This week, I'm following up on Amaranth's insight in response to the article Fears and Transgressions on April 14.

Amaranth:
"The level of response is a personal choice. The chance for a different outcome is better at a higher level because it is a pure response, not one with some particular end in mind but coming from presence and essence. When essence is in the playing field, I'm thinking everyone gets a leg up the levels."

To bring coaching skills (or just basic therapeutic skills) to your description of the Enneagram's Levels of Development, Amaranth, being in the highest three levels of development, sounds like having no agenda, also known as non-attachment (which we find at point Five). Instead, it's showing curiosity and receptiveness, not asking and responding for a specific or desired outcome. In other words, we're not leading or manipulating the conversation.

To be non-attached or without agenda requires asking ourselves, "For whom am I about to say, ask, or omit this?" If our words, or lack of words, is for ourselves—if they aren't for the betterment of the other person or the relationship, we need to revise what we're about to say, ask, or exclude. To remain in the top three Levels of Development, one of our skills must be asking ourselves, what's my motive?

Humans are hard-wired to satisfy personal needs; we must work at it to see our motives (and we still often delude ourselves). In Enneagram terms, we chase our Basic Desires while attempting to outrun our Basic Fears (a topic for another day). Being non-attached requires continual self-observation; like the Enneagram's Healthy Levels of Development, we're guaranteed to stay there for only a short time. Such is the way of humans.

Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.