Coming Home to Myself: Leigh Anne Taylor's Story of Integration

In this episode of The Real Enneagram, we are thrilled to welcome Leigh Anne Taylor, a recent graduate of the Institute for Conscious Being. Leigh Anne shares her journey as a Type 6, highlighting her experiences with fear, anxiety, and the importance of self-understanding. She reflects on her initial struggles to identify her Enneagram type, revealing how reading Joe Howell's book, Becoming Conscious, helped her feel seen and understood.

Leigh Anne discusses her role as an encourager in her professional life, serving clergy and churches in Virginia, and her passion for music and writing. She also opens up about her personal journey, including her co-authored memoir, Our Family Outing.

Throughout the conversation, we delve into the unique challenges and strengths of Type 6 individuals, particularly the balance between vulnerability and courage. Leigh Anne shares a poignant story from her childhood that illustrates her journey toward integration and healing, emphasizing the importance of self-compassion and forgiveness.

As we explore the Enneagram's role in personal growth, Leigh Anne highlights the significance of community and the safe space provided by the Institute for Conscious Being. We conclude with reflections on how embracing our vulnerabilities can lead to greater strength and self-acceptance.

Join us for this insightful discussion that not only resonates with Type 6 listeners but also offers valuable lessons for everyone on the path to self-discovery and integration. Thank you for listening!

To learn more about the Institute for Conscious Being, visit: theicb.info

Transcript

Scott:
You are now listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. And now, here are your hosts, Dr. Joe Howell and Nanette Mudiam.

Nanette: Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. I'm Nanette Mudiam, and I'm here with Dr. Joseph Howell today. Hi, Nanette. Hi, Joe. How are you?

Joe: And we're here with Scott, too.

Nanette: We are here with Scott, and Scott is always in the background.

Scott: Scott Smith. Hello, everybody.

Nanette: The voice of Scott Smith, our producer, our editor, our sound man. What else are you?

Scott: Cheerleader. You're a cheerleader, that's right. Always glad to be here, Nanette.

Nanette: Yeah, thanks, Scott.

Scott: And Joe. Thank you.

Nanette: So we are super excited today to have Leigh Anne Taylor with us. She is a student with the Institute for Conscious Being and she's very special. She's quite an exhorter. I always feel encouraged whenever I'm with LeighAnne. She makes you feel good about yourself and that is a gift. Thank you for the love you always give us LeighAnne. So say hi to us and if you would just share a little bit with our listening audience about who you are.

Leigh Anne: Sure. Hi, Nanette. Hi, Joe. Hi, Scott. It's great to see you all again. I am a recent graduate of the ICB. I've just finished my third year in January and I'm missing my three times a year visits down to Alabama. I am 62 years old, mother and grandmother and wife. I live in Virginia. I was the only girl born in a family of four, so I had three brothers whom I adore and they kind of fond of me too. I live about two hours from where I grew up in the near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. So y'all can picture how beautiful that is. The Blue Ridge Parkway is about a half an hour from drive from our house. And that's one of my favorite things to do to relax is to go drive up the parkway and with the top down and stop and take out my colored pencils and draw. Not that I'm an artist, but I enjoy doing that to relax. I am an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. Most of my professional life, I have been a church musician, worked as full-time minister of music for lots and lots of years. And then in 2017, moved into a new role. I serve in the district office. My boss is the superintendent for about 90 clergy, and I My role is as, guess what? Encourager. I'm not surprised by that. For clergy and churches in a pretty big chunk of Virginia, so it's a good life. I love it. I get to work with some great people. You're also a writer, are you not? I am. I have co-authored a book with my former husband, the Reverend Joe Cobb, called Our Family Outing, a memoir of coming out and coming through. My former husband was a United Methodist clergy, as well as I am. We, in our mid thirties, walked through a challenging season of his coming out to himself and us learning how to negotiate our relationship with divorcing, but making a new vow to honor one another for the rest of our lives. So we have a wonderful blended family of my husband. Hugh has three children and I have two. My former husband has a husband and two children. And we have just sort of been mom and the dads and figured out how to be family in a way that honored each one of the people in our family. So thank you for asking about our book. You can find it on Amazon.

Nanette: Yeah, and that's a very real experience that, you know, I know quite a number of people who I could share that with. So thank you so much. And to see you now and know that you've walked through that, that's pretty amazing. And I know that that had to have been painful and, you know, difficult and challenging in many, many ways. But so Hugh is your current husband. Yeah. And Hugh Ballou works with the Institute as well and helps us with management, many, many things that we do behind the scenes. And so you guys are intricately related to the Institute and we're so grateful for that.

Leigh Anne: To each other and to the ICB and we are very grateful.

Nanette: Yeah. So, and so today you are here as our type six. And so we're excited to talk about that. I was just before we came on talking to Joe about maybe contributing to this conversation a little bit as a fellow type six. And he said, well, I'm afraid we might commiserate if we do that. Joe, you know obviously full well what it's like to be a type 6. And in full disclosure, I am also married to a type 6. So it's quite a real, it's my own reality as well. So and also someplace I can disintegrate to. So I resemble that.

Joe: You resemble that.

Nanette: Yeah.

Leigh Anne: I feel right at home with y'all. Thanks.

Nanette: We want you to.

Joe: I'm just curious, what has the experience with ICB taught you about being a Sikh who is more on the redeemed side than the unconscious side?

Leigh Anne: Well, a friend, a colleague who knew about it and talked about it. But the first book that I read was The Wisdom of the Enneagram, the Rizzo and Hudson. And I learned a lot in my head. I learned a lot in my head when I read that book. I was working with my spiritual director who recommended Joe Howell's becoming conscious of the Enneagram's forgotten passageway of some years into my, you know, just curiosity about it. And Joe, the secret was learning the Enneagram as a six from a six. I felt so seen and understood when I read your book. And I want to say, I struggled knowing what my type was at the beginning. I didn't know if I was a nine or a six. And I really wanted to be a nine. I wanted to be a nine. But there's your sure sign that you weren't one then.

Nanette: That's right.

Leigh Anne: And there were other numbers that I thought, surely I must be a two because I'm such a helper. But that didn't fit. You know, I just I tried on any type after type, and then it was your prayers. Joe, it was your prayers in Becoming Conscious, the prayer of the six, that was that moment of, you know, just taking my breath away and it was arresting. And I wept when I just finally realized this is how seen and heard I felt and safe.

Nanette: It's interesting to me that when you first started talking about being a six and the first book that you immediately went to your mind. Of course, the type six is in the mind center. And to just, it seems as if you fretted over which number you were. I also find this story very common. It seems to me, and this has just been in my relationship with other students and listening to their journey, that many people who are twos or sixes seem to struggle with whether a two or a six. And, you know, obviously, some of your behaviors kind of look similar. You're helpful to the group, you're exhorters very often, you very much care about the other, but obviously your motivation for it is quite different. You know, especially the two coming from a heart center and from that drive of relationship and you much more out of fear and anxiety, quite honestly.

Leigh Anne: Right, and I think the thing that I just resisted so much was naming the fear. I think I was afraid to name the fear. But once I did, it was just such a, so many things just sort of fell into place. Self-understanding came in such a, you know, just by the gulps, great gulps of self-understanding came when I realized, oh, that's the compulsion of fear and anxiety, a lifelong companion. I didn't know other people didn't feel like that. Or think like this, which, you know, the back and forth, the flip-flop, I'm the queen of second-guessing myself and I'm the queen of self-doubt. These are things that come very naturally to me.

Joe: But how do you counteract that now that you know what you know?

Leigh Anne: Yeah, gosh, you know, Joe, I think on my better days, I notice what my mind is doing. I notice the ping pong inside my head and I can usually say, ah, I see you. I see you. I often say that out loud. Ah, I see you. And I take a breath and try to just, usually it helps me to just get back in my body and I can come back. I notice that if I'm overly tired, or stressed, if I've just bitten off more than I can chew, that's not enough. And it takes time. And for me, it's always takes the amount of time that it takes for me to be fully rested.

Nanette: So did you when you read Joe's book, how did how did you go from reading the book to finding our community, Leigh Ann?

Leigh Anne: No, I found it through talking with my spiritual director during the pandemic. I was stuck in a house with a one and the two of us were disintegrating left and right, you know, over a global pandemic and seeing the world very differently. Frankly, his compulsion of anger ignited my compulsion of fear and vicious cycle that contributed to, you know, just a real sense of a high level of anxiety for me. I went to the podcast. Scott, I met you on the podcast, friend. You became my friend when I heard your interview on the podcast.

Scott: That's so lovely, Leigh Anne.

Leigh Anne: Well, I loved you before I knew you. All of you. I loved you all before I knew you because you were giving me hope and a lifeline. So I consumed the podcast. I looked you up on the website. And then I found, I think I found an event and signed up for one. And at that time, everything was online. So it kind of made, it was an easy entry point for me. So I did the first, I did a, I forgot what the word is.

Nanette: Did you do a conference with us online? I did a conference online.

Leigh Anne: And then, on the strength of that, I thought I got to have more of this. And it was working in diets that really was so helpful to me I think in that because I did again feel seen and heard and it lowered my anxiety to be seen and heard and understood and to be getting some language on how to understand myself. So I just knew I wanted more and I knew that I wanted to do the whole shebang because I just As a 6, I look for a system that can support me and the Enneagram is the system that works for me.

Nanette: It works for me. Well, let me go back to what a dyad is, just for those who don't know what a dyad is. A dyad is a series of questions that we share with a partner in order to get to a deeper level of understanding of ourselves. Inquiry. And inquiry. Thank you, Joe. And it is extremely helpful. And it's just one of the many teaching tools that we use at the Institute in order to delve deeper into this subject matter that we know is impacting our spiritual and physical and emotional lives on many levels. So that's the first thing I would say. The next thing I would say is this desire that you had as soon as you came, I can immediately relate to that. It was the same for me. Like I went to a conference and I knew like, this is this is just, this is beautiful. And it was all new information for me when I came to the Institute. But for for me, it was the same, like I need to know more of this. And what I have discovered in our group is, and something that I think Joe would agree with, is that we use the Enneagram as the map. And it is really, really helpful. But we know that we're doing real spiritual work that becomes just, the Enneagram just becomes kind of secondary to the real work that we're really doing. And that is in living in community with one another. and finding places of healing and maturity and integration that we maybe have never experienced before. So, thank you for being a fellow student.

Leigh Anne: You're welcome. I concur completely. I think the thing that encouraged me the most at the beginning was this, the safety that the leaders modeled for the rest of us of letting go of ego and being present not in ego. And I could tell the difference from the beginning. There's just that. And Joe, especially in your plenaries and your to speak so vulnerably. And then it just set the tone for the conversations in small groups and then on the, in the diets to be able to speak vulnerably and to really experience for the first time what it was, what it's like to let go of that shield and to not judge myself or the other person and just be to be okay with who I am and how I am. It was so healing and so refreshing. And I have not encountered that in a lot of places in my life, in my world. So I'm so grateful for that. And it is the thing that makes me want to come back and back and back again.

Nanette: Well, and you know, that's one of those reasons that we developed the deepening roots aspect of our intensives is because we know that there are lifetime members kind of like us, and we certainly don't expect people to sign up for that, but if they find our community and it resonates with them and it's something they want to continue to participate, we definitely wanted to give people the opportunity to do so. So we're excited to have your participation in the future in that. So, talk to us a little bit about, I know, you know, Joe kind of started that, a similar idea in questioning you in the beginning, but talk to us a little bit about what it's been like to experience yourself as an integrated six, as a healthy type six, and what that is, I know, You know, that makes you more aware of when you're too stressed, too tired. But in your daily life, what are some practices that are helping you to live out your virtue of courage? And what those holy strength and holy faith are looking like in your life at this moment?

Leigh Anne: Thank you. I've never thought of myself as a courageous person. But the Enneagram really helped me claim that as really the way I was born. And just to know that I can come home to myself, to my own wisdom, my own sense of trust in myself, my own inner guidance. I don't even think I really knew these were possibilities before studying the Enneagram. So what does that look like in practice? I think I'll just tell a story, and I'll tell one that's really, really fresh. Okay. This summer has been just since about the middle of April through about a month ago, just has been nonstop with many good things, and nothing I would trade, all good things, but one thing would just butt it up right against the next one and there wasn't really time to recover or sort of get my feet back under myself. So there was a lot of travel, sleep loss, birth of a baby, a transition with a new boss, and so just sort of a lot of life events strung together. and I didn't really take, I couldn't, I didn't have time to restore myself in between, so the summer has sort of, it's felt like a steady decline in my consciousness and a sort of sliding a little further down into anxiety, a little more anxiety, a little more, I've noticed like defendedness, it's like I've been able to watch it, but not able to stop it from happening. This very weekend, I have given myself the time to just sleep until my body's done sleeping, to walk, but not push myself to walk, you know, to walk fast, just to be out in nature and to be where the birds and the trees speak to me. This morning, the very birds said, no fear. No fear, no fear, as they called one across, you know, from the treetops one to the other. They were just shouting, no fear, no fear over my head. And one of the things that I did to try to kind of connect with my own wisdom and guidance was to go back to what I think is the beginning of my ego, of my childhood wound and the way that my ego has told the story up until now. I was little, three, four, and it was nighttime ritual. I'd had my bath. I had on my little nightgown and mama sent me up to say goodnight to daddy before I went to bed. And the way my ego tells it, he picked me up and took me outside and put me down in the snow. And I was just terrified and cold and mad. Felt like my voice had not been heard and I, you know, just betrayed, you know, just all the things broken hearted by my father. And my mother didn't rescue me. She was bathing my other brother, you know, my brother who came out next. Today, I was able to walk through that story again with an awareness that That little girl came down the hallway warm from her pajamas and it was snowing and she was in her daddy's arms and they looked out the window and saw the snow. And then daddy took her outside so she could catch a snowflake in her hand and then took it one step too far and put her down in the snow. But it wasn't out of malice or Making fun or harm. And if my father had known that putting me down in the snow in my bare feet would break my heart like it did, he never would have done it. And what came back to me today is I walked through that memory as an adult in my In my soul was that when I was a teeny tiny girl, I didn't know the difference between the storybooks that I read and reality. I was in magical thinking and I had heard the little match girl. And the little match girl was left outside, abandoned outside and froze to death. They found her dead the next day. And my little bitty girl put down in the snow. Today it came back to me, little match girl was terrified that she was going to be left in the snow and abandoned and would die. Like because little bitty girl didn't know the difference between the story and what was happening. And for the first time in my life, as I replayed that memory, I just turned toward my dad and said, you know, you, you had no idea. I know that you had no idea how much that hurt me. And that if you had known, you would never have done it. And I forgive you. And that, that's. my six coming into the fullness of connection, integration. I'm not afraid of being abandoned anymore. And what else I know is as a parent, I've done things that hurt my kids. And I didn't ever intend to do it. I didn't never intend, and I don't know exactly what I did, but I know I did hurt them.

Joe: What a story.

Scott: Story of coming home to yourself.

Leigh Anne: Yeah, it truly did feel like that. And my dad's been gone for several years now. five, six years now, and I feel like I can let him rest in peace, he can rest in peace, you know?

Nanette: And the holy strength and holy trust really restored that, right? And it works outside of time and space. And, you know, speaking of being a parent, it's interesting. I had a chance, and I won't tell the story here, but I had a chance to tell my mom my wound. What I think it was, you know, the first one for me and because it involved her and I just, I actually just, I wanted to see if she remembered this story, which of course she really didn't. And my mom is just a really kind soul, and of course she was horrified to think that she had wounded me. And I said, well, that's not really why I'm telling you. I really wanted to know whether you remembered it. But I think it's pretty safe to say that We were going to put on our ego one way or another, you know. No parent means to injure their child or to cause a wound. And if we don't do it as parents, somebody else is bound to do it for us, you know. If it's not us, it's going to be, you know, an uncle, an aunt, a teacher, or somebody. Because it's just, we need an ego to get through life. It's the painful realization that life is painful. And would you like to speak to that, Joe? Especially in, I mean, you're a clinical psychologist. This is your expertise. And so, you know.

Joe: How can an innocent blank slate who only wants to give and receive love, how can she survive? in this world. She suffers the fate of the little match girl unless there is a defense. And that defense is our ego that moves us through the world. It's our image. It's our protection. It's our vehicle. And we've got to have it. But our vulnerability, as Leigh Anne brought forth today, is also our biggest strength. So the job of the six is to revisit her or his vulnerability, which in the ego we panic about visiting, but to claim that vulnerability and speak of it and feel the strength that we're given in its truth. That is what we heard in the story here that LeighAnne told. You told today, LeighAnne, so thank you.

Leigh Anne: You're welcome. I wanted to tell you that as I did, I I walked while I was thinking, remembering, and so when I was allowing my little wounded child to speak, Let me think, how did I do this exactly? I actually allowed my ego to speak and tell the story that my ego has told. I put my left hand on my heart while my ego was telling the story. I didn't fault her for being mad or calling names or feeling disappointed. None of the feelings. I just allowed and accepted and heard all the feelings. But then when I was trying, I put my right hand on my heart when I was trying to be in touch with my inner guidance and my my trusting myself and my holy strength and my holy courage and my holy trust in myself and just would then speak to her from that space and then finally I just put all three of us together.

Joe: Integration.

Leigh Anne: Yeah. I just held my, I just held I just held myself. I held myself. I think I held myself together. And what I sensed in that was I did sense that I can trust myself. I can trust even my ego's interpretation, but just not driving the bus. She doesn't have the whole story. She can't. She just doesn't have the whole story. Yeah. Can't see it from my perspective and my inner strength and my holy faith and my holy trust in myself and God to guide me and that I was not going to die.

Nanette: Well and that's that's really one of our goals in teaching at the Institute is to the idea of amalgamation that there is wisdom earned in the ego and that you you have many gifts of the type 6 in a healthy type 6 that you've learned in navigating your life this way but also that as you come home to your soul child at type 9 that you that there that there are gifts there for you And that amalgamation, that integration, that is really redemption in Leigh Anne's life. And it's a better way to live. And of course, none of us embody that all the time. And we vacillate a million times in a day between ego and soul, hopefully. Hopefully so much so that we're living a little bit more in soul than we did before and at least aware of that.

Joe: Scott, do you have anything to ask Leigh Anne here at the conclusion?

Scott: Well, I'm struck by what Joe said about vulnerability, how that's our strength. But the ego, at least the unconscious ego, sees it as a weakness. But we find strength in embracing that vulnerability. And if that doesn't take your virtue of courage, I don't know what does. I don't know if I really have a question, but my deepest appreciation for what you've shared with us today, Leigh Anne. Again, you used a phrase earlier that I just loved, coming home to myself. I'll be pondering that. How can my holy ideas and my virtues help me come home to myself, and what does that mean for me? And I would ask you that question, but I think you've already answered it.

Leigh Anne: Thank you. One of the one of the best tools that I've learned is to notice that I have a practice of when I'm having a big feeling I project anxiety and somebody is to blame. It's somebody's problem and you know I only live with one other person, so you know who gets it. But when I find, but I notice because I have this the gift of the Enneagram, I can go, oh, wait, hey, my inner dialogue is telling me that I'm really, I'm really mad. I'm projecting a lot of stuff onto the person I live with. What big feeling am I avoiding? What do I need to sit with? What do I have? What do I need to have the courage to do? What do I need to have the courage to feel? And how, what's the closest route to that?

Joe: Yes.

Nanette: Well, Leigh Anne, you've given us so much wisdom today, so many nuggets of wisdom. And I know that for especially those ego type sixes out there today that they've been encouraged by your transparency and your willingness to talk so openly about your own experiences. But even those of us who are not your type, we, as Scott said, you know, I think our real theme for you will be coming home to ourselves. So thank you for sharing with us that with us today. Thank you.

Leigh Anne: You're welcome. What a gift. Thanks for asking. It's been a joy to be with you. Likewise.

Scott: Thank you for listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. The music for today's podcast was composed and performed by ICB faculty member Drexel Rayford.

Nanette: Thanks for listening today. We hope you liked what you heard. If you did, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your friends and family.