Author: Ryan Klette

  • A simple pause

    A simple pause

    The most important part of my day is a simple pause.  I have a habit of pausing the mornings and I feel it in my day if I miss it. My day is always different when I start out in stillness – not caught up in activity. 
    So what I do is just sit, I sometimes breathe a bit in the beginning. Longer exhales and a few deeper inhales. What has been especially useful are one or two breath-holds. That just means after an inhale holding the breath for 20 seconds or so and then again really concentrating on the feeling and experience of the exhale. Noticing  how the nervous system responds to deliberate focus on the breath.  Then I let the breath go again and just come back to the experience of sitting with myself. Pure and simple as I am, resisting the temptation to change anything.  I just sit and see -a kind of witnessing of myself that gives permission for things to be as they are.

    For me, that’s  when the work starts. I exercise the muscle of allowing and being present to the good, bad and ugly in me. Its a practice and a commitment in a way, to continually meeting myself and make friends with what is stressful and uncomfortable, disease-full inside. In essence, catching up with myself on a regular basis. What I notice when I don’t do this is that I tend to be more in automatic [and unconscious] behaviors that lead to distractions. I get distracted usually because I am avoiding something uncomfortable inside so a I reach out for something will give some relief from experiencing what ever this something inside is. But what always amazes me is the experience of it is not the same as my thinking about it. Experiencing it means an allowing of something to complete even if it doesn’t feel good. The completion is what brings more calm to the nervous system.

    Why make a habit of this?  I feel the rewards are limitless as we can keep discovering more of what we are and take that of that out to life.  The firs pause in the morning is invaluable because it gives a reminder of whats with us and space to let some of it go. The result is less of a load and a connection with stillness as we go about the day. The more connected to life, the more constructive and fulfilling experiences we are likely to have.

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  • What are the Instinctual drives?

    What are the Instinctual drives?

    In Enneagram language, we talk about instinctual variants or drives as being related to personality but also separate from it. Personality happens up in the prefrontal cortex where our rationality and judgement reside too. But the instinct drives are sub-perceptual in the way that we can’t really reason with them because they originate in the body. We don’t think them into being. Our bodies alert us to these instinctual needs by way of sensation. If you are hungry, you know it right?  there are sensations in  the body associated with hunger or thirst. Those sensations move us towards satisfying the need.   What’s most important about this is that more often than not, people aren’t aware of their biases or the ways they prioritise one dominant instinct over other often neglected instincts.

    Here is an important point, what makes these impulses healthy. To my mind if they are in the body they serve some purpose and therefore must be a useful  reference point to keep life in balance. i.e. if  you feel hungry you can probably trust what the body is telling you and eat something. But when there is an emotional pattern at play, it may disrupt or override the natural functioning of instinctual energy. The simple impulses  in the body can then get distorted and we can end up doing things that really aren’t good for ourselves and those around us like over eating or neglecting nutrition, or hanging out with the wrong people or putting ourselves in groups we don’t want to be part of and the list goes on. All because for whatever reason, we weren’t listening to the intelligence of the body.

    What are the instincts? there are three, base need is Self-preservation. that’s all about our immediate needs to survive – food, water, temperature, shelter, resources to live, skills and livelihood. 
    Next and one notch up on the chakra line is the sexual/ creative instinct and sometimes referred to as one-to-one variant. Although, I think that Russ Hudson makes an excellent point here that one-to-one can be misleading in the way it implies that this drive depends on another person. Its more accurate to see the sexual drive as an electrical-like energy that exists on its own and has no other purpose but to evolve life, to diversify and perpetuate this life into greater and greater forms of beauty, wisdom and truth. It is vital life energy that move us fearlessly towards the things that excite and arouse us. if we block or accelerate/ overuse this energy because of shame or guilt we get from the many avenues in society, we pay the price in attracting partners and people in our lives that reflect this imbalance. The emotional patterns that make us doubt our attractiveness or worth so often get in the way of us experiencing this energy in a free and natural way. When we are present in our bodies and paying attention to ourselves we can also be present with this energy. When we do this, we don’t do anything that will cause us more shame later. We just follow the innocence of the expression and  in our vulnerability surrender to  an aspect of ourselves that is there to move us out of our comfort zone. That is the essential purpose of  this instinct, look at nature – male lions fight for their lives sometimes for mating rights. It is very much a question of life for life with the underlying current being a certain fearlessness that allows us to face the odds and move with an intelligence we simply cant control. That’s also why the end result always has the potential to be something more magnificent then we could have ever imagined from a limited left brain only state. 


    Finally, the social instinct is about our well-being in the context of the group. Its an essential part of our survival in the way that we are stronger together. Not only are we stronger together, we are biologically  wired to be together. This is clearly shown in the way that the worst forms of torture have a theme of social isolation. Regardless of our preservation needs, we simply don’t survive  on our own. We need other people to have a sense of belonging and place in the world. Without that, I’m not sure whether having meaning is even possible. Our social bonds make us more resilience in the face of adversity and keep us psychologically healthy when we have good relations within and between the groups that we belong to. Importantly, the social drive is not about being a good socialite. Rather its about knowing and sensing where ones best possible place is in the group and equally being able to discern whether the group context we find ourselves in is right for us. This can be the instinct that when healthy, drives us away from groups that have more destructive  energies and outcomes. The social intelligence keeps us tuned in and awake to the collective energies and movements with the group. 

  • Growing self preservation

    Growing self preservation

    Below is the practice exploration suggested by Jessica Dibb & Russ Hudson for the Self preservation instinct. Its good to be connected and in tune with all 3 instincts and how they show up in ones life. I will include practices for social and sexual subtype in another post.

    In essence, we want to feel the instincts as energies in the body even as we are engaging in the behaviors that these energies invoke for us. If you have a morning practice that helps you to cultivate presence and centering, its a good idea to use this to maintain a layer of awakeness that you can use to notice the movements of our instinctual energies during the day. Below are three practices for self-preservation.

    First practice: continue the practice of “presencing” the three centers with the focus on sensation, but take some extra time to focus on the sensing the self preservation instinct. As you sit, find a posture that
    works, and to get in deeper contact with breath and sensation. To review: as you feel at least somewhat established in this, see if you can notice the sensations of self preservation­­. What is your body telling you about needs, well being, comfort, etc? Can you feel the temperature of the room? Are you aware of digestion or other physical processes? Can you feel how your relaxation affects your breath and heart rate? The body is giving so many messages about how we are doing and what we are needing moment by moment. See if you can establish a deeper sense of connection with this intelligence as you go.


    Second practice: Use the awareness cultivated from your sitting to see if you can notice more about your relationship with the three zones of self preservation (Well being, practical wisdom and home) . You may be surprised that some of your “real time responses and reactions” are not exactly the way you might think about yourself. Most of us have self images that do not exactly correspond to what is happening in our more immediate experience. Notice through the day as various needs arise
    around self care, around practical considerations, and around your sense of home, of having a base to operate from. Does your attention flow more easily to some of these areas than others? Where do you tend to get preoccupied? What do you tend to overlook or leave to others to handle? What emotions and narratives arise as you are faced with attending to these areas of life? It can be very helpful to take some notes about this through the day and review them at the end of the day.
    You can support yourself in this endeavor by picking some specific times of day to take on the exercise and build Tiny habit anchors around these times – see what scripts are running in your mind and emotions.

    Third practice: As you gather impressions of your relationships with the three zones, select one of them that you would like to work on. Generally speaking, that will be the zone you feel less confident in, or one that you tend to overlook or neglect. Pick one or two behaviors that you will
    actually do, and like doing, and experiment with adding these new behaviors. It will take presence to remember to do this, and to actually engage the new practice. Pick something “humble” and small so the chances of success are greater. If you take on something too big, too difficult, any failures to follow through will generally lead to superego­inner critic attacks that will convince you that you cannot change. So something you will do, something you CAN do, something you WANT to do. For example, you might commit to taking walks or doing some stretches for the wellbeing zone. You might take on learning about what foods
    work for you better. You might commit to getting a bit more sleep, etc. You could look at various procrastinated tasks for the resource zone—looking at money, getting your affairs more organized etc. You might attend to some element of your home, or devise a practice to feel more grounded at home in other places that you are working or living. And you can enlist some help or company for any of these new behaviors. In other words, don’t be afraid to ask for support.

    Special thanks to Russ Hudson for these practice ideas.

  • real calm

    real calm

    Its easy to lose our reference to what it means to be calm in the first place, what that looks like for us in a very real and personal way. In any given day we are likely to hear (perhaps many times over!), “be calm” or “calm down”, “chill” or some iteration of the above. This just tends to aggravate the situation so lets look a little more at what it means to be calm.

    I think a better word is still. Still makes makes it clear that we feel it in the body. A moment of not moving but whats not moving ..

    For starters, clearly the mind can be moving even when we feel still so what is it that is still then? We can fall back into this spaciousness of being (that is always still) and let ourselves be carried for a moment, in the recognition that we are the way that we are and that really is ok even if it doesn’t feel that way.

    I think this is true calm because in the allowing of what is here in us right now – thoughts, feelings sensations, we can come to rest – attention is anchored in the spacious awareness beyond the confines of beliefs and ideas about how we think things should be.

    A little bath in stillness very often also leads to a state of play. And what a wonderful state to exercise on a daily basis. Moments of good old non-directional play, no other outcome other than the game at hand.

    In this time of lock down, calm and play can help us keep moving forward through what ever challenges present themselves because we feel resourced and resilient in a game state of mind. From here we can find the often non-linear, life affirming responses that keep us going forward in a good way.

  • core story

    core story

    But what ever that that stretch is, we need to be willing to see how we can be in the way of ourselves. You me and everyone without doubt have always got more to give. There is always a new stretch, a movement that we haven’t yet made that probably scares the hell out of us, maybe causes us to freeze and reach for an escape.

    Consider for a moment, what might my ‘whole lot more’ look like and where am I in the way? Deep down we know there is more and it can feel excruciating when we don’t pay enough attention to those movements our souls are calling for. Those invitations from life that would make us smile beyond our ears and yet the fear feels real and more often than not stops us for the sake of a safer path.

    But right now there is no safe path. If there is any time to face the fears we have been pushing aside, now is the time. How? my take is the most effective way is to get more intimate with your core story or what ever iteration of it is on play.

    These deeply held [mostly unquestioned] beliefs about who we are and whats possible need to be examined thoroughly so that we can live in a way that dances with life, the good – bad and ugly. Our nature untarnished, ego strong enough to take another step with the divine in hand.