- Home
- Preface
- Introduction
- Three Zones and Nine Sectors
- Three resources *
- Meeting the world
- Nine strategies *
- Nine types
- Gut types
- EIGHT *
- NINE *
- ONE *
- Gut types review
- Corruption and redemption
- Heart types
- TWO *
- THREE *
- FOUR *
- Heart types review
- Symmetry of the board
- Head types
- FIVE *
- SIX *
- SEVEN *
- Head types review
- All nine sectors
- Discerning home base part 1
- Gifts and temptations
- Developing all three resources
- Taking the advice of the opposites
- The path to redemption part 1
- Celebrating all of who we are
- Neurology
- Wings and Moves and other functions
- Biblical Journeys
- Prayer
- The Enneagram
- From the Enneagram to the Strategy Board
buy from amazon.com
buy from amazon.co.uk
Gut types – introduction
It is in our human flesh and blood that we live out our lives. It is in the body, the physical human form, that we recognize and meet each other, communicate with one another, and organize all of our human endeavors. It is in our incarnation – our embodiment – that we come to birth and live out the fullness of our lives. Ultimately every meeting of hearts and minds is mediated through our human flesh and blood: our five senses, and our words and deeds.
For all of us, whichever zone may take the lead now in our engagement with the world, the ‘body’ zone – the gut zone – came first.
Evolutionary history places the body first – and the Scriptures in Genesis place the body first. In Genesis, God takes dust from the earth, and from the dust forms humankind: life and spirit are breathed into us to give us mind and heart but it begins with the body, our physical human form. In the New Testament the dignity and beauty of our created human form are affirmed most profoundly as God comes among us in Jesus Christ: from birth through childhood and adulthood and to the cross, God in Christ lives and dies the incarnate, embodied human life.
It is the gut types, the body types, EIGHT and NINE and ONE, who feel most at home in their human flesh and blood, most naturally a part of the rest of creation, most easily at home in the physical world, content to be created a part of it.
Meeting some awesome natural phenomenon of the physical world – ocean or mountain or canyon or starry sky – head types will not feel that they have processed the experience satisfactorily until they have described it in words. Heart types will not feel that they have processed the experience satisfactorily until they have linked it to a collection of emotions. Gut types just connect to it directly and know that they belong, part of creation along with all of creation – incarnate, embodied, directly engaged.
As for a natural phenomenon, so also for a room full of strangers. Head types fill with thoughts; heart types fill with emotions; gut types just know that they are a part of it, engage directly, trust their instincts, and go with their intuition.
If the gut response is dominant, then what you feel as you encounter the world is more likely to be in the pit of your stomach and in your veins than in your head or in your heart. Your action will be more spontaneous than calculated. Your approach is immediate, practical, open, and direct. Your strategy places you in gear straight away, engaging with the world exactly as you find it, here and now, in the present tense, getting on, and moving on.
These are the gut types.