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Bonus | Leslie Flood Hershberger on Shadow Work and Personal Transformation
Leslie Flood Hershberger joins the Fathoms podcast to discuss the Enneagram and its profound implications on personal development, particularly in the context of navigating the second half of life. The conversation begins with Leslie reflecting on her own journey with the Enneagram, a tool she originally approached to better understand those around her—her family, students, and colleagues. As she delved deeper into the Enneagram, Leslie discovered that the true work lies not merely in categorizing personalities but in fostering a genuine presence and awareness of oneself. This shift from a superficial understanding of the Enneagram to a more intimate exploration of personal growth marks a significant evolution in her practice.
Throughout the episode, Leslie emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the complexities of life transitions, particularly as one ages. She discusses how the second half of life often invites individuals to confront their shadows—the parts of themselves they have repressed or neglected. This process is not just about facing discomfort but also about embracing regrets and recognizing their role as teachers. Leslie draws on her extensive experience, highlighting that the journey is unique for everyone; some may begin their second half of life work in their 30s, while others may not engage with it until much later. The deep emotional and spiritual insights shared by Leslie provide listeners with a framework for understanding their own experiences of growth, loss, and transformation.
The episode culminates in a rich discussion about the three centers of intelligence: the head, heart, and body. Leslie proposes a re-evaluation of how these centers are perceived in relation to the Enneagram, suggesting that the body center, often overlooked, is crucial for understanding our instinctual responses. She argues that true emotional connection can only occur when we ground ourselves in our physical sensations and feelings. This perspective not only deepens the understanding of the Enneagram but also serves as a call to action for listeners to integrate these centers into their personal development practices, highlighting the importance of somatic awareness as a gateway to authenticity and presence.
Takeaways:
- Leslie Flood Hershberger emphasizes that the Enneagram serves as a tool for self-discovery and personal growth throughout various life stages.
- The conversation highlights the importance of integrating emotional awareness into the practice of the Enneagram, especially as one ages.
- Understanding the distinction between emotional experiences and somatic feelings can enhance personal transformation work.
- In the second half of life, individuals are often asked to let go of attachments that no longer serve them, leading to deeper self-awareness.
- Leslie shares insights on how grief and loss profoundly shape one's journey into the second half of life.
- The podcast underscores that shadow work can be a powerful portal for personal growth and healing, revealing hidden aspects of ourselves.
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Transcript
Welcome back, Fathoms friends, to another episode.
Lindsay:Today we are with the wonderful, the marvelous Leslie Flood Hershberger.
Lindsay:How are you today, Leslie?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Leslie Flood Hershberger.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I am doing well, thanks, Lindsay.
Lindsay:It's so nice to be with you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's nice to be back with you.
Lindsay:And you've had quite a busy day already.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yes, I just finished teaching a class this morning.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I taught last night, and I'm teaching tomorrow morning, so I'm on a roll right now.
Speaker C:Leslie, do you ever get tired of talking about the Enneagram?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well, if I were just talking about the Enneagram, I would say yes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's kind of.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When you talk about the evolution, that I never thought I would get tired of talking about the Enneagram.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But what I noticed was that as the Enneagram just was kind of stalled in the descriptions, that's not terribly interesting at the beginning.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's really.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's where all the juices and all the energy is.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But when you've been working on it as long as I have, it's really about developing capacity for presence.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And, you know, you've heard me say the Enneagram is not the first thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The first thing is typically something that's showing up in your lives.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so that's what interests me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So the Enneagram is your obstacle to being present to what's showing up in your life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I like working with the Enneagram, the application, because I do find it endlessly fascinating, the different iterations, the way it presents itself within what, you know, as I've told you, I'm doing the second half of life work of just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We're always moving stages.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And you have.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We don't want to leave the one before because we know it well.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so there's going to be some sort of type resistance, and it tends to get more subtle with self observation and inner work, but it's always there.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And just a quick peek into season five for our listeners is we're.
Speaker C:How do I say this without giving it away?
Speaker C:Um, part of why we wanted to have Leslie on is because Leslie works with a bunch of different models.
Speaker C:Um, she's seen.
Speaker C:She's seen some things, folks.
Speaker C:Um, and she's.
Speaker C:She's evolved in a lot of different ways.
Speaker C:Has changed.
Speaker C:Changed her mind.
Speaker C:She's.
Speaker C:Yeah, all these things.
Speaker C:So first, Leslie, could you give us.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:You've been on a couple times already, but just give us a quick.
Speaker C:A quick.
Speaker C:A quick overview of how did you arrive to this point in time?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well, you know, we've been talking a little bit about evolution in these movements through the stages where there's always, you know, whenever we move through a different passage in our lives, sometimes we have to be dragged kicking and screaming.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, things start.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We start facing things that are unfamiliar.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so for me, it really was being a parent at the very beginning, you know, and not, you know, understanding a little bit about psychology and that kind of thing, but coming across the Enneagram and seeing how very differently I saw the world, my husband saw the world, my kids.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I really wanted to get into the Enneagram, to understand them so I could change them.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, that was really honestly, if.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:To tell the truth is that if you would change, I feel better.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's really the work we come into.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like, if you would change when we all know it's ultimately an inside job.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I was lucky to find really good teachers.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I taught or I worked with.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I asked who's, you know, in Cincinnati.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I asked around, who do I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Who do I work with?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And they said, Helen Palmer and David Daniels.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I worked with them, and what they really did was.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Did a really good psycho.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Spiritual integration.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I was interested in the spiritual dimension, the Enneagram.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I went and got a master's in theology.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well, if you get a master's in theology with the Jesuits, they completely deconstruct your entire worldview.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I didn't plan on that, you know, where my interiors were being deconstructed by the Enneagram of just kind of those reflexive.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:My pattern on a social seven.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The social seven patterns of trying to make everything okay and really not aware of all the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All what I was trying to outrun.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so when I'm starting to drop into that, you know, it's like, whoa.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So then to then go to grad school and have my really religious worldview, political worldview deconstructed.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was frightening.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I then found the work of Ken Wilber, who was looking at.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And he was looking.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He would talk to college students where they would go to school and start learning things and ideas coming into their heads and also about their spiritual lives.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so what he started really looking at are these ways.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And he's kind of a map maker of how people develop and adult development.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So Ken's a 5 on the Enneagram.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's a very heady organ, you know, group.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I went and got a certificate in Integral Theory, except certificate short.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:One class.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I didn't get to take the Enneagram class.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I have to.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I just didn't want to take the Enneagram class, so I took all the other ones out.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what we really looked at was adult development was this notion of an inner life, interiors and outer, which you see on my sign.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And we have to look inward and out.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a constant calibration through my interior world and the external world.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what really hit me when I was within that ecosphere, it's a very Buddhist ken, is his practice as a Buddhist practice.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it was really so exciting for me because I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When I was in grad school, I was looking at the contemplative arms of the Christian tradition and the Buddhist tradition.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I found the Buddhist tradition extremely helpful and congruent with what Helen was teaching, which is the cultivation of witnessing, consciousness of an inner observer.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that was congruent with what I was doing with Enneagram.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So you're witnessing placements of attention with the Enneagram.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And Buddhist practice is really focused on the inner witness.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But there's this other two centers of the heart and the body center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what I did see in the integral world was a lot of.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There was talk about the heart center, but I didn't feel the attunement of the heart that I would feel in Christian contemplative communities.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so it's like, oh, wow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This thing that I kind of wasn't so certain about anymore, I find myself returning to, which is very.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If you look at stages of faith and adult development, that's very normal.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You just tend to have a more expansive view of things.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You just have a wider perspective.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's been always what it's been.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then finally, I was part of 20 years in an Enneagram learning community with Helen Terry Saracino and Marion Gilbert.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Marion started bringing the body online.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that was.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That was a real game changer for me personally, in my own practice.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I started getting certifications in somatics and embodied transformation.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so where I am now is, you know, I started seeing that there's a lot of really good Enneagram teachers out there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I'm watching this next generation come.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I care a lot about this system and that it's taught well.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I've been mentoring young people, you know, young for me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, I'm in my 60s, but people who were my age when I started was 40.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I was 40 when I started all this.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And bringing, you know, bringing this interior way of working with the Enneagram online, where it's not Just about the categories and the descriptions, which is everything you see on Instagram and social media.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a kind of a lock and it gets really locked into and you know, and which is some enter.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's what, you know, Enneagram entertainment is the way I see it.
Speaker D:Right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And some good education.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But when I'm interested in transformation and supporting, you know, teachers coming up in their own transformation, in their own work and I can usually tell like what's their growth edge and they usually, they usually know what it is as well.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But there's, there's things that, you know, pitfalls on the path and then working with people.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I really started getting interested in the second half of life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, I just was.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was such a big thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When I look at myself in my mid to late 40s, myself in my 50s, it was like every decade was asking something different of me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was asking me to let go of some sort of attachment and you know, it could be my kids going off to school where in my head cognitively that's like, that's great.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But what it did in here was very different.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then watching them become parents and then watching them become young adults and mirroring myself back to me of how their experience of me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's all.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I really have loved the second half of life work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And a lot of it has to do with an earlier podcast we did on grief and loss.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've just lost a lot of people.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's every loss I'm finding a new ground because I used to go into it more cognitively.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay, I'm going to not be like other sevens.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm going to.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And yet my whole entire nervous system would be in the freeze response, the flight response.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so now having the three centered work with all of this loss.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And this just happens when you get older, your people who you love get diagnosed.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, one of my best friends just had a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Was hit by a car.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He's riding his bike and had a traumatic brain injury and almost died.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so it just, it just, it's a constant thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I really love supporting people who are facing loss, you know, changes in career.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like that thing I always loved doesn't give me life anymore.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, what do I do now?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so that's where I am.
Speaker D:I want to just real quick bring a connection too for our listeners, because I do.
Speaker D:I have a sense that the second half of life language is actually becoming more popular in the.
Speaker D:In the zeitgeist, if you will.
Speaker D:And I think sometimes we actually Miss, what is the first half?
Speaker D:And I just want to name.
Speaker D:You actually already said to the part of the Enneagram that you refer to, which I love as entertainment, which is the popularity, the popularized version of the Enneagram online, which is defining ourselves over and over and over.
Speaker D:That's the first half of life, right?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You're building that egoic structure that you need.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so that's why, like, bringing it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I would bring it into high schools.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And when I first started teaching the Enneagram, and they recognized themselves in the patterns, and they would get really excited about it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And when you're really identified, being really identified with your type is a first half of life, you know, task.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And who am I in this world?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And developing a healthier version of your type is a first half of life task.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You want to be a healthier version.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then the second half of life comes in, and all of those patterns that served you really well in the first half just seem to be clunkier and don't seem to work as well in the second half.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so you're invited to places, and sometimes you're dragged kicking and screaming into them.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, I was just thinking I was kind of getting into that new and exciting career.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm going to teach this ideogram thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Nobody'd ever heard of it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, it was just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was a new thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it was really exciting.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that I did not expect what happened where it felt like my world imploded.
Speaker D:I was gonna say, I feel like that's why the Enneagram can be so valuable and helpful and transformative, because it.
Speaker D:It actually works wherever you are on the spectrum of human evolution.
Speaker D:It names the first half of life, but it also helps you actually realize that doesn't work anymore.
Speaker D:And there's a way to work with that.
Speaker D:And it helps you move into the second half if you know how to use it.
Speaker D:Right, right.
Speaker D:And that's what I hear, if you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Know how to use your work.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well, people will say, you know, I've not ever worked with it this way.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This is not.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what they're basically declaring as well.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've not heard this interior move in this kind of the second half of life work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's actually.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a real basis, you know, of the narrative tradition.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But you're always meeting people where they are.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I do tend to attract people more in second half of life work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I did a lot of work with integral people who come through the integral doorway.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Typically are seekers, and they've done tons of work on themselves.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And yet these types, man, you could have a Buddhist practitioner practiced, you know, for 30 years.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I think I worked with a practitioner of 40 years of five on the Enneagram and had a first energetic feeling of, you know, he's had a ton of meditation.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He's a spiritual teacher.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But that first energetic feeling of the way I contract against my life force with my fiveness.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's what the Enneagram, working with it energetically can do.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And the somatic work is such a great portal of entry because, yeah, I am.
Lindsay:I'm really grateful that you are doing this.
Lindsay:I.
Lindsay:When I first started teaching workshops and working with the Enneagram with clients and stuff like that, my grandmother was.
Lindsay:My great grandmother was being really supportive, and she was like, well, I want to take this test too, you know, and she was in early 80s at the time.
Lindsay:And so I went through, you know, with her and did the test.
Lindsay:And to see her have these discoveries about herself at that age in her life, there was such a grief that I experienced seeing her discovering these things about herself for the first time and being asked these questions and being asked to explore herself for the first time in her late 80s.
Lindsay:And I just remember thinking, someone needs to be doing this work with this population.
Lindsay:And so I'm just really, really grateful that you are.
Lindsay:And I want to ask you about.
Lindsay:You know, I love the way I've heard you talk about the centers, and I feel like your approach is unique, and it's come through an evolution of working with the centers.
Lindsay:And can you talk to us about your approach to the centers and how your thinking has changed on this?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Sure.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So there's two sets of centers from the perspective of what I'm talking about, which would be the psychological centers, the psychological fixations of the type.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So the psychological centers would be the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The, you know, habits of mind and the, you know, narratives.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The heart center would be habits of emotion.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So these are when you're in the throes of type.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then the body is the somatic holding patterns and also behaviors.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The spiritual centers are the dropping of the narrative where there's a clarity of mind, which you hear a lot, you know, in a Buddhist tradition that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I always look at Buddhism as just kind of the tradition of the mind, of the clarity of the mind, the attunement of the heart where you're not in the throes, that's not passions, not emotional passions, and, you know, lots of tears.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's tears can be evoked, but it's not stirring of the passions that you might find.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And, you know, sometimes if you're in a church, there's an intentional stirring of the passions that's from the spiritual centers.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It would be a stilling of the emotions so that when they're still, there's this attunement of the heart and then the body would be grounded presence.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What we discovered, there was a group of us, three of us, who worked together on the centers.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And there was an eight in our group.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And she was very frustrated with the language around centers.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:She's just like this inert gut kind of gut center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it did not resonate with her is an eight.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so what we've came across, the work of Suzanne Jercher, Dick Wright, where they talked about the body centers being the feeling center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And, you know, we talked to Helen about that where she didn't think that she felt like that would be confusing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And this 8 was insistent, like, I will not be part of the project if we don't call it the feeling center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Because what they were saying was, yeah, the center, the feelings are so strong.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What it did, what I wanted to do, Lindsay, was to test it out with people.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The feelings are so strong in the body center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's why the armoring is there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I started testing and working with clients with that in mind and doing panels.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They were saying, you know, I haven't felt so gotten.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's what I hear from body types, that I have these strong feelings.
Speaker D:Can you give an example of that for each of the types?
Speaker D:Just briefly.
Speaker D:So we hear the difference between referring to the body types as emotional and.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, right, right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's not emotions, it's feelings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's somatic feelings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a strong hit.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All three of them are the world, you know, and it does for all of us.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But it lands differently in the body center where it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's impressing itself upon me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's a lot.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's like.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And if I sit here with you and go there as a nine, you know, you're going to overtake me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I have to guard against that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I'm going to stay in kind of a holding pattern.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so for nines, you know, they might not.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I remember I'm married to my husband's and I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I remember him saying, you know, there were shows he didn't want to watch.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I'd say, why?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He'd just say, it just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It just hurts.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Too much.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, it's like it's, it's, it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it was physical.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It wasn't like my four daughter.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was a different quality and it was a more physical quality that felt like it feels overwhelming physically.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so for the nine, it's going to be kind of a holding pattern and a numbing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And for a one, when they feel that and I've got a couple of friends of ones going through, you know, different health challenges and it's like, I don't know that I want to go.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They look like pet types because I want to figure this out, do this the right way so I don't have to feel that overwhelm of emotion.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But I'm hearing the same language and it's overwhelm of feelings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And all of them use body language, body metaphors.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I feel like I've been hit by a truck.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It feels like a body slam that's so different than emotion that it's like we come into the world little sentient, like sensing beings, and we lose touch with that and with the a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, when I started doing grief work, I had, you know, three clients in a row were eights.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like, I've got to find somebody who understands this is a lot.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So when I'm working with, I'm just so aware we are traveling on very tender territory because it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's instinctual and it's physical and it feels like overwhelm.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So they'll sit in the office and crying.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Feels like it's going to.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just tears are going to overtake me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's not comfortable territory.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So the heart center, I call the doing center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This is what Zuricher called it, where the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm feeling other people's emotions.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So the, the body centers is kind of like this.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They're.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They get stuck in their gut instincts and their gut sense of that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That hit strong, that instinctual instinct is strong.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But I get stuck there and I can't see a wider view because I get stuck in my own, you know, kind of kinesthetic hit.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so the perceptual, the perceiving head function gets kind of backgrounded.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's their buried center for the heart types.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's the doing center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I can see it in session right here.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So there's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They're sensing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They're like little sensors of the energetic field out there of what's going to get that thing that I'm Looking for that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm longing for that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm wanting the two.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to be needed.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to be appreciated for the fours.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to be seen.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, that being seen is so big for fours and for threes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to, you know, I want to be seen as successful.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's being, you know, it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm putting forth an image, so I've got to do something, something to make sure I get that connection.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so it's called the doing center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't see it as the feeling center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When I bring heart types into their bodies, sometimes it's like, oh, I don't want to go in there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's not where the juice is.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's out here.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's all over there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so in session, I have to really kind of give them this overview and say, hey, would it be all right if you close your eyes?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'll close my eyes, too.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Because they want to check to see am I doing now?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:How does Leslie think I'm doing?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I've taken walks with heart types so that we can get some good material.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Taking a walk, so they're doing something, but they're not having to check me to see how am I doing in session.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Because life is a production.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want to give you a package here.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Leslie Tooth are helping me have them have a successful session so I'll feel good.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's the doing, you know, that can happen with the two.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'll be a great client, I hope.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Clear.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Favorite client.
Lindsay:I never put this together before, but my husband is a four, and I've always, like, a strategy is like, if I know he needs to talk about something and he's not talking, we go for a walk.
Lindsay:Or I'm like, let's go for a drive.
Lindsay:You drive.
Lindsay:If he's driving, he will talk.
Lindsay:If we're on a walk, he will talk.
Lindsay:But if I'm like, let's just sit down and have a conversation, it's like, that makes so much sense to me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's exactly that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I first read about it because I just did it as a strategy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then I started reading something in the UK that walking therapy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I thought it really can be helpful with twos, threes, and fours, because there's the movement going on because the threes want to come in here.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They want to get this movement.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Let's get.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Let's get where we have to go.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, how many sessions is this going to take?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I get a lot of threes as clients.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Lately, I mean, I'm getting a lot of second, second half of life threes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's crazy how many I have.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And in my groups, in my second half of life groups, there's a lot of threes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And they're.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They range in their late 40s to their 70s.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And there it's a longing for that authentic self.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But it's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a confusion.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's very confusing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And with the heart types, there's a confusion of selves when you bring me inside.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So their buried center is the feelings from that person from this lens.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And for the head types, it's more traditional, more, you know, it's the perceptual center and it's, you know, when you think of it, development, we develop first in the body when you think that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That, you know, instinctual brain is online and then that limbic brain.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Now I've got to reach out to connect.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Now as I get older and the prefrontals come online, it gets more pixelated.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Now I got to try to figure it out in order to feel safe in the world, secure in the world.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So when you're working with head types, there's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They don't miss a thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They don't miss a thing in session or in the group, they're watching and scanning.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so that's the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That it's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:With the body center, they're very.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Their buried center is doing because it could get.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I've got to collect more information.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's a lot of procrastination.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I need to know a little bit more before I put it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Put it out there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's a real.
Speaker D:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a real Achilles heel for me to move something into doing because particularly if I.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If it matters to me because I have to do a little more research.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's one more thing I can teach.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what I have found is the somatic work is the really the only thing that can drop me and shift me from that incessant need to figure things out and to get more information.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's what gluttony looks like for me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's an excess of me, my library here, it's kind of crazy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I have one at home too, but it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I love it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to get rid of my mental center, but it's very limited when you talk about presence.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's been a significant shift in my relationship with my husband too, to recognize how strongly he feels, to just give it space, because now I can Lean back in my chair.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I can breathe.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I can feel my back, feel my feet.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I don't get so anxious telling him how it is for him, because I understand his type.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's really annoying for him.
Speaker D:It feels as though it's prioritizing the center's perspective a little bit differently in that here's an initial experience that people are having, and what people are most popular, are familiar with is actually the secondary understanding of the.
Speaker D:Of the centers.
Speaker D:So, like, at least for the body, I have an emotional experience first, and then what people are most aware of is what we do about it, which is why we portray this, the doing center, usually.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:But initially it's the emotional experience.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's what I kind of hear you saying.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And for the body center, it's really helpful to understand that as you kind of bring it back online, because I think when we look at the enneagram, the earliest progenitors, the enneagram were mostly head types.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that makes sense because you build it from the body up, and then you deconstruct it from the head down.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So they.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Head types are really.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If I'm facilitating a panel, a lot of times during a panel day, I'll have body or head types on first because it can be really articulate with words, you know?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But then the heart center started coming online.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Dan Goldman publishes Emotional Intelligence.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I started seeing more heart types kind of come online and bring it in.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then the somatic piece has been kind of the last one to come online.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's kind of like we're moving back in.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But I want to make the real distinction that for the body center, when I'm talking about the body center, we're talking about feeling, sensate feelings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So there's emotions, and emotions have a lot of energy, and there's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's a body, you know, correlate, you know, with those emotions.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's really what I learned when just first working with Marianne Gilbert, when she, you know, in our learning community, she was testing out a lot of her ideas with us, and I just found it like this whole new thing of sensation was just a whole new language for me.
Speaker D:Yeah, I appreciate the distinction because actually feeling the emotion is where there's discomfort.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yes, yes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The feeling.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Feeling.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It just feels like.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It feels like almost too much.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's undifferent.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Feelings are undifferentiated.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's the pain, pleasure continuum.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I like it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't like it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Not that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's kind of.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's hard.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's why body types speak of their feelings so much in metaphor, because it's hard to find language for like, what are you feeling right now?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I think another term would be.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Could be life force, but it's really the ground and the root of where we stand.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's elemental, it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's vital, it's dynamic, it's alive, and it's visceral.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's always in the background, you know, so when you think of then the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Then the two three fours, it's like, what do I do about all these feelings?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, and in order to make some connection with others, I'm going to have to repress that feeling in some way in order to get my needs met through connection.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's actually.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The heart center is a step away from the feeling.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All right, because relationality requires an intelligent attunement or awareness of what's happening in the field.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Because if we all just stayed in our little bodies, we'd just kind of be banging around with each other.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, the heart center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We've got to start making connections with other human beings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's others out there in the world.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So you can see watching animals, that's what I love.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:In Peter Levine's book Waking the Tiger, he's just talking about that elemental energetic of animals.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Even look in the animal kingdom, some animals pounce, some withdraw, some camouflage and merge.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, they're doing it all the time.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Or the heart center, the humans, that limbic brain, it's kind of I gotta move towards, you know, in some way, I've got to move towards connection.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, for.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:For them, there's so much juice on it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Why would I want to feel this.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This old body here?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So as we start, then we move to, you know, the head center.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Now I can dissect it and analyze it and compare and contrast and figure out.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's kind of like.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's just when language comes online and cognition comes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Comes online and all of us have all these three centers.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's just that we overuse one.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So those are the psychological centers, but they're happening somatically.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So the soma, what I found is it was a very helpful portal of entry into presence because I can't have that feeling I was having yesterday.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right now.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What's happening right now is what's happening right now.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So if we look at spiritual presence, that Capacity to be in the present moment as it is and take in more of it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Because if I'm a two and I'm just orienting towards everybody's needs, I'm missing all sorts of things for most, particularly what's going on inside of me.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So that's what we work on together.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's lovely.
Speaker D:I just.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:I appreciate you taking us through that uniquely different perspective on the centers.
Speaker D:I think it'll be valuable just for our listeners.
Speaker D:I know you've mentioned that before on the podcast before in some.
Speaker D:In some way, but I just think it's another perspective to kind of take into, maybe even help balance.
Speaker D:Balance out maybe a limited perspective.
Speaker D:So, you know, continue continuing on in some of the content we wanted to talk with you about, you know, speaking maybe of the.
Speaker D:Of the first half of life.
Speaker D:I think people there don't usually want to go to this next topic yet because they've not done with.
Speaker D:They've not done enough development.
Speaker D:But I wonder if we could address how you bring in shadow work, where you are with that right now in your work, and what's, what's maybe the difference between.
Speaker D:I hope people understand what that is like.
Speaker D:What's the difference between work and shadow work?
Speaker D:What is, what is that for you?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I, you know, talk about portals of entry.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Shadow is just a great portal of entry.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Every time I teach a shadow class.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So many people love working with the shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's just so interesting because you've had enough.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You've had enough life experience to know you have one.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You have a lot.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You're starting to kind of spot it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And, you know, the shadow is, you know, it's the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I love Robert A.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Johnson, who was a Jungian, because Carl Jung really developed the idea of the shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's like, what is this, like, curious, dark element that follows us around?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He said, like a Saurian tale that pursues us so relentlessly in our psychological world, and what does it occupy in the modern life?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so shadow energies operate in this.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:In their, you know, they do their own thing and they're behind conscious awareness.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's the tricky part of shadow work, all right, because they're happening beneath our conscious awareness.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so in shadow work, if, you know, if we can face our.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When we first see our dark side, and the dark side could be the golden shadow, you know, our gifts, that could be.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:For a 4 and a 6, that can be a little more stressful to look at sometimes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But when we come face to face with it, our first Instinct is to turn away from it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to see it, but I see it in you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's really easy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's one of the ways to spot your shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You spot it, you got it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If it really activates something inside of you, that's a good clue.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You might be in shadow territory.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If something really annoys you.
Speaker D:Could you give our listeners in a type specific example of that?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Oh, I would love to.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So, you know, as a heart type, if I'm a three, I have a strong identification with being successful together, self assured.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So what gets put in the backpack of shadow as I'm growing up as a kid, any part of me that feels like a loser, all right, so loser goes into the backpack where I carry the shadow, the metaphorical backpack, the inefficient parts of me, kind of the part of me that doesn't want to do anything, the failing part of me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So you're not going to find me in a lot of arenas where I'm going to fail, where you're going to see me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So for the three, right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All of that gets pushed into shadow and I create and construct a life where for the most part things are going along and swimmingly.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And this is the beauty of having children because a lot of times the children then are going to carry your shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So one of the big motivation of shadow work is to do your own work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But the bad news is the shadow just, it's always there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that's also the good news.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's got a lot of energy and it shows up in your dreams.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But let me talk a little bit more about the Enneagram because I feel like I want to build on that slightly.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I'll go to a body type.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So for, you know, if I'm a nine and I'm heavily identified with being.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm a peaceful person, I'm patient, I'm very mediating.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I am going to push that aspect of myself that is attention seeking.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All right, that's like, hey, what about me?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, look at me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm going to put that in the, in my backpack, I'm going to put the part that is angry, I'm going to put the part that's pushy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So for the nines, the shadow leaks out as passive aggression.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Okay.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just saying some things that might hurt somebody else and it sneaks out.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Or joking with a five.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm not foolish, I'm not unaware.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:God knows I'm not bubbly.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm contained and I'm knowledgeable.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm Wise.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So you pour.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Put anything that's not that into the shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So that would.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That is what it would be from the Enneagram perspective.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But it's also huge.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Part of it is the collective shadow, the cultural shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've taught the Enneagram in different countries, and you can see what's the identification, kind of almost the Enneagram type of the country.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then what gets pushed to shadow and what we're seeing playing out in the United States with polarization is massive shadow work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The shadow of our country is just in full view of everybody else.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, everyone can see it, but it's hard for us to see it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And there was a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't know if you've ever heard of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but a Russian writer, he said, if only it were all so simple.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Speaker D:That's amazing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So we see the enemy out there, and what we're seeing, I'm watching it in the right and in the left.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The world is at war because of projection.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You can see the projections going on when you're doing shadow work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Where do you get activated?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And what I understand about the shadow, too, is the more.
Speaker D:The bigger that long black bag you drag behind you, as I'm familiar with Robert Johnson saying, too, is the bigger that bag is, the more you find yourself surrounded by what you have, you know, lopped off inside of yourself.
Speaker D:Because I see it, because I protect it.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right.
Speaker D:So for me, like, I see a bunch of, you know, just highly assertive, arrogant people, when that's actually the parts of me that I don't want to be true.
Speaker D:But those people can't do that because it's not okay for me.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So for you, as a nine, it's, you know, second half of life work is stepping into your power, into the spotlight, into being seen.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:My husband got this award during COVID He's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He was the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:He's the chairman of the American Society of Travel Advisors, which is a lobbying group, you know, in Washington, you know, to lobby for travel interests.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And now think about COVID The whole industry implodes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Nobody has any business.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it is.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was really, really heartbreaking to watch.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And he was chair, and he was just this cool cucumber.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Checking with everybody, calling people, calling his friends, taking action.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And they asked him to stay on an extra year and serve because you're so calm.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You're calm in the storm.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I said to Dave one time, I said, what was it, do you think, that God asked us through this time?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And he said, oh, God, this is really hard for me to say because my leadership was part of it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like, it pained him to say it out loud, but that's a huge.
Speaker D:That's a huge shift because I'm awesome.
Speaker D:That's why that's really hard for a nine to say.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't think I would ever hear Dave say that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yes.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was like he.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We were on a walk and he.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And side by side and said, well, you know, that he played a part in it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There were a lot.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, he acknowledges his team very easily because there were a lot of other people.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It wasn't just him, but he was the leader and he created a field of steadiness.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:During a storm.
Speaker C:In all of life, we have.
Speaker C:We have different transitions.
Speaker C:We have, you know, two steps forward, one step back.
Speaker C:Second half of life isn't when you reach a certain age necessarily.
Speaker C:So can you talk about when does that arrive?
Speaker C:If that's even the right word for it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I love this question.
Speaker C:And how do we do.
Speaker D:Can you tell us if we're there yet?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I love this question so much because I've been sitting with it a lot.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Creek.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, I think it's one you have to ask yourself.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I remember being on a panel.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Helen and I were facilitating a panel for Integral, and it was actually a four on the panel.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And she said, you're not tired enough of yourself.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When he was young, you know, so you're not tired enough of yourself.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's when you kind of just get tired of your stick and something's happening in your life where it's not working, and you see that the one commonality is you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's the second half of that second.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And some people never get there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's some people who never get there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've seen people in their 80s.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You were talking about your great grandmother, which was so moving.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've seen people in their 80s, and they're still hanging on for dear life to the first half of life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I've seen people in their 30s doing second half of life work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, think about it, y'all.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The average age of death was like, in the turn of the century, was in your 30s.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Think about that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That is, you know, when you're.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:When, you know, when you're seeing all your compadres die in their 20s and 30s, mortality is right there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I think mortality is one of those big initiations into the second half of life, is facing your mortality.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I, you know, I think for me, at 20, when I was 20, my brother's wife and baby died.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that was a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, that's like a second half of life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But I was so young.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, I was in college, and so I just kind of parked it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it was so terribly frightening because, like, this can happen.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You mean, we do all the things and this can happen.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I remember reading the book when bad things happen to Good People, trying to find a way to construct it, that this doesn't.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This can't happen to our family.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then when I was 40 and lost a good friend and all that deconstruction was happening, I lost another dear friend.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The frozen grief just thawed and came back, and I was in second half of life full on, I would say in my late 30s and 40s.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:My children were a big initiation into the second half of life, too.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Watching as they came of age, you know, it's just like, oh, what is it?
Speaker C:What does it feel like to be tired of oneself versus just being annoyed or not liking parts of yourself?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Oh, what a great question.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, I love that question too.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I think it almost.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You'd have to ask that yourself.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I could answer for myself that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's really funny now that you asked that question.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like, I can feel my whole body buzzing right now.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I kind of want to go.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, I'd kind of like to go take a little break because, you know, I would have told you, Creek at 50.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've done it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I did the work.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've had my d.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:All this stuff's happened.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then my 50s hit, and just a slew of things that happened.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I remember my parents going into a senior living, and I was pissed.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Like, why am I so angry?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, this is a good thing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Cognitively.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I knew this was good, and I was angry because they're getting older.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Their mortality is hitting.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I can feel myself at 50 now.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm getting older.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And that was another layer.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then I would have said, oh, God, the 50s, man, I'm glad.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:60.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I had a wise woman ceremony.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I invited friends.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I was like, yeah, I've lost.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I've made it through the loss of my father and my sister.
Leslie Flood Hershberger: And that was: Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then Covid hit.
Speaker C:Wow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And Then.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I would say that life just lifes you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And each decade, at least for me personally, is asked for something different.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's going to be different for each one of your listeners.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And you can just ask yourself, what is this decade asking out of you right now?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What do you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What's not working anymore?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What do you want to let go of now for a two, it's like, God, I did it again.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it gets more subtle.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I did it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know the type gets more subtle.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It gets trickier the more aware you get.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then it just gobsmacks you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You realized I wanted something out of this and I didn't know it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I thought it was altruism.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I thought, boy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But there it is again.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I'm angry and I'm hurt and I'm sad, and I did it again, damn it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:As.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What was it Scott Peck said in the Road Less Traveled?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, the first line was, life is suffering and you really start to see it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then you can have even think of yourself if there's a golden shadow and you start showing up and you start expanding, stepping into your power.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:For some people, it's stepping back.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:For me, it's been a relief to just go smaller, you know, and just like, I'm tired.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to do all this anymore.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to be so busy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to be forgetting things.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I don't want to carry so much crap into my office.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm tired of it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's gonna be as simple as that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I just want it to be simpler.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want a smaller house.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want less things.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I want a cleaner car, you know, sometimes really elemental body things.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I just don't want all this crap, you know, it's like that for me.
Speaker D:As a seven, I'll say.
Speaker D:I think for me personally, the second half of life I've known like it's upon you sometimes when pain and suffering kind of like forces.
Speaker D:Forces the second half of life.
Speaker D:I think some of that onto you, right?
Speaker D:But I also think it's also about a willingness to grieve what's been lost throughout life.
Speaker D:Whether that's through like a loss of, like you said, people or dreams that you've maybe lost or even what we've been addressing as well, like the loss of the parts of me that got put in the shadow growing up because they didn't fit here yet.
Speaker D:And now I need those parts to engage fully with life.
Speaker D:That's to me, that's what has been naming my need to come into the second half of life.
Speaker D:Because I want to be able to be the best dad I can be, but I need those parts of me to do that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, that's so true.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, there's a four who just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, it's like, God, I wasted so much time on relationships that I should have known, you know, but I was idealizing them right at the gate, and I should have known better.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I wasted really good years of my life chasing after ideals.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I hear just such different stories.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But I think regret is an incredible teacher, you know, no regret, that's almost pathological, you know, I think regret's got some.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, I'm not talking about swimming in guilt and shame and beating yourself up.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm not talking about that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:But there's a sweetness.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's a sweetness when you realize.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I mean, I've had that more this these past three years than I've ever had in my life of just regrets.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And they.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They are.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They're like.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:They shine a light into corners inside of me that would have been hard to look at earlier.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And they impacted relationships, those regrets, you know, and so to be able to be brave enough and honest enough to look at regrets, and I think that is part of, you know, there was a woman who.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:She was a Jungian who did seven tasks of the second half.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was fabulous.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I taught it last week.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And one of them was to accept some things that happened and maybe a relationship won't ever get better and maybe.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And, you know, from, you know, worse.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We've got some can do positive reframe types here.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Two seven and a nine.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You know, hey, we can.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We can make it better.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Let me just work a little hard at this.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I can fix it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I can make it better.
Speaker C:I'm the most positive person I know.
Speaker C:What are you talking about?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it's like that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Lindsay:Well, what I hear you saying, though, is that instead of getting a tattoo that says no regrets, I should just get a tattoo that says regrets.
Lindsay:Is that right?
Lindsay:That would be more meaningful.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, right, right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Or something like maybe I'm open to the possibility.
Lindsay:Open to regret.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What I have found is regret.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I used to not think I had regrets and then coming face to face with.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And a lot of it was how I managed the grief.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so can I be kind to myself about it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I just didn't know what to do with so much loss.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I just lost so many of my closest people, and I didn't know what to do with it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And so I do have regrets about.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I wished I'd have learned to have a.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Sevens tend to not have a good holding pattern on the inside.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I wish I would have been say more mindful around the impact of all that loss.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And what it did is it really grounded me inside my own body and inside my own capacity to bear pain.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And guess what?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:What I've noticed is the more I open to it without the fear is the joy.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It just shows up.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's just this poignant joy at what I've got in front of me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:This the love I have in my life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So that's how me as a set, that's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:That's me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's different for everybody else.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's not a map.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Unfortunately for shadow work, it's.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's inside of you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And your life will tell you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Your dreams will tell you if you want to have them and remember them.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You're just let your psyche know that your projections and activations will tell you and others can see it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's usually somebody in your life willing to be honest to tell you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I think some good self reflection is important and some self compassion around it when you start to see it.
Speaker C:Yeah, we can only do what we can with what we have and just, you know, same rock, different day.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just work with what you have to in front of you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:You don't have to go figure it all out for the future.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Not that I would ever do anything like that but you know, just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Right.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just work with whatever's in front of you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's showing up in your life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Your shadows always showing up in your life.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And there's a golden shadow.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:There's talents there that haven't been mined and we're working with that.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:In the current second half of life group there are things that you are good at or things that there's talents that are latent.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's time to unearth them.
Speaker C:So speaking of the groups that you're doing right now, how can people reach out find you get all those things?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well, the first thing is I just finish.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Thank.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Thank you for my mentee, my husband and daughter this Enneagram shop where I wanted to take the way I've taught the Enneagram and have it a place to park.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I didn't want to write a book.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I wanted to have because I really wanted practices meditations, visuals for people journaling questions but or you know, an oral teaching.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm from the oral tradition, so I have the Enneagram Shop on my website.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So if you just Google Leslie Hirschberger Indian Gram Shop, you'll get all of those teachings.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then I'm going to be putting the shadow material.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm kind of having kind of the baseline teaching.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And then we're going to go just add deeper work as we do it.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:The thresholds also is second half of life work just constantly doing.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I'm doing one called Passages right now where we're looking at the eight passages that we go through from birth.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And it's really.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We did a meditation today of, like moving through our birth canal like that, you know, before we were born and even before we were conceived, you know, who were you?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It's a Zen saying, you know, what was your face before you were conceived?
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So we're working with Passages right now.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:We worked with James Hollis's work in our first session on Living Life of Meaning, and then the second one we did was Embodiment.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So I'll repeat those so they can find me there.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I'm doing a shadow class in January that will be live, but it will be taped.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So it will be recorded and then put in the Enneagram Shop.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:And I'm doing that with Lee Fields.
Speaker C:Love our Lee.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yeah, lovely Lee.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So that would probably be the.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Just go to my website, get on the mailing list, and if you want to message me on Instagram, I'm on Instagram as well if you're interested in any of these things.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:A lot of my Enneagram Graniogram work is at the Hive, Cincinnati, and it's in person and online.
Speaker C:Amazing.
Speaker C:Well, once again, Leslie, this has been so great and, you know, always, always, always a fan and looking forward to continue connecting in the future.
Lindsay:Thank you, Leslie.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Thank you.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Thank you for having me.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:It was so good to see all of you again.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:I love being on Fathom.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:So thank you.
Speaker C:Thanks for listening to this episode of Fathoms, an Enneagram podcast.
Speaker C:If you found this episode helpful in any way, consider sharing it with a friend or family member.
Speaker C:We are so honored to be on this journey with you, discovering our inner depths one fathom at a time.
Speaker D:If you Greek pouring, you know it.
Speaker D:Clap your hands.
Speaker D:If you're Greek more, you know, clap your hands.
Speaker D:If you Greek more and you know it, then you definitely will be moody if you're Clap your hands.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Well done.
Leslie Flood Hershberger:Yay.
