Meander Again: The PauseCast with Angie Arendt, on Hope and Flow, and the Enneagram

Today, we pick up some of the threads we left before our break. We start with an exploration of what it means to return – to family, to relationships, to places we used to know – all in the context of stitching reverence and resilience into a cloth that fits us now. Yes, there’s a lot of “R”s in today’s episode – returning, reverence, resilience, ritual, repenting, re-membering, reminding… so many Rs.

I hope you’ll enjoy this episode; it’s so rich, and pulls together the threads of meanders past, in service of rekindling joy. Yes, more Rs! Please, share our work widely, give us a review to tease the algorithms. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Indra’s Net

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

In chapter three of Dina’s book, we’re looking at the ways that we attend to our broken hearts. In this meander we show the shifts that Dina is still making in her own grief journey. How, after 22 years, she is finally making space for herself in this journey. It is such a beautiful way of appreciating how we embody grief and it nourishes our own experience in the world. And irrevocably changes us in the process.

Invitations:

Out of each episode this season, we are offering people ways to increase their grief literacy. This month, we’re offering an invitation to you to explore how you cope with loss. What tools do you use? Are you an intuitive griever or an instrumental one? Do you take action and do things as you grieve, or do you emote? What happens when you do this?

In the meanwhile, feedback is welcome, so please drop us a note at meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s book, “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted” can be purchased through her publisher or at Singing Pebble Bookstore in Ottawa

Dina’s song, cowritten with Leslie Rohonczy

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

I hope you've enjoyed re-exploring joy as seen through the lens of the Enneagram. We covered a lot of ground from wholeheartedness, rebirth, community, ritual, storytelling and a whole lot more. And on this meander, I shared with you a bit about what I've learned about myself as I revisit my "two-ness" this time around.

As I look ahead to the end of winter and coming spring episodes, I can tell you that we'll continue to meander through Dina's book, "Grief Unleashed: from the whole in our hearts to wholehearted." Angie and I will continue to explore joy twice a month on The PauseCast  following in the footsteps of the poet Khalil Gibran. We left off in December "On Wonder" and we'll probably pick back up there with that theme. We do plan to explore big topics like On Support, and On Stress, On Nature and On Silence, among other things... or wherever whimsy takes us. I'll continue to meander with regular people about how they experience their joy, and we'll cover a little more about relationships, including grandparenting, in those meanders.

All that said, every meander is a surprise, and I hope you'll stick with us as we cover the landscape. The unifying theme across each of the meanders is JOY in the every day, showing how we can live more fulfilling lives. Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

PS... Zoomba is a dog who makes an appearance in this episode.   

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

If you want to learn more about the Enneagram, visit The Enneagram Institute

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Today we do a little recapping, and also reflect the Enneagram into our lives moving forward. How we can play with the characteristics of our type, and begin to learn how to choose how to respond to situations as opposed to simply react in our age-old way. This can create some unease in our relationships because we are acting outside of how others expect us to be… in our personal lives, and in our work lives too.

In short, the Enneagram is both information (what’s my type, what are the gifts and challenges of my type), and a practice of pausing and paying attention to who I am and how that plays into my relationship with myself and others. How do I show up with my gifts? And how can that affect the world? We talk about how the Enneagram can save the world… yeah, that big and that small too.

There’s this and more in this episode, I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com. Angie and I will be back in the fall with some fresh meanders, but I will repost past episodes over the summer so stay tuned for “Meandering Again” episodes.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

Soulfulness…what is it? How does it differ from spirituality? Why does it matter? And how does the Enneagram support it?

In this meander, we explore how the Enneagram is both a tool and a practice… a tool of information about my type and the other personality types, and then the invitation into awareness, so that when I slow down, I can know myself, and see where my gifts lie, and also how I trip myself up… and a practice, an ongoing intention, to pay attention to how I show up and catch myself in my own habit loop of behaviour. And from that place, choose how I want to respond to life in this moment. And this “Enneagram as a practice” supports both soulful moments in my day-to-day, and occasionally, moments of awe-inspiring spirituality. You get the gist. 

There’s this and a lot more in this episode; I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

We kibbitz around a bit to begin with around unexpected connections in the supermarket, and that old game from the 1990s, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon… which was really about just how connected we all are in this great big world. We wrestle with expectations, the ones we have when coming new to the Enneagram, how the first level of exploration is seeking information, that’s all. The next level is about understanding those types, and those types in us….each of those types, not just our own homebase. And with time, and in community with others, we can drop in further and ask: What’s Next?

In this fast-paced world, the Enneagram is an invitation to pause and look at our stories so we can find ourselves. We explore this through story telling, and finding grace, and grief, and gratitude in the process. We dive into all of that today.

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

What is hope? And what is flow? Back in 2022, Angie and I explored these things… we said that hope is our background program that helps us get up in the morning. It’s actionable and intentional; it empowers us to do what we are here to be. And flow… flow happens when we let go of aspiration and just be who we are at our essence, in this very moment. And when we apply the lens of the Enneagram we ask: how does this framework help us explore our spirit, our very souls, and find our way into the flow of life that is, effortless? We find that we do this in nine different ways… 

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

We again referenced Richard Wagamese’s book “Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations”  in this meander

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

Ritual and storytelling… intertwined these are. And when conducted using the framework of the Enneagram, I have learned a great deal about myself that has supported my personal development and enriched my relationships. In short, this is what this kind of work is all about.

As we’ve said before on these PauseCasts, the Enneagram gives us permission to pause, and in that pause, to look at who we be, in service of the Greater Good… or Life… or God, whatever your preferred language is for this that is bigger than us alone. In today’s meander, Angie and I explore how ritual and storytelling get us closer to our “…real, essential self” in the words of Richard Wagamese from his book “What Comes from Spirit.” 

In short, rituals slow us down enough so that we can see how our stories inform our world view

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Here’s a book review of Richard Wagamese’s book “What Comes from Spirit” that Trudy referenced in the beginning of our meander 

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com

We start our meander with a reading from Richard Wagamese (Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) novelist, journalist, and mentor), a passage from his book "Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations" which I think is really about hope. How it’s not enough to be resilient if being so means bouncing back to the same place… what he wants for himself, and offers to us, is to reach Beyond resilience, to a new place of growth, each day. Angie and I wrestle with “resilience” and from this place I ask a few basic questions: do we need resilience to be capable of rebirth? And how does the Enneagram support rebirth? And finally, if personal development is an inside job, how does community fit in?

The funny thing about the Enneagram, and personal development in general, is that the work is both an inside and an outside job. Inside as we look at ourselves and our habits of behaving, believing, and so on so we can see how they serve us. Outside as we need support, and to be held to account, as we do the inner work.  And in community, in contact and communion with each other, we create something more than ourselves. 

Just as the Enneagram gives us a mirror to see ourselves, there is often a lot there about ourselves that we see that we just don’t like. And here’s where community comes in – as its best, community is a supportive place where people who care about us help us see who we are, and help us sit with those things about ourselves that we don’t like. In community, we get the strength to look at who we are, without judgement but with great kindness, enabling us to see how that serves us, or not. And then change, if we wish. Rebirthing ourselves... as we shift.

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.  We believe these meanderings matter, and we hope you do too. So please share.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

milk and honey, by rupi kaur

"Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations", by Richard Wagamese

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com