Somatic Experiencing and Enneagram Work w/ Kenna Ledbetter
The following comes from an online interview I did with Enneagram Coach and soon-to-be Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Kenna Ledbetter.
If you are unfamiliar with the Enneagram, you can learn more about it here.
Andrew Lang: How were you introduced to the enneagram and how long have you been working with it as a teacher?
Kenna Ledbetter: My ex boyfriend came home after a long drive home listening to The Road Back to You on Audible. He was in tears describing how impactful it was and it naturally caught my attention.
After listening myself, I assumed I was a 2w3. For about six months I thought I was a 2 until I could feel that being valuable to others was more of what drives me than being loved by others. I knew I was an achiever, but 3s get described as so task-oriented. I didn’t see myself being that way until I realized how much my own task-oriented nature is wanting success for the benefit and value it brings to me and my loved ones.
Since the end of 2019, I’ve been passionately hungry to learn about the Enneagram.
It has been one of the biggest tools to support my own grieving process since and throughout the pandemic.
I wanted to extend its resources out to those who were also learning it, and those who have yet to hear of it.
Andrew Lang: What's a way you see the enneagram being used or taught today that isn't particularly healthy/helpful?
Kenna Ledbetter: I feel like there is a common phasing process to learning the enneagram:
Phase 1: What is my type?
Phase 2: What can I learn about my type? Books books books…
Phase 3: What can I learn about my other access points and what can I learn about the type my lover, friends, and family lead with?
Phase 4: And this is the tricky one…I think in this phase we see all of the types in black and white: elements we need to correct and be made aware of. And it’s that idea that others “need” to be made aware of that forces so many to shine a bright burning light onto peoples’ sensitivities. And it’s done with a passionate drive that makes us feel calibrated with the personalities around us, rather than out of love, really, for the other.
And somewhere in realizing this strategy to name others’ truths is Phase 5: Learning to be with the humanity you see in another and in doing so, you get a glimpse into their divinity too.
I think after you’ve reached phase 5, you can start practicing being a real impactful enneagram teacher and practitioner.
Andrew Lang: What is the relationship you sense between the enneagram and communal/community healing?
Kenna Ledbetter: Shit. What a question.
Our type will always be out when our fear is out.
And when our reactivity to fear is out, we do some pretty destructive things. Learning about your reactivity and how your body can come to learn about regulation of that fear response also means our enneagram type can find support as well in the common constrictive patterns the books tell us about.
Doing the healing work that includes feeling nervous system regulation means we can experience an enneagram expansion opportunity at a nervous system level that paves a path for all of us to be more conscious of ourselves, and others too.
The enneagram is an additional tool that, as Michael Shahan has said, is like turning on a flash light to the inner work. [But] knowing the tool isn’t the work. Integrating with it is.
And the real goal is that it only adds to collective compassion for us and each other.
Andrew Lang: What does the interplay between the enneagram and somatic work look like for you? Where do these two come together?
Kenna Ledbetter: I think the answer is in the last question, but basically the way we can look at our response to fear can help us understand our mind, body, and soul.
The enneagram is within all three of those areas when we find ourselves constricted and somatic work is just the practice of working with those triggered parts to feel beyond the constriction, trusting that it’s okay to feel beyond the constriction. The enneagram helps us know where those “beyond” areas can possibly lay, and we can practice reaching out towards.
Andrew Lang: With all that said, and seeing this connection between the somatic and enneagram work, how can somatic awareness and becoming more in touch with the wisdom of our bodies support our own becoming?
Kenna Ledbetter: We can tolerate uncertainty much more curiously and much less reactively.
