**An excerpt from Enneagram Ones Lesson 1

At the heart of Enneagram work is self-awareness. Even though you already know your number, self-observation is still what’s needed to manage it. We can’t change what we can’t name and we can’t name what we don’t observe. So this first week we will focus on growing in self-awareness.

In our culture we are often moving too quickly. Our attention is divided from the minute we wake up in the morning. Our phones with all of their notifications, our jobs with all of their demands, and our friends and families wanting our attention

We are also plagued with the expectation of multi-tasking. If you are only doing one thing at a time, you must not be doing it right! If we dig a bit deeper and are honest, we too often equate our self-worth and value with being busy. It doesn’t matter exactly what we are doing, just that we are doing something. Being still is anathema. But being still is exactly what God calls us to, especially if we want to work on changing the parts of us that need transformation. Again, we can’t change what we can’t name and we can’t name what we don’t observe.

Remember the focus of these practices is self-awareness, pausing long enough to notice what you notice with the goal of disidentifying from your personality by catching yourself and actually watching it in action. This can be a really strange experience at first, simply because we are not accustomed to this. We are much more comfortable moving quickly and accomplishing our goals and to-do lists or just distracting ourselves with busyness when feel the slightest sense of unpleasant emotions rising to the surface. But the faster we move and the more distracted we are, the chances of becoming our True Self in Christ grows smaller and smaller.

Now, as you practice self-awareness this week, it crucial that you do so in a nonjudgmental way. When you do catch yourself in the act, observing the habitual and automatic patterns of your behavior, don’t beat yourself up. And as a Type One, it will be a bit more challenging for you because you naturally have a judging and comparing mind. What happens when you start judging yourself for your behavior is that your personality takes right back over and self-awareness goes out the window. You start questioning yourself and berating yourself. “See, you can’t do this Enneagram work!” “Why are you so bad at this!” “I bet other numbers can do this so much better than you!” If you start to hear these voices, take a deep breath, observe what they are saying but don’t converse with them! Simply notice it and let it go. I’ve heard many Ones say that journaling about the voices can help them with objectivity and gaining distance from them so you might consider that.