Hatchlings

by Donna Roy

Hatchlings. I love the word. It conjures up all sorts of images, memories and warm feeling states. It calls up the impulse to protect and nurture and reminds me of the sweetness of beginnings.

I grew  up on a chicken farm in Maine, without ever being a real farmer's child. As a special first born to two parents who, for very different reasons, had longed for a baby girl, I never had the farm child's experience of being held responsible for the actual work of farming. But I absorbed the visceral aliveness of it.

My mom celebrated me as the break in her pattern of miscarriages and as proof to her Franco-American in laws that this Irish-American city girl could carry a baby to term. I was proof of her capacity for creativity, and she loved me fiercely.

My dad embraced me as a start in what he hoped would be a large farm family all contributing to the common good--working and singing and eating together. Though somehow I specifically was important to him--a creation just right and made to be loved. Somehow perfect.

So, even though we never did get that big farm crew, and my younger brother eventually ended up with much more of the actual farm work than me, I did what I wanted quite a bit of the time until I was 9 or 10--which did in fact include hanging out with plenty of baby chicks and roosting pigeons and the occasional humongous pig. I had a pet dog, an old pony, learned that life could include being who I naturally was and doing a lot of what I wanted to do--with requisite dusting and housecleaning and catechism thrown in.

In this early childhood much of what I spent time imagining was how I would be a big person. How would I make a difference? Who would I be and how would I be that me? 

I think of the best organizations as environments like my childhood world--as incubators of creativity--like nurturing homes out of which useful and life- affirming processes and products can come. Like families in which everyone does their part according to their capacities and inclinations and gifts--having time and space to imagine. And eventually giving something of themselves to the world.

This is what META strives to be-a teaching and learning home for people who want to evolve themselves, who want to help others be themselves in the world, and who want to mold something of themselves into a form that enlightens somehow. 

So, in this bursting Spring we are busy bringing forth. We have a brand new training starting (META for Bodyworkers) that will fill a long recognized need in our professional community. We offer another training that rises out of the notion that we can intentionally wake ourselves from our dreams of limitations and help others do the same (R-CS Professional Skills Training). We share an advanced favorite based on classic Hakomi wisdom (Advanced Therapeutic MAPS Professional Skills Training). 

In addition, we continue to incubate new trainings responsive to the newest research in interpersonal neurobiology and brain science (Attachment Professional Skills Training; META for Health Care Providers; META Couples Therapy), and look to this next year to bring these newest hatchlings into the world.

Creation. Evolution.

by Jon Eisman

Spring is almost here. To which I, who measures my days by the aliveness they include, say Yippee! The land awakens, the trees bud, the hills turn emerald, then purple and yellow. All around, the urgency of creation - and re-creation - erupts and blooms and reasserts itself as the primary force. Yes, chaos and destruction are great, but always, from their debris, new form and life emerge.

And, inevitably, with creation, comes it’s younger half-brother, evolution. For as things come alive and flourish, they gradually change: the plum buds become the blossoms, and then the fruit itself, and finally the seeds that, if fortune favors them, start the creation process over again. In a  single season, the creative force of the tree evolves through its many stages, in search of another, ultimate opportunity for creation.

Such evolution, of course, applies to everything created. Cultures, styles, species arrive and flourish, sustain or disappear. At the 1906 world’s fair, the Belgian waffle becomes the ice cream cone. The Blues become Rock N Roll, which segues to Hip Hop. Doris Day morphs to Leslie Gore to Joan Jett to Madonna to Cindi Lauper to Lady Gaga.

We humans evolve, too. Not just the lizard to ape to hominid progression, but individually: embryos to fetuses to infants to kids to teens to adults to elders. And even more intimately, each of us has our own evolutionary arc, our, as we say in the therapy business, personal growth. My early anxieties have gradually transformed into self-confidence. My youthful optimism has been tempered by a more informed – and cynical -assessment of how likely my fellow citizens are to embrace a perspective of benign mutual connection.

My career began as a student of holistic healing methods – herbs and 5 element theory and nutrition. I then began to practice bodywork, which, as my skills evolved, required new sourcing to address the increasingly present emotional material that surfaced from somatic interventions. I transitioned from bodywork to therapy. And in my therapy practice, the amazing Hakomi Method I worked to master and evolve gradually generated first the Re-Creation of the Self model, and then the need to incorporate trauma and attachment work. And lo! unto us was delivered M.E.T.A., still developing, an ongoing core, and yet still new elements being created, those existing creations evolving.

Some evolution comes from adaptation: the need to adjust to what is happening in the environment, to new needs or demands. In the ultimately cooler climates of the post jurassic, animals that grew hair were the ones to survive. And some evolution is rooted firmly in pure innovation: the creation of something altogether new. From the assumption that the world is not flat to genetic mutations, sudden spurts of creativity have engendered new leaps in evolution.

Of course, most evolution is a combination of adaptation and innovation. Something needs attending, you try out different solutions, and you suddenly find yourself with something unique. Masking tape was invented after a sandpaper salesman, Dick Drew, observed autobody workers being frustrated by having to use heavy adhesive tape to cover half their panels in order to paint the then popular two-tone car patterns. When they pulled off the adhesive tape, part of the new paint came off with it. Drew went back to his company, tried many permutations, failed, had a sudden inspiration in the middle of the night, and went back into the lab the next day and invented masking tape.

This spring, we’ll be featuring two of our M.E.T.A evolutions. With a workshop March 24^th and a three weekend Training starting late May, M.E.T.A adjunct faculty member Nova Knudsen, along with esteemed breath facilitator Margaret Townsend, will inaugurate our new M.E.T.A for Bodyworkers training track. Recognizing the need for more refinement in the ever developing somatics field, Nova and Margaret will integrate adaptations of M.E.T.A. theory and techniques with their own experienced-based innovations to provide a fascinating and utterly useful evolution of bodywork practice.

And this April, we will offer again our 5 Day Re-Creation of the Self (R-CS) Intensive. Breeding lilacs out of the dead ground, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain, [as T.S. Eliot wrote], R-CS  has evolved our notion of not only the self, but how personal change can happen. Placing the power of inner evolution firmly in the consciousness of the client, R-CS allows people to study the once useful but now limiting adaptations they formerly made, and to instantly shift states to embrace their wholeness. A necesary but ill-informed creation of a sense of self; a Re-Creation of the Self; evolution.

Whether you join us or not for these events, we certainly hope you will join us in celebrating the return of Spring, both mythic and actual. Creation hovers in the wings, evolution sits ready to sculpt the world and us within it. What is your muse? What in and around you will you reshape into a fuller, more useful, more playful, more you you?

M.E.T.A. Bodywork

By Nova Knutson, LMT, CHP

As a child, I was fascinated with mysteries, secrets, the lost, the subterranean, the hidden. I wanted to be an archaeologist. I imagined that they made amazing and significant discoveries on a daily basis and that in every ordinary rock they could see meaning, purpose and history.

By now I have watched the discovery channel enough to have a different perspective; the dust, the heat, the years of finding only fragments leading to more and more questions. It seems that those singular discoveries may come once in a lifetime if one is lucky. I have a lot of respect for that kind of perseverance. All the same, I'm glad it's them and not me.

I have gone another direction. I am a bodyworker and although it may seem surprising, this work affords me the opportunity to be a bit of an archaeologist as well. I practice Mindful Experiential Bodywork, from the Mindful Experiential Therapeutic Approaches, or META model. Based on the groundbreaking (no pun intended) work of Ron Kurtz (Hakomi) and Jon Eisman (Re-Creation of the Self), META opens a window into how an individual has structured herself in response to her environment. With curiosity and acceptance, the work explores each person's unique way of experiencing the world and his own place in it.

My work straddles the line between counseling and massage therapy but differs from both in significant ways. Unlike counseling therapies, which focus on analyzing the stories of the past, META uses attention to the client's present moment experience to discover how the past is actively reverberating in her/his life today. There is an archaeological element, collecting clues which take the form of gestures, physical tension, breath patterns, subtle changes of expression, postural habits, word choices, etc. We form a hypothesis and test it with little experiments designed in collaboration with the client. These give the client an opportunity to observe his own physical and emotional reactions in the present moment.

A standard massage approach involves the therapist seeking out physical tension and trying to release it manually (somewhat akin to trying to clean up the rift valley and get rid of all that old junk laying around.) One step further, some bodyworkers delve into what postural patterns, movement habits and ergonomic situations led to the formation of the tension. (Stopping to wonder who left this stuff laying around.) In these models, the client often assumes a fairly passive role and the responsibility for change is in the hands of the therapist.

The META Model is more holistic and collaborative. Rather than the therapist attempting to eradicate the tension manually, client and therapist work together to gently uncover these mysterious artifacts of the past. Together we explore the interpersonal climate and life situation in which they came into being.

We see these as strategies people have used in order to better adapt to the life situations they found themselves in. In this way, all a person's “issues” are held without judgment because we believe these “artifacts” to be the evidence of human ingenuity; of the ways each of us has had to adapt in order to survive.

I look for the meaning and utility of the client's experience; be it physical tension, or pain; worry, loneliness, anger, behaviors and limiting beliefs that don't serve the client in her life. META sees these symptoms as vital expressions of the self which have simply out lived their usefulness. We do not jerk them from the soil violently but carefully coax them to reveal themselves in their own right time. With attuned and appropriate support, the intelligence of the client's system will create the right change for itself rather than the therapist needing to impose change according to her own template.

This approach can be used in any massage setting, varying the techniques according to the client's desired level of participation. Mindfulness of both client and practitioner is one of the qualities that distinguish this work from other forms of Massage. Using a particular kind of mindful self-awareness, the practitioner guides the client into deeper contact with her/his sensations, feelings, thoughts and beliefs. In the case of a pure massage or bodywork session, mindful, experiential work allows the client to receive and integrate the physical changes more profoundly and consciously.

If it is a combined counseling/bodywork session, the client has the benefit of understanding through direct experience the relationship between his tension or pain and the life events that shaped his sense of self. The mindfulness creates a window for the client into his own unconscious system. It also supports receptivity to new experiences. This gives us then the opportunity to offer healing experiences at a time when the client's body/mind is supple and ripe for change. We use our bodywork skills, words, movement, images or whatever the client's system needs to begin reorganizing itself toward greater joy, comfort and function on all levels.

At times slow and silent, at times celebratory, at times a sharing of grief; the work points to the things we all share as humans and draws upon the relationship between client and therapist for its veracity and power. I am grateful to have found a way of exploring the reaches of human experience without ever leaving home. It is delightful to be with someone as they uncover the beautiful truth that they have been whole all along.

A Student's Reflections

by Sharron Akins

The second weekend of Interpersonal Skills Training just passed. We went over attachment, limbic resonance, R-CS, mindfulness, self-regulation and The Organic Self.  I enjoyed the opportunities to practice our new skills and receive feedback right away.  The weekend moved very quickly and I couldn’t believe it was over. 

It surprised me how at ease I am in the group. This is a new experience for me.  It usually takes me a while to feel safe and comfortable in a group.  At no time have I doubted my acceptance in the group and I am reminded throughout the weekend of my value as a group member. I am safe to say what I want to say and to ask questions. I feel like nobody is judging me.

I notice that I am paying much more attention to others and am attempting to integrate contact statements in other parts of my life with some successes.

Using contact statements has opened my awareness of other’s needs and simplified me connecting with people. For example, my pastor at my church recently experienced a loss when her good friend died. I said to her “that sounds like something that has really made you sad. He must mean a lot to you.” Her non-verbal response back to me was merely a shift in her face from grief and pain to a grief that is comforted and soothed.

Singing Your Song:
An African Custom

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sings it back to you when you have forgotten the words” ©Danish Proverb. CLICK HERE to read more about this African Custom that reconnect tribe members to their Organic Self.

Somatic Resource-Based Psychotherapy

by Bill Bowen

In a somatic resource-based psychotherapy the body is a consistent and central source through which psychological organization is studied.  When it is clear that new resources are needed, the therapeutic work shifts from inquiry and discovery to the building and integration of new resourcing options.  Psychological and emotional processing is important but those are seen as secondary to the building of new resources that allow a client to reorganize towards greater functionality, creativity, and health.

Psycho-Physical Therapy, the work of Bill Bowen, is a resource-based model of therapy. Resources are those things, actions, qualities, awarenesses, abilities, etc. that we draw upon for aid in times of need. They support a person in maintaining a sense of self and a feeling of competency, regardless of what is occurring in his or her environment. When a person has inadequate resources, his or her ability to function fully and successfully in the demanding situations of life is undermined. In a resource-based approach to therapy much time is dedicated to awareness, assessment, and understanding the existence and quality of a client’s resources and ways those relate to his or her therapeutic goals.

Embodied experience is direct present moment experience. Psychological experience is an interpretive experience, which may become present moment experience if it is embodied. In somatic resource-based psychotherapy, awareness of one’s body and its functions are viewed as a critical resource. The building of new somatic-based resources is considered central to successful somatic psychotherapy.

The body gives form to the mind’s stories and conversely the mind is informed about the world though input from the body. Body and mind work together. They are mutually influential and interactive. The body is our container. It gives us form and boundaries. It is the vessel we live in. The body is the vehicle that generates our movements, gives form to our expressions, and facilitates our interactions with the world around us. The body is not just a structure that houses and serves the needs of the mind. It is rich with its own innate intelligence. The body is a dynamic, unified, complex system where all of its parts are interconnected and interdependent.

Wounding occurs when resources are not strong enough to help a person sustain an internal sense of well-being or physical integrity in the face of insults and injuries.  If resources had been available to sustain a person's physical and psychological integrity at the time of invasion, then a wounding wouldn’t have happened.  Patterns of physical tension, posture, movement, etc. are all affected by the traumatic and charcterologically-based wounds that individuals experience as they grow and mature.  These physical patterns are intimately connected with a person's psychological organization.  Somatic resources are inseparable from the developmental, characterological, and traumatic history of a person.  They reflect both the qualities of creativity and the capacity for survival that a person has developed over their lifetime.

In order to effectively work with the physical expression of psycho-emotional experiences it is necessary to understand and engage the structure and function of the body.  With this understanding a therapist can more clearly assess and work with the limiting somatic and psychological manifestations of their client’s presenting issues and help that client build new options. The introduction of new somatic resources brings direct transformation of those limiting wound-based patterns.

“Resource-Based
Somatic Psychotherapy” 

When: Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 7pm
Where: M.E.T.A. Training Center, 215 SE 9th Avenue, Suite 203, Portland, Oregon 97214

This evening presentation by Bill Bowen, introduces his Psycho-Physical Therapy model of resourced based psychotherapy. This work is very body centered with a strong focus on somatic organization and the introduction of new somatic options (resources) that support the client’s psychotherapeutic process.

Rather then focusing on reprocessing historical wounds and insults, resourced based therapy assesses a client’s ability to creatively reorganize in the present moment and works directly to develop new somatic and psychological options and processes that support healthier function in the client’s daily life. The specific use of somatic interventions will be discussed in this presentation.

Bill Bowen, MFA, LMT is the founder of Psycho-Physical Therapy. His unique therapeutic method has evolved out of his 40 years of experience working with the creative process, body therapy, somatic psychology, and spirituality. The active integration of the physical and psychological has been the continuing focus of his work. He has been a trainer in the Hakomi method and was co-founder, with Pat Ogden, of the Hakomi Integrative Somatics. Bill has taught at colleges in both Europe and the United States and is currently on the faculty of the Somatic Psychology program at JFK University. He maintains a body psychotherapy practice in Portland, Oregon. www.psychophysicaltherapy.com