Tag Archives: spiritual practice

Enneagram Type 2: Sample Practice

Enneagram Type 1: Sample Practice

Exercise C: A Discussion with the Inner Critic

Type one’s often face an inner critic. A personality-within-a-personality that offers a never ending diatribe about all the things that they are doing wrong. Sometimes, it is helpful to meet this creation head on.

There are many ways and approaches to disarming the inner critic. One is to name it something ridiculous and personify it in a manner that is outragous. A second is to be more humane with it. On this account, we recognize that it once did us good.

The Exercise

Find an empty chair. Bring it near you.

Close your eyes and take three deep breaths.

Consider your inner critic and consider the power it has over your life. Ask yourself which approach would work best for taming it.

Now, personify your inner critic. See her or him sitting in the chair. Imagine the color of the critic’s hair. The timbre of their voice. See the clothes your critic is wearing.

Sit in silence with the critic for a time.

Tell the critic that it is no longer doing what it set out to do. Explain that it has worn out its welcome.

Dismiss the critic. Let it disapear.

Spend some quiet time alone.

For more practices curated especially for Enneagram type 1, see Contemplating The Enneagram, available in May 2020.

Building a Spiritual Practice Through Transitions Email #2

Building a Spiritual Practice Through Transition, Email #1

Leave a reply

Thanks for joining The Faith-ing Project’s September Email Exploration. You probably know that this time around, the focus is on building a spiritual practice through times of transition, deconstruction and liminal spaces. These emails will launch every other day at 5 PM US Eastern Standard Time.
They will consist of 3 parts. This introductory section will introduce ideas relevant to building a spiritual practice of related to the topics of transition, deconstruction and liminal space.
The middle section will consist of the day’s suggested spiritual practice.
The bottom section will feature announcement and updates about other exciting events, generally those related to The Faith-ing Project.
Many of the positive outcomes connected to a spiritual practice will come up when they are practiced at least once a day. On the “off days” when no email arrives, it is highly recommended that you give a second try to the most recent spiritual practice.
It’s exciting to have you on this journey! Thanks for taking it with us. There are lots of ways to connect with me and I love hearing from participants. If you would like to share observations, please reply to this email, click the links at the bottom of this page, or send a message to otherjeffcampbell7@gmail.com

Background: This prayer become popular in the centering prayer movement. It was originally written by Mary Mrozowski. It is a method of recognizing, then releasing difficult emotions.

This is an important place to begin during times of transition. It is inevitable that lots of feelings, many difficult to manage, pop up in the midst of change. For this reason, our next exercise will be a similiar practice, designed to identify and welcome the feelings that pop up for us.

It is always advisable to read through the practice before beginning them. Notice that on step 5 today you will have a choice to make about the specific words that you use. Choosing which one you are going to use in advance will be helpful.

36 A

The Exercise:

Create a safe, quiet environment for yourself. Turn down your phone and consider lighting a candle.
Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take a mental inventory of where you are, right now. List the feelings you are experiencing. Do your best to engage this with a nonjudgemental attitude. Your feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Choose the feeling which seems to be the most impactful. Think, or say “Welcome ___________” (E.G. ‘Welcome, Fear. Welcome, sadness. Welcome, anxiety. Etc.)
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire to change this feeling.’ or ‘I let go of my ___________’ or ‘God, I give you my _____________’
Progress on to the next emotion, repeating steps 4 and 5.
When you have worked through these emotions, spend a moment doing a mental inventory, assessing whether you feel differently.

The exercise to be introduced Wednesday is an alternative Welcoming Prayer. It is exercise 36-B. If you would like to try it in advance of that email you can find it here.

Did you know that the Faith-ing Project is more than just a web page describing spiritual practices? In addition to four books, a facebook page, and regular email explorations, on the webstie, you can find tips for building your spiritual practice, audio files of many spiritual practices, links to influential and thought provoking sites, and more!

You Are Welcome Here.

2 Replies

The goal of The Faith-ing Project is to enrich your spiritual life. Our hope is that this might be a gymnasium for the soul; a library for the spirit; and a toy store for the psyche.

To take a look at specific descriptions of spiritual practice, scroll to the bottom of this page. If you’re interested in my books, you might take a look at Discovering the Essence: How to Build a Spiritual Practice When Your Religion is Cracking Apart.

The premiere run of Discussing the Essence is finishing up now. Every two weeks, a group of spiritual misfit-adventurers have gathered on zoom to explore deconstruction, engage spiritual practice, and learn to love ourselves and each other. It has exceeded all expectations. The next cohort will begin in summer, 2021. To sign up for more information, click the contact link above or email otherjeffcampbell7@gmail.com

To explore some audio presentations from the book, click here. For more information on ‘Discovering the Essence’ Click here.

If you’re interested in books more focused on spiritual practice without the exploration of deconstruction, take a look at the faith-ing project guides. Samples of some of the Faith-ing Project guides can be found here. If you would like to go straight to ordering the books at amazon, click here.

Mystic's JourneyG

You can find general information about building a spiritual practice here.

I am eagerly awaiting the premiere of the ‘Be Still’ app. In the meantime, I was quite impressed by their how-to page.

We have just released episode number 2 of ‘The Open a Hand: A Faith-ing Project Podcast.” Listen to that here.

Work has been temporarily suspended on the upcoming Faith-ing Project Guide on spiritual practices specific to the nine Enneagram types. Samples of spiritual practices assigned to each of the nine types can be foundhere.

Our audiofiles have been supplemented with videos. Click here to see our audio file page.

Spiritual Exercises By Category

If you do not find what you are looking for here, click this link. Many of our resources, including audio files, strategies for bringing the practices home, contemplations built around the work of famous authors, and contemporary traditions can be found there.