Terry Saracino and Renée Rosario of The Narrative Enneagram

We bring our teachers to the Toronto area yearly, so that people can benefit from The Narrative Tradition at its best.

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Terry Saracino and Renée Rosario taught a 2 day workshop on The Enneagram in the Relational Field: Loving-Kindness to Me, Loving-Kindness to You,  October 19-20, 2019 Acton ON.

The Enneagram invites us on a journey inward, giving us an understanding of what motivates us day to day.  At the same time, it invites us outward, providing a way to perceive others more clearly.  Through our Enneagram work we develop our capacity to witness what arises in our minds, hearts and bodies.

In this process we may experience aversion to what we discover in ourselves and others, especially those who matter most.  “If what we feel upsets us, all too often our next response means we tune out, which helps us feel better but blocks compassionate action.”*  This can be harmful to ourselves and to our relationships.

When we cultivate Loving-Kindness to support our growth process, it can facilitate meeting some of the challenges we encounter. Our hearts become more available and compassionate, both toward ourselves and toward others.  Developing concern for other people’s well-being has the surprising and unique benefit of energizing our brain’s capacity for happiness as well as compassion.*

In this class, we practiced Loving-Kindness.  In addition, panel and small group inquiry supported us in understanding our individual and type barriers to being kind to ourselves and others.

* Source: Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson – a book on the benefits of meditation

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Terry Saracino and Renée Rosario taught a 2 day deeper dive into Loosening our Type Structure,  March 24-25, 2018 Acton ON.

The Enneagram Narrative focuses on integrating three crucial aspects of personal development: the psychological, spiritual and somatic. We can work on each of these three elements separately.  There is much value in doing so. But, working with these three areas together creates a synergy that greatly increases the effectiveness of personal growth work.

In this workshop, participants learned an integrated approach that helps us have more choice around our unconscious patterns and strengthens our capacity to be “present” in day-to-day life. The focus was on combining a deeper understanding of our patterns (psychological) with awareness practices (spiritual) that enable us to meet without judgment what arises in our body (somatic).  As we do this, our type structure loosens.  It is challenging, but ever so important work. The result is healthier relationships and living more authentically.

The format of the workshop included panel interviews in The Narrative Tradition, guided meditations, brief didactics, and body-centered practices, to answer questions such as:

* What does your type believe you need to be to be ok?
* What feelings do you need to avoid?
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What do you experience when you try to change?

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Renée Rosario taught a 2 day workshop on Passions and Virtues, June 3-4, 2017 Limehouse Hall.

We explored and experienced what Helen Palmer calls the “vice to virtue conversion.” The vices or passions (anger, pride, deceit, envy, avarice, fear, gluttony, lust, sloth) are the emotional expression of our type structures.  We can think of the passion of the type as an actual vise:  an emotional contraction that is trying to hold things together.  From this perspective, the passion or vice is the life force contracted upon and channeled in service of the adaptive structure of the type, which is a necessary aspect of our human development and serves us for a time. The virtue is free-flowing life force, which has qualities of well-being, love and the virtues or each Enneagram type (serenity, humility, honesty, equanimity, non-attachment, courage, constancy, innocence, right action.) The vice to virtue conversion can be seen as leaning into our contraction, going receptive, allowing it to naturally convert or transform into the free-flowing energy of the life force, the virtue.  We move from contraction, the vice, to expansion, the virtue.  It is the pulse of our growth and awakening.

This class was presented in The Narrative Enneagram, which brings the Enneagram to life through interview and inquiry of the nine Enneagram types. Included with panel inquiry were didactic and somatic awareness practices, and group discussion which supported learning through mind, heart and body.