IEA Board Letter June 2018 – Transformation and Belonging

I’ve just come in from the Sydney Theatre Company’s rendition of Saint Joan, the play written by George Bernard Shaw. I feel uplifted, inspired.

Joan of Arc is an icon of protest. From the age of twelve, she was convinced she would change the course of history. She did so before her seventeenth birthday. 

Her faith in herself and in her cause, which inspired an entire army to victory, were both her greatest strength and her downfall. She was radical in her individualism, a young woman leading men into battle, a beacon of light in a shadowy world of medieval establishment. She refused to be put in the box that her world constructed for her, no matter the consequences. 

She spoke her truth, her owned truth, her truth that was real and instinctual. This play reminded me that I must speak the truth that lives so deeply inside me. How often I get distracted from what I know to be true, by my reactivity – by allowing the voices inside me to tell me I’m not enough, I’m better than, I’ll be rejected.

The play gave me the opportunity to reflect upon the great gift I have been given, the gift we all have been given in the Enneagram. When we use it with respect and integrity, it gives us the opportunity to recognize our real truth and to know when we are being driven by something that lives in our aware self rather than from reactivity.      

This leads me to remind you that the countdown is now on! It’s now less than 6 weeks till we gather in Cincinnati for the Pre-Conference Day of our Global IEA Conference with its theme of Building Bridges – Collaborating in Community. It’s an exciting time. So much work and effort from our Board and volunteers to make this an opportunity for networking, collaboration, learning and some plain good fun! If you haven’t registered for the conference yet, I’d encourage you to click this link to Register Now!  

Our keynote speaker, Peter Block, is the author of Community: The Structure of Belonging. His insights into the nature of strong communities includes changing the conversation from solving problems to building relationships and focusing on the gifts at hand.  He will be one not to miss.

There will be 35 options for learning from IEA members in four learning tracks – Enneagram Basics, Enneagram in Business, Enneagram for Personal and Spiritual development, and Enneagram for Societal Change.

Now is your chance to explore and experience our vibrant Enneagram community in Cincinnati – the City of Bridges. When I was in Cincinnati in February, I found the city to be vibrant and alive. At our Welcome Cocktail event at the Westin in February, we as a Board got to experience the enthusiasm of the Cincinnati Enneagram community, along with business leaders, enthusiasts and first timers to the Enneagram. My overwhelming sense was a feeling of inclusive belonging. It was a memorable experience. So I’d invited you to experience this welcome yourself at our conference.

Through the generosity of so many of you in our community, we have been able to award 18 scholarships to our Conference this year. Country recipients include the USA, Australia, South Africa, Canada and UK. Ages of applicants range from 21 to 70. As a community, thank you for enabling this achievement.

It always makes me proud when I hear about how much is happening within our Enneagram community in teaching this transformational system. The IEA regional conference in Amsterdam was a great success. I couldn’t be there this year so I enjoyed the numerous posts and pictures on Facebook about the conference. Here in Australia, I attended a training last week with Ginger Lapid Bogda in Melbourne around her new book The Art of Typing. Peter O’Hanrahan visits us here in Brisbane early next month to do more of the Narrative Training and a Subtype and Instincts workshop.  I know so many of you who I communicate with have been teaching around the globe and it makes me excited knowing that this system is being brought to the world.

To finish with a quote from Joan herself from the play “They all say I’m mad until I talk to them.” And perhaps that’s what many think of the Enneagram until we talk to them about the system and unpack it to enable others to experience its transformative qualities for living a better life.

I look forward to seeing you in Cincinnati in July,

Patrick Kayrooz

Vice President

Board of Directors

International Enneagram Association