Latest / Mindful You / Journey of Self-Discovery: Exploring The Enneagram's Psychospiritual Wisdom, Shielding Significance, And Transformative Decision-Making With Robyn McTague

Transcript

Journey of Self-Discovery: Exploring The Enneagram's Psychospiritual Wisdom, Shielding Significance, And Transformative Decision-Making With Robyn McTague · Mindful You

• 0:05
  Unknown: Welcome back, everybody,
• 0:07
  Alan Carroll: to your next episode of the mindful U
• 0:13
  podcast. My name is Alan Carroll, I am your host, and
• 0:19
  today's guest. Today's guest is Robin. And Robin has an
• 0:27
  interesting story. And as most mindfulness, people seem to
• 0:34
  start from suffering, things didn't go well in their
• 0:39
  childhood, and they had a lot of ups and downs emotionally and
• 0:44
  mentally, which makes them feel that is there something else is
• 0:49
  there some way of reducing the suffering, it's just some way of
• 0:53
  experiencing more presence and joyfulness in my circumstances
• 0:58
  and activities, are there ways for me to be happier, mentally,
• 1:04
  physically and emotionally. And so that motivated Robin, to
• 1:10
  start her journey. And she describes one of the programs
• 1:15
  that she really got excited about. And she started to teach
• 1:19
  it. And it's a way of protecting yourself psychologically from
• 1:25
  all those influences outside yourself those blocks and those
• 1:30
  barriers. And she calls it a shielding a shielding system. So
• 1:36
  I'm excited to introduce you to Robin, and please welcome her to
• 1:41
  the mindful you podcast. Thank you very much.
• 1:54
  Robin, welcome to the mindful you podcast. Thank you, I'm
• 2:00
  excited to have the opportunity to speak with you. And for my
• 2:05
  audience, who I'd like you to introduce yourself to the
• 2:08
  audience, a little bit of your background, a little bit of how
• 2:11
  you were how you got on the mindfulness path, the
• 2:14
  mindfulness journey, the the transformation of consciousness,
• 2:18
  and then we'll move in, and maybe some of the things that
• 2:21
  you're doing now in order to develop those those muscles, for
• 2:25
  yourself and for and for the world. So we'll start with just
• 2:28
  a little bit of your background, Robin.
• 2:30
  Robyn McTague: Sure. Well, I came from one of those families
• 2:33
  that was dysfunctional with capital D. She was, yeah, she
• 2:42
  was suicidal, I first time, I remember I was four years old.
• 2:47
  And when she tried to kill herself, and my dad was an
• 2:51
  alcoholic, rageaholic abuser. And my way of dealing with it
• 2:57
  was to stay really quiet. I, you know, delved into books. My mom
• 3:02
  and I left when I was six, and we lived with other families. So
• 3:07
  I had exposure to lots of different settings of different
• 3:10
  people. And I was always curious, why did people do what
• 3:14
  they do? Like, and why are some people aware and other people
• 3:17
  aren't. And I remember having conversations with myself at a
• 3:21
  really young age around these things. So, you know, I went
• 3:25
  into psychology and counseling, I trained in conflict
• 3:28
  resolution. And then I had cancer breast cancer 23 years
• 3:34
  ago, this year. And that really opened up the can of worms of
• 3:39
  emotions, because that's the part I hadn't dealt with. I knew
• 3:43
  all these things intellectually. But I hadn't done that deeper
• 3:47
  work that I'd really pushed down to be able to function in the
• 3:50
  world. And so I spent six months on my sofa. And I just went deep
• 3:56
  into that feeling of, you know, being and that was really tough
• 4:02
  places where I wasn't allowed to be myself. I wasn't allowed to
• 4:06
  be curious. I wasn't allowed to do anything that I really
• 4:10
  wanted. You know, financially, I loved music. And I was so
• 4:15
  jealous of the other kids that learn to play piano or different
• 4:18
  things. And so, I really felt that I didn't get to be who I
• 4:26
  was. And so then with that cancer journey, I came out of
• 4:32
  those six months, I was coming back into the workplace. I
• 4:35
  worked in a large organization, over 1000 people, a lot of
• 4:40
  stressed out people we worked with people who are injured on
• 4:43
  the job. And I thought how can I be around all the stressed out
• 4:47
  people and I met a one woman at a wine cheese and tarot card
• 4:51
  reading party and she said I took a class where you get
• 4:54
  shields so you're not taking on other people's energy. And when
• 4:58
  I know something I noticed Something so I jumped in the
• 5:01
  next week. And I felt better in the first week, the course is
• 5:05
  four weeks, you get two energy shields, you get a grounding and
• 5:08
  a shielding system. And so I became a teacher of this. So now
• 5:12
  I teach adults and children the system. And I continue to grow
• 5:17
  in the energy system. And it's quite a unique system. So from
• 5:21
  there, I started to learn what was mine, and what was someone
• 5:26
  else's, as far as feelings and all of those different things.
• 5:31
  So I really started to get more in alignment, and connected to
• 5:35
  who I was, instead of always having to be the chameleon to
• 5:39
  fit in and feel safe. And through that, I started to get
• 5:46
  more independent, I got more tired of the bureaucracy, and
• 5:50
  then finally was able to leave early due to the number of years
• 5:53
  of service. And then I learned about the motivational map,
• 5:57
  which I love and the clarity that brought, I saw where those
• 6:01
  internal conflicts were. And it's partly based on the
• 6:05
  Enneagram. So I've been doing the really deep dive with the
• 6:08
  Enneagram work, which is a psycho spiritual system that
• 6:12
  helped me to really bring the spiritual and that humanity, the
• 6:20
  practical together to see that lens of the world, why I did
• 6:25
  things and to build more kindness and compassion for
• 6:28
  myself and other people. So that's kind of where I am today,
• 6:34
  where I'm working with the Enneagram, the motivational map,
• 6:38
  the meditation and healing system, I do some numerology as
• 6:43
  well. So it's interesting, all these number things that come
• 6:47
  into play, because there's so many universal laws, right. And
• 6:54
  this is something in the Enneagram we talk a lot about
• 6:57
  triads. And this number nine, that comes up, we have it with
• 7:04
  several of the systems I use, but it's universal law. And so
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  all of these systems connect in certain ways. And I find that
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  fascinating.
• 7:16
  Alan Carroll: Right, you could say that there's, everything is
• 7:19
  connected. With there's only one being one love one energy,
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  though the perception is there's a you and me. And as you talk
• 7:29
  about the different techniques you're using, it sounds like you
• 7:33
  are discovering something, I'll call it beyond the ego, that
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  there's a space of beingness that everybody shares a
• 7:41
  universal sense of beingness. And it's available to everybody.
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  And matter of fact, it's already there. And all you got to do is
• 7:49
  get on your sofa for six months, and allow yourself to just get
• 7:55
  get lost. Dissolve the thoughts dissolve the thoughts. I you
• 8:01
  talked about shielding, you said it a few times. And it's I like
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  that where I'm not sure what it means. But I like the idea of
• 8:10
  being able to protect yourself. And I the Word Shield means to
• 8:16
  me, you're protecting yourself. I'd like you just to talk a
• 8:19
  little bit about it because it has significance in your world.
• 8:22
  And it might have significance in the listeners world. Awesome.
• 8:27
  Unknown: Yeah, so the system that I teach, we actually as
• 8:30
  teachers shift your vibration over the four weeks. And so when
• 8:35
  we can shift that vibrational consciousness, we learned to
• 8:39
  bring in the universal energy, we learned to bring up that
• 8:43
  grounding energy. And so with that shield, then bring in a
• 8:49
  shield of love. And so then we have an energetic boundary. So
• 8:55
  then we can learn what's going on with me separate from other
• 8:59
  people, because we're all energetic sponges. You know, I
• 9:03
  get a little bit annoyed with all this empathetic stuff. I'm
• 9:07
  an empath. Well, we all are to a certain degree. It's whether we
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  accept or I have that awareness about it. So we all have this
• 9:16
  ability to say, wow, yeah, I'm really noticing that maybe I
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  going to a party or somewhere I feel great. Before I go, I get
• 9:30
  there and all of a sudden, within 15 minutes, I'm not
• 9:33
  feeling so good. But I think that's me. And as maybe someone
• 9:37
  else I'm picking up. So the energy shield which is light and
• 9:41
  love is a way to allow love in and keep the negativity out. And
• 9:48
  even with the kids course, I draw a bubble. And then I have
• 9:52
  the hearts coming through and then I have the arrows bouncing
• 9:56
  off that little bubble that I showed them that they can Hang
• 10:00
  up. So even with the kids, we do gentler increase in their
• 10:06
  vibration. And it gives them this sense of I actually have
• 10:11
  choice. And we've since seen kids stand up to bullies. And it
• 10:16
  also brings in a better communication tool between the
• 10:21
  parent and the child. So one of the parents has to come and they
• 10:24
  learn the system. So, and it's the same with the adults is just
• 10:29
  kind of a mini version. But it's ways to be able to build that
• 10:34
  communication with ourselves, and then with others. So it's
• 10:38
  like when I feel safe and energized, and not feeling
• 10:42
  drained by other people, then I have so much more success in my
• 10:48
  life, and that ability to know what's important to me.
• 10:53
  Alan Carroll: You mentioned, Robin, the word choice. And I
• 10:59
  find that most people don't have a choice. That choice involves
• 11:06
  observation. And most people can't, can observe because they
• 11:12
  can't let go of something which blocking, which is blocking them
• 11:17
  from, from responding. And so if you can't respond, then then you
• 11:23
  react to what's going on. And so when you talk about choice, to
• 11:28
  me, that's very, that's a very important level of awareness
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  that most people don't have a choice, this is the way it is,
• 11:39
  you know, there's that immediate reaction to it. And is that what
• 11:42
  you're talking about when I'm talking about choice?
• 11:45
  Unknown: Yeah, it's learning the different ways. And so that
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  awareness, like you say, it's like, it can start very small,
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  just having, you know, some cliche things, they come from a
• 11:57
  truthful place, like just having a breath. So when I trained to
• 12:01
  conflict resolution, and we talked about anger, so many
• 12:07
  people don't realize that they have choice before that
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  reaction, if they just take that moment, to start to notice
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  what's going on in their body. And so we learned to see our way
• 12:23
  of having that come up, like I'm a real stomach person, for
• 12:26
  example. So I'll feel that tension in the stomach rising,
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  and it's like, Oh, I feel that coming up. So can I let that
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  feeling come up and just wash through because one of the
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  things that I find people are afraid of, yes, if we go into
• 12:44
  this emotional stew, or mix, I'm never gonna get out the other
• 12:48
  side. And that was one of my fears. And I'm through so I can
• 12:52
  attest, we can get through it. And if we allow the emotion to
• 12:57
  come up, it usually lasts about 60 to 90 seconds. And so when we
• 13:02
  can let that wash over, and have that breath, it's like, oh, I
• 13:09
  can see I have choice when we're in stress. Breath is the only
• 13:13
  thing we have any choice over. And so that's the biggest thing
• 13:18
  is like, wow, now I can actually take a moment to say maybe I
• 13:22
  need to get out of this situation, maybe I need to ask
• 13:25
  for a timeout. If I'm in the workplace or something, maybe I
• 13:29
  just need to go to the washroom and take a moment to settle
• 13:34
  myself before I come back and not overreact, and maybe put my
• 13:39
  job on the line. You know, we see this right people getting
• 13:42
  angry, and it's like, I'm not taking this anymore. They're
• 13:45
  gone. And then they're in survival mode. And what can we
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  learn? What can we do in survival mode, we can because
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  then the old part of the brain kicks in. And we don't have that
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  choice. So it's about learning what are my ways of noticing
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  that. And with the Enneagram system, we have a centering
• 14:07
  practice. So I do that along with my meditation. So it's like
• 14:12
  two minutes breathing into the belly center, two minutes into
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  the heart center, two minutes into the head center, and then a
• 14:19
  minute, noticing that connection to all three. So when we can
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  center in all of our three centers, because we all have one
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  that we prefer, we can start to bring that in, and that not just
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  come from that one place. Ooh, it's
• 14:36
  Alan Carroll: nice. It's nice. I like the idea of taking your
• 14:42
  attention and shifting it off of the thoughts the monkey mind
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  that's going on inside your head and say okay, right now in this
• 14:51
  moment, I'm going to take two minutes and I'm going to focus
• 14:55
  on my my solar plexus like as I call it, my stomach area. Do
• 15:00
  interest, and then my heart, you said, my stomach, the heart,
• 15:04
  the, the head, and then and then how all three are connected,
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  Unknown: free. Yeah, just noticing how they support each
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  other and noticing our preference. So often we have two
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  that we go between. So I might go ahead emotion, and I leave
• 15:21
  out the body or you know, some other combination depending on
• 15:25
  our type structure. But there's, there's a pattern to all of
• 15:29
  this.
• 15:32
  Alan Carroll: And by shifting your attention from the thoughts
• 15:35
  into your body, in my experience, the body, the monkey
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  mind, or the energy or the anxiety begins to settle, calm,
• 15:52
  less agitation, more clarity, no, everything seems to be. But
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  the challenge for me and for other people probably is you
• 16:05
  have to be awake in order to observe what's going on in your
• 16:11
  body and your emotions and your mind. And my observation is, the
• 16:15
  ego is not awake, the ego is operating on automatic, it's it
• 16:18
  doesn't it doesn't have that have that luxury of letting go
• 16:24
  of my position, in order to relax my body, I will not let go
• 16:28
  of my position Robin, because I'm right, and you're wrong and
• 16:31
  you better. And so in the midst of the chaos, oh, I'm gonna
• 16:36
  relax now because then I'd have to, then I have to give up
• 16:40
  something that's real important to me. And I'm not willing to
• 16:43
  give that up. I'm gonna hold on to that. And I, I think you're
• 16:47
  talking about letting go of things and surrendering, and
• 16:51
  I'll call it I'll use the word giving up or letting go, is that
• 16:53
  true?
• 16:55
  Unknown: Yes. And I'd like to be very practical and remind people
• 17:00
  that, you know, this is why we have to shower every day, we
• 17:04
  forget ourselves again and again and again. So allowing that
• 17:08
  shame to come up. And this is what stops us from creating
• 17:11
  these better patterns for ourselves, like people who want
• 17:15
  to do the centering practice every day or their meditation.
• 17:19
  It's like, it's okay, this is part of what we do as humans,
• 17:24
  but so often we make it wrong. It's like, well, I might as well
• 17:28
  give up because I forgot a day. You know, we see this with
• 17:31
  people and their eating plans and these healthier ways of
• 17:34
  being they give it all up. But it's like, this is normal.
• 17:38
  Let's, you know, forget it, and be okay with it. And allow these
• 17:45
  feelings that are uncomfortable. So yeah, I feel some shame, I
• 17:49
  promise to do something I didn't I promise that to myself. So am
• 17:54
  I going to value myself enough to say it's okay? And let that
• 17:59
  go that judgment of myself, right? We're our biggest
• 18:02
  harshest critics. And it's like when we can bring that kindness
• 18:06
  in and say, yeah, I forgot. And I can do it now. Or I can do it
• 18:12
  again in the morning or, you know, maybe today I have a
• 18:17
  schedule where I need to fit it in somewhere else. You know,
• 18:21
  most people can find seven minutes. With the meditation
• 18:25
  training, we ask for more upfront when we're first
• 18:28
  building those new neural pathways. But the good news is,
• 18:32
  right, neuroplasticity, we can learn at any age. And we need to
• 18:37
  bring in that kindness and compassion. And let's just do
• 18:40
  it. So I know. I see the results and other people. And this is
• 18:45
  often how we see people coming into the meditation course their
• 18:48
  friends take it, they notice that shift in them. And it's
• 18:52
  like, yeah, I want that to soar, we can allow ourselves to do the
• 18:57
  same old, same old, are we going to deal with the resistance?
• 19:01
  Because that's the biggest piece we deal with, with the
• 19:05
  meditation with people the resistance. And that's what
• 19:09
  you're saying the ego rate?
• 19:11
  Alan Carroll: Right? The ego is, this shouldn't be whatever's
• 19:16
  going on. In my reality. This should not be I'm not allowing
• 19:20
  whatever's going on to be I'm judging it. And so that's I'm
• 19:26
  very much involved in understanding the resistance
• 19:29
  based on my own experience of resisting. Before we go, I just
• 19:32
  have to ask you to talk a little bit about dream coaching.
• 19:36
  Because I'm a psychologist, Guy and dreams are part of the game.
• 19:40
  And so coaching on dreams is pretty cool. So can you just
• 19:44
  talk a little bit about that before we before we complete?
• 19:48
  Unknown: Yeah, I love dreams. I have been doing a dream journal
• 19:51
  my first year of college actually, even before I was I've
• 19:55
  always been interested in the esoteric and the weird stuff. I
• 19:59
  was Learning to astral travel when I was a teenager, and sure
• 20:04
  all these things. And with a psychology background and a lot
• 20:08
  of reading on young and universal,
• 20:11
  Alan Carroll: my goals Young as young as my Yeah.
• 20:15
  Unknown: And so in the meditation course, we have an
• 20:18
  act of style. And we give you tools for remembering your
• 20:22
  dreams and for dream interpretation, which is
• 20:24
  amazing. And it's all on the archetype. And then the dream
• 20:29
  coaching is what is that dream I want for myself. So it's a
• 20:33
  process we go through to look at the different aspects of
• 20:38
  bringing that dream in for ourselves. And because I've done
• 20:41
  a lot of work with dreams, I can help you with the the alive ones
• 20:46
  or the unconscious ones, and help you bring that out. So, you
• 20:51
  know, it's maybe just learning to dream again, for some people
• 20:54
  who have been stuck in this kind of pattern of just doing things
• 20:59
  for everyone else, like I was stuck in and learning that.
• 21:04
  Yeah, I'm important. I'm a value, and I'm going to bring
• 21:09
  that dream for myself alive again.
• 21:11
  Alan Carroll: Wonderful. Robin, if people hear our conversation
• 21:16
  today, and they say, Wow, Robin has lots of cool stuff. How do I
• 21:20
  connect with Robin? What are some of the ways people can
• 21:24
  reach out to you and connect with you?
• 21:26
  Unknown: Sure. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, and the website
• 21:33
  because I'm in Canada is a life of choice.ca. When did there's a
• 21:41
  couple of chapters of books on there, and also have a
• 21:46
  meditation for relationships, I can give you the link to that
• 21:49
  you can add to the show notes if you'd like.
• 21:51
  Alan Carroll: Perfect, perfect. Well, Rob, I want to thank you
• 21:55
  very much for being on the mindful you podcast, and sharing
• 21:59
  some of your wisdom and some of your experiences that you've
• 22:04
  experienced on your personal journey and you're sharing your
• 22:07
  personal journey was very, very nice. I want to thank you very
• 22:09
  much. And on behalf of my guest and the audience, I want to
• 22:13
  thank you for being on the mindful you podcast.
• 22:17
  Unknown: Thank you so much.