Virtues of the Heart

The Latin root for energetic vigor is virs, as expressed through Virtues, the beneficial qualities of the life force that sustains us. Children live in the pleasure of virs before the type structure forms because each of its Virtues is an accurate response to life as it is.

From the perspective of the life force, courage is the quality of energy meant to carry us through danger, while fear makes us suppress that vitality. Likewise right action, the healing virtue for sloth, is the energetic rush that propels and positions us in an ever-changing world. The intelligence of the life force is constantly expressed through its qualities of virtue, but that active, life-saving intelligence is typically diverted by “vice,” the conditioned emotional habit of type.

This workshop highlights “the vice to virtue conversion,” a spiritual strategy that relaxes the conditioned emotional habit of vice instead of fighting it, fleeing from it or numbing out. You will accomplish a deep personal examination of your own emotional habit and its conversion through dyad inquiry exercises, type group breakouts and short panels about the conversion from the perspective of other types.

Be aware that this is an advanced class. Please expect three 20–minute blocks of meditation and mudra practice to evoke the virtue of your type.

Psychological-Spiritual Curriculum overview

Other topics:

Type and False Identity
Projection
Presence and Self-Forgetting
Spiritual Antidotes
Retrieving the Holy Ideas
A Spiritual Strategy for People in Relationships
Type and Intuition
The Enneagram for Counselors, Spiritual Directors and People Working with Others

See other workshops by Helen Palmer

San Francisco Bay Area workshops and classes