In Flannery O'Conner's super-creepy short story "Revelation," the good and respectable Mrs. Turpin is literally conked on the head and choked by grace. 

By Mary Grace, that is--a college student who can't bear to hear Mrs. Turpin's gossipy hypocrisy in the doctor's office one more second and throws a book at her before jumping on her and choking her. At home, where she is hurt more in spirit than in body, Mrs. Turpin wails Why me?! and basically demands that God explain himself to her,

Which He does. 
Kind of. 

After her violent encounter with (G)race, Mrs. Turpin has a vision--a revelation about the true nature of virtue--beside a pig parlor.   

​ 

I think of this story every time I hear the word ​grace.  Growing up, I heard grace defined as unearned favor with God--which sounds very sweet. 
​
​But in real life, I have found grace to be both the thing that knocks me off-balance, and the thing that appears when the center does not hold.

​

​

​Which is why I am utterly fascinated by Level 4 of the Enneagram Levels of Development, called "The Level of Imbalance."  Below Level 4 is "Interpersonal Conflict" (L5), followed by "Overcompensation" and various levels of unhealthy development.  And above Level 4 is "Social Value" (L3) and various levels of healthy development. 

Basically, below Level 4, our pre-conscious patterns of behavior, emotions, and thought are totally running the program--or rather--running us.  Because, icky as it may feel, we are the program the patterns are running--like non-updated software.  Below Level 4, our actions are not free; they are deeply conditioned.  But at those levels we don't know and can't care--because pre-conscious personality patterns just feel totally normal.  (Of course they do!  How could it be otherwise?) 

At Level 4, though, somehow, the patterns loosen, and things become unbalanced.  Something happens--some grace occurs--and we feel . . . different.   Maybe lighter, maybe more expansive, maybe brighter or clearer or more "real."  This shift from Level 5 to Level 4 is the beginning of transformation.  

So how does this shift happen?  How do we move from interpersonal conflict up to the not-always-comforting grace of imbalance?  

• Suffering can take us there.
• Practices can take us there.  (Breathing, yoga, qigong, hip-openers, heart-openers, self-awareness and mindfulness practices.)
• Nature and children and animals and love can take us there.

​And here was an answer, cutting through all my filters. 
(Because I had no
more filters.)
(​Because they were
​all in tatters.)

But I didn't always have to be.  

So:  here is what I’ve come to discover
about the difference between enabling and forgiveness,
about how we abuse forgiveness,
about how we gaslight our own realities--
--all in the name of forgiveness
and all in the service of
not having to stand up
and say, 
​No. This is not okay.
​

And here is where my advice becomes less meaningful than attuning to your own inner wisdom.  (But I’ll give you first a bit of advice, just in case it is helpful.)  And then I'll offer some help in attuning to your inner wisdom.
 
Here is the advice, my dear friend:  befriend the paradox by attuning to your body’s infinite, unfolding wisdom.

And here is the help in doing so: 

Breathe consciously.  Practice yes-breath or alternate nostril breathing.  Or, just invite yourself to notice the lovely, magical, swirling place at the top of your breath cycle, where the inbreath becomes the outbreath.  Just notice it.  Two or three times a day is plenty. 
 
Move to the off-rhythm of life!  Imitate a 2-year-old’s facial expression.  Spread your toes and see if you can sense the dip in-between your second and third toes.  Shimmy your shoulders (just try it, just once, and then you can go back to what you were doing.) Surreptitiously smile and raise and eyebrow to see if anyone else noticed your shimmy.  Stick out your tongue without opening your lips.  If you live in Saint Louis, do a little soul dance.  
 
Do these things in the unfolding present moment, whenever you think of it.  Build reminders into your day.  Notice whatever shifts in you when you do the weird things above, (aka creative joint play).  Appreciate from your depths any joy, relief, calm, peace, or giggles that arise.  Ask for more and more and more of this.
 
Small shifts in the present now are the undoing of egoic patterns of behavioral, thought, and emotional responses. 
 
I deeply hope that these reminders are useful for you today, and for most of you, they likely are enough!  Yay! 

But if you are in a place of transformation and would benefit from individual support, we can easily have a brief and free conversation.   

(I’m actually unusually good at attuning to what is unfolding within people—clients, friends, family—which is why I’m developing this coaching practice, the central tools of which are available in this workshop—How to Live Unstuck, Imperfect, and Free.  
 
It’s also why I’m collaborating with other health-and-wholeness professionals in the Saint Louis area to create Owning Your Wholeness events. )

Appreciation all around!  And may you feel an ever-greater sense of unfolding ease.