Marion Gilbert

Marion Gilbert, an American teacher of embodied awareness, founded the Somatic Enneagram. She has been a registered physical therapist since 1978, and in Grass Valley, California, she runs her own practice and a movement studio; she also trained in craniosacral therapy and SomatoEmotional Release. Her work with the Enneagram began in 2003. Four years later she joined the core faculty of the Narrative Enneagram tradition, and she is still adjunct faculty of The Narrative Enneagram. She is also on the advisory board of the Enneagram Prison Project.

In her hands the Enneagram becomes a map of the body as much as of thought and feeling. Students learn to notice how their type appears in physical habits and reactions, through three practices: grounded presence, cultivating an inner observer and placing attention deliberately. The aim is to bring body, heart and mind into balance, a state she calls three-centred awareness. She teaches the Somatic Enneagram through online training modules, a professional certification path and residential retreats in the United States, Europe and Egypt. A free weekly online meditation is part of her offering, she appears on The Somatic Enneagram Podcast, and a new programme with The Shift Network is in preparation.