And the moment I remember specifically the moment when I saw the fear. It was like suddenly someone put on the light. Suddenly you know, this really aha moment of, Oh my God – everything I do in my life is motivated by fear. And so I decided that I wanted to continue doing inner work. This was something that was magical for me.
Alia Saleh Interview in Enneagram Insights podcast
Alia Saleh is in charge of registration at the Enneagram Conference in Cairo 2024.
(Read interviews and articles related to the IEA Egypt Conference in January 2024)
She is an Enneagram Teacher and Trainer from The School of Conscious Living.
Today Alia Saleh is a guest in Enneagram Insights podcast.
You can listen to the episode on all podcast apps.
Alia Saleh on her Enneagram journey and wishes for the future
In this conversation with Flemming Christensen they talk about:
✔ Her Enneagram journey relating to type 6 selfpres.
✔ How the Enneagram can help us reconnect with who we are and our humanity in a divided world.
✔ Egypt´s deep connection with the Enneagram.
✔ The hope for more representation in the Enneagram field and research by the women in the Middleeast and the Arab world and the way it might effect the descriptions of the types and subtypes – when seen from a different culture than the one who has dominated so far.
✔ The wish for the IEA Conference in Cairo in January 2024.
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Alia Saleh quotes from the episode
Type 6 and the Enneagram Journey
Alia Saleh in Enneagram Insights podcast:
“I think that it is okay for me to say that I am a certain type, as long as I understand that type is a spectrum and that type is not only the fixated part of me.
But it is also the part of me that when it does the work, then can be the type that shows the essence qualities and the higher points of the type.
So I am a type self-preservation six. Before I did inner work, I was very much like the description of a phobic six and unaware that I was driven by fear.
And when I started to do the inner work, I began to access some of the higher points of the six. So it’s been, it’s a journey. It’s a journey.”
Alia Saleh discovered she was driven by fear
Alia Saleh in Enneagram Insights podcast:
“My motivation for doing the things that I do and feeling the things that I feel and saying, thinking the thoughts that I do was a revelation for me.
It was a revelation because my ego told me that I am organized.
I am specific. I’m efficient. I’m doing all this checking and rechecking and, you know, predicting dangers and preparing against.
I’m doing this because I’m an organized person. I’m a good mother. I’m efficient. I’m meticulous.
And the moment I remember specifically the moment when I saw the fear, I remember that moment so specific and it was like suddenly someone put on the light.
Suddenly you, you know, this really aha moment of, Oh my God – everything I do in my life is motivated by fear.
This was something that was magical for me.”
What did you have to accept?
Alia Saleh in Enneagram Insights podcast:
I had to accept that I am human. I am not in control. I am not in charge of everything.
And no matter how much I plan and plan and plan, I will not be able to plan everything and I will not be able to escape the difficult and the frightening and the hard and the scary.
And that the way to deal with this is to accept it and to let it happen and to have this inner connection with a divine power who is the one in charge.
And that the more my connection with this power, if you want to call it God, if you want to call it the universe, the more deep my connection was.
And the more I let, him or her do what they are meant to do and accept that I play a small part in this and that I can handle whatever happens.
Then life changed completely from this anxious, you know, gasping, afraid and scared person to a more calm person, a person who other people like more, want to spend time with more, and a person who likes themselves much more and is more comfortable with themselves and a person who enjoys their life much more and takes things as they come one day at a time.
The wish for research and the Enneagram: More from the women of the Middleeast and Arab world
Flemming Christensen: “If you could decide to invest resources in research, scientific research about the Enneagram, which area do we need to do some research in for one reason or another?”
Alia Saleh: “What comes to mind to me as an Arab Muslim woman is that the Enneagram, mostly that has been done, is the Enneagram of American, European people and cultures.
I would be very interested to see the variety, what variation of that Enneagram exists in my part of the world.
When countries like Egypt and hopefully more countries from the region join the international community, what changes?
In these descriptions that we have had of types and of instincts and of subtypes, will it change to include more? Will these definitions shift or alter in any way?
This is a very interesting topic for me because already we feel that some of the descriptions we read, when we look at ourselves, already we feel changes and differences because of our culture.
So an interesting area is, is research into, like now they have started to look at the Native Americans and the Black Americans and include them a little bit slowly into the Enneagram and into that science.
What would it mean and what results would it show us if we started to include the Middle East and the Arab world in that?
Because I think this is what’s coming. I feel that Enneagram is going to start spreading in this part of the world. We in Egypt are the first, but I think very slowly the other countries are going to join us.
So how will that textbook definition of a type six subtype, self-preservation six, how will it change? How will it change when also it includes the females?
You know, how does an eight in Europe versus an eight woman in Egypt?
How do they compare to each other? And if this is interesting to anybody who is watching this interview, all I will say is come to the conference.”
The IEA Cairo Conference:
