Spellbind – Are You Spell Free? Part 1
Today I want to introduce you to Clare Cherikoff, a NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and Enneagram teacher, seminar presenter, documentary maker, author, animator, and cartoonist. She has recently written a book call Spellbind and has graciously agreed to let me interview her for this blog. First take a look at the trailer for the book.
1. Tell us about the work you do. We’ve just watched the trailer for your book and I’m sure some readers want to know what the Enneagram and NLP are. Would you give us a brief description of them?
I have been a teacher and author of Lifting The Veils and Therapeutic Trance (10 day retreats) both of which teach about awakening, NLP, the Enneagram and therapeutic hypnosis. I have also made a documentary and I am an author and cartoonist.
All my works point to the inherent freedom within everyone. The Enneagram and NLP can both be used as tools to point to who we are. They can liberate us from behaviors that seem to get in the way of our experience of freedom. They show us that the worst thoughts we have about who we are, only exist in our imaginations. The Enneagram does this by pointing to the shadow of who we think we are and inviting us to take a close look to realise it’s ONLY a shadow.
As a personality typing system it is able to accurately describe our subconscious patterns of behavior. It divides human survival strategies into nine patterns of behavior, which show up as nine different personalities. It can be a little confronting when we discover which pattern we’ve been operating but ultimately it’s liberating.
The Enneagram describes how we limit ourselves because our attention keeps reverting to the same issues. Once we know our patterns we can discover the doorway to both gifts and freedom. I see the patterns as being the nine ways we subconsciously hypnotize ourselves and once we know the patterns we can wake up from them and simply ‘be’. It also opens the door to tolerance because we can suddenly understand those around us and realize that their behaviors weren’t personal, they were simply following patterns that resided genetically within them.
I think the marriage between the Enneagram and NLP makes for a healthy way to view and dislodge some of the emotions and thoughts driving the nine behaviours. This is because NLP teaches us how to
- Understand and identify modes of thinking
- Transform the way we think and feel
- Create more choices in our Thinking, Doing and Behaving.
Applying the principles of NLP to the Enneagram breaks down the nine behaviours into clearly definable steps allowing us to consciously change our unconscious patterns.
2. How did you come up with the idea for the book? Besides being an entertaining story, what can readers expect to gain from reading this?
I came up with the idea because I wanted to put much of what is in the retreat called Lifting the Veils into a fun teaching story. I think learning happens best when we’re having fun and so the idea was to come up with a fun, fast paced adventure story that happened to teach without the reader being aware that they were learning something. I also wrote the book that I would have loved as a child, something with clues and hints and tools for awakening as well as an understanding of the people around me. Had I understood my parents and myself back then I don’t think I would have suffered nearly as much.
Additionally, I wanted a new type of story written. There are many stories about good versus bad where the hero learns he has the strength to kill whoever is the bad guy. I wanted an enlightened hero who can shows us how to wake up from our own illusions and lead us to a life of freedom. Max (the main character) has to first wake up from all illusions, spells from within, external spells, personality spells before she can wake up the world. As Max wakes up from all the illusions in her life the reader can wake up at the same time.
I wove a number of different teachings and philosophies into Spellbind. A reader will come away with tools to wake up from limiting spells, a good understanding of the Enneagram (without the Enneagram ever being mentioned) and an understanding that all words have the ability to hypnotize us but we have the ability to wake up. The aim is to turn enlightenment into a game of waking up from spells.
Join us next post as Clare and I explore further this book, the Enneagram and their potential usefulness in your life. You can purchase Spellbind from Amazon by clicking the link below:
Illustrations © Clare Cherikoff (www.understandingpersonality.com)
I look forward to your thoughts and comments! ( if you are reading this on the home page the link to comments is found to the far right of the post title)
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