Whole-Body Integration

A Dancer Speaks of His Body, a Rolfer Interprets

Here is a beautiful video, "Body of a Dancer," a cinematic poem about Tim Persent, a South African dancer based in the Netherlands. While it is stunning to watch, there's so much wisdom in the words he shares, which I'll discuss through the lens of my experience as a Rolfer™ working daily with people and their bodies, their injuries, their pain, their posture, and their transformations.

Body of a Dancer from Daniel Gallenkamp N.S.C. on Vimeo.

I was struck by so many of the things Persent says about his relationship to his body. While I'm not a dancer, it parallels what I have learned from my own trajectory of embodiment, and from my work as a Rolfer with so many other bodies. Let's start with Persent's opening statement: "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument. I take good care of it. It has treated me well. I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." There are so many key ideas here, I want to parse it out:

• "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument." For all of us, our bodies are instruments. Most basically, they are our vehicles through life, but more than that, they immediately express our presence, our energy, our emotions.
• "I take good care of it." How many people take good care of their bodies? And what does good care mean? To me, good care is more than just the right food, sleep, and exercise, good care is about a dialogue and relationship with your body. This is something that many people awake to only when their bodies fail them, when an injury or illness prevents "business as usual." But has the body failed them, or is it trying to say something? (More on the dialogue with the body coming below.)
• "It has treated me well."  This is an expression of gratitude, not rejection. How many of our statements about our bodies reflect appreciation and gratitude, rather than rejection and complaint? From so many of my Rolfing® Structural Integration clients I hear negative statements, things like"I hate my legs," "I don't like how I look," or "Because of this injury I can't do xyz." What if we instead spoke of our bodies in a relationship of appreciation? If you are in relationship with a person and only complain, how good will that relationship be? A relationship benefits from scrutiny, but also from efforts to improve it and to enhance the appreciative elements.
• "I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." I would venture that part of the reason Persent has been dancing so long is that he has treated his body so well, and that has allowed him a long career.

After this opening statement, Persent describes how he warms up, and how he "asks" his fingers to relax. This is so important! When we ask our body something, and listen for a reply, we are in dialogue. If the body says something hurts, we listen and attend to it. If it says it's tired, we find ways to rest. If it says it wants to move, we allow that. If we try a new form of exercise, we ask the body how it feels, and modify the activity accordingly.

This type of feedback loop is the antithesis of the Nike slogan "Just do it," which encourages us to force ourselves and our bodies to do things along a one-way circuit without feedback. I see many clients who have injured themselves through this attitude, and who delay their recovery by continuing to "just do it" even though the bodies is saying "I can't run ten miles right now." Thankfully I also see many clients who are working with their bodies and dialoguing and learning what is uniquely right for each of them. For one Seattle Rolfing client, the Nike attitude and her friend's encouragement got her to sign up for a Boot Camp exercise program. Through the pain and muscle tension that were aggravated, her body told her to find a different form of exercise, at least for now, while her body was releasing old patterns through Rolfing sessions and learning how to regain length and flexibility.

Persent says he imagines his fingers to reach out so they become longer. Thus, even in stretching there's a gentle touch and an invitation to the body, through the mind, to expand. This is very different from an ethos of stretching that sees the body as a series of mechanical levers (bones) and muscles to be pulled on as if objects. In asking the body, imagining, and listening for a response, he is working with the mind-body as a unity, an embodied, intelligent presence. As Persent states, "By thinking an idea, something will happen to the body." Yoga and tai chi are wonderful body disciplines because they invite you into an idea (an asana, a form) with a mindfulness that works this mind-body loop, but mindfulness can be present in any activity, whether eliptical at the gym or a charge down the basketball court.

Persent also says, "Dancing is spirit made flesh: it physicalizes ideas, emotions, thoughts. That's why it is beautiful, powerful, and freeing." As a bodyworker, I see daily how many of us use out bodies to either contain and restrain our energies and emotions. The fascia, or connective tissue, that I work with as a Rolfer is the shrinkwrap that locks the muscles and bodies in physical constraints, and often those physical constraints involve a history of emotions, or injuries, of old self images. We could call this the "personal history made flesh." In freeing the fascia, we free those energies and emotions and make space for a new self image. In doing a Rolfing series, or any transformative bodywork, there is potential for every body to be more "spirit made flesh." This is a renewal, so it's also spirit and body made fresh.

While the average body, not trained for years in dance, will never be able to do many of the things Persent can do, we all have the potential to evolve to experience our bodies with the presence, consciousness, and embodiment he exemplifies. 

A Rolfer's Thoughts on Barefoot Running

There's been alot of talk about barefoot running since Christopher McDougall published his book Born to Run a few years ago. The premise is that humans walked and ran barefoot for millenia, and that running injuries were not the plague they are now until the "sports shoe" industry developed all those high-fallutin' shoes with cushioned heels. McDougall himself had had to give up running due to injuries, but tossing his running shoes and learning to run barefoot allowed him to resume running without pain or injury. To help understand why, read this article about barefoot running, and watch the video with Harvard scientist Daniel Lieberman (chairman of the human evolutionary biology department) showing the impact of heel strike in a shod runner versus a barefoot runner. 

Not everyone wants to run completely barefoot, and in response to the barefoot running premise, new minimalist sports shoes have been developed, the most well known being Vibram FiveFingers®. Such shoes have a thin rubber sole that lets you feel the texture of the surfaces you move on, and also lets all the joints in the feet have mobilty and play.

I ran some in my 20s, but haven't run for years - especially since my surgeon for a lateral tibial plateau fracture in 2003 advised against it. I became curiuos when other Rolfers™ on our community email forum began talking about barefoot running after reading McDougall's books. They reported that barefoot walking and running were completely synergistic with the ideas of Rolfing® Structural Integration: in our form of bodywork we are concerned with the natural alignment of the body, and the mobility and integration of body segments. They reported that in barefoot walking and running, your toe hinge functions as it should for push-off, because the toes are not engaged in a wad of leather and rubber. And they reported that the increased mobility of the foot was working its way up through the chain of muscles, fascia, and joints and improving issues with knees, hips, and low backs. At that point I went out and bought a pair of Vibrams, to give barefoot walking a try.

I remember my first walk in them. It was late evening, a damp and cold autumn night in Seattle, and I was tired and reluctant to go out, but I hadn't walked my dog yet. So I put on my new Vibrams, put the furry girl on a leash, and headed out for our usual 20-min loop around the neighborhood. Astonishingly, within a couple of blocks, I felt pure unadulterated joy surging through my body and I was wide awake. It seemed like having my feet in such deeply felt contact with the ground was awakening dormant energy and enlivening me. I've always believed in the mind-body-spirit connection, - it's what drew me to Rolfing - but this still surprised me, the intensity and immediacy of the response. I spend the entire work day barefoot, yet something about being "barefoot" and actually striding and moving with a purposeful gait was waking up my feet and my energy in startling ways. I've been a convert to barefoot walking ever since, and I've also noticed improvement in my knees. I'm even starting to run tiny bits again.

Besides McDougall's book, there's alot to read on the web about barefoot running, including this article from today's New York Times, where McDougall updates the barefoot running world on the importance of form for good effects and also mentions Dr. Lieberman's research on unshod runners in Kenya. In other words, it's not just the shoes (or lack of shoes), you have to re-learn how to move so that you minimize heel strike and move more to the forefoot. I believe that Rolfing sessions can greatly assist in this process as part of what keeps us in habitual movement patterns is the familiar tension patterns in the body. So I would recommend that anyone transitioning to barefoot walking or running read up on the available literature, but also schedule a session with a local Rolfer to work on, especially, the sole of the foot, the calves, the knees, and hips. Getting more freedom through these areas will make for an easier transition and quicker benefits, and also help to attain proper running form.

I have recommended minimalist shoes to any number of my Seattle Rolfing clients, and many take me up on the idea. (I recommend REI locally, because they have a great selection of minimalist shoes (not everyone likes the toes on the Vibram FiveFingers, and a shoe that fits like a second skin is key to the benefits), and because you can return shoes if you don't like them, even if they have been worn. One friend who switched to Vibrams has also found that she no longer has flat feet. This makes total sense, as the arch of the foot is based on a balance of muscles and fascia through the legs. Rolfers have known this and worked to "create" arches through balancing fascia, but my friend's story shows it can also be done through proper foot mechanics from barefoot running.

 

 

 

Rolfing® SI Helps NFL Players Stay in the Game

As we are in the football season, I thought I'd share some memories, thoughts, and resources for those interested in how Rolfing® Structural Integration can help professional athletes.

I personally am not a football fan. I've never tried to learn the rules of it, so I see large men clobbering each other to advance a few feet on the field, then everyone takes a break. I hear there's alot of strategy involved for those in the know that makes it compelling. While my interest in the game is minimal, I am nevertheless fascinated by the bodies.

Many years ago, when I was doing deep-tissue massage at a spa on Maui, I had the privilege of working on two NFL players. I say "privilege" because professional athletes' bodies are like fine-tuned sports cars, anatomy developed to a specific, driven purpose. One was a linebacker, and he was built like a tank. I knew enough about football to know that his job was to jump on the other guys. I worked around this gigantic muscular form for an hour, not getting much response but grunts. I was gratified later when one of the spa attendants told me, "I asked him how his massage was, and all he said was "Damn!" I figured that meant I'd made an impact. (I had a reputation for being able to go really deep.)

The other gentleman was a wide receiver (apparently that year's Heisman trophy winner). The body type couldn't have been more different. Again, fantastic muscular development, absolutely sculpted, but this guy was lithe like a ballet dancer. Not knowing about football, I had to ask him what a wide receiver did that he was not built with bulk, and he helped me to understand that his job was to run fast, not get jumped on, and catch the ball and run more. So bulk would not have been in his favor, but man he needed those glutes and leg muscles.

That's about the extent of my understanding of football and my experience working with pro players, but here's a video of a Rolfer™, Wayne Henningsgaard from Minnesota, who has made working with NFL players a niche element in his practice. It's old, but has some nice interview time wth Wayne and video of him working on some Vikings.

 

As Editor-in-Chief of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®, I knew Wayne's reputation in this area, and a few years ago I invited him and his wife Sandy (also a Rolfer) to write about their Rolfing work with NFL players for our publication. That article can be viewed here. It's quite an interesting read, about how they work with athletes in training, the time demands of working during the season, and a charming story about Sandy coming home one day to find three Vikings playing football in her backyard with a passel of eight-year-old boys (it must have made their day!).

The upshot is that Rolfing sessions can help any athlete with faster recovery from injuries that occur during training and play, and can prolong a career that depends on optimal functioning of the body. Likewise, for those who are not athletes but have careers that are physically demanding in other ways – like construction, supermarket stocking, massage therapy, long-distance trucking – Rolfing sessions could be a way to help you stay in your game.

 

 

 

 

 

Massage Magazine Publishes My Article "How A Rolfer Looks at Fascia"

The online edition of Massage Magazine has published my article entitled "How a Rolfer Looks at Fascia."  I wrote this at their request to help distinguish how Rolfers™/structural integrators and massage therapists look at and work with fascia, and I hope it proves useful to non-bodyworkers as well.

The key point is that Rolfing® Structural Integration is "not a technique so much as a modality embedded in and dependent upon a specific view of the body. Practicing it is inseparable from thinking and perceiving in terms of Rolf's comprehensive view of the body in gravity, which runs the gamut from specific understanding of the hallmarks of structural integration, in terms of anatomical relationships and movement, to a broader philosophical notion of the role of the work in the evolutionary optimization of the human form. Studying at the Rolf Institute® is as much about becoming steeped in this conceptual and perceptual framework as it is about learning technique."

In simple terms, this means that you could see a Rolfer and a massage therapist doing something that looks kind of similar, yet the reasons for doing it are different, and as a result of the different conceptualization and strategizing, the results can be different. Rolfing work is aiming for a "third-paradigm" holistic impact on the whole structure of the body, while massage is in the "second-paradigm" of work to fix things (e.g., relieve pain without necessarily changing the whole body).

I hope you enjoy the article!

Viniyoga: This Rolfer's™ Favorite Form of Yoga

Rolfing® Structural Integration and yoga make a perfect pair. The Rolfing work gets your body aligned and open, freeing both surface and deep restrictions, and yoga is the perfect practice to keep you body supple, elastic, and toned. Yes I have clients who don't do yoga – or other stretching – and that's ok, they just need Rolfing tune-ups a bit more frequently. That's beneficial for my business bottom-line, but my real business is to help clients become more embodied, and a yoga practice increases body awareness and reduces your reliance on outside help from chiropractors, Rolfers, massage therapists, physical therapists, etc. 

There are many types of yoga, suited to different body types. If you are young and flexible and energetic, power yoga may be for you. Many of my clients, however, need to 

• recover from an injury or get help with chronic pain,
• reduce the impact of aging,
• regain lost mobility, or
• reduce stress

My favorite form of yoga to recommend to these folks is Viniyoga, and my favorite Viniyoga studio in Seattle is Whole Life Yoga in Greenwood. Whole Life Yoga has a new blog, and one of the early posts is "What Makes Viniyoga Different?" She outlines the 4 main factors, which I'll explain below from a Rolfer's perspective.

1. Adaptation – This means the yoga asanas (poses) are adapted to fit your body – you don't have to become a pretzel to fit a strict form. This is important for me in recommending Viniyoga to my Rolfing clients who have had injuries that limit flexibility, range of motion, and the like. It's a form of yoga that works for all bodies.
2. Use of Repetition and Stay – In a Viniyoga class you do sequences that move you in and out of a pose a number of times before holding it. I support this as a Rolfer because it prepares the body for change by gradually signaling stretch receptors in the muscles to give a little more, then a little more. You are also working your awareness of your body in motion, and noticing the changes with each repetition. If you can't notice something, you can't embody it – that's why at the end of every Rolfing session I ask my client to "stand up and see what you notice, what's different." Repetition helps to focus the mind and enhance awareness. 
3. Moving with the Breath – It sounds so simple – as you breathe in, move this way, as you breathe out, move that way – yet coordination of breath and movement is magic balm for the nervous system. I see hypertoned (too tight) bodies every day in my Rolfing practice, and a portion of that tightness comes from a wound-up nervous system. As you coordinate your breath and movement you automatically slow down, become more fluid in your movements, and bring your nervous system back into balance.
4. Sequencing – Viniyoga practice combines poses intelligently into a fluid moving practice based on class goals. For example, I often recommend that clients with back pain try out Tracy Weber's Yoga for Healthy Backs as I know that her Viniyoga training has taught her to string poses together in a way that will pose-by-pose prepare the body to gradually and sensitively open painful areas. (Tracy owns Whole Life Yoga; you can read here how yoga resolved her severe back pain.

If you see me for a session, be sure to ask me for a free class pass for Whole Life Yoga, to experience for yourself what Viniyoga is.

 

 

 

Amazing Movement

Here's some pretty impressive movement from dancer Lil Buck, who creates this dance to music played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. As a Rolfer™, I'm always appreciate those people who show us the fluid potential of the human body in motion.

 

Parenting for Happiness Rather Than Success

Pop quiz: You are about to be born. Who do you want for a mother, the woman whose mothering style has the aspiration of Raising Happiness or the woman who marches to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is Amy Chua's book about parenting, which was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal to much ado on the internet, including my furious response. Raising Happiness is a book by Christine Carter Ph.D., who gives an articulate rebuttal to Amy Chua's ideas here.  Chua advocates a demanding form of parenting – expecting perfect grades, allowing no playdates, insisting the child master violin or piano, etc. – that she believes is the key to the child's future success. As I noted in my post, Chua is a "success" in the world – a law professor at an Ivy League school – but has no credentials in psychology, child development, or parenting. In contrast, Carter is a sociologist and parent educator, and her article shows a broader understanding of what constitutes "success" than mere outward achievement. Refreshingly, Carter speaks to happiness as the key component of success, noting that "three decades of research clearly suggests that such a narrow focus on achievement can produce wildly unhappy people." Validating what I mentioned in my post, where I commented on research presented in the book A General Theory of Love, Carter also articulates that "social connections are the foundation for happiness, health, and success in life." 

Carter's book Raising Happiness is about "the science of raising happy kids," and part of her mission is to help parents be happier. On her blog, she has a pledge you can sign: "I understand that improving my own happiness is a way to make the world a better place. Over the next nine months, I will take steps to increase my happiness." I like this. While happiness is not something you can make happen in your life, we all know things that make us happy and we can create time to do those things and cherish those moments. Paradoxically, many of the things that make us happy can often be traced back to the qualities and things we most loved as children – another reason that it's important for kids to have fun and play. 

For many of my clients, creating and enjoying freedom and movement in their bodies makes them happy –whether it's through yoga classes or exercise or bodywork. One of my Seattle clients, who did the 10-session Rolfing® series a couple of years ago, was in for a tune-up in November. We were talking about the upcoming Christmas holidays, and what she and her family would do, and she decided on the spot that what she wanted for Christmas was to gift herself an Advanced Rolfing Series. For her, the quality of life she experiences getting in touch with her body brings happiness, more than the various things she could buy. 

I encourage you to find what it is that makes you happy, to enjoy it, and to make happiness contagious in your families and in the world.

 

Save Us from "Chinese Mothers" and Bless Us with Neuroscientists – Comments on Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal Article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior"

An article called "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" appeared in the Wall Street Journal and is getting attention in the blogosphere. The author, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, contends that stereotypical "Chinese mothers" who force their children to excel academically are the best mothers. Frankly, I feel like a victim of child abuse / neglect just from reading this article.

Chua shares about how she raises her daughters who were "never allowed to:

• attend a sleepover, 
• have a playdate, 
• be in a school play, 
• complain about not being in a school play 
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano."

She writes "Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences." It seems that the methodology is to break your child's will, and insult them if necessary. In Chua's mind, that's okay, because the result is a child who excels in school and music. The example she gives "in favor of coercion" discusses relentlessly drilling her 7-year old daughter for a piano recital, threatening to give away her toys, and calling her "lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic." (When her husband suggested that this was "insulting" the girl, Chua's response was that she wasn't insulting her but "motivating her.") She won't let her leave the paino to go to the bathroom, she loses her voice yelling at her daughter, and "still there seemed to be only negative progress." (Somehow I'm not surprised.) Then suddenly her daughter can do it (angelic intervention?), followed by hugs, etc., and a perfect recital. For Chua, the results justify the means.

Yes, the little girl learned the piano piece. She also learned a pattern of relating that is based on coercion, degradation, love as a reward for compliance, and a compulsion to succeed. This groove is being dug deeper and deeper into her brain with each similar interaction. It is how she will raise her own children, and it will stymie all of her relationship so that love becomes equated with performance goals. She will have the tendency to find relationships that mimic this, where she is either the rejecting coercer or the rejected coerced. She will equate love with performing properly.

How Neuroscience Shows Us That This Form of Parenting Is Not "Superior"

Chua states that she learned her parenting model from her parents. She doesn't question it or look further because she values the results. She is completely blind to the emotional side of the equation. I am not a psychologist, but over the past few years I have been reading and studying extensively on the subjects of child development and psychology. I have also experienced therapy and am engaged in a spiritual path where my colleagues and I work with material from our early childhoods, and it is clear from our work that episodes like these leave devastating imprints on the psyche. Everything I read by experts in child and developmental psychology is counter to what Chua writes. While Chua is a law professor, she has absolutely no credentials in anything to do with child psychology or child development or education. Her only credential is the biological achievement of having borne a child. In the human species, bearing a child does not automatically make one a good parent.

Most recently in my studies I read the book A General Theory of Love – which should be required reading for every human being, and particularly all parents. Written by three psychiatrists, it is an easy-to-read, poetic and passionate rant about how the human race has strayed so far from understanding what we need as human beings to feel happy, loved and valuable, and to be able to relate in healthy ways. Our emotional needs are hard-wired in our limbic systems. As infants/children we need love and holding. We need parents who love us unconditionally and will spend one-on-one time with us. We need reflection from and dialogue with our parents. We need time to cultivate relationships as much as we need time spent drilling math exercises or practing violin. There is research behind this, from both animal and human studies.

Children who are driven to become performing automatons may excel academically, may play piano perfectly, but will they be able to have authentic, valuable, successful, dynamic relationships with their peers, with future romantic partners, with their own children? Will they be happy? Will they know who they are uniquely as individuals, their own preciousness?

One commentator on the Huffington Post, raised by Chinese parents under similar methodology, writes as an adult: "I was good at my job. But I had chronic hives. I couldn't sleep, and when I did I would wake up with fingernail imprints in the palms of my clenched hands. I couldn't get pregnant. I was 30, a success, but felt a failure." 

There's much we as humans can learn about optimal parenting – as evidenced by all the unhappiness, malaise, and delinquency we see in young people and in ourselves. I sincerely hope that no parent takes Chua's advice to heart. There are compassionate and loving models out there that will guide us better and are substantiated by our increasing understanding of the human mind and soul.

An Astrologer's View of 2011

Happy New Year everyone!

Here's what my astrologer friend Frederick Woodruff has to say about 2011. It might make you want to fasten your seatbelts, but his advice is to jump.

This is the macrocosmic view; in a few posts in the days ahead I'll make some comments on personal life cycles and what I notice in my Rolfing clientele going through these cycles.

How the Enneagram Helps to Understand Self and Others

I was pleased to see Huffington Post's article about the Enneagram. While basic, it's a good introduction to a very deep topic. Just yesterday my friend Seattle acupuncturist Kory Kapitke and I were talking about the Enneagram, and how it can be useful to understand ourselves and others. He's an acupuncturist, I'm a Rolfer™ and craniosacral therapist, so we both work with people all day long - people in pain, people in transformation, people curious about alternatives. Sometimes a client is on a growth path and curious to hear about something like the Enneagram, curious about how Rolfing® works to bring the body into alignment in gravity, interested in the mystical aspect of craniosacral work... Other clients are working the body dimension primarily - in pain, healing from an injury - but my knowing something about the Enneagram can help me relate to them better even if we never talk about such things. It can help me understand what makes a person tick, sometimes it can help me understand how to better communicate with a person, sometimes it helps me to see my own blind spots. 

The Enneagram is ultimately a multi-faceted and multi-layered system that can be used to understand oneself on many levels, including one's evolution, and to understand reality itself. At the most commonly known level the Enneagram consists of the nine Enneatypes, which are listed in the HuffPo article (Reformer, Helper, Achiever...) These are ways we can understand our selves and how we operate, in the same way that knowing the position of planets in your astrology chart can give you information about yourself. However, if you are interested in spiritual growth, it is important to understand that the Enneatypes are ego fixations - manifestations of the ego, the personality - and not representations of reality or the potential of the true self. To get stuck thinking "I'm a Five" or "I'm a Nine" is to forget your potential and to put your being into a pigeonhole. In truth we all visit all the Enneatypes, although we have particular ones our personalities are more constellated around. 

Just as I want to keep from putting myself into an Enneatype box, I also want to give that space to my Rolfing® and craniosacral clients as I think about them and how to best help them in their processes of transformation and health. If I limit my thinking about a client to "he's blah blah blah" or "she's such a ___," I'm seeing only a limited aspect of the person's personality, and I may also be perceiving inaccurately, based on my own predispositions and projections. So if I do have an idea of a client's Enneatype or character style, I want to hold that loosely, as a way to better understand and communicate with him or her, not to think that is all s/he is.

And then there's another level of the Enneagram, the Nine Holy Ideas. From this perspective, it is understood that each  Enneatype or ego fixation is actually a misunderstanding of one of the nine Holy Ideas, which are a map of the true nature of reality, the enlightened perspective. In contrast, the Enneatypes are the ego's best and imperfect attempt to find it's way towards this truth. Thus, the Enneatype One is a "reformer" because he thinks he has to change himself and others to seek perfection, while the Holy Idea of Point One, "Holy Perfection" tells us that reality is inherently perfect as it is - as all the great mystical traditions say. So the Enneatype of Point One has it partially right - he knows it's about perfection - but he is mistaken and deluded in thinking that it is up to him to create perfection rather than to awaken to a realization of the perfection that already exists. 

The best resources I know on the Holy Ideas are the books Facets of Unity by A.H. Almaas and The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram by Sandra Maitri. Maitri has also written The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues - think the seven deadly sins and the Christian virtues, but there are nine of each, not seven. This is yet another layer of the Enneagram. The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson, mentioned in the HuffPo article, is also an excellent overall Enneagram resource. If you live in Seattle and are interested in Enneagram study, see  Enneagram classes with Ragini Michales at Facticity .