For much of my adult life, I’ve lived with chronic illness and physical pain.
And for a long time, when my body hurt, the last thing I thought about was my emotions.
I was focused on finding out what was physically wrong, getting the right treatment, and doing whatever I could to feel better.
But that changed after a practitioner I was seeing suggested an emotional writing exercise.
She asked me to make three lists: times when my autoimmune condition had flared up, parts of my body I was angry with, and relationships that felt unfinished.
It was quite a long list.
Then she asked me to choose one item and write a letter, working through a series of prompts designed to explore different emotions.
As I wrote, I found myself crying, feeling frustration and anger, but also reconnecting with love and appreciation.
And afterwards, something felt different.
I noticed some of the physical tension I’d been carrying had eased. I felt lighter, more connected to myself.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what was happening physiologically, or how much of my physical experience was connected to those emotions.
But the exercise showed me something important.
My emotional experience and my physical experience weren’t as separate as I’d been treating them.
That experience changed how I approached my own inner work. I began paying more attention to what was happening in my body, rather than focusing entirely on understanding my thoughts and feelings.
And it’s one of the reasons I include body awareness in Enneagram coaching.
Because our personality patterns don’t just shape what we think and feel. They also shape how we experience and respond to the world through our bodies.
Our personality patterns are embodied
One of the things I appreciate about the Enneagram is that it helps us recognise our habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting.
But those patterns also involve our bodies.
When we feel threatened, criticised, rejected or uncertain, we don’t simply have a thought about it.
Our breathing might change. Our muscles tighten. We might feel hot, restless, heavy, shaky or suddenly exhausted.
And alongside those sensations comes an impulse to do something.
To defend ourselves. Withdraw. Explain. Fix the problem. Keep everyone happy. Escape the situation.
Often, these reactions happen before we’ve consciously worked out what we’re responding to.
For example, as a Seven, I have a well-developed habit of moving away from uncomfortable experiences.
That can look like finding something more interesting to do, rationalising a painful situation, or immediately looking for the positive.
But before I do any of those things, there may be a feeling of restlessness or agitation in my body.
An uncomfortable sensation that I want to get away from.
And if I can recognise that sensation, I have an opportunity to become curious about what I’m avoiding.
For someone else, the experience might be quite different.
A One might notice their body tightening as they become increasingly frustrated that something isn’t being done properly.
An Eight might recognise themselves bracing against a feeling of vulnerability.
A Nine might notice a heaviness or loss of energy when someone asks them to express a preference they’ve been reluctant to acknowledge.
These aren’t fixed bodily signatures for each Enneagram type. We all have different histories, physical experiences and ways of responding.
But they illustrate something important.
Our automatic protective strategies involve more than the stories we tell ourselves. They involve sensations and impulses that we can learn to recognise.
And sometimes those sensations give us an opportunity to catch a pattern before we’ve fully acted it out.
Why insight isn’t always enough
I think one of the frustrating things about inner work is that we can understand a pattern incredibly well and still keep repeating it.
We know we’re being defensive.
We know we’re avoiding a difficult conversation.
We know we’re trying to keep everyone happy at the expense of our own needs.
But in the moment, the reaction can feel almost impossible to interrupt.
That’s because understanding a pattern and developing the capacity to respond differently aren’t the same thing.
We might recognise intellectually that we don’t need to defend ourselves every time someone offers feedback.
But if criticism brings up a strong bodily response, it can be difficult to stay present long enough to hear what’s being said.
Our attention is caught up in protecting ourselves.
So part of our growth work is learning to recognise what happens in those moments.
What sensations arise? What emotions accompany them? What thoughts appear? And what do we suddenly feel compelled to do?
The aim isn’t to stop having those reactions.
It’s to develop enough awareness and inner capacity that we don’t always have to follow them.
What working with the body looks like in coaching
When I’m working with someone, we might begin by exploring a situation they’re struggling with.
Perhaps they’re having the same argument with their partner. They’re anxious about a decision at work. Or they keep agreeing to things they don’t really want to do.
We can use the Enneagram to explore the patterns involved.
What are they paying attention to? What assumptions are they making? What are they afraid might happen? What protective strategy is operating?
But I also want to know what’s happening in their body as they describe the experience.
Perhaps they notice tension in their shoulders, a tight feeling in their stomach, or an urge to move away from the conversation.
We might pause there.
Not to analyse the sensation or decide what it means, but to become more familiar with it.
Can they notice it without immediately trying to change it?
Does an emotion become more apparent?
Is there an impulse to explain, justify, withdraw or take action?
And how much of that experience can they comfortably stay with?
Sometimes we discover that a person has been moving away from an uncomfortable emotion so quickly that they haven’t had much opportunity to recognise what they’re feeling.
At other times, they’re already very aware of their emotions, but need support to stay present without becoming overwhelmed or acting out their usual protective response.
And sometimes the most useful thing is to slow down, reconnect with their surroundings, or recognise that they’ve reached their capacity for the moment.
The aim isn’t to push through discomfort. It’s to develop a more conscious relationship with what’s happening inside us.
And that takes practice.
Healing and growth both involve the body
This is also where I see healing and growth working together.
Healing might involve acknowledging feelings we’ve learned to suppress, recognising unmet needs, or developing compassion for parts of ourselves we’ve spent years trying to change.
Growth involves developing the capacity to stay present with uncomfortable experiences and experiment with responding differently.
Both involve more than understanding what’s happening in our heads.
For example, someone might recognise that they become defensive whenever their partner expresses disappointment.
Through reflection, they may understand where that response comes from.
But when the conversation happens again, their chest tightens, their breathing changes, and they’re halfway through explaining themselves before they’ve really heard what their partner is saying.
Their growth work might involve learning to recognise those first signs of defensiveness and staying present long enough to listen.
And their healing work might involve exploring the shame, fear or earlier experiences that make another person’s disappointment feel so threatening.
Neither process is simply about changing a thought.
We’re working with interconnected patterns of thinking, feeling, sensing and acting.
Which is why I believe we need to use the whole Enneagram map, rather than treating personality as a collection of behaviours or beliefs we can change through insight alone.
Learning to listen rather than react
These days, when I notice tension or discomfort in my body, I try to get curious about it.
Not every sensation has an emotional meaning, and physical symptoms deserve appropriate medical attention.
But I also don’t want to automatically dismiss what I’m experiencing.
Sometimes I’ll find somewhere quiet and notice what’s happening.
Is there an emotion I haven’t acknowledged? Something I’m worried about? A conversation I’ve been avoiding?
Or am I simply tired, uncomfortable or in need of rest?
I don’t always find an answer.
And that’s okay.
Because part of the practice is learning that I don’t have to immediately explain, fix or escape everything I experience.
I can listen.
Over time, that has helped me become more familiar with my automatic responses and more able to distinguish between what my personality is urging me to do and what I actually want or need.
And that’s what I’m interested in helping clients develop.
Not a perfectly relaxed body. Not a life without uncomfortable emotions. And certainly not the ability to interpret every physical sensation as a message from the unconscious.
But a greater capacity to recognise what’s happening within them, including the parts of their experience that words and intellectual understanding don’t always capture.
Because when we can recognise an automatic protective response without immediately acting on it, we have an opportunity to make a different choice.
And sometimes, the doorway to that choice begins with something as simple as noticing what our body is doing.