The Deep Emotional Work of Clear Thinking with Mario Sikora and María José Munita

In this special episode of the Awareness to Action Enneagram podcast, Mario Sikora and María José Munita are interviewed by the International Enneagram Association podcast team – Seth "Creek" Creekmore, Seth Abram, Lindsey Davis Marks and Lee Fields – on how to use the framework of clear thinking with the Enneagram. They discuss why we should think through the logical steps and effective remedies to address our emotions and feelings and the tools to discern what is true and what is not.

“I don’t know that I would use the word heighten, but it certainly didn’t detract. I think it clarified. It gave me a way to see what I was feeling with more clarity and then to make a better choice about what I wanted to do about what I was feeling.” -Lindsey [09:23]

“So all of these things are interwoven. And if we’re ignoring one of them, we’re incomplete, and the others don’t work as well.” -Mario [11:52]

“I’m trying to learn how to apply emotions intentionally or learn how to dance with sensation or whatever thing, learning how to effectively use the mental center to seek clarity is its own discipline, …maybe.” -Lee [14:05]

“If you want to be truly emotionally brave, then you need to be able to embrace that discomfort and that tension of being wrong or of not seeing clearly or all the different ways that mentally we can be led astray through our biases. So do you want to be emotionally brave and actually do the work? Then we have to learn critical thinking." -Creek [44:23]

“Thinking that you have to agree on everything with someone in order to be close to them, I think, is a fantasy. You can disagree and you can discuss.” -María José [32:37]

“What I hear you saying is that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says that we have to learn to feel enlarged by difference, not separated or threatened. But that doesn’t mean that the difference is just as valuable or accurate as another.” -Seth [39:00]

TIMESTAMPS

[01:18] Intro

[01:59] What they’ve learned teaching clear thinking

[03:31] Different tools to understanding different “truths”

[07:02] Partnering clear thinking with the Enneagram

[14:42] Common biases

[21:19] Comparing ATA to other models

[30:03] Emotional connection to a teacher

[33:40] How to disagree better

[43:58] Be emotionally brave

[49:59] One plea to the Enenagraam community

[52:28] Outro