Heroes in Business - Head Points Three Variations Heal Soul Wound

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Head points seek security. We describe three variations, what motivates them, what their core fears are, and how they can be free in this episode of Guided Self Healing Fearless Living with Dr. Andy Hahn.  

Hi, this is Dr. Andrew Hahn again. And today is May 31st, Memorial Day of 2021. And once again, I'm coming to you from my library in Waltham. And the reason I'm coming to you on a Monday, as opposed to on a Friday, is that I've been in a writing retreat and just this little excitement. Our book is due at the publishers on Tuesday, June 1st, and we will actually get a first draft there, which is very exciting because I've been writing this book off and on for longer than I want to admit, but we actually wrote an incredible amount in two weeks, Joni and I did, so we're about done. We just have to sort of do a read-through of the whole book, which turned out to be a lot longer than we anticipated. So we hope you all

like it. It should come out next year. And please read it and tell us anything you think about it. But that's for the future. Today, we're going to talk about in this episode, which is episode, as we said, episode 14 of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. Today we're going to talk about headpoints. Headpoints are the points that say, I think, therefore I am, and are able to process through their heads. And of course, we talked about this already. So just to review, the problem for headpoints is that the world is a dangerous place. Why is the world a dangerous place? Because there's a fear for all head points.

And the fear is I am no body. So it's like I am a head cut off from my body. And therefore, I don't have enough energy. And therefore, the world can do something to me. It can demand too much and give too little. It can harm me. It can trap me. It can do something to me. It can demand too much and give too little. It can harm me. It can trap me. It can do something. So I'm always in a place of trying to get away from something, even if I'm not aware of it. So that's what happens if I'm a head point. So if you want to

start with this, just for a moment, be with the question of what it would be like if you were always trying to focus on, on some level, even if it was unconsciously, how are you going to do something, world or a person, that is going to be making me feel insecure and that there is some kind of danger? And today we're going to talk about these three variations of the head points, and we're also going to talk about the soul wounds of these three variations and how we can transform them, because then we get to be free. Why are we doing this? Well, the first reason we're doing it is we want to be able to understand ourselves

and other people from the inside out. to understand ourselves and other people from the inside out. What's truly motivating us so we can know and what we call cultivate the inner witness so that instead of just compulsively living in the world, we can do it with some sense of awareness and freedom. And of course, if you're in relationship with a head point, whatever head point that is, instead of projecting all over them, you would say, okay, I know what's making this person tick. I will try to be in relationship with them in a way that will make them feel secure,

which would be a lovely thing to do. And if I don't take things personally, I will be able to be with them from their perspective. So that's one reason we do this, is that we understand ourselves and others from the inside out, and then we're more able to be with people in a way that is true and in a way that they would want to be treated, as opposed to the way that we would think that they would want to be treated, which often has nothing to do with the way they want to be treated. So that's the first point here.

The second point is that, as we said last time, every personality is really a compulsion that is based on trying to do the opposite of experiencing a fear we have about ourselves. So you could say our personality is a protector that obscures ourselves from knowing who we truly are, because who we truly are, we have misnamed as something that we would rather be dead than have to experience. And so we spend all of our lives pulling away from this black hole that's pulling us to it. And of course, it's pulling us to it because as we know with gravitation, what is gravitation?

It's love. But we of course think that it's hate and we try to get away. So it's really ironic. And we're going to talk about that later. So with that as introduction, headpoints. And as we said, headpoints are called, the emotion is called fear, and the mental concern is called doubt. So let's look at each of these from the point of view of fear and doubt. And we said all headpoints pull away. We talked about the energetics, and no matter what head point you are, we know your first move from the center is going to be to pull back and in, that you're going to get away from something.

And then we said there are three variations. So given that we have started by going back and in, do we then go further back and in? Or do we go over what we called up and diffuse, which means you're really more dissociative and like uh or are we do we go forward and out and doing sort of an end run around what it is we're afraid of while we are pretending uh that we're not afraid and we've got them to buy the kool-aid so to. So that's our three variations.

So let's look at them one at a time. And we're going to look at something about that point, which is going to be points five, six, and seven in the Enneagram. We're going to look at what their worldview is and then what the fear is underneath it and then how to heal that fear. So with that, point five is called the observer. And the observer observes, right?

So the observer pulls away from something because it's a fear point. And then it pulls further back and in, sort of like in a point sort of at the back of the head, where it can just observe everything. And so great scientists are observers and great analysts are observers. And, you know, great thinkers are observers and, you know, all those things are observers because what an observer does is gets information. It's like, you know, knowledge is king. And like, the more I know, the better I'm off because then I've got enough information and then I can become an expert on something, which of course makes me feel secure. So an observer is somebody who would like be a scientist who said I've studied a mitochondria

if you remember the movie awakenings you know for nine years and I'm a world expert and I know everything about it you know and totally logical no feeling so it's like I split off my head and I just witness everything. Sort of from my point of view, like Mr. Spock on Star Trek on that level, he's really has that in his personality to be an observer. If you are that old and you know Mr. Spock. Or the movie Awakenings, if you ever saw that movie classic example of an observer um you know oliver sax in that movie is totally an observer if you ever want to see a great movie that really gives you a sense of what it's like to be an observer and someone

who says you know i will i mean i'm not sure that how he was portrayed in that movie, actually, having read about him some is how he is. But someone who says, like, I will learn everything and I will gain more and more knowledge. But it's very difficult for me to reach out and just say, you know, I really like you and I would like to go out and have coffee with you. Right. Because that's dangerous. You're putting yourself out there as little enough of you as there is anyway. Right. So what's the gift? The gift is, and what you'll find is the gift and the challenge are always the same thing. The gift is someone who says, I can just witness everything. And when everybody else around me is like getting pulled by emotions or reactivity or

whatever, I can just sit there and I can witness. And you think you're looking at me, but i'm looking at you looking at me whatever the you is that i'm looking at right so you think you're looking at me but you're not because i'm hidden behind a castle right so and the great gift of this of course is that uh you aren't pulled and you get to see everything and you're all knowing it's a great thing. And the gift is the challenge, which is, you know, I'm a rock and I'm an island. A rock feels no pain and an island never cries. That's sort of like, you know, the, what we might call the more challenged part of an observer. So let's think about this for a second. What would make somebody do this and what would

be their core motivation? And of course, the core motivation of an observer is to be self-sufficient and to build a wall around themselves. The sin is called avarice. And avarice means, you know, it's like the Midas touch. It's like you gain gold, but it turns everybody into stone, right? So avariciousness is really about gathering something around you. And a lot of observers can make a lot of money. But if they do, it's not because they want to succeed and be recognized for it. It's because they want to be able to build a wall of money around themselves because they want their privacy. And they will, you know, people will say, I'm going to not pick up the phone.

I'll monitor the calls, but I'm not going to pick up because I don't want anyone binging on me. Right. So I'll hide behind a book or whatever it is I'm going to do, or I will hide behind time and, you know, hoard it. Right. So I'll hide behind a book or whatever it is I'm going to do, or I will hide behind time and, you know, hoard it. Right. So really what's going on here is a sense of insufficiency. The core fear in my experience of observers is a sense of insufficiency. Now it starts off as an insufficiency of energy. of insufficiency. Now it starts off as an insufficiency of energy. I don't have enough energy. And so when the world asks me something, it's not just the world is asking me something, it's making a demand. It demands too much. And it's not going to give me what I need. It's not going to feed me. So I have very little energy. Now, of course, all of that is a projection because we start off with a sense of insufficiency, but then we tell ourselves a story about it

like everybody else, right? So what do I compulsively need to do is to be self-sufficient. And you will find that fives, except for the fact that they buy a lot of books, really strip away needs, right? You know, so an enormous library with books all over the place,

but, you know, I don't need anything and I can live by myself and I can live self-contained because if I let somebody too far in, they're going to ask something of me or they're going to expect something of me. And so I'm going to have to be self-sufficient. Why would someone compulsively have to be self-sufficient? Because they feel insufficient.

And as I say, it starts off energetically but since it's a head point it goes to mind also it goes to the head it goes to intelligence so um a an observer is also going to think i don't have enough information i have to gather more and more and more information. And of course, gathering information means you never have to take action. And if you're a good observer, you never take action. That's not quite true, but it's close to true. I mean, you know, drivers have a lot of difficulty

until they know everything. They'll gather more and more information and they won't be engaged in that way. All right, so if I'm an observer, what do I do? And if I'm being with an observer All right, so if I'm an observer, what do I do? And if I'm being with an observer, right, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give them space and not take personally the fact that they're not reaching out to me because it has nothing to do with me, even if I'm a heart point and I'm feeling like bereft and that's my problem. It's not their problem so you know if a good observer says you know i love you once a year that's doing a lot you know because that's giving me a lot you just have to know you know someone has very

little to give when they give you something it's like you know a real gift so but we were talking about this because i go all over the place sometimes. The sense of insufficiency is also of mind. So it means that you think you're crazy or you think you'll never know enough or whatever. That's the fear. So you have to learn more and more and more and know everything, right? And you have to have no need to be self-sufficient. So the work then is to really let yourself experience this sense of lack this energetic and mental sense of lack the sense of i am insufficient i have insufficient energy because

i'm like a head that's cut off from the body and i'm insufficient information because nothing will ever be enough so that i'll know everything and so I do a practice and I let myself fully, fully experience this fear I have about myself that who I am is fundamentally insufficient. And you feel what that feels like in the body. And it will feel like something, whether it's an emptiness or a sick feeling, whatever it is. And then of course, you choose to bring all your awareness to that sensation until you become sensation, whatever it is, sick to stomach or emptiness from the inside out. And then you sit with it and you say, you know, teach me. What have you come to share about this insufficiency and what it's like?

And then, of course, walls open up for us. So that's the observer. Then we go to point six. Again, a head point, so pulling away, but point six, which is called, in my tradition, it's called the loyal skeptic, which is a wonderful term. I'm loyal and I'm skeptical.

So it's someone who says, yes, but, right? And really, you know, think of, most people think of loyal skeptics as somebody who sees all the negative things. In fact, loyal skeptics are just contrarians. They have to see every perspective. And since most people in our country, which is a country that's based in being a performer and being optimistic in some way or so and say, oh, look at the possibilities here. You know, we could like do this, this, this, and this, you know the possibilities here you know we could like do this this this and this you know and you know we could have this outdoor situation and they say yeah well what happens if it rains at which point most people instead of realizing that you're being given a

favor they say oh my god you're raining on my parade i have all these good ideas and you're being so negative in fact really if you're looking at it from the point of view of the loyal skeptic what they're doing is they're trying to create security for themselves and for the people that they care about. So, of course, they're going to look at all the bad things that can happen. And it's very important to have somebody who can look at the contrarian or the bad point of view, because most contrarian point of views is going to be bad in our culture, right? So a very philosophical point of view, I mean, some great philosophers, Freud, I'm sure, Krishnamurti,

or a lot of great philosophers are people who are loyal skeptics. And Richard Nixon certainly was a loyal skeptic, if you know the politics of that. In fact, we've had several presidents recently who were loyal skeptics. First George Bush, for sure. Probably his son also. Unlike Barack, who

I believe was a five and sort of was, but we have to talk about something more elegant than just the one point then. But be that as it may, what we're looking at here again is someone who says, yes, but. Yes, that's true, but what about this? And I'm going to see all the things that are going to make us feel insecure. And what I'm going to elevate about everything else is security. Why do I need to feel secure? And why do I have to make the world around me secure? And why am I always seeing what's going on underneath the surface, which can either make

me a paranoid, delusional person or to make me an extraordinary psychic? It just depends on how free we are, because it's all a question of, can we use the gift in the service of life, or can we use the gift in the service of ego safety, right? And it's because, from my point of view, the core fear of somebody who has this is I am a nobody. And I can therefore be humiliated. It's sort of, you know, and it's shameful to be a nobody. You know, it's sort of like a 90-pound weakling on the beach who has sand kicked in their face and they can't stop it because this guy's a bully.

Can't stop it. And even if you're what's called counterphobic, because of course, when you're afraid, you can do several things, right? You can do fight, flight, or freeze, or you can become obsequious, which is what obsequious means like, you know, just a kind of pleasing, but a sort of deferential pleasing, which is what a lot of

what are called loyal skeptics who are self-preserving do, they become very warm. But their warmth, just so we can notice this, is not the warmth because I want approval, it's the warmth because I want to diffuse you. If I'm warm enough to you, it will keep you away from me. And what happens, of course, in a lot of schools is you get these kids who are what are called self-preserving loyal skeptics, and they're very warm. So the teachers who are often givers or mediators, which we'll get to, will say, oh, they want more attention or they want me to merge with them or they want me to give them more. So they come closer, you know, trying to take care of their needs or get an identity, at which point the poor little girl or boy freezes and becomes profoundly anxious. And people say, well, why are they doing that?

Because, you know, I've gotten in close. I give them all this attention and sort of like that's why they're doing it because you've gotten in too close and you're giving them too much attention it's like you know i'm being warm to you in order for me to have space in order for you to say you he's nobody to worry about or she's nobody to worry about i'll give them space so it's a really good thing to know and you can even feel the fear in that warmth um Whereas if you are other subtypes, you know, if you're one on one and you really want to connect it's called something, you know, it's called, I'm forgetting, I'm having a brain freeze here, which is I don't understand the enneagram um so the social ones are called duty and obligation those are the ones that sort of like are part of the world and uh oh strength

and beauty of course strength and beauty so strength and beauty sixes are very beautiful people and they're very you know beautiful and if they're social and sexual they're very charming but it's sort of also the strength and duty that keeps people at a distance it's sort of like there's a ice quality about the strength and beauty until you know you melt a little bit okay so i need to be somebody i need to feel secure this is what i do in life it's like i have to create this kind of security well there's a fundamental insecurity and the fundamental insecurity here that we're afraid to is that i am a nobody and whether i am phobic and i pull away from things and i'm sort of warm

in a deferential way or i freeze you know and i get like frozen like a deer in headlights or i go after the thing that i'm afraid of you know it's all the same thing there's still a sense of i'm a nobody and i'm gonna prove that i'm somebody or i'm gonna like make myself invisible i'm gonna cower but whatever it is i feel like i'm a nobody now of course if i could sit with i'm a coward, but whatever it is, I feel like I'm a nobody. Now, of course, if I could sit with I'm a nobody and the humiliation that they can do whatever they want to me and my sense of shame about it, then they couldn't do anything to me because I would have to have the courage, right, to say that that has nothing to do with what's outside of me. I came in predisposed to experiencing I'm a nobody. And so instead of feeling it myself, what I do is I project my fear out onto the world and I get very anxious about what they're going to do. As long as I can keep my anxiety about what's

external, I never have to feel the internal fear. And true courage, which is what, you know, courage and faith, which is what what skeptics teach us about is to be able to sit with the fact that the fear is coming from what it's inside of us. And I get to sit with my fear that I'm a nobody. What could anyone do to me? Because I have nothing to prove. And I wouldn't have to like keep myself secure you know and then it'd be less likely amazingly that they would kick sand in my face because I wouldn't be such a target as a victim so if you're with a loyal skeptic of course you have to feel what would be like if I spent all my time sort of like saying what's your hidden motive what do you really you know you look like you're being friendly but you really want to sell me 50 and use cars you know and i'm going to find your hidden motive you know so like i'm

going to find what's underneath like colombo i'll keep asking questions until i find out what the truth is here you know because then i can feel So of course, what we're going to do is we're going to feel I'm a nobody. We're going to feel that in the body. And then if I can face it and become it while I'm there holding in as a witness, you know, observing it. So we build up the inner observer to I'm a nobody,

then no one could hurt me because they could try to treat me like I'm a nobody. But I'd say, well, I already know that. So like, let's have a good time together or whatever. Okay, so that is our loyal skeptics. And now we're going to go to point seven, which are called various things. It's called, you know, the epicure, which means that I want to have the best of all experiences or the adventurer, which means that every, you know, life is an adventure and every adventure, you know, it's like, what's the best one or an optimist, which means, you know, if I'm a loyal skeptic, I say, well, what's the bad thing that's going to happen if I'm a seven, I'm going

to say, well, what's the pleasant good thing that's going to happen? I'm always looking for a pleasant good thing. All right. So I'm somebody who's very synthetic thinker. I can see all of what's going on. I'm a brainstormer. I love the creative act. I love saying, oh my God, life is an adventure. It's a mental adventure. It's a physical adventure. It's an adventure around everything. Like, you know, it's kind of like saying, you know, it's a kid, you know, adventure around everything like you know it's kind of like saying you know it's a kid you know the two kids and you know one's a six and one's a seven probably one's given a great horse and they're looking for what's wrong with the horse that one's given like a pile an enormous pile of horse manure and is digging away smiling and you know saying what's going on there and they say well there's this much manure there has to be a horse here someplace. That's seven, right?

Or seven also is, you know, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, who like don't want to be trapped, like painting the fence. Oh my God, that's work. So I have this really, really, really like wonderful idea that is sort of like pulling the wool over the eyes. And I'll say, oh my God, god my friends we have the best game it's called painting the fence and we'll only charge you 25 cents to paint the fence and of course they'll paint the fence they're all happy and i think they're getting

a deal and we go off fishing while we pocketed all the money you know that's the classic fixated seven story right life is just an adventure like that and it's all even so we don't want anyone to have power over us because then they can trap us and we do not want to be trapped so how is this a fear point and the way it's a fear point is what happens when someone is imposing on you they want you to feel bored or they want you to feel pain or they want you to feel whatever it is they want you to feel, but you don't want to feel, you know, dependent on any of these things, but particularly border pain. Terrible. So. I have to stay away from painful things.

I have to stay away from painful things. And if someone comes to me and they're in pain, they say, listen to me. You want to say, well, why would we do that? Who wants to feel that much pain in an ongoing way? Let's brainstorm our way out of it, which of course, if you're with certain people, they're your children, just doesn't work.

If they want you to just sit with them while they're feeling the pain, and the seven parables, that's crazy. But it's because they're afraid of their own pain so what's the fear right they would say i'm afraid that i will be bored well of course you could say my fear is i'm boring which i think actually a lot of sevens actually do feel they're boring but of course they're gonna like pull the wool over their eyes and everybody else's and i'll say no i'm excited but really i'd say well i really don't have that much to contribute because i'm just like this little kid right or you could say well their fear is feeling pain but why would someone fear feeling

pain and really i think what you get to is this fear is the sense of being unfulfillable and if you're a glass that's half full so to, there's still a half of a glass left. That's why I say it's still a point that's a head point, you know, because they're still saying there's not enough, right? And I'm not enough. And because I'm not enough, that means my experiences are going to fill me out, which means I have to wait around and never make a commitment and wait for the very best experience, even if it means I'm going to like, you know, leave you high and dry because, you know, you have to go for what's best. And if people get left high and dry, they get left high and dry, but one more learning experience. But if I could sit with my inner sense, this fear I have

about myself that I'm unfulfillable. And so I have to be filled up with something good and I have to keep being filled up with something good because it's like it never fills. If I could sit with my sense of unfulfillability and feel that in the body, then I wouldn't be so afraid of pain or boredom or somebody making demands or whatever it is they're going to do because I've sat with my unfulfillability so I'm free and I'm free to sit with my child if they're in pain and say daddy just listen to me and you won't have to fix their problem I'll say I'll be with you in what you're feeling I'll be with you when you're authentic feeling and then you're free so this was our quick journey around the headpoints both in terms of you was our quick journey around the headpoints,

both in terms of, you know, the three variations of the headpoints and the core fears that underlie that are called soul wounds, that we can heal, that come from no stories. They're just the core lenses through which we experience all of life. And if we can begin to be with those core lenses and sort of take off the glasses, so to speak, and see the lens we're looking through the world at, then we might see a clearer world, not just shadow dancing. So with that, my dear friends to our website, which is lifecenteredtherapy.com. And you can also reach out to me anytime you like at A-H-A-H-N, that's Ahon at lifecenteredtherapy.com. So until we meet again, at which point we will probably go to the belly points, but who knows what tomorrow brings?

Because if you guys say something or ask something or whatever, I also follow where you take us because life sometimes invites you into things you're not aware of until you go on the journey. So having said that, I wish you all well and goodbye.