E1 Sexual – Vehemence/Zeal

Oscar Ichazo used the Spanish noun cello (zeal) in reference to the characteristic passion of the sexual, and this is a word that has a double meaning. When speaking of an animal in heat (that is, in the estrus phase), the word denotes great sexual excitement; In reference to personality, when we talk about doing things with zeal, we mean something similar to care, care, dedication or fervor. Thus, it is understood that heat, in its broadest sense, is something analogous to the intensity with which the animal in heat seeks the object of its instinct.

We would say that a sexual E1 is characterized by a special intensity of their desires that makes them urgent, vehement. If we want to understand why anger in the sexual sphere results in this jealousy, we can say that anger potentiates desire by lending it its aggressiveness. In other words, anger gives any desire a special strength and intensity, so that the person feels not only strongly drawn toward its satisfaction, but feels entitled to it.

The result is a type that is characterized by a strong spirit of domination and conquest. I will explain it with a collective behavior: when the emerald or diamond mines in South Africa were only exploited by Europeans, many objected that this was not fair, since such wealth belonged to Africans. However, many people—completely convinced—replied: "what good is it going to do for them? They have no culture!" And it seemed obvious to them that it was the Europeans to whom the diamonds belonged in view of their civilized character—which contrasted with the supposedly barbaric character of the primitives.

The same thing happened with the Spanish conquerors, who in the name of their very Christian emperor felt authorized to take the gold from the Aztecs or the Incas.

Similarly, some people feel more entitled than their neighbors to the good things in life, to the satisfaction of their desires or even to exploitative behavior. And in this there is not only vehemence of desires, but an illusory and exculpatory conviction that this satisfaction justifies aggressive acts.

A young man in one of my groups explained that when he was about six years old, he liked to put his penis between his sister's buttocks. His mother told him: "No! Don't do that!" And he answered: "Why not?"

Never before have I heard such an anecdote from a little boy: "Why not?"

Because we live in a sufficiently repressive culture so that it is usual that, when children are reprimanded by their parents for sexual activities, they experience it as a shame, and sometimes even with a guilt that leaves traumatic traces. For a sexual one, however, the strength

of the drive is sufficient for the person—as in the case of the lustful enneatype—to be more willing to question the censure of authority than the strength of her desire.

The transformation in the sexual E1 by Isabel Herrara

I will start by saying that I am the first one surprised by everything that my process of self-knowledge is bringing me. I start from a total ignorance or lack of expectation of where I am going in this transformation... In short, I would say that looking at my character mask everything else is coming. Today I can say that I feel serene with myself and with the world.

Although I am and are considered generous, I have always been selective when it comes to being generous with others, both materially and emotionally, although this generosity was rather driven or directed from the body; I mean by this that I did not have and do not have a pattern on which to stand, but rather generosity was given whether my body-intuitive impulse led me to it or not. With children, adults, people with some type of disability, animals and plants, I have always felt available and generous; it's like protecting the lives of the most vulnerable. Now my emotional life is more attentive and less demanding, more tender and warm explicitly, since before it only occurred in the intimacy of my home and in friendship. There is still the recognition of the freedom of the other, as well as the valuation of my own freedom, which is not detachment but respect for one's own space and time, as well as for the needs of the other, without making them my own.

Materially, the most significant change is giving myself more time for myself and my needs, being less aware of the needs of others, since I had a tendency to take care of others forgetting sometimes about my needs. On the other hand, my desires have been reduced to almost nothing: it is like discovering that I need less and less to live and, from that simplicity, to live with more serenity and harmony with myself and with the environment. With less need there is also less self-demand and demand towards others. I even have enough to share and give away, almost as if I could live off the air...

Before, my generosity consisted of giving to who I thought I needed and what I believed I could give him; I was empathetic, although my empathy was filtered by the ideological. Now I am more spontaneous and I feel more compassionate, more lived with what is given in the moment.

I remember when I was about eighteen years old, I said to a friend from the neighborhood group, "I like the way I am, but I lack serenity." She also sensed quite clearly that some of her would find with age.

A very clear sensation that I usually feel in the body — and more specifically in the belly — is that of a fiery impulse that seeks a way out, that wants to expand outwards and does so also through the feet and hands. I feel a great vitality that has two faces depending on the circumstances: one, playful, which is expressed through sport, dance, erotic or sexual sensuality,

play, enthusiasm, humor and laughter or what I call "the representations of the pleasure of movement". The other, aggressive anger, appears especially when I feel that something or someone is crossing my limits or may in some way attack my integrity. It is short-lived and of great intensity: it is like showing the teeth by marking the distance. An image that is familiar to me in felines, my favorite animals.

This anger was rarely given, but it is devastating. Hurtful words could come out of my mouth that could make others feel like shit. Then it would pass me, I apologized and the discussion could continue normally, and I could even make peace even if there was disagreement.

The lack of serenity has to do with that fiery impulse, with feeling that I was angry, that I did not control it, and with realizing how I could move from one extreme to the other in a short time. That, in addition, baffled and disoriented the people around me, and I felt how it hurt them, which made me suffer too. The only luck is that it did not last too long in time.

In SAT 2 I was able to discover that at birth I fell in love with the world, with light, with life, but my father's rejection for not being a child and the mistreatment and anger with him made me distrust people, although not life. Finding the key to this understanding led me to the harmony that trust in life and people gives.

Serenity now happens by having conquered my guts and by letting myself be carried away by confidence, by not feeling so polarized my two extremes, although I know where and how to go to visit them, since they are very familiar to me and continue to live in my body. They exist in me as a bodily memory that allows me to put them at my service instead of putting myself at their service. I feel that with that serenity I have found what I needed most, and from there I have reached other places previously unimaginable to me.

I no longer strive to push the river, I just recognize that I wouldn't have wanted to live another life than my own. Attention to that second before automatism gives me the freedom to choose: I feel free.

Before, my way of thinking was to want to do my best, demanding myself and demanding. When this was not the case, the ease of criticism or angry outburst was the order of the day. I thought that the injustices in the world could be solved if we all did a little bit of our part. Therefore, when I encountered a flagrant injustice, I automatically jumped out aggressiveness and faced this situation without contemplation. I had a fantasy that I could improve the world, and maybe something I could do, but not in that aggressive way. Approaching it from a more loving and compassionate attitude, at the same time as firm, is giving me better results without people feeling attacked. Although that does not mean that on some occasion he has not consciously put that aggressiveness at stake.

As I said, I think I have conquered my guts, which is where I feel the aggressiveness, the anger that no longer directs me. It has been quite some time (since the SAT i, in 2003) that volcano does not erupt (for everyone's peace of mind). I also leave more space for my emotions, those that in childhood I was taught not to show because they were considered a sign of weakness, sadness, vulnerability, pain ... This feeling, the pain, is the one that I still have the hardest time showing publicly, but now, when it appears, there I let it be, before whoever. The paradox is that my impulsive reactions have been greatly reduced, so that my moods and emotional moods are more even-handed, have few oscillations and are less intense than in the past. I would say that by lowering the intensity of the sexual instinctive sphere, the other two instincts would have been balanced, especially the conservational one (the most deficient in me), and in the process I have been linked more with the emotional. I could describe my feeling as if the strong energetic potential of the will has risen to the heart, permeating all other spheres from that tenderness of heart that I know I have.

The relationship with my father, an E8, was a real battle. I felt a need to confront him over anything. Instead, with my mother and siblings I developed rather a protective bond to defend them from an abusive father and husband. My mother, an E3, was not very taken into account, because she negatively judged her passivity and her living through others.

With my brothers, the relationship became distant, although I still feel a great affection for them. We each live by and for their own families, and it doesn't look like there will be any changes between us. Instead, with my parents the relationship has become closer, warmer and less confrontational. I take care of them more than my brothers, because although we have talked about it, they are not willing to give up the resentment they feel towards our father. I don't judge them for it, but rather I understand them. If I take care of my parents it is because I want to do it, and I do it from a compassionate feeling of accompaniment, without wanting to change anything. They enjoy and enjoy taking them to places they've never been, and I'll visit them frequently, devoting time to them whenever I can. I like to take care of them. They are already very old and on occasion, even my father has let me see that spark of tenderness that we all carry inside.

For twenty years I lived a relationship with the father of my daughter. Then I became a widow and then I had several relationships of three, two and one year. Now I haven't had any sexual intimacy with a man for five years now.

In meditation, I felt the need for solitude and silence, and that's what I'm still in. In that solitude I have never felt alone or depressed, on the contrary, I feel more part of the world and of humanity than ever; It has been and is being of great richness to discover myself in the deep intimacy of meditation, experiencing the subtle energy of my body, the silence of the mind and the noise of the world. It is curious to discover how difficult it is to enter into that inner silence when living in such an overstimulating and noisy world.

From that stillness, my being in the world is more solid and firm, at the same time as warm and tender, and also more serene and cheerful. I have lost desire, both sexual and for other things, and it has surprised me as a woman even not to want to feel desired. I remember Claudio once saying that to leave something you had to have experienced it or lived it first. I think that's what I've done: live my sexuality intensely and playfully. And now I have come to a great peace, after all that I have learned through that path and others.

All my time is for me and I can devote it to being useful to others, which is my genuine impulse. My surrender is not to man, but to life.

The most demanding and judgmental paternal energy no longer pushes; admiring and devotional love has appeared, which was initially represented in Claudio and then expanded into that mystery that sustains us all and everything, towards the divine and sacred that is in each one of us and in nature as an expression of sublime beauty. That makes the respect I have for life and for all things have a deeper and more subtle connotation. I went from fighting and rejecting a god who looked like my father to feeling like I was part of that divinity.

The filial energy is expressed in a less erotic-sexual and more sensual way, and is more linked to all the senses, and also with intuition and with a laughing joy that has to do with the rediscovery of my capacity for wonder with the simplest and most everyday things, like a girl who discovers something for the first time, with the difference that it is not the first time, although it is always different. I am sorry to have discovered the surprise that keeps every moment, the richness of impermanence. I also discovered that I can take the game even to the way I relate to others, and surprise in the spontaneity of the moment.

Maternal love is related to the bond with the earth and the body. From there, it is easier for me to feel the strength to sustain whatever comes, no matter how it is, with tenderness, confidence and even humor, trusting and feeling joy in life, that which is so familiar to me. It is a caring and nurturing energy from the accompaniment.

Before I lived my social and personal relationships with more need to be seen. The truth is that those of my trait do not go unnoticed, but now that no longer matters: detachment can have a healthy and positive aspect, and it is the ease of letting go that hinders us. I think that's been my case, going on to experience non-attachment. I don't have an agenda full of pending things to do as before; for a long time, I let the day flow and so I have the time necessary for what appears. It is a very rewarding experience because there is room for spontaneity and every day seems different without doing anything special for it. My friends have surprised me by defining me as a cheerful, generous, warm, tender person, nothing spiteful and with a lot of humor.

Before, in my personal relationships men predominated and for about ten years women predominate. In general, I feel very close to them and there is a bond of cooperation, complicity and brotherhood. Lately, I relate a lot to E4 women, whom I have been able to support without

judging or demanding and have been able to lean on me. There are also some E9s and even some sexual E1 who feel good and comfortable with me, and me with them and them. I have to say that the reflection on violence has made me think about some misunderstandings that exist in society regarding it. I also feel empathetic and supportive of women.

Previously, distrust had been more linked to people. I guess Dad's command: "You have to be careful, that people are very bad", was very present, starting with himself, who was a violent person and no one was safe near him. I always trusted in life, because from a very young age I related to nature and animals. I have felt little guilt, because leading a double life was a way of transgressing the rules and I did it without fear, as a way to get away with it, to break the imperative of the father by taking my little devil for a walk.

I learned early to lose my fear of my father, I knew myself strong from the age of six. But that also made me put myself in danger on several occasions, although not from recklessness. I would say that the aspect that has changed the most has been that of distrust, since now I do not defend myself or intend to change anyone or anything, but I have understood that everyone leads their way and does what they can, how they can and when they can. I have seen what is in me in others, and others in me. I would say that the trait and subtype have softened in general: my character is less consistent, as if the contours have been blurred. Now I say that my trait is decaffeinated sexual E1.

The trait of concern is unfamiliar to me: I've heard it applied to E1, but I don't feel it is mine. Let me explain: from the age of eight to sixteen I did competitive gymnastics, then risk sports such as high mountain, climbing, caving, diving, etc. The focus was on the here and now and the breath, which for me was very natural. That is why perhaps I have trusted in the bodily impulse, I have let myself be carried away by what the body advised at the time. Taking a step, not standing there ruminating where, was always my way of doing things. I would say that the step itself marks the direction towards a goal, even if you don't know what it is.

Sometimes my experience has been to find a solution to a problem as follows: I want to get my husband out of jail (where he is for political reasons), I know what the goal is, and the path I do as I walk. I involve everyone and all the people, organizations and institutions that can do something, I don't care if they are not of the same ideology, if I have to visit the Attorney General of the National Court in Madrid or the Minister of Justice of the country: I do it. And if in the same effort others can benefit, then a list is made with all of them. And it went well. Of the six involved, all obtained some kind of pardon; my husband the most.

Along the way I took steps that did not prosper and there were others who wanted to take the credit, but that did not discourage me or make me give many turns to the head again and again about the same thing.

In that respect, the before and after has not changed much. Although that impulsivity has been softened, the demand for things to go out, and fast, and the push as a result of the demand.

Life before was to live it, explore it and want us all to live better, with fewer injustices and inequalities, so I joined from a very young age to clandestine political activities against Francoism. Before, the mystery was in death, what is beyond life? Today, life is for me that great mystery that penetrates us and we do not know, regardless of what science says, and to him I surrender, trying to explore some of his inscrutable paths that have brought me closer to the divine.

Another important element of transformation has been the use of aggressiveness and confrontational capacity in the task of helping the other. The fact is that both one thing and the other in general are very repressed and confused. There is also in this character a great ability to move from one extreme to the other of polarities and that we can put into play in therapeutic work. Our strength and determination can be at the service of accompanying and containing, especially in therapeutic works with strong enneatypes such as E8 or sexual E6.

In the process of transformation, the angry aggressiveness of sexual E1 is transformed into determination with warmth, and also into acceptance; judgment and criticism, in acceptance; control, in the awareness that controlling is an illusion (and this ends up generating a transformation of control into spontaneity); vehemence, in substitution; zeal, in love of heart; idealism, in loving compassion. I have discovered a genuine indomitable spirit that I believe is linked to what in a dream appeared to me as the spirit of the girl who to survive made a pact with the warrior potential that was in her to take her place in the world.

Another contribution that we can make the E1 that we dedicate ourselves to therapeutic help is to work from the corporeal and the sensual, the senses and eroticism: from our own knowledge we can accompany the other in his self-exploration. I call it the eagle's gaze, or how the ability to see flaws becomes the ability to hunt for meaningful moments in or for bonds, interrelationships, and interdependencies. It would be comparable to being able to see the forest and the trees at the same time.

Today I feel that benevolence is genuine when it appears; actually, if they don't make me notice it, I don't even know when it comes out. I do know that both poles have been integrated into me: confrontation and benevolence, which coexist side by side. Perfectionism has become a "everything is fine with me as it is," and that's a break. Playing with my polo shirts and taking them for a walk like someone who takes the little devil for a walk makes me laugh and sparks appear in my eyes. That girl has not lost the desire to play or see the wonder of the world.

"To a big heart no ingratitude closes it, no indifference tires it."

Leo Tolstoy

I started therapeutic work on the roof, that is, on the analysis of deep dreams, about six years ago. On the first occasion I saw my resentment, his connection with a violent father and with the abuse I received in my childhood. The resentment towards my dead partner, the

unfinished mourning, I forgave myself and was able to forgive him, in a process I called "The Squaring of the Circle".

When reading "Character and Neurosis" I identified myself immediately, although there was a part of E1 that I did not see in me: it was, clearly, because of the peculiarities of my subtype, the sexual one. Discovering the enneagram as a tool of self-knowledge was for me the spark that ignited everything else. I have always been a seeker of knowledge, and now I had found it. Then the desire arose to expand my training as a therapist and I began to train in Corporal and Gestalt in 2001.

In SAT 1 (2003), even having a broken leg, I gave myself to work. Discovering my mother's manipulation was very painful and made me see her more clearly, especially when she tries to force my will. In relation to my father, I also discovered the strength that is in my hands and arms, of so much aggressiveness accumulated over years, of wanting to return every blow he gave me. The containment of that murderous rage came out to its full potential; it was for a short time, albeit very intense, and then I sang in satisfaction.

The good came later, as progressively my aggressiveness has been diminishing considerately: first I feel my guts, and then I can see that turning point in which I say to myself: "either more of the same or not". I didn't realize how much I had changed until the day when, during a weekend workshop, my ex-partner (E4 sexual), who seemed very angry because I couldn't bond with him again, threw the water from a pitcher on me. I saw everything in slow motion: I was sitting and looked at the empty bottle of wine on the table in front of me. But my guts didn't even budge. And I understood very clearly that to answer her was to get caught up in her game. I did not do it. This vivid anecdote continues to impress me even now, since in another time she would have jumped for his jugular, or would have broken the bottle on his head... I am impressed by the ability of the SAT to transform people. Especially, when generating contact with love.

Shortly before SAT 1 I entered a process of deep sadness, which did not respond to anything in particular, although it did not prevent me from living other things. It lasted a year and a half and has been the best learning to be able to be with the patient while still being in me. Throughout the process I have been able to publicly expose my tenderness, my playful and playful spirit, which sometimes baffles patients and amuses me as well. In SAT 2 I discovered the great love I feel for life. My commitment is to life: without this commitment, there is no love. That is why I know that I am nobody's: I am from the world, from life. In SAT 3 I discovered that my father's rejection was the result of a clumsiness: believing that masculine privilege that confuses authority with power, respect with dominion and love with obedience, and instead I saw the love that is in every human being, in him too.

The place of meditation in my life

It is the place from where I cease to be ego, from where I am without being what I know myself. It is from meditation that I see clearly; I stop thinking/interpreting to simply observe with the eyes of the curious girl I still have; from there, the rest is zest for life. Everything has always been there and at the same time it is always new. Everything is impermanent, fortunately me too. Thus, I am only a look that recognizes myself alive in what surrounds me and in the vibration of the body and with the universe. I also owe to meditation the development of the intellectual aspect; through insights, it has brought me clarity and neutrality. From the first day I discovered the serenity of the position and stillness of meditation and the pleasure of attention in the breath: it is the smallest movement of my body! The serenity of stillness has led me effortlessly to integrate small changes that come alone. And I just recognize that I wouldn't have wanted to live another life than my own. The attention to that second before the automatism gives me the freedom to choose, I feel free.

Two years ago, I also got a spiritual understanding: the truth is that I don't know how to explain it... Since then, I have discovered the spirit in other things. For a year and a half I have also been in need of seeking solitude and silence, the need for introspection and to be with myself; I feel a subtle and deep pain, a pain related to the pain and suffering of the world, and mine within it. Pain is the emotion that I have the hardest time showing; now I do, albeit with difficulty. My being is from presence and silence, and also my difficulty or limitation with language to express certain experiences leads me to silence.

Right now I'm savoring:

• That the origin was not aggressiveness, but a determination to live and take my

place in the world. • The knowledge of the body at birth from its path to extinction. • That when they arrived in the world, the curious girl, the angry warrior and the

old woman with a sense of humor were already together. The girl, in order to survive, made a pact with the warrior, who is the one who protects her, although sometimes she exceeds her functions. • That my childhood was not sexualized, but sensualized; I still have that sensitivity

of the senses, especially in touch and skin. Sexuality was a sensualized way (with all the senses) to release energy or vitality — which is a lot — in a playful way. • And, of course, to be grateful endlessly for what life brings me, which gives me a

lot and, on the other hand, I need less and less to live.