Mind-Body Work at Esalen

Hey Everyone, I thought to give an overview of the work Hala Khouri and I will be presenting at Esalen Institute June 24 - 29, 2007. The seminar is called Urban Yogi: Training in Contemporary Mind-Body Yoga and is open to yoga teachers, bodyworkers, therapists and any interested students of these disciplines...

What follows is both for anyone who may be interested in the work, as well as a way to help me organize my thoughts heading into the training...

Hala brings her extensive training in Somatic Experiencing as well as an M.A. in psychology from Pacifica and many years of yoga teaching experience. I bring my 13 years as a teacher and bodyworker and the unique Open Sky body of work I have created that includes an integral perspective on psychology, mind-body healing and energetics.

Arrival and Intro

The proceedings begin with an opening circle on Sunday evening.

Day One

Monday morning we have the first of our three hour morning sessions that will include some combination of asana practice, concentration, loving-kindness, vipassana and/or witness meditation, Somatic Experiencing-based exercises, on occasion dance, anatomical information, simple bodywork techniques etc...Hala and I will teach this first segment together.

Monday afternoon we have the first of our three hour learning sessions. Hala will teach The Triune Brain and The Physiology of Trauma.

Day Two

Hala teaches the morning session and focuses on incorporating empathic awareness of the teacher-student relationship via engaging in the asana practice as one of several different student archetypes we will describe..... should be interesting! The intention is to experientially embody different states of being as a way to build empathy for what different types of students are experiencing in a class. This applies to other healing/teaching modalities as well.

In the afternoon I will present my intro to Mind-Body Psychology using the Jungian concept of the Ego-Self axis,  standard understandings of the unconscious, and my own unpacking of the chakra system as a developmental model that describes how various developmental processes and emotional qualities unfold in the body. I will bring in Kohut's Self Psychology and the useful concepts of age appropriate mirroring, idealization needs and optimal disillusionment. Some discussion of archetypes as well as transpersonal/integral stages of prerational, rational and transrational in relationship to trauma and healing.

I will also touch on an overview of some concepts around Surface Work, Depth Work and Integration.

Tuesday will also carry our first evening session - a two hour group discussion facilitated by Hala with my support on the Teacher-Student Relationship.

Day Three

I teach the morning session and give an experiential introduction to the anatomical "high-charge" correlations to the chakra system. This is a powerful and direct way of grasping the power of mind-body process and will bring up the deeper significance of the psychophysical process that can be accessed through breath, asana, touch and meditative attention. So far we have been setting up the safe space and resources to now allow a little more energetic discharge and process work. Some teaching of hands-on techniques.

In the afternoon I will present more on the Surface, Depth and Integration Work, as well as a diagram on the process of mind-body healing work that describes a process from "trigger" to "trauma" to "spin cycle" to "resource" to "titration." We will also go into the high-charge anatomy with an illustrated lecture and a brief bodywork demonstration of the somatopsychic "wave" and working with energetic process in real time.

Day Four

i will lead the morning session and weave mirroring exercises, and group ecstatic dance exercises into the yoga. End with walking meditation in the stunning Big Sur surround.

The afternoon is free.

Our second evening session is a group discussion on Psyche Spirit. Facilitated by  myself with Hala supporting.

Day Five

Friday morning we have a closing circle and embodied ritual.

I think we have around 30 participants at this time - with space for  a few more!

I am so thrilled to be up at Esalen, both because it is a spectacularly beautiful place to share deep transformational work, and because I have always dreamed of teaching there and have some small sense of following in the big footsteps of Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Stan Grof, Fritz Perls and others who taught at Esalen in the early days of the Human Potential Movement....