Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership with Ruth Haley Barton Ruth Haley Barton

Welcome to season 23! This season we are using the framework of the enneagram, and in particular the ways the 3 instinctual subtypes impact each enneagram number, to help people do the necessary inner work of knowing themselves and managing anxiety, triggers, and stuck patterns so that they can lead others well. This season, we are moving beyond the basics of describing each number type to look at our instincts and what motivates our behaviors. Special guest, Erin Baute, a leadership behavior strategist with over 20 years of experience in behavior change and professional development, joins us all season long to help us do this important work.



Today, Ruth kicks off the season with a solo episode. She gives an introduction to the season ahead, an overview of how she uses the enneagram as a tool, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, for self-examination and confession, and some guidance for interacting with the enneagram well. We conclude this episode with the Welcoming Prayer, a prayer Ruth often uses as a way to pray into the new things we discover about ourselves as we work with the enneagram.

We are revisiting last year’s Easter Monday episode because we found the reflections to still be so timely with the themes we discussed during this season of the podcast. We hope it encourages and blesses you on this Easter Monday.



He is Risen, indeed! Happy Easter Monday, friends. Today, Ruth helps us celebrate the Risen Christ with five stories of post-resurrection encounters with Jesus. In each story she helps us consider our own invitations to transforming encounters with Jesus that God might have for us. Which story resonates most profoundly with you and what healing or transformation is God wanting to bring as you sit with God and these stories? We invite you to take some time today to listen to these stories reflectively, imagining yourself in them and to take a moment to be with Jesus right there in the biblical story as you find him there and as you find yourself there.

In this special episode, Ruth wraps up our season on suffering and the formation of hope and ushers us into the last few days of Holy Week. Holy Week allows us to practice true unity with Jesus, the “at-one-ment” she and Curt talked about this season. What does Jesus’ suffering mean for us- for our lives and our own suffering? How does it help us to make sense of our own stories? We’ve spent all season discussing how suffering can lead to true and durable hope, and how we can walk with Jesus in His suffering as a way of deep transformation for ourselves. Finally, Ruth guides us through a lectio divina practice with Romans 5:1-5, the scripture we have been sitting with all season. We encourage you to listen to this episode in a quiet setting, free from distraction, so that you can listen deeply to what the Holy Spirit might be saying to you through these verses.

This week concludes our conversations with Curt Thompson, MD. Ruth and Curt examine what makes for a safe community. Why is it important to experience places of tension, hurt, and repair in the community? They also discuss the meaning of a hope that does not disappoint or put to shame. And as we turn our attention to Holy Week, they wonder: What is a psychologically healthy way to understand the concept of taking up the cross? Over on Patreon, Curt leads us in a practice to help us vulnerably give ourselves away to others in a safe and psychologically healthy way.

How does endurance or perseverance fit into this process of having a durable hope formed in us? How do we know we are making progress in this endeavor? What do we do with the stories we tell ourselves about the parts of us that are unlovable or unwantable, and how does bringing those parts before a loving and safe community change us? Ruth and Curt tackle these questions and more in this week’s episode. Over on Patreon, Curt is giving us concrete ideas on how to cultivate a confessional community, a structure for being together, and tips for how to be safe members of the community.

This week we are taking a break from our conversations with Curt and his book The Deepest Place to talk about a different aspect of suffering: the communal, unmerited suffering that comes from oppression. Friend of the Transforming Center, Leo Ayala, is back with us to discuss this important topic. Leo and Ruth talk about the suffering his community in Puerto Rico has suffered as a part of the colonization and oppression of his country. Leo shares how no one taught him how to suffer in a Christian way and the particular problem of a faith without lament. Finally, Leo gives us practices and processes that help this kind of collective suffering form durable hope.