Truth

The high­est aim of this process is Truth. To see, hear, and speak the truth. The move­ments and video feed­back expose the truth of how we are show­ing up in the world. The way we feel and the uncon­scious sto­ries that present them­selves show us the real­i­ty of how we are cur­rent­ly relat­ing to life. To not only live our life day-to-day telling the truth, but to see beyond the ordi­nary and con­nect to a deeper Truth.

Group­work

Cine­so­mat­ics ben­e­fits from mul­ti­ple par­tic­i­pants. Each person brings a unique set of mytholo­gies that plays a role in the group-mythol­o­gy, offer­ing a set of ref­er­ence points of func­tion­al­i­ty or dys­func­tion for other par­tic­i­pants. Cer­tain people res­onate with some and not others; feed­back from one can go in, while another’s does­n’t land. One par­tic­i­pant can have a break­through that leads the entire group for­ward, help­ing those who weren’t ready to do it them­selves quite yet.

Arche­types

These sym­bol­ic expres­sions of con­scious­ness are found through all cul­tures, beyond lan­guage and time. We use words to describe and point to them, but they are not the arche­types them­selves. We work to move past our modern stereo­types and embody func­tion­al arche­types that serve each client specifically.

Sto­ries

These are the spe­cif­ic, indi­vid­ual inter­pre­ta­tions and dis­tor­tions of our expe­ri­ence, often used as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for our suf­fer­ing. We work to stop all sto­ries; to instead tell the truth and just report the details.

Holo­graph­ic

The foun­da­tion­al maxim “as above, so below”—in modern par­lance “how you do one thing is how you do anything”—shows evi­dence in the way we manage our energy. How we move in the body is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of how we move through life. The way we express arche­types in the body is how we do the actual thing. This fun­da­men­tal truth allows us to change the way we relate to life and the results we get, simply by chang­ing the way we feel and move in our bodies.

Mytholo­gies

These are the over­ar­ch­ing “pat­terns of con­scious­ness express­ing itself” through a per­son­’s life. These are the fun­da­men­tal “sto­ries” that uncon­scious­ly run us as we move through the world “asleep”. They run indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, cultures—and even races, busi­ness­es, and nations. We help par­tic­i­pants become aware of these pat­terns that pass unwit­ting­ly through cul­ture, family, genet­ics, and even karmic history—and facil­i­tate their even­tu­al pen­e­tra­tion, dis­so­lu­tion, and integration.

Non-Dual

Clients are invit­ed to move beyond con­cepts of dual­i­ty and one­ness, should and should­n’t, good expe­ri­ences and bad ones, the right way or wrong way of doing some­thing, etc. which keep us stuck in cycles of guilt & pun­ish­ment, shame & embar­rass­ment, anger & resent­ment, vic­tim­hood & suffering.

Ego

We work with expos­ing the ego and under­stand­ing its proper rela­tion­ship to self. It is in direct com­pe­ti­tion with feel­ing and spirit, as a sur­vival mech­a­nism of our persona—yet, also the vehi­cle for our growth. We invite par­tic­i­pants to drop the ego and move from core.

Empow­er­ment

Par­tic­i­pants are asked to begin to take respon­si­bil­i­ty and account­abil­i­ty for every choice they’ve made and their con­se­quences. To own all of the light and shadow; to own the gods and demons; to own the gifts and curses—to become free from the need to jus­ti­fy and defend. Com­plain­ing, whin­ing, vic­tim­hood, and gossip are not tolerated—when these behav­iors show up, com­pas­sion­ate, yet direct, feed­back is given as par­tic­i­pants are asked to stop.

Embod­i­ment

Cine­so­mat­ic ther­a­py is expe­ri­en­tial and feeling-based—meaning that par­tic­i­pants are active­ly involved in the process them­selves, in their body. It is a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, not pas­sive, learn­ing process. The apex of wisdom is to have a direct sym­bol­ic expe­ri­ence and to embody it phys­i­cal­ly in one’s body—rather than fill­ing one’s head with infor­ma­tion and con­cepts. “Being” it, rather than think­ing or “doing” it.

Polar­i­ty

The Yin/Yang, Feminine/Masculine dynam­ic presents itself in both con­cept and lit­er­al phys­i­cal­i­ty. We can see the phys­i­cal body oper­at­ing ener­get­i­cal­ly via this polar­i­ty expressed through the indi­vid­ual. Sides of the body each rep­re­sent a par­tic­u­lar polar­i­ty. Through the move­ment, our rela­tion­ship between the mas­cu­line and fem­i­nine reveals itself. It’s through this move­ment we seek to bring both har­mo­ny and func­tion­al­i­ty into body and mind with­out drama, judg­ment, or distortion.

Reverse-Wiring

When it is dis­cov­ered that a client express­es, behaves, or moves one way—while believ­ing they are doing the opposite—we see that as a rever­sal. The client goes through life doing what they think is the “right way”, yet all their results show the oppo­site-intend­ed effect. For many par­tic­i­pants, this answers the ques­tion “why is it that the more I do the right thing, the worse things get?” and brings peace to decades of con­fu­sion and resentment.

Shadow

While this work is sup­port­ive and empa­thet­ic, it can also be sub­lime­ly con­fronting. Work­ing with sup­pressed feel­ings, uncon­scious mytholo­gies, and egoic-defenses—the client often arises face-to-face with their shadow. This shadow mate­r­i­al, by def­i­n­i­tion, is the part of our­selves we don’t want to look at. Not every­one is ready to go there, and great dis­cern­ment is employed at all stages. For those ready to face their dark­ness (and their light), Cine­so­mat­ics guides par­tic­i­pants into proper rela­tion­ship with their shadow—revealing the riches it con­tains for each of us.

Non-Fixing

This work attests that there is inher­ent­ly noth­ing wrong with us, we are not broken, and we have every­thing we need. There is noth­ing to fix; often­times, it’s our very com­pul­sion to fix or improve our­selves that causes our great­est suf­fer­ing. Even if that could be true, to many of us, it doesn’t appear that way—and we have years of “sto­ries” to prove it. While valid, it becomes a reason to val­i­date our suf­fer­ing. Cine­so­mat­ics illu­mi­nates why things in our lives don’t work, and helps to pen­e­trate the layers of lies, dis­tor­tions, and sto­ries that inhib­it our nat­ur­al grace, ease, and beauty. There is noth­ing to add, fix, or acquire—but a let­ting go and stop­ping that moves us forward.

Self-Aware­ness

Fur­ther down the road from “mind­ful­ness” lies a place of objec­tive aware­ness of self, beyond ego, dis­tor­tion, judg­ment, and mean­ing. An aware­ness both inwards and out­wards because “there is nobody else out there”. It is akin to the video record­ing: it simply observes with­out any fil­ter­ing of the ego. Cine­so­mat­ics is a cat­a­lyst for any cur­rent mind­ful­ness or med­i­ta­tion practice.

Silence

Every­thing we need is found in the silence, still­ness, and stop­ping. Par­tic­i­pants are asked to “stop” more than any­thing else. It is an “emp­ty­ing of the cup” rather than fill­ing. You are not given dozens of tech­niques and strate­gies to avoid having to actu­al­ly face your shadow. This is Final Tier work, where we drop the crutch­es and train­ing wheels. We face the silence and face our­selves, and learn to shift our rela­tion­ship with it and see the Truth in it… which is not what we think it is.

Somat­ic Representations

In psy­chol­o­gy, we have “inter­nal rep­re­sen­ta­tions” that describe how we inter­nal­ize expe­ri­ences and con­cepts sym­bol­i­cal­ly in our minds. In Cine­so­mat­ics we also have “Somat­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tions” (SRs), which are how we trans­late those sym­bols into expres­sions of the body (think “cha­rades”). Con­trary to word-based concepts—which can be retained and par­rot­ed with­out expe­ri­ence or proficiency—these “SRs” must be actu­al­ized through the phys­i­cal body. These ‘kines­thet­ic images’ rep­re­sent symbolically—through the feel­ing, pos­ture, and move­ment of the body—how we per­ceive and live var­i­ous concepts.

Somat­ic Resourcefulness

The time­li­ness of begin­ning a move­ment, the range and scale, the rate and speed, the feel­ing behind the motion, the vari­ety or cre­ativ­i­ty, the impact or effect on the space, length of sus­tain­ing the move­ment, and quality—are all fac­tors in one’s “somat­ic resource­ful­ness” of a par­tic­u­lar arche­type. If this is low, we will be severe­ly lim­it­ed in how we actu­al­ize it in life. Par­tic­i­pants who have shown poor somat­ic resource­ful­ness in a par­tic­u­lar arche­type, tend to strug­gle with that same thing in their lives. By improv­ing somat­ic resource­ful­ness, their abil­i­ty to be prac­ti­cal­ly-resource­ful in life via ideas, flex­i­bil­i­ty, strate­gies, tools, etc. increases.

Unmask­ing

We are taught by our cul­ture how we should appear in the world in order to fit in and func­tion in soci­ety. These roles serve a useful purpose—yet become the masks and per­sonas that censor and hide who we really are. Bar­ri­ers, masks, and per­sonas act as pro­tec­tion mech­a­nisms to “keep us safe” from rejec­tion, harm, and judgment—while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pre­vent­ing gen­uine accep­tance and inti­ma­cy. These masks are not unreal, thus unlov­able. This work invites us to drop all of these con­structs and expose all of who we really are with­out fear or shame. Only then can we accept our­selves, the shadow and the light. This is true freedom.

Grace

What does your life stand for? Suf­fer­ing, scarci­ty, and fear? Love, beauty, and joy? We choose to stand for abun­dance, joy, gen­eros­i­ty, gra­cious­ness, fun, humor, love, friend­ship, sup­port, and gen­er­al good-will for all. It does not mean we reject their opposites—our suf­fer­ing has taught us and served a pur­pose. Yet, arriv­ing at this work, most of us no longer need suf­fer­ing to define our lives. Making our lives about grace is not an ide­al­is­tic dream, but an orientation—a com­pass. In this work, we con­sid­er “grace” to be a qual­i­ty in both move­ment and prin­ci­ple, that embod­ies grace­ful­ness, joy­ous­ness, play­ful­ness, gen­er­ous­ness, com­pas­sion, and beauty.

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