define each personality type on the Enneagram all share a structure highly reminiscent of the compulsions seen in people who have suffered loss or violence trauma (Swack a.). Thus, we believe that a catastrophic trauma, or wound, set each person's Enneagram point. We hypothesized that the wound of personality is caused, unavoidably, by embodiment of Spirit in human form. Further exploration with the Essence Process confirms the usefulness of this idea as a model. Although people of different personality types experience this abrupt and shocking transition differently, they all react to it as they would to severe emotional trauma - with rationalization or avoidance, a constellation of limiting beliefs, and exaggerated negative emotions felt in the body.

The Enneagram suggests that we organize reality through one core lens which emanates from the wound and generates a person's sense of psychological (ego) identity. Thus, it includes the deepest pain (low aspect of the point) and the greatest gifts (high aspect of the point) of the personality. The Enneagram personality types have been nicely summarized (Baron and Wagele) as follows:

No. 1. The Perfectionist.1 Motivated by the need to live life the right way, improve yourself and others, and avoid anger.
No. 2. The Helper. Motivated by the need to be loved and appreciated, to express your positive feelings toward others, and to avoid being seen as needy.
No. 3. The Achiever. Motivated by the need to be productive, to achieve success, and to avoid failure.
No. 4. The Romantic. Motivated by the need to understand your feelings and to be understood, to search for the meaning of life, and to avoid being ordinary.
No. 5. The Observer. Motivated by the need to know everything and understand the universe, to be self-sufficient and left alone, and to avoid not having the answer or looking foolish.
No. 6. The Questioner. Motivated by the need to receive approval, to feel taken care of, and to avoid being seen as rebellious (or the counter-phobic 6 motivated by the need to rebel against all of the former) .
No. 7 The Adventurer. Motivated by the need to be happy and plan fun things, to contribute to the world, and to avoid suffering and pain.
No. 8. The Asserter. Motivated by the need to be self-reliant and strong, to make an impact on the world, and to avoid being weak.
No. 9. The Peacemaker. Motivated by the need to keep the peace, merge with others, and to avoid conflict.

We present our original research describing the generic 4 part structure of the wound. We also describe the different ways in which people experience the same wound and how these differences in experience result in 9 basic personality types or world views. In this paper we describe how knowledge of the Enneagram coupled with the Essence process facilitates the healing of wounds of the personality and leads to psychological and spiritual transformation. While it is not necessary to know the Enneagram to do the Essence process, it is extremely useful because it allows the facilitator to recognize when the client has actually accessed a core fear.

We began to design the Essence process when one of the participants in AH's Enneagram group asked how people could use this system for spiritual transformation. AH knew that various teachers had said the way to Essence is through personality. To his knowledge, no one had described a process for accomplishing this. What came to him was the following three-step process: The first step to Essence is through the acceptance of all of who you are - including that which you most avoid. In order to integrate personality with Spirit (and thus to be and feel whole) you must include all aspects of the self, even parts the ego does not like and experiences as a traumatic wounding. Acceptance, however, is not enough; there is more to reality than the personality, even when you accept all of it. Nonetheless, once you have accepted all of your personal/psychological reality, the doorway is opened to greater spiritual truths about unconditional love and feeling connected to all life. Thus the second step of this process involves an energetic expansion into the larger reality that exists beyond the limitations of the wound's perceptual filters. From this vantage point, you are able to view the wound in perspective. The last step of the process is the transformation and reintegration of the energy contained in the wound. When this is accomplished, all of the (former) wound energy serves to help a person maintain and manifest their life purpose in daily reality.2

The embodiment trauma which we believe sets an individual's Enneagram point encodes as a type of loss trauma. The Enneagram "wound" could be considered a soul level wound, of which other examples exist in people who have been severely traumatized in their life. When people have soul level wounds (soul wound, identity wound), they confuse or mistake their traumatic view of themselves and the world as their true identity. From the traumatic point of view, the wound says "I am all that is true about you and the world" even though the individual suspects that there is more to reality than that.

Embodiment trauma has two major aspects that people react to and try to avoid. One is the belief that they are wrenched away from spirit form and its capabilities, and the other is the belief that the physical form has limitations which prevent a person from reentering that state of union. Each of the 9 personality types has its own distinct description of the perceived limitation. (Table 1). The fundamental fear of all the types at an existential level is "I am irrevocably alone because I have been cut off from the unity of Essence". The fundamental fear of all the types at the psychological level is "If I surrender to the wound's reality, I will cease to exist". As one way of avoiding this fundamental psychological fear, the personality organizes around the opposite of the wounded belief and makes it fundamental. As Naranjo says, this is an obscuring of essence (Naranjo). The classic example of this in Western culture (and typical of the Enneagram 5) is "I think, therefore I am." In fact the logical order is reversed because "beingness" is more fundamental than thinking . Thus a more accurate statement would be "I am, therefore I think". Each personality type makes the same obscuring mistake (Table 1).

Since the avoidance behavior is driven by reaction to a trauma, it looks like an addiction or a compulsion. These avoidances can manifest in literal addictions ie. food, sex, work, drugs, etc. They always manifest as compulsive behavior that is the counter-identity to the avoidance (Table 1). Interestingly, when it's not driven by fear, each of these compulsions is a gift of the personality. When it is driven by fear, the person never gets to experience the gift itself because it's also being used to avoid something even more profound. In fact anything in life that contradicts the wounded perception of reality is rejected as a sham. For example, when a person with an Enneagram 1 personality does something good in the world, the wound says "If others only knew how bad I really am, they would know that my goodness is a sham". Each point has its similar profoundly painful secret. Ironically, the more one avoids the wound, the more power it has. Counterintuitively, by having the person go into it with acceptance, the wound has less power and the person experiences more behavioral flexibility. The Enneagram wound is the best doorway to the larger universe which includes and exceeds our perceptual filters.

Everyone is born with their personality (ask any mother), and thus personality structure must be created before birth. We do not believe that this type of personality structure is due to genetics because personality types do not run in families. Moreover, we have known and treated a number of sets of identical twins, and in many cases each twin had a different Enneagram personality type. This information coupled with the responses we get during the Essence process support our hypothesis that embodiment trauma creates personality structure. Under normal circumstances, life experience influences personality but does not create it.

Very few people actually remember their embodiment, but almost everyone is aware of a painful compulsion in their personality. Thus, people attempt to explain this core pattern by ascribing it to some life experience. In other words people believe that life experience creates their structure when in fact it is fundamentally the other way around. Attempts to treat these core patterns with advanced techniques that successfully heal emotional damage from life experience (Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Applied Kinesiology, and Thought Field Therapy) (Swack b.) resulted in limited success. The patterns would return, or disappear from one context only to appear in other contexts. Thus, it is clear that personality structure and emotional damage from life experience are organized differently within people.

The personality is a coherent pattern of a series of traits. All of these traits revolve around a core limitation and a compensatory response which is both connected with and independent of the limitation. While all personality aspects do revolve around a traumatic embodiment wound, they simultaneously have their own independent existence. Thus when people process the wound energy appropriately, they retain and now experience the gifts of their personality. Bad habits of the personality easily dissipate by themselves or with techniques for healing life experience (Swack b.) when the wound no longer generates the driving compulsion.

First we are spirit form, and then suddenly, we are embodied. This is a transition that is so extreme it is as if matter goes from a gas to solid state without passing liquid. Every embodied human being experiences this transition as a traumatic shock meaning that the reaction to it is exaggeratedly emotional and irrational. The shock is experienced by everyone in relatively the same way with slightly different wording unique to each of the 9 points.

II. Why did this happen to me? (fear, guilt, anger, shame, frustrated joy, despair, and hopelessness)

After any traumatic shock, people attempt to rationalize why this happened to them. The rationalizations for this wound take two forms.

The perception of the world (as filtered through a trauma) is unpleasant. I am a limited person in a limited world (of misery, darkness, pain, evil, etc.) .

In summary, the structure of this wound closely resembles the structure of the wound incurred during a loss or violence trauma. It carries the same range of exaggerated and irrational "negative" emotions (fear, sadness, anger) and similar limiting beliefs (judgements leading to feelings of shame/guilt) (Swack a.). Specific examples of how different points compulsively avoid their sense of limitation and the common wordings of the central fears are listed in Table I.

What You Do to Avoid Your Worst Fear	Sense of Limitation from the Core Wound
No. 1. The Perfectionist. "I'm a nice and good person who will bring a vision of perfection to the world by combatting the forces of evil." Therefore I am.	"I can't because I am bad (not perfect, evil) and weak".
No. 2. The Helper. "I'm a generous pleasing person who will bring caring to the world by taking care of other people's needs." Therefore I am.	"I can't do this because I'm needy, empty, dependent, and don't exist (I'm on the periphery, I got lost)."
No.3. The Achiever. "I am an active, doing person who will build the world by performing creatively." Therefore I am.	"I can't do anything (I'm a failure/loser); I'm not creative."
No. 4. The Romantic. "I am a special person who will bring beauty to the world by creating deep union." Therefore I am.	"I can't do this because I am defective/ordinary/wrong/weird."
No. 5. The Observer. "I am a wise, thoughtful, and self sufficient person who will bring rationality to the world by combatting emotional irrationality and teaching others to become self sufficient." Therefore I am.	"I can't do this because I am lacking energy."
No. 6. The Questioner. "I am a doubting person who will keep myself and the world safe by warning about and eliminating danger." Therefore I am.	"I can't do this because I am unprotected/insecure/vulnerable. I am a nobody. "
No. 7. The Adventurer. "I am an optimistic person who will make the world a better place and empower people by generating pleasant options." Therefore I am.	"I can't do it because I'm not enough."
No. 8. The Asserter. "I am a powerful leader who will save the world from cruelty and injustice by protecting the weak and vulnerable." Therefore I am.	"I can't do it because I am powerless."
No. 9. The Peacemaker. "I am a loving, purposeful person who will fill up the emptiness and make meaning in the world by making connections and taking responsibility." Therefore I am.	"I can't do it because there is a void where my heart should be, so I'm incapable of loving."

There is one wound with 3 general types of reaction to it and 3 variations on each of those reactions. This accounts for the 9 different personality types. The first general reaction is that of the heart centered points in which people become energetically unbalanced by projecting their energy forward towards others (points 2, 3, and 4). In trying to avoid the pain of the wound and psychologically to feel that they exist, they project an image to others for approval. "See me as being important somehow (caretaking, successful, special) so that you won't see the truth (needy, failure, ordinary) and reject me." The irony is that the compulsion with image pulls them out of their heart center preventing them from truly being able to love.

The second general reaction is the head centered reaction in which people become uncentered by projecting their energy back (points 5, 6, and 7). These people have already come to the conclusion that none of their gifts are acceptable/will be accepted anywhere. In trying to avoid the pain of the wound and psychologically to protect their existence, they withdraw . "I think of myself as (knowledgeable and self-sufficient/secure-protective/resourceful problem-solver) so that I won't see myself as (insufficient/insecure-unprotected/not enough)". The irony is that the compulsion to withdraw fearfully pulls them out of their head center preventing them from truly being curious and wise.

The third general reaction is the gut centered reaction in which people become uncentered by projecting their energy up, standing above things (points 8, 9, and 1). These people have come to the conclusion that fully embodying would be too painful. I will be (powerful, loving, good) to avoid the vulnerability (weakness, disconnection, badness) I experience viscerally. Ironically, they then cannot be fully present because they are not fully here.

Living has 3 qualities/purposes: 1. (gut center) to develop capacity for presence, to be here fully now as opposed to not being present. 2. (head center) to develop wisdom and curiosity as opposed to being fearful 3. (heart center) to develop the capacity for true unconditional love as opposed to feeling anxious. You are fully in your soul when you experience your mind, feelings, and senses with self-awareness, acceptance, and wonder. Personal mission unites the three centers of mind as vision, heart as emotion, and gut as action.

What is true is that all living beings are simultaneously individual and a part of all life. The feelings of disconnection and separateness are an illusion caused by the trauma of embodiment. Thus, when people finish the Essence Process, they become conscious that they are alive as an individual in their body and as a part of an infinite life force that connects all things.

The questions then arise: 1. why was a duality between spirit and solid form created in the first place, and 2. does the embodiment process need to be traumatic? If the infinite were everything, then how would it know about itself? It may be that we embody because an infinite living-energy field (the Divine Life Force Energy) is not necessarily sentient or self-aware. It may need an embodied form with its experience of the senses to be aware. It is possible that the shock of embodiment creates that necessary perception of individuality and separateness. This shock also causes the painful misconception that none of us (humans) are here in our true form. The complete truth may well be that spirit form and embodied form yearn for each other and connect in a sacred union of both universal and particular. We believe that spirituality is this cultivation of each person's sense of connection with the total life force energy in the universe, a sense of being home and belonging in the largest context.

We convey to clients that this is a process in which they will experience and accept all of themselves, even the parts that they might have the most difficulty accepting. We tell them that this process involves stepping into their soul space and expanding their soul capacity to hold the wound energy that creates a part of their ego identity acknowledging it for what it is.

The wound structure is a series of layers of extermely polarized and traumatic energies that struggle with each other (see Figure 1). The struggling energies try to balance each other to create some kind of dynamic equilibrium (like two children on a teeter-totter). One part of the wound layer is a negative self-statement which claims that it is the client's identity. Furthermore it claims to hold the monopoly on the truth about, the client, the world/universe, other people, and God. The neagtive self-statement is intolerable to the person, so he creates a counterbalancing energy to invalidate/prove wrong the negative identity The person creates a positive self-statement, one-five arrogances, or develops a way of using other people to compensate for the belief of the negative identity. The worst fear and greatest shame of the compensating polarity is that it cannot prevail over the negative Identity, so it agrees that the neagtive identity really is the only truth. Meanwhile, the negative Identity says to the compensating energy, "No matter what you do to compensate, you are a fraud, a sham, a fake, because I am the only truth. Even when you succeed in proving me wrong, it is only temporary because in the end, I am the only truth." Thus, a complete layer of Enneagram wound structure contains a least two parts (flip sides of the same coin) that struggle with each other on the same theme!

We remind the client that the wound structure is not their true soul identity. The client must hold the whole layer, ie. both sides of the polarity with grace. He should not argue with the "I'm the only truth" side of the wound, nor should he side with the compensating energy. The wound is the ego identity/operating system, and if it isn't functioning optimally for the client, the whole layer needs to be upgraded.

Once people experience the wound structure and understand how it runs through their life, then they can expand through the wound into the greater truth. Expansions are done kinesthetically, energetically, vibrationally, and 3-dimensionally through the wound and throughout the infinite space. This step transforms and reintegrates the duality energy into a single freely flowing energy that more efficiently serves the person's soul.

The client then discovers that energy that was in the wound is actually their greatest teacher, and it carries important messages about its hopes for the individual and about the meaning of life. It is important for clients to stay in their body and remain aware of the sensations they experience throughout the whole process. The expanded states of experience should be entered with receptivity and curiosity; they may well be novel.

The way we have worded this process seems to be most effective with and generate the least confusion for our clients. Process style. The facilitator can do this process either methodically by going through all the questions or intuitively by following the flow from the client. It is important to track the major emotions and the world views that are associated with the feelings. Keep people focused in the sensations in their body because the body never lies. The Essence Process is a 3 part process described below.

Optional step: The facilitator can sometimes speed up the elicitation process by directly interviewing the parts of the wound that have not yet spoken (see wound structure outline above). Use questions such as "is there a part of this wound that feels anger, despair, sadness, noble but frustrated, etc". If there is still a part of the wound that has not spoken, you might ask a leading question such as "what is the wound's uncensored opinion of a supposedly loving being that could do this to you?"; "Is there another motivation for the noble part that wants to manifest its gifts in the world besides true generosity of spirit?", "Are we in the original sin section of the wound?" If the answer to this question is yes, ask, "What is the arrogance for which God decided to punish/banish/reject/disconnect you."

Ask the client if they now feel confident that they can be their true selves in the world now, and if they can feel the energy of the wound supporting them to do so. Once all wound energy is transformed, the client often says, "I'm here now, I'm alive now, and that is the point." "I feel lighter, more solild, more in my body, more grounded." "There are no goals, there is no fear, just be."

Future pace them by asking them to review likely events in the future from this state of being and notice the differences in their natural response.

Finish the process by saying to the client, "Essence Being, I welcome you fully into this world with all your presence, wisdom, love, and vitality."

How does the process flow? Some people complete this process in one or two sessions, and some people take longer. Trust the client to be the expert and know how long they should experience any given aspect or level of emotion. The slow part of the process is the ability to accept all aspects of the wound. Some clients will only be able to go so far because of their pain tolerance levels, degree of spiritual/higher consciousness, or soul capacity. If the client starts to go into avoidance behavior like getting very sleepy, distracted, confused, or insisting on talking about real life instead of the wound's version of reality, he is approaching the wound energy too quickly and is falling into the struggle as opposed to holding the struggle with grace. Tell the client to slow down the approach to the wound energy and give his soul more time to stretch/expand to accomodate the large amount of energy found in the wound. It may take minutes, days, or weeks to familiarize oneself with a formerly unconscious aspect of the personality structure. When the client has gotten as far as he can go, peel and expand. (Try to do at least one peeling and expansion during the first session). Each expansion creates greater soul capacity enabling people to go deeper into their fear. Some clients will be more able to access the wound because they come in already triggered by some life experience, or they are already aware that they have been dealing with this problem in other ways.3 If they can hold this state, they will experience the process more deeply.

Content statements are really about process. A common question we are asked about this process by the facilitators is, "what do I do when the client says, I'm stuck, or I can't do this, or, its' hopeless."? It is important to understand that such seeming content statements about the process are in reality part of the process itself. This is just the next level of fear . With this in mind, a facilitator might say, " wonderful. You're fully in state. Just experience this fear fully and with acceptance", and then continue with the process.

The process has no goals and the facilitator can't save the client. The compulsion in the wound is to return home and be forgiven by the Source of life and love. In order to supersede the compulsion of the wound, the facilitator must recognize that any attachment to achieving a goal, or getting somewhere, or being saved, or getting rid of the wound are parts of the wound that must be explicitly acknowledged, held with acceptance, and folded into the process. The process is not about getting from here to there because attachment to any outcome inherently triggers the fears in the wound. The process is about transforming and reintegrating the energy in the wound so that it serves the soul more efficiently.

Recognize typical avoidance reactions that are part of the wound. Denial is a common avoidance mechanism, particularly for 8's, 9's, and 1's. They will encounter a part of the wound and immediately argue that it's not true. Expansion in only one direction ie. toward the light and away from or around the wound is a common avoidance mechanism, particularly in 4's. Remind clients to expand in all directions including below and behind and through the wound. Bouncing into the head for intellectual chatter is a common avoidance mechanism, especially for 7's. Spacing out or getting sleepy is a common avoidance mechanism, especially for 9's. When any point does any of the above or any other persistent reaction, ask them to create (as a choice) the reaction (that they think is just something that happens automatically). Emphasize that the reaction is part of the process. It is either telling the client that he is approaching the negative side of the wound too quickly, or it is one of the compensating energies telling the client that it is ready to be addressed..

The results of completing this process are subtle yet profound. People report feeling less compelled or anxious or reactive in situations that always bothered them before. Furthermore, they can more easily release old habits that were previously generated by the wound and more easily develop new habits that were not possible for them before. For example, in our experience, people who are Enneagram 2's now feel that they exist inside themselves. Thus, they can now learn to first check within for opinions or feelings instead of compulsively checking without Generally symptoms are easier to clear once they don't have the wound to drive them.

This is an example of the Essence process done with a person who is very spiritually aware and was having trouble with angry feelings towards an ex-spouse.

Facilitator: What is your worst fear and what are you most ashamed to admit? Where is it located?

Client: whole trunk- fear of being alone and separate, feels crumbled, "I wouldn't exist, I don't exist, but God does.

rage- feels impotent - angry - I had a fight with Source to be an individual. Fucking jackass obliterated me. resistance to sadness - afraid that if I stopped crying I would become invisible.

sadness- in this embodied form it is impossible to reconcile with Source - there is no connection to Source because I've been obliterated.

I wanted to be embodied to experience individuality, the energy of the earth and to play joyfully with my soulmates. I found a makeshift, imperfect, test ground. Feels the pain of a largely joyless world.

peeled: The wound is alive but vibrates at a lower energy than myself. It looks like silly putty.

expanded: "I don't feel consolidated in my body. I'm afraid that I will be obliterated again."

expanded: I'm feeling like an organized human being. I'm located inside my body. song- world is sunshine, lollipops, and roses.

facilitator: "is there any remaining untransformed wound energy within this being?

client: throat- shame and guilt- fear of what I'm going to say that will hurt my friends and cause me to be left alone. "I feel guilty that I deserved to be obliterate for speaking the truth and hurting Source and all who were Source."

expanded: pineal -feels shame that I have been functionless and acting in bits and pieces.

gall bladder- My mission is to build bridges between the plant and animal kingdoms and man. I'm ashamed that I couldn't experience life in the fullest from the molecular to the planetary level.

expanded: awareness in head and shoulder - I tried to get rid of the wound. pain in my nerves - All the pain I had in my life throughout my body was there so I could feel.

facilitator: Is there any remaining untransformed wound or wound related energy? (no). Is the wound energy fully integrated into this being in a way that serves her highest purpose? (yes) What is the greatest hope of the energy-that-was-wound for you?

client: "The greatest hope is that I can really feel, to live, to die, to be real, and I know that I can do that now." (while stroking the skin of the hands), "You don't know what it feels like to be truly able to feel your body."

Life recreates wound. Therefore, many clients will tell the Enneagram story using examples from their life experience and substituting "mother" or other archetypal figures as a representation of the source of life and love. This example is from a client with little to no spiritual training. This client was having difficulty with a boss who was critical over trivial things.

Facilitator: What is your worst fear and what are you most ashamed to admit? Where is it located?

client: face/torso- fear of having failed -"I'm not good enough - I won't be loved, I'd die and that would be hell." embarrassed- "I've done some kind of deviant behavior; I'm a bad person. My goodness and perfectionist strivings are a facade. That's why I need a lot of positive reinforcement - people valuing me.

I want to create an environment where my employees can flourish. I don't even get angry when I should. There are times when I should express my anger and I seem to have a disconnect from that emotion. That's what probably makes me sick.

Expressing my anger would prove that I don't have my act together. Expressing myself would lower me to the level of other people. So, anger festers inside of me.

I live with somebody who doesn't like to be angry; just wants me to be happy all the time, can't deal with conflict and walks out of the room or changes the subject."

heart- "Mother is not the mother I wanted her to be. I get no feedback on the loveletters I send from my heart to my mother. The tough part longs to be mothered. I remember when I was waited on and listened to by my grandparents. Nobody cares about me unless they're in crisis and need something. I long to be mothered and listened to by my family. I don't have a sister I can give a card to and say 'you're my best friend'. I'm already a mother to people who work for me. I was always the leader and captain of the teams. Always top dog, but a team player.

Facilitator: Is there a noble part that feels that it wants to do something important in the world?

client: Noble part - protect people from negative outside forces that would prevent these people from maximizing their ability to enjoy life and excel. "I want them to like being here. I also want them to like me so that I won't be alone."

up-right and outside of body- part that says "Let's get rid of the wound." Its worst fear is that I'm not perfect. The world is an evil place, and I'm a part of that evil. It's futile.

client: "Mother cut me off emotionally for pushing her buttons. I'm being punished for this. I'm such a terror. I'm uncontrollable and unmanageable. I expressed myself. It must have been such a relief for her to send me off to school. I expressed my anger violently. I was really selfish and self-centered, and I sucked people's energy. They cut me off. I was relentlessly demanding - I wasn't going to give up because I was right " angry "When I was right, it was selfish. Punishment was restricting, confining, and took away my freedom."

facilitator: How does the angry part feel about being punished, and where is it located?

client: left side of face. "Mother stabbed me at the kitchen table with a fork. She's an asshole. I'd like to take a fork and stab her back. She's incapable of appropriate communication. She's incompetent; she can 't even control her own imperfections. She's big-time imperfect. She's part of the problem and so is Dad for not sharing discipline and leaving all the work to Mom while he checks out (he really showed his anger). I've been punished and cut off emotionally. The current state of affairs is like shit. This is great - right where I want to be (sarcastic). This situation is not perfect. Get me outta here." fear "I'm afraid that I'm gonna be stuck with this all my life. I have the whole world on my shoulders, but I can't carry it because there's too much evil; the people in the world aren't helping. I can't control myself, and I have no support from my family. This sucks!"

expanded: "I feel like I'm in outer space, like stars; I've always wanted to be an astronaut."

expanded again: "Now I'm feeling connected. It's like being in an embryo with thumb in mouth and feels embryonic, connected to everything that's in that world. All that world is me; I'm part of something that's enormous."

facilitator: Is there any remaining untransformed wound or wound-related energy?

client: hope- peace, love, loving myself, joy, pleasure, fun. reason for being here is to experience life. I feel this way right now, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to maintain this state.

peeled and expanded through that fear. wound transformed and its energy finished integrating.

client: "I felt this enormous energy rush in through my head all the way inside my body (like a genie in a bottle). I'm all here in my body."

The wound story is a universal human story that shows up repeatedly in sacred and non-sacred literature. For example, the Bible's Garden of Eden story may be viewed as an archetypal projection of the wound story. In this story, mankind is living in Paradise and is unselfconscious. Man sins, the beginning of self consciousness, and then is rejected by God for his sins. Man becomes aware of containing both good and evil and fears that it is the evil in him that keeps him out of the Garden. Man splits good and evil and denies the evil aspect of personality in order to get back into the garden. As long as Man continues to do this, human beings are trapped in a world of hardship and struggle. Ironically, humanity's first step to getting back in is to accept the evil part. When human beings are able to accept all of themselves, they are able to return to Eden with their self-consciousness intact.

In the Essence process, we have created a sine wave-like transformational process in which the being starts at some point in life, descends into the deepest aspect of their embodiment wound, ascends to the highest quality of Spirit and then regrounds as an integrated body/spirit being in the world. Metaphorically, it is like going with equanimity into a black hole whose gravitational pull one has been fighting one's whole life, and expanding through it into a multidimensional universe much greater than the original one. In so doing, this process facilitates the absorption and integration of the most profound shadow material including the existential fear of nonexistence or death, the psychological fear of basic sin, and any other trauma that mimics these. Thus, the Essence process is a way of transforming the energy of trauma in this wound thereby integrating personality, soul, and Essence/Spirit so that they are in alignment.. In the process of transformation people disengage the compulsive struggle generated by the wound, learn who they really are, and why they are really here.

How is this process healing? It is an energetic process. When one brings the higher, free-flowing energy and information of Essence to the lower, dense vibrational energy of personality wound, the block transforms and integrates with the higher energy.

In designing the Essence Process, AH was influenced by several traditions. Teachers such as Helen Palmer ( The Enneagram) and Claudio Naranjo (Enneatype Structure) put forth the notion that the way to Essence is through the personality. AH started with that notion, but had never found a good technology for actually doing this. Dick Olney, in his humanistic psychology work, taught true self-acceptance. Brugh Joy taught the most about the core shadow and grounding the core shadow in the unconditional love of the heart center. Thus the Essence process begins with an acceptance practice. Michael White's narrative therapy in which the client externalizes the problem in order to be able to work with it influenced the peeling step. The Bhuddist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, taught that we must accept the self and that the SELF is greater than our identification with our personality. Thus, the third step of the Essence process is the peel and expansion throughout all that is. Assagioli with psychosynthesis, and Stone and Winkelman with voice dialog (Embracing Ourselves, Stone and Winkelman) influenced the ending dialog with the wound. Stephen Wolinsky's work on Quantum Psychology influenced the idea that when the process is over, the wound energy transforms, essentially dissolving.

Other people have developed core transformational processes. The Dedication Inquiry Process, developed by Martin Lowenthal has many similarities to our Essence Process. His process also begins with disturbing life situations, journeys through all the layers of fear to the core feared identity, and then goes beyond the fears through levels of intention to discover the fundamental wisdom ground of being as a spiritual energy. This process, like ours, then uses that unconditional divine way of being and energy to transform the elicited conditional beliefs and concerns into an integrated whole. Almass's work on Essence seems theoretically compatible with our work, although his experiential process is designed to be a practice that takes many years. The process that is most similar to ours is that of Wolinsky (The Tao of Chaos). Wolinsky's process differs from ours in that 1) he uses chaos theory rather than acceptance practice as the primary departure point for his process, 2) he seems to describe Essence as a place of no qualities, just infinite emptiness rather than an experience of energetic aliveness. 3) the nature of the dialogs with wound is different in the two methods. 4) The nature of the ending dialog seems somewhat different as we specifically integrate the transformed energy in the service of the being's daily life, 5) Finally, we have mapped the structure of the wound and linked it to trauma and its healing.

In our next paper we will describe in more detail the specific ways in which the different Enneatypes experience the embodiment trauma . We will include the different versions of the original sin for which people feel they were disconnected from the Source, the different senses of limitation which keep them from getting back, and the different versions of noble contribution that each point wishes to make and cannot.

If people are going to create all of who they are they have to be free to do so. Free will is the choice between living a destined or fated life. Destiny is manifesting one's personal mission with vitality and having acceptance of wherever that takes you. Fate is living one's particular life with resistance.

The Enneagram wound rigidifies a person's ability to function optimally in the service of his/her soul and of the collective field. The Essence Process enables each part of the collective to live a free life thereby contributing fully. One can only imagine a world in which all human beings experience transformation of this wound and manifest the gifts they bring in the service of everyone.

Andreas, C. with Andreas, T. Core Transformation. Real People Press, Moab, UT, 1994.

Hahn, A.H. "Transforming Personality Structure and Healing Soul Wounds at the Level of Spirit : The Essence Process and the Enneagram", workshop. For information call Andrew Hahn at 781 274 6622.

Lowenthal, M. Dedicated Life Seminars Levels 1 and 2. Dedicated Life Institute, 53 Westchester Rd.. Newton, MA 02158-2519, ph. 617-332-4967.

Stone, H. and Winkelman, S. Embracing Ourselves, New World Library, San Rafael, CA, 1989.

Swack (a), J.A. "The Basic Structure of Loss and Violence Trauma Imprints". Anchor Point, March 1993, pp 1-13.

Swack (b), J.A. "Healing from the Body Level Up", workshop. For information call Judith A. Swack and Associates: Tel: 617-444-6940 Fax: 617-433-0560

Swack (b), J.A "Limiting Identities and the Essence Process", workshop. For information call Judith A. Swack and Associates: Tel: 781-444-6940 Fax: 781-433-0560

1 Different authors of Enneagram books may use different names to describe the personality types, but the numbering system and personality characteristics remain the same.

2 Some of our clients who have had spiritual experiences through meditation or drugs ask "Why can't I maintain the state of bliss?" Deeper exploration of this issue reveals that some clients had not fully integrated their spiritual and psychological aspects. In other cases, meditation or drugs were used in part as an escape from the stresses and wounds of life.

3 Occasionally life experience damage must be treated before a client can do the Essence Process. One example of this may be people who are 2's who have histories of persecution ie. years of continuous and personal tormenting. The persecution trauma often must be healed before essence work will be successful. Another example may be people who are 4's and who have absorbed a lot of hostility in this lifetime or people who are 1's who have been subjected to a great deal of criticism.

Other general patterns that may need to be healed first include a person's phobic reaction to experiencing certain of his/her own emotions, and complex patterns which we call Deathwish, and Wounded Holy One (See our forthcoming papers). One way the facilitator can determine if life experience needs to be healed first is by muscle testing. NLP or Systematic Applied Kinesiology techniques can be used here.

Transforming Personality Structure and Healing Soul Wounds: