I will never forget sitting in Burlingame, CA for a training I thought was going to make me a better coach. “I have a little secret I want to share with you” said Russ Hudson, founder of the Enneagram Institute and now my mentor.

Who doesn’t want to know to be in on the secrets, especially those secrets that reveal deeper truth like the Wizard of Oz is a mere human.

“We have been asleep. We engage in life in an autopilot state and have no idea how we are just a man in a machine.”

I saw there listening to Russ. I engaged in the presencing grounding exercises. I noticed my uncomfortableness with all of this, after all, I was here to be a better coach, to build my business, and charge more money. (Hey, I promised I would be truthful and authentic with all of these blogs :-)).

I am not asleep, I know exactly what I am doing.

So I thought. And by “thinking” I was demonstrating exactly one of the many ways I truly was asleep.

I was asleep to having the wrong center of intelligence do the wrong job.

Imagine these three centers: head, heart, and gut/body/instinctive. Now imagine that the role of the heart center was being done by the head center, or the body center is check out so all the insinctive decisions are done by the heart which is being reactionary.

An easy explanation I heard was the farmer was doing the cook’s job, the cook’s job is doing the stable job, and the the stable person is out working the field. Talk about confusion, not being in alignment, and all kinds of mishaps and challenges.

This is what is happening when we are asleep. We are not being in connection with these centers of intelligences, and we are not aware of how we are on autopilot engaging in both life and in business.

Yet, I was’t asleep (so my ego is telling me). I am this great coach doing ____, ____, and ____. 🙂

To demonstrate the extent how we are asleep, Russ invited us to be aware of when we were listening to other peers give their introductions and just notice when we check out (you know those moments when you were listening, then… time warp/distraction/Charlie Brown’s teacher wha wha wha moment).

Yes, guilty, I checked out, yet, I wasn’t asleep. I am a coach who does transformation work. (HEH!)

Day two of the training, I am walking up to the meeting hall. Russ our teacher is standing by a car and greets me. I was in my own mental world thinking of who knows what on my to do list.

Lovingly caught in the act of being asleep. I then realized I was on autopilot, engaging in thoughts, reactions, and behaviors as I was walking up to the class.

Let’s just say there is a lot of awakening truth in the movie The Matrix.

I am committed to Connection, Compassion, and Awakening Truth. Connection to Presence and how everything unfolds and reveals. Compassion on our souls and our business’s through the growth process. Awakening Truth in all that we have been asleep to and what our brilliance is here to embody.

I would love to here your thoughts below. Share a way you have caught yourself on autopilot (could be driving a car, doing dishes, cooking, you name it).

Till next time!

-Mellissa Rempfer