The Instinctual Approaches, with John Luckovich

Instincts have been getting much of my attention this past year, which is why I was very happy to get to sit with the exciting John Luckovich (SX Four), whose new Enneagram book is just brilliant and illuminating. 

• Just a few of my insights from John's book [2.21]
• What prompted John's obsession with instinctual drives [3.25]
• What the Instinctual Approaches are and how John developed them [5.32]
• Can anyone use the Instinctual Approaches? [11.39]
• The Self-preservation Approaches, Grounding, Sensing and Pragmatism [16.24 -23.15]
• The Sexual Approaches, Pursuing, Magnetism, Intensification [24.39-36.46]
• The Social Approaches, Availability, Signalling and Navigating [40.20-50.12]
• Do we combine the Approaches with different behaviours around our blind instinct? [50.57]
• How to use the middle instinct to access the blind spot [55.00]
• Are we always going to be a self-preservation (etc) type? [56.47]
• How do we know when we are integrating the blind instinct? [1.00.05]
• What's next for John? [01.02.19]

A written list of the Instinctual Approaches:
Self-preservation
Grounding: Rooting to one’s center and place of balance through the body.
Sensing: Sensitivity to one’s own state through the senses and signals of the body. Attention is on physical feedback and impressions.
Pragmatism: A through-line of attention orienting to processes and progression. Sensible, pragmatic, and enduring attention.

Sexual
Pursuing: Locking on to what attracts with focused energy and attention. Letting what’s extraneous fall away. “Tunnel vision” on the object of desire.
Magnetism: Displaying oneself, while vacillating between pushing and pulling back attention and energy to create interest, tension, and preoccupation. Provocative display to draw attention, attract some and repel others
Intensification: Amplifying and galvanizing energy and excitation with the aim of dissolving or penetrating boundaries. Bringing a quality of activating urgency that encourages the surrendering of boundaries in self and other.

Social
Availability: Opening personal boundaries to invite and receive others. Attention is fanned outward and open, with easefulness about what enters and leaves our field of attention. Includes being receptive to the inner life of other.
Signalling: Sensing my impact on others and sensing the flow of exchange and conveying feelings and intentions appropriately to the situation with in body language. This is allowing relatedness to impact and express through the body.
Navigating: Sensing the layers, boundaries, and nuances of social environments and circumstances, opening to an “overview” sensibility. This brings texture to social contexts that help in recognizing the mechanics of interpersonal dynamics, knowing one’s place, role, or relationship within them.
 
More about John:
John's must-read Enneagram book: Instinctual Drives & the Enneagram
John's website.

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