Episode 206 Ego Love, Soul Love, and the Journey Home

In this episode of The Real Enneagram, we delve into the heart center of intelligence within the Enneagram framework. We explore the significance of emotional intelligence, particularly how it relates to our experiences and interactions in the world.

Scott, a type five, shares his journey of reconnecting with his emotions, emphasizing the importance of feeling and accepting our feelings rather than analyzing them solely from the head. He discusses how this process began with grounding himself in his body and learning to embrace his heart's intelligence.

We also touch on the societal conditioning that often discourages us from expressing, or even feeling, our emotions, leading to a disconnect from our true feelings. Joe adds depth to our conversation by distinguishing between egoic emotional intelligence and the deeper, soul-level emotional intelligence that fosters genuine healing and connection.

As we reflect on the nature of relationships, we highlight the difference between seeking someone to complete us versus finding a partner who complements our wholeness. We emphasize the importance of nurturing love at a soul level, which allows for vulnerability and support in our relationships.

In closing, I offer a prayer for our listeners, encouraging them to remember their holy origin and to let go of the need to earn love through ego-driven strategies. We invite you to engage in self-inquiry, pondering where in your life you may still be seeking validation and what it would look like to embrace love simply as you are. Thank you for joining us today!

To learn more about the Institute for Conscious Being, visit: theicb.info

Transcript

Scott:
You are now listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O.

Nanette: Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. I'm Nanette Mudiam, and I'm so happy today to be here with Dr. Joseph Howell and with Scott Smith. Hey, guys.

Scott: Hey, Nanette. We're happy to be here with you, too.

Nanette: Good. Well, we today are in each other's heart space. And that's one of my favorite things about recording here with these guys is the shared space that we that we find. And there's resonance in that. when we get together. We have an old church word for this, it's called fellowship. And it feels like kinship, like friendship. And there's so much loneliness in the world, so much isolation. And it's very special to spend time with these guys and get to also record a conversation for you. So we're happy to be with you guys today. and hope we're gonna share our hearts with you a little bit as we talk about the heart center of intelligence. So in the teachings of the Enneagram, we divide the Enneagram, the nine types, into three centers of intelligence. We start at the top with the eight, nine, and one in the in the body center of intelligence. And then we move down to the heart, two, three, and four in the heart center of intelligence, and then five, six, and seven in the mind center or the head center of intelligence. And so we are just going to have a conversation today specifically about the heart center of intelligence, which even if you are not an ego type in in that center, um you integrate to it or you disintegrate to it or you have a wing to it there's always a path you can travel all of the enneagram and get there so there there is a way to the heart and it's important um to have a healthy heart center of intelligence because This is really the seat of a word or a phrase that has become more common in this day and age that we would call emotional intelligence. And we've recognized that people have different types of intelligence in the world. But emotional intelligence is not so natural to all of us. It can be a bit challenging for others. Would you agree with that, Scott?

Scott: Absolutely.

Nanette: And I'm not picking on Scott. I'm only just saying, you know, he's a type five. So if he's going to lean naturally into the heart center of intelligence, he has a wing over there in type four. But if he travels, it takes a little while before he gets to the heart center in integration. So sometimes that can be challenging, would you say?

Scott: Oh, absolutely.

Nanette: Yeah. So talk to us, Scott, about how you develop emotional intelligence. Or work on that.

Scott: Yeah. How do I work on that? Well, like I've talked about in previous episodes, for me, it really started with getting back in touch with the body. And then from there, the heart. Although the heart is also part of the body instead of the head. Physiologically speaking, anyway.

Nanette: We're not trying to detach anything or value one as more than the other. We need all the centers.

Scott: But I'd say for me, at first, I was realizing that I had been living in my head. I'd been thinking exclusively with my head. I'd been experiencing the world exclusively from the head. So I was experiencing everything. I wasn't experiencing everything. I was analyzing everything, interpreting, conceptualizing, judging, assessing, but I wasn't feeling a damn thing and didn't really have an awareness of What does it mean to feel? I've said it before for the longest time, you know, everybody says, find your passion, find your passion, Scott, and you'll, you'll never work a day in your life, just find your passion and do it. So for most of my life, I was trying to figure out

Nanette: From your head, asking where your passion is. Yeah, and it's something you feel.

Scott: So for me, it started with just being able to feel what I was feeling and feeling it from a place of neutrality. And to me, that's a place of receptivity, of welcoming what is. Because when I say neutrality, it makes it seem like, oh, I don't care. It's as if all my life I resisted feeling what I was feeling until that became the default. And it was a bit of a process to learn to realize how much I was resisting and then to find what actually just sitting with the feelings felt like. And then finding capacity to accept those feelings, to love them, to welcome them back into myself. It's a little difficult to describe succinctly. It is very much a process and it's an ongoing process, but it really ties back to my spiritual practice, which is rooted in embodiment and it's inclusive of all three centers. And that body intelligence gives like a place of groundedness for the heart to be supported by to ground the stimulus coming in through the portal of my heart so that it can be integrated rather than being reactive like we were talking about previously. I suppose the first step for a lot of people and perhaps especially men in our culture is just how to begin feeling what you're feeling. I mean, that's a starting point.

Nanette: the practice maybe of identifying the feelings to name them.

Scott: Yeah, because I was so out of touch with my body and my heart and my emotions that I often did not know what I was feeling until it built up into just this huge thing that exploded.

Nanette: It's interesting how we how we develop this approach to life, while growing up, we tell kids don't cry, or we say, don't be angry, or, you know, we don't, we tell people, children from such a young age, right, to not feel their feelings, because somehow, They're too wild, too untamed, too much. And so we learn from a really early age not to feel our feelings, to stuff that, or to put it someplace else, or to save that till you get home.

Scott: to manage our feelings, to organize, to organize them, to numb them, to attempt to cause ourselves to express them at what we think is the appropriate times. And, you know, like a good friend of mine often says, organization has its place. We wouldn't be here recording this podcast if we hadn't organized it. When we get preoccupied with organizing everything, we lose the ability to be organized by the present. Or I think in our ICB language, we might say to allow ourselves to be organized by the divine.

Nanette: Would you like to add something, John?

Joe: Well, I really resonate with Scott's truth today, because to get out of his personality's structure, he would have to go to eight, which is in the body. And it's the place of his soul child. And to have known Scott while he did this work, and then went into the work of embodiment because his center is where he was born. It was not only refreshing but inspiring to see a man take control of his feelings because he got to the point that, not to put words in your mouth, but that his body was speaking to him. It was saying, pay attention to me. And instead of burying that, I saw you. you didn't bury it, you took it and you worked with it. Even after you regressed some, you still kept on. And then you got into the embodiment work with Philip Shepard and that really helped you tremendously. And we see now somebody who I guess the word a settled soul would be a good description, not anxious soul.

Scott: Thank you, Joe. That means a lot. It is an ongoing process.

Nanette: What it tells me is we can develop emotional intelligence. We can acknowledge this center by dropping into our souls, that in our soul is all the intelligence that we need of our bodies, the head is also not evil, the heart is not. There is a place for development when we can drop into the soul, because there's a lot of woundedness in many of us in these areas. And, you know, we are seeking, hopefully, as adults to heal, right?

Joe: Yes. Well, you know, when you brought up the word emotional intelligence, has struck a chord with me, Nanette, that there are two levels of emotional intelligence. There's the egoic level. And then there is the soul level, or the soulality level. And the ego can be emotionally intelligent, because it can go in and with its strategies, for example, read a room, or read somebody's body language, blah, blah, blah. But they don't ever have to go to the soul to do that. It's all very, for want of a better word, scientific. It's inductive and deductive reasoning that the ego does. It has its own algorithms for who fits the person that they like, who fits for people that they may find difficult, what situation is advantageous to their narrative, what situation is not something they really want to get into, because it won't further their narrative. But when we're looking at things like grief, or when we're looking at loneliness, when we're looking at things like tremendous anxiety that hijacks our happiness, the ego really does not have strategies for that. It can pretend it has strategies for that, but those healings come on the level of the soul. And on the level of the soul, it's up to us to get the qualities of the soul that actually heal those impediments. I know for myself, grief has been a journey that I've had to take through the loss of our children. And it was my soul child that led me into qualities that I had at my birth that really were latent But that when I went back to those qualities through self-remembering, through guided imagery, through meditation, I began to feel them again. And they were the very qualities that I had put on hold as a six-year-old to have my ego take over. But when I made the return visit Those qualities were there as vibrantly as ever, and I could access them. Those qualities, which were, to name some, presence and resilience and faith and kinship essence, those qualities were what took me out of infinite sadness and gave me sanity and joy. I would never have had that. I have to say for our listeners that you mean your soul child has replaced God? No, it hasn't. It was God. who reintroduced me to the soul child.

Scott: Say that all those qualities are not discrete things that you can go out and obtain. They're not things that are owned by your soul child. They're qualities of God, of the present, of the divine, however you wish to conceptualize it. that you can share in, that your soul child can feel, that your ego has no capacity to feel or experience, but your soul child can feel God and can share in those qualities. But the ego tries to go out and obtain those qualities and it never can because they're not obtainable things. They're things that are already here. that we've desensitized to, that we can't control, that we can share in, that we can surrender to.

Nanette: Because the ego is fundamentally motivated by fear, right? It's motivated by lack or not enough to grab, to try to obtain, to hold on to.

Joe: Well, it came into existence as a reaction to lack.

Nanette: So the only way to overcome that is through the love that is found in soul. And that is the only place we will sincerely find it.

Joe: And that's the work.

Nanette: That is the work. because, you know, we all, we have all experienced woundedness in some way, whether it's grief or loss or divorce or heartache of some sort, it's common to humanity. And so our responses also can be common, that the solution is in the soul. And I think you know, many spiritual practices and many different faiths have pointed us to that. And so, but the Enneagram has certainly helped many of us to find a clear path to how to find those answers in our own souls.

Joe: That's why the Institute exists. Yes. The Institute for Conscious Being because to raise consciousness is the healing.

Nanette: I think back to what you just were saying a minute ago that the different types of emotional intelligence that you can have, because I was thinking when you were describing the ego's emotional intelligence, I thought, well, every two, three, and four I know is emotionally intelligent. You know, they're very aware of other people, right? They're very aware of of how to read a room or how or people's body languages or how to serve them or, you know, and it makes perfect sense, you know, that there should be a differentiation in emotional intelligence. of the ego, but then also that the soul's emotional intelligence. Well, that means everyone of the nine types can be emotionally intelligent because our souls know how to love. It is our nature to love in our souls and to serve one another and to not be motivated by fear or lack or anger or shame. So we are drawn to certain people who embody our lost holy idea. And so sometimes at an ego level, we can meet someone who we feel like meets our needs, reinforces our story. But on a soul level, a beloved really points us back to our divine origin. Sadly, we don't always have a lot of people on a soul level in our lives. There are not many beloveds. If we're lucky, maybe we have one. I believe Joe, you have a beloved. And so talk to us about how we nurture love at a soul level.

Joe: Well, I believe that looking into the eyes of the beloved is looking into the eyes of the divine. Because you are on a different frequency with beloveds. You are on a frequency of the mind, body, heart, and soul. Because when the soul is the fuel behind the three centers of intelligence, That changes the dynamics if both of you are doing it together. Because there's a lack of ego. You don't mind apologizing. You don't mind saying I got that wrong. You don't mind saying I've made a mistake. You don't mind pointing out some issues or inconsistencies with the other person because you know how they're going to take it, what the intention is, what the aim is, and you're doing that. It's a complete game changer with the beloved from moving in the world with the egoic relationships. And you have to admit, most relationships are egoic, because we have to have a face to the world. We cannot be vulnerable like we were when we were soul children, because we can get hurt too badly. But with the beloved, we can.

Nanette: Because we are in safe space. We are in a space soul.

Joe: And that relationship is sharing the same vibration and the same will to deepen that relationship.

Nanette: Can it be developed, Joe? Because I think Did you have this relationship with your wife, Lark, when you first got married? I mean, I would imagine as a young person, yes, maybe you were connected at the soul level, but you were more living an ego when you first got married, right? So you've developed this belovedness over the maturity of both of your spiritual lives.

Joe: And I believe that the belovedness that we did develop before the loss of our children, I believe that that's why instead of separating like many couples do after the death of a child, I think it deepened our relationship.

Nanette: Because you were able to support the soul in one another. Yes.

Joe: Even if it meant the different ways we grieved, we were able to honor that that was the soul's way of doing that work. And it didn't repulse us. And there was no blame.

Nanette: Yes. Yeah.

Joe: Only support.

Nanette: It makes me think about how, in the ego,

Scott: We fall into this fallacy that I need to find someone to complete me. I need to find someone to fill this hole in my heart. And, you know, that was me. Um, I I've had a few relationships in my life and they were earlier in my life and they always ended up quite codependent with a lot of projection because we entered into it with this idea that you're going to give me something that I'm lacking. It's my feeling now that you don't. seek out a romantic relationship for the sake of someone completing you, you find someone that complements you, that supports you, that you realize that you're already whole, you're already complete in and of yourself. Um, and then, yeah, you can support each other in a relationship rather than just a constant, are you giving me what I need? Are you giving me what I need? Are you still going to give me what I need?

Nanette: You know, I appreciate you sharing that, um, Scott, because I, I think, you know, Joe and I both I know, count ourselves so blessed and fortunate to have really healthy marriages. And quite honestly, we're lucky to have that. But there are many people listening in our audience who don't, who find themselves single or in a marriage that maybe is maybe they're doing the work of their soul, but maybe their partner isn't. And so it's challenging that, and I appreciate your encouragement that you can be whole as a single individual, and that hopefully, you approach the world with with now and maybe a future relationship with not looking for someone to fix you, complete you, but in bringing your whole self to that relationship. And whether or not that's romantic, or even just in friendship or in partnership, that we give our whole healthy self to relationships rather than looking I mean, isn't that so often the frustration, even in our own families, if we think about parents or siblings or workmates, that we're looking for other people to feed our ego, to validate us or give us the love and security that we so often are looking for. Rather, if we could approach other people whole and healthy and not needing them to meet our egos, specific needs. So if I can, I'll just close with a prayer today. As we close out this, these last podcast on the heart center of intelligence. Dear God, help my heart remember its holy origin. Show me where I am trying to earn love and gently return me to the truth. that I am already held in your overflowing love. May my heart become a channel of compassion for myself, for those close to me, and for all of creation. Amen.

Nanette: Amen.

Nanette: We'll close today with our self-inquiry for you to either ponder or to practice in a dyad. Where in my life am I still trying to earn love through my ego's strategies? And what would it look like to let myself be loved simply as I am? Thank you so much for joining us today.

Scott: Thank you, Nanette. Thank you for listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. The music for today's podcast was composed and performed by ICB faculty member Drexel Rayford.

Nanette: Thanks for listening today. We hope you liked what you heard. If you did, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your friends and family.