In this issue:

Article:

A Six-Step Process Toward Liberation: Unhooking from Limiting Patterns

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Deep Coaching Teleconference Series (Starts Jan. 29) — JUST A FEW DAYS LEFT TO SIGN UP!

Essence: The Enneagram of Self-Remembering (Starts Feb. 4)

Release Pesky Patterns and Activate Your Potential (Retreat, May 1-4)  — PURCHASE BY JAN 31 AND SAVE $100

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Article: A Six-Step Process Toward Liberation: Unhooking from Limiting Patterns*

The day I discovered Real Choice was the day my life changed.

One of the topics of conversation that I often have with clients and workshop participants is how to work with automatic patterns that no longer serve them. Do you know these places in your own life? These patterns have a familiar feel to them, and we often try to avoid dealing with them because we have a lot of negative judgment about them or because we haven’t clearly recognized them. We do our best to ‘work around’ them, with the hope that they will just go away. Yet, they pop up at the most inopportune times, often creating the feeling of being ‘emotionally hijacked.’ (See D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, for more information.)

The beginning of the new year is a perfect time to increase our alertness to those recurring patterns in life that no longer serve us so that we can begin to release them and experience more real choice. I thought I would share my Six-Step Process for gaining increasing liberation from recurring patterns. What I find so exciting about this tool is that it gives us a direct realization that our patterns are not ‘just the way things are,’ but can be interrupted with intentionality, and a willingness to stay with what can be most uncomfortable within in order to experience something more expansive and new within us.

So, identify a pattern that you would like to work on, and begin to get in touch with how it feels when you are IN the pattern before you begin to use the steps.

Six Steps Toward Liberation

Going through this process may take from a few minutes (after you’ve practiced it) to 20 minutes (when you first begin). If you have a hard time doing this solo, and are working with a coach or therapist, you might ask them to guide you in the process.

As you might imagine, this is not a one-time release process. It is a tool that you can practice whenever you come to a place where you are stuck. Our conscious attention (noticing) combined with breath focused on a painful inner experience is the ‘alchemist’s stone.’ It is a transformative act and a gift to yourself.

1. Recognize. The process of recognition is a major step in beginning to release and relax around patterns that trouble you. These patterns probably served a good purpose at an earlier point in your life. A good way to begin recognizing any given pattern is to notice when you feel tense, irritated, inflexible, angry, justified, or even when you feel nothing–an emotional flatness. At first, you may recognize the pattern from the ‘rear view mirror,’ seeing that occurred just a bit ago. With increased awareness, you may notice while it is happening, or even just before it starts to take over. (This takes enormous awareness!)
2. De-velcro from the pattern. Breathe and notice what you are experiencing. The acts of breathing and noticing the existence of the pattern create an awareness that the pattern is just what it is, a pattern, and not you! You can create distance by not taking the pattern personally. That is, you see it as a coping or defense mechanism. Creating distance from the pattern also provides an opportunity for choice.
3. Be compassionate and curious. Of all the patterns that I see, the automatic drift to self-judgment is one of the most damaging aspects of the personality. This judging, critical voice has little value as adults. Invite in your “Inner Witness” which is observant, honest and kind.Curiosity is an ally of self-observation. Simply be curious about what is happening internally! It allows us to get to know the mechanisms of the pattern. You might say to yourself, “Oh, isn’t that interesting. I’m doing X again. There it goes again. What can I learn about it this time?” Clients often tell me that this step helps lighten the experience and not take the situation so seriously.
4. Be with the pattern. Being willing to fully experience the sensations, the emotions, the inclinations to act that are associated with the pattern is an important step in building our capacity for self-acceptance and flexibility in future situations in which this pattern might again emerge. Being with the pattern diminishes our self-judgment, fear of the pattern, and allows us to stay connected to ourselves. This is a challenging step, because we automatically want to do is to run from it. It may take several minutes for the energy of the pattern to begin to change. Stay with it as long as possible.
5. Notice what part of you is NOT hooked. After the pattern has begun to shift, ask yourself, “What part of me is not hooked by this situation? This helps you recognize that you are far more spacious than the experience of the pattern would lead you to believe. This can lead to some surprising discoveries.
6. Take New Action. Having been willing to ‘be with yourself’ through this process of bringing your consciousness to the places that hurt within, you are creating the space for new possibilities. As you experience a shift from the recurring energetic pattern to more openness, what options are available to you? How might you respond differently?

I’d love to hear back from you on your experience! You can reach me at Roxanne (at) lifewisecoaching.com.

*Edited from Roxanne Howe-Murphy, (2007). Deep Coaching: Using the Enneagram as a Catalyst for Profound Change. Enneagram Press, p. 183-184 © Roxanne Howe-Murphy

Upcoming Workshops and Courses

The new year brings many opportunities to delve into what it means to be truly present to yourself, to be present in relationships, and to study how the Enneagram can support you in your life and work.

As part of the Deep Coaching Training Program, I’m offering:

The Deep Coaching Teleconference series

There are just a few days left to sign-up!

Are you ready to take your professional work using the Enneagram to the next level?

For coaches, therapists, spiritual directors, hypnotherapists, bodyworkers, acupuncturists, energy-workers and other holistic professionals who are called to take their work deeper.

Tuesdays, 6:00-7:30 p.m., PST

January 29-May 15

11 sessions (not meeting every week)

This teleconference series will be based on Roxanne’s Deep Coaching book. During the series, we will focus on the internal logic of each type, including essential characteristics, hidden dynamics, motivations, and an internal story of each of the nine personality structures. Case studies and participant experience will provide the basis for coaching practice.

$495.00/full program; monthly installments available

For more information and to register, go www.lifewisecoaching.com/certification-program/

Essence: The Enneagram of Self-Remembering

A learning community that meets monthly with Roxanne on the San Mateo Coastside

• Does your mind feel over-used? Would you like to have contact with and greater access to your three primary centers of intelligence?
• Are you forever trying to “fix yourself,” believing that if you could just get this one mysterious ‘thing’ taken care of, you might be ok? Would you like to approach yourself and others with more genuine compassion, and realize that there is ‘nothing to fix?’
• Does experiencing your “Essential nature” appeal to you, but also feel out of your reach?

The most profound contribution of the Enneagram is to the awakening of our true nature. In this nine-session series, we will explore the wisdom that the Enneagram offers by focusing on how we start with where we are as a way to move toward, experience and remember our Essential Nature.

DATES and TIME:

Once/month meetings -

Mondays, 6:45-9:15 p.m., Starting Feb. 4

$375.00/9 sessions; monthly installments available

NOTE: These two learning opportunities qualify for: 1) CE credit with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences; and 2) for the Deep Coaching Training Program.

For more information, go to www.lifewisecoaching.com/riso-hudson/

NOTE: These two learning opportunities qualify for:

1) CE credit with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences; and

2) for the Deep Coaching Training Program.

Receive $100 off this popular program through Jan. 31!!

Release Pesky Patterns and Activate Your Potential: A healing retreat using the Enneagram and Mind-Body Work

May 1-4, 2008

Burlingame, California

Are you experiencing unsatisfying results in life? Do you yearn to bring out your true gifts and experience more ease? This retreat integrates two powerful and complementary systems for supporting you on your journey to your fullest potential.

The Enneagram reveals nine wildly different ways individuals “fall asleep” to their truth, internal authority, and connection to what is deeply meaningful. These “sleep patterns” involve specific and recognizable configurations of mental, emotional, physical, social and energetic habits that make up one’s “internal story.” When recognized, this story exposes layers of the “fixed position” of “who I think I am.” As a dynamic system, the Enneagram also provides pathways for releasing repeating patterns (thus, freeing you from no longer useful “stories”) and for expanding your innate intelligence.

NET or Neuro Emotional Technique is a powerful mind-body tool for freeing stuck patterns that live in your physiological/cellular structure, creating the emotional reality that shapes your life experience. Through NET, unresolved (real or imagined) emotionally-charged events can be identified and released, freeing your body’s intelligence to work on your behalf. With NET, you can become congruent in your desires, goals & actions.

Join two national leaders in this work: Dr. Roxanne Howe-Murphy and Dr. Vicky Cruz, a holistic Chiropractor and a Certified NET practitioner. Dr. Cruz teaches NET nationally to Acupuncturists, Chiropractors, Medical Doctors and Psychologists.

REGISTRATION:

Reg: $1295.00

Earlybird: $1195.00 through January 31, 2008

(includes the retreat program starting Thursday evening, all day Friday, Saturday through Sunday lunch, single room, 3 daily meals, use of retreat facilities).

Enrollment limited so that each participant has time in this intimate setting for their inner work!

For more info and to register: www.lifewisecoaching.com/release-pesky-patterns/

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