So, before going any further let’s leave me on the ground, and let me formally introduce ‘Naylor.’ This is a station-identification segment. It will pass quickly. Or leap ahead, but avoid that soul-darkening-abyss hidden cleverly under what appears to be a soft, leaf-woven mat…there…right in front of you…step to the right!
Michael Naylor, M.Ed., CCS, LADC, CPCC is the CEO of The Maine Enneagram Center for Transformation and Well-Being. He is an International Enneagram Association Professional Member and Teacher and has been a regular presenter yearly at the IEA Conference since 2010. He has trained extensively as an Enneagram Teacher through the Riso-Hudson certification process, through the Enneagram Institute’s Authorized Teacher Certification, and through training as a Faculty member of the Enneagram Institute. He was blessed with two wonderful teachers, Don Riso and Russ Hudson, along with two other super-teachers and colleagues, Lynda Roberts and Gayle Scott. He has taught broadly throughout the United States since 2006, and also in Europe, i.e., at Mindjuice, the wonderful Enneagram Coaching School in Denmark, and in the UK and the USA with an international doctor’s group. In addition, he does trainings with corporations throughout the United States and is a partner with Anderson & Rust. He has facilitated workshops with numerous professional coaching teams. He does yearly trainings for WPO and YPO groups, for coaching teams, for spiritual schools (Chime in Portland, Maine), and for 12 Step retreats.
Michael is a certified co-active coach and received his training through the Co-Active Coaching Institute. He has an active coaching practice that extends around the globe, utilizing the Enneagram and other presence-based insight techniques to facilitate individual transformation, for healing one’s heart and deepening one’s ability to love at depth, and to inspire the arising and deliverance of one’s gifts into the world. In addition, he does recovery coaching using the Enneagram to assist recovering individuals in moving through their Enneagram-specific core-patterns and the predictable crisis that contributes to addiction transformation and off-the-rails-joy, or to relapse, and unnecessary unhappiness. That is, he seeks to shine a vivid light on patterns of self-sabotage that inhibit the full maturation of a soul.
Michael is a Licensed Addictions Counselor and Clinical Supervisor and has utilized the Enneagram in his addictions practice and has brought the Enneagram to a variety of Addiction Treatment Centers. He has written extensively on Addiction, Recovery, and Transformation with the Enneagram, and his work can be found at
http://www.ninepointsmagazine.org
My YouTube Channel: Michael Naylor Maine Enneagram Center–great interviews with all the types!
http://www.enneagrammaine.com, 
and here as well, and in his forthcoming book, Threading the Eye of the Needle: The Alchemy of the Enneagram in Transforming Addictions. He worked at Serenity House in Portland, Maine for 12 years, both as a therapist and clinical supervisor. He has worked as an addiction’s clinician and teacher for 34 plus years. In addition, he has been deeply involved in men’s transformation work, and co-facilitated The Courageous Men’s Transformation groups for 8 years in Portland, Maine, leading 2 to 4 groups per week.
He is and has been involved in numerous spiritual paths, be it Diamond Heart, Essence Emerging, Zen Buddhism, 12 Step Work (successful continuous recovery from addiction for 37 years), and his deepest passion, the Gurdjieff Work. In addition, he has done the Forum, the Six-Day Training, and numerous Forum Seminars (now called Landmark). He completed The Hoffman Process, an in-the-trenches, out-of-the-box exploration of healing and breaking through emotional patterns. He’s logged many hours doing transformational breathwork starting in 1990 and initially began his cathartic journey with Primal Therapy in San Francisco in 1971. Before that, he was a passionate baseball player, starting at second base for the Oregon State Beavers, and earning a full-ride scholarship with them. Secondly, was his love of basketball where his fiery, amazing high school team, the Grant High Generals, won the state championship in 1969 (when shorts were still shorts). Some of his fondest memories are the many championship teams he’s played on, wherein he experienced the bliss of a team playing in unified, loving harmony as One Being, One Mind, the result being miracles on the baseball field and on the basketball court. (Oh, the glory days.) In his early 20s, his passion for movement turned to creative dance and remains strong and true today. He led a make-you-laugh dance performance group called the Funky Bunch and spent 4 years doing intense martial arts training (Chinese Goju–a blend of hard and soft techniques). Add to that a passion for mountain biking, weight-lifting, and yoga. Recently he completed a 365-day commitment to intense daily exercise (doing 365 days of exercise in 365 days!), whereby he lost 35 pounds. An advocate of gluten-free eating (most of the time ), he has discovered the expanded sense of his taste buds exploding in ecstasy when sugar and other less-than-ideal foods are eliminated from the diet. Admittedly, he did eat enough M & Ms in his earlier, less-aware days that should easily hold him over for several lifetimes.
As a Type 4 with a 5 wing, he would call himself a Recovered Type 4. This means that he spends less and less time in the swamps-of-oblivion, agonizing in the pit of holy despair over his horrendous longing for something-he-cannot-name, less time being a high-jacked-by-my-emotions-crashing-on-the-next-wave-of-feelings-gone-wild-guy, and more often living in the depth of his heart and in the spacious crucible of humor and goodwill that he’s been invited to inhabit (his family cheers for this, as do his guardian angels). He does, however, make short trips to the cathedral of his old patterns but is only allowed 15 minutes there on any given day.
His wife of 23 years, Donna, is a beloved Type Two, and a shining example of the compassionate heart and kindness of the Two. She is a master of unconditional love, support, and forgiveness for her children, for the children she teaches, for her temperamental husband, and her friends. Michael’s daughter, Chloe, is also a Type Nine, and like her mom, demonstrates kindness and consideration in spades, along with emotional intelligence that makes the angels cheer, and can, when provoked, be hilarious. And she embodies that great Yoda-like chill factor, and Do or Don’t know makes great good sense. Christian, a Type Five/Six is known for his high intelligence, his kindness, and consideration towards others, and his out-of-the-box thinking. He is deeply devoted to those he loves, including his wife Veronica, he newborn son, Felix, and various goats, rabbits and chickens, and a dog, Sophia, that he cares for on his farm. He remains a shining example of right-sized-ness.
Because there is a strong Type Two atmosphere in our household, there are cats (and often dogs) who seem to find their way inside their home, in spite of Michael’s watchful eye. The cats: Bernie Sanders the regal type Eight, Molly the skittish type Six, Lila the over the top affectionate type Two, and Eve the mysterious-deep type 5
