A try-hard girl gives common-sense grace: Marilyn Vancil

Ready to discover more about how God wired you because you’re ready to learn about who you are and let go of what’s tripping you up so you can live out your purpose? Of course you are! Then you’re ready to learn from certified Enneagram Professional Marilyn Vancil, author of Self to Lose, Self to Find. Her Biblical approach to the Enneagram and her practical guidance on how the Enneagram can help you live out God’s purpose are gifts to cherish.

Marilyn is a certified Enneagram Professional in the Narrative Tradition through Enneagram Worldwide. She and her husband live in Seattle, and have four adult children and 10 grandchildren.

Keep reading to the end to learn how you could win a free copy of her book Self to Lose, Self to Find.

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There are so many personality typing systems out there. For the woman who wants to know how she’s wired, what makes the Enneagram the system you’d recommend?

The reality that there are so many personality systems is an indication of the human desire to understand ourselves as well as others. Many of these are very helpful.

Yet, the Enneagram is unlike any other system.

Rather than focusing on strengths and weaknesses or traits and talents, the Enneagram goes below the surface to the inner and unconscious motivations for why we think, feel, and behave the way we do. It illuminates the underlying patterns and beliefs we adopted early in our lives to get along in the world as we sought to have our needs for love, safety, and control met.

These developmental strategies were a combination of our natural inborn temperaments and the environments in which we were nurtured. The Enneagram system describes nine different patterns or ways of being in the world, both in a healthy way and in a restrictive, unhealthy way.

What do you say to the woman who thinks that learning about how she’s wired is not all that important? That being self-aware seems more like selfishness?

I believe it’s imperative that we examine and nurture our own inner lives in order to love others from a free and undefended posture. When we are operating on “auto-pilot” without a conscious awareness of our reactions, our blind spots, and our false internal narratives, we also have a limited awareness of our impact on others and the ways our unconscious motivations create obstacles to the free flow of caring and love.

To not do the hard work of honest self-awareness and intentional self-reflection is actually more selfish than taking the time to become a whole, balanced, and receptive person by embracing practices of personal development.

In your book Self to Lose, Self to Find, you talk about the Adapted Self and the Authentic Self. What’s the difference between the two?

Our Authentic Self is the person God designed to experience and express His divine image in a unique way. It is our true self created by God, the one described in Genesis 1 as very good. Our Authentic Self is the one that has a relationship with God…the union of our spirit with His spirit.

On the other hand, the Adapted Self is the one we have created to assure that our needs are met. It is an illusion of our own making, a persona fashioned to earn the love and acceptance we long for. It is also formed from protective strategies to be safe and in control.

As stated earlier, the formation of this self is a necessary part of human development, but we tend to hang on to it for our own self-protection and self-defense. The journey of transformation into the freedom and abundant life promised by Jesus involves recognizing and releasing the false or Adapted Self so the true and Authentic Self can emerge and flourish.

For the woman who’s ready to let go of her Adapted Self, what’s one step she can take today?

In my book, I offer a reflective process called OWN-UP: Observe, Welcome, Name, Untangle, and Possess. The first step involves an honest recognition of a specific way her Adapted Self is hurting her relationships with God, her own self, and others.

This can usually be seen in situations that create a reactive response, like defensiveness, hurt, anger, insecurity, blame, shame, or fear. Awaking her “self-observation muscle” and taking the time to explore what is below the surface of her adaptive reaction is the beginning of inviting God to release her from the traps of her false self. It takes courage and intentionality.

So many of us have a misunderstanding of Jesus’s command to deny ourselves. What did Jesus mean by that and how can we do it?

The word “deny” in the commands of Jesus to “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” is better translated (from the Greek of the New Testament) as “disown.” This is the same word used when Peter denied Jesus, saying he had no relationship with Him.

In the same way, I believe Jesus invites us to disown our false self as not really the true us; to proclaim that our Adapted Self is just a persona and not the Authentic Self God created. Jesus also said that “if we save our self, we will lose it, but if we lose our self for His sake, we will find it.”

So, there is a Self to Lose and a Self to Find!

In my opinion, Jesus is saying to let go of that part of us that we created for our own protection so that we can discover and live fully as the person God created to reflect His image.

How can we do it? By the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting fully in the love of God, and following in the way of Jesus to empty ourselves so that we can live into our divine destiny. It’s not always an easy journey, but it is worth it!

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