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Hi, It's Susan. I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to Lance and Diane White, a couple from Cincinnati whom I met several years ago at the International Enneagram Association (IEA) Conference. Lance and Diane have been following EPP since its inception, and have been deeply moved by the training programs we at EPP are working hard to provide to those who are incarcarated.

Written by Lance and Diane, A Very Personal Story...
Eleven years ago, our son Ben went to prison for a decade. He was 17. None of us could have survived his incarceration without the continual holding provided by our friends and colleagues during those trying years. So many special, kind, loving people helped us to keep our sanity. In the year since Ben’s release, we have found that love, while absolutely essential, could only get us so far on our paths to healing. The need to go deeper, to understand ourselves more intricately, was felt by each of us. It was this need that brought us to deeper study and the resulting ability to move beyond the complexities of our collective and individualized anger, hurt, pain, and sorrow.

Something called the "Enneagram System" is what offered us the profound framework for understanding why we do the things we do, with compassion and clarity. Together in our studies of this psychological map, we have uncovered the obstacles to forgiveness, the necessity of personal growth, our own resistance to change and - most importantly - what it is to fully love and be loved.

Our Cincinnati Enneagram community, starting with the Conscious Living Center, has provided us with a safe and loving container for this journey into the uncharted territory of self- and other-discovery.

We believe now, more than ever, that there is profound purpose in absolutely everything. Out of even the most difficult circumstances, astonishing healing and change are possible, particularly when we truly gain the capacity to open our hearts.

Our experience with the facilities at which Ben was placed, and our exposure to his fellow inmates and their families, gave us great insights into the challenges of incarceration for all involved. At a conference three years ago, Diane and I were first exposed to the work of Susan Olesek and the Enneagram Prison Project (EPP). We were immediately gripped and deeply affected.

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What is the Enneagram Prison Project?
Five years ago, I, Susan, then a newly certified, Enneagram teacher was invited to teach the Enneagram to 100 inmates in a little Texas prison. In so doing, the trajectory of my life was forever changed. Three years later, Enneagram Prison Project (EPP) was founded.

Today, EPP is a burgeoning non-profit offering self-awareness education to the incarcerated, their families and oftentimes prison and jail personnel, using the Enneagram system.

Sharing with Others: Lance and Diane Join Forces with EPP...
As I've come to learn, since Lance and Diane's first personal exposure to the Enneagram Prison Project, they've listened each year to my presentations and to the stories of the men and women inside prisons working with the Enneagram. They heard the progress being made to fulfill my growing hope to expand this work across the country, even around the world. When I mentioned to them that I was planning to be in Cincinnati this October, speaking at the EANT Conference, we decided to co-create this event in order to share EPP and this work with their friends and members of our shared community.

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now-Ambassadors of EPP for what will surely be an impactful evening and moving presentation.  To learn more about EPP's work, click here to watch EPP's most recent short film.

We believe you will leave informed and inspired by this innovative application of the Enneagram and by the enormous hearts of both Lance and Diane and by the heart of EPP.

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It's truly a vision to make self-awareness training available to every incarcerated person and their families, in order to better serve our society and our collective, potential future.