IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Tuning Into Gravity

Gravity matters. Not simply to keep us physically grounded here on Earth, but, at a fundamental level, our relationship with gravity affects our lives from start to finish. We start life floating in amniotic fluids. It's easy to assume a sense of buoyancy, free from gravity's impact. Yet, gravity is necessary for our physiological development during the second half of our lives in the womb.
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PODCAST WITH MICHAEL OSTROLENK

PODCASTS

Michael Ostrolenk is a licensed psychotherapist who completed his MA in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology at John F. Kennedy University and did postgraduate studies in somatic psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies .  He is certified in Spiral Dynamics and Wade Mindsets.  Michael is Director of Human Resilience at the Apeiron Center for Human Potential, Head Instructor/Master Coach at SEALFIT’s  Unbeatable Mind Academy , Director of Relationships and Resilience at the S.H.I.F.T. Institute and creator of the Emergent Human coaching and education program. 

Welcome to “The Emergent Human where we explore Optimizing Health, Embodied Spirituality and Post Conventional Living. I am Michael Ostrolenk, a therapist, coach and educator and I am your host.

Today I am talking with Steven Kessler, a psychotherapist who has studied many different healing modalities and maps of personality, including the Enneagram (with Helen Palmer), NLP, energy work, Thought Field Therapy, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques or tapping). For 20 years he has been a student of Lynda Caesara, studying Character Structure, the direct perception of energy, and shamanism in the lineage of Grandfather Two Bears and the Southern Seers tradition. He is the bestselling author of The 5 Personality Patterns: Your Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others and Developing Emotional Maturity. ( https://www.amazon.com/Personality-Pa… )

During the interview, Steven takes us through the developmental tasks a person needs to master, both in utero and during childhood, and the consequences of failing to master each of those tasks. He outlines the safety strategies we adopt to try to feel safer during that time and how each safety strategy develops into a pattern that becomes part of our personality. He then discusses how our personality patterns shape our interactions with others and the value of getting out of our personality patterns and returning to simply being present in the moment.

The 5 Personality Patterns

Home – The 5 Personality Patterns

Today’s show is brought to you by Somatic Psychotherapy Today. https://somaticpsychotherapytoday.com/

BODY MIND SPIRIT

Tuning Into Gravity

Gravity matters. Not simply to keep us physically grounded here on Earth, but, at a fundamental level, our relationship with gravity affects our lives from start to finish. We start life floating in amniotic fluids. It's easy to assume a sense of buoyancy, free from gravity's impact. Yet, gravity is necessary for our physiological development during the second half of our lives in the womb.
Read more

Somatic Psychotherapy Today Volume 11, Number 1, 2021

This issue of SPT Magazine offers articles published online this past year for readers who do not follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn, and for those who want all of the articles in one PDF they can download and read at their convenience. I hope 2022 brings a return of contributors willing to share their experiences and clinical knowledge with our readers.
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The Sounds Behind Our Voice

What do seasoned actors express that is more than the lines they say? What do the ‘raw/gut’ sounds behind our words actually mean? How aware are we of the underlying causes of our own and of others vocal tensions? How might professionals intentionally access ‘sound’ to more effectively persuade clients? And baby talk. What do we know about this? The bridge between early childhood sound and adult vocal tones is an area that requires better understanding if we are to realize fuller potential and depth in our communication. The sounds behind words often express unconscious aspects of ourselves and our memories. This is one reason they tend to remain unknown or unclear to us.
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The Proactive Twelve Steps

The Proactive Twelve Steps offers readers a way to develop a deeper understanding of behavioral change, codependency, stress, and trauma, as well as look at neuroscience and the Polyvagal Theory and their impact on our physiology and behavior. Serge presents a clear roadmap for self-compassion and mindful self-discovery and provides specific step-by-step instructions within a broader context that helps readers make sense of the healing process.
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Spirit Into Form: An Author’s Reflection

Spirit into Form led me through a profound and lengthy journey I can only equate to the birth process. I admit that after seventeen years’ gestation, I felt an unavoidable urgency to see it take shape as my clients and students eagerly, albeit patiently, awaited its arrival, too. During the final moments, I felt like a small-bodied woman giving birth to a 10-pound baby. When I began organizing my notes and bits of writing, I discovered I had initiated the writing process in 2005 in preparation to meet Emilie Conrad, the founder of a mindful- movement inquiry process called Continuum. Her writings were so inspirational I struggled to record thoughts speeding through me. Spirit into Form was conceived during those moments. My inspiration intensified as I met and then spent years in close contact with Emilie, who became an important mentor for me. Her visionary ideas and words are infused throughout the book.
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Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom-Up Approach

Just at a time when the wider world is waking up to a more compassionate and inclusive way of understanding trauma and addiction, a timely book that addresses these issues in personal, historical, embodied, and practical ways has arrived. In Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom-Up Approach (Routledge, 2021), author and psychotherapist Jan Winhall both demystifies and depathologizes addiction.
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RELATIONAL MINDFULNESS

RSS Relational Implicit: Conversations on Psychotherapy

  • Making sense of the world: A different take on spirituality & philosophy June 23, 2022
    Lawrence Berger and Serge Prengel discuss how we make sense of the world and our place in it, i.e. what is usually called philosophy or spirituality. We approach this from somewhat different perspectives:– One emphasizes a connection with a sense of something greater than ourselves in which we can find meaning and purpose (“there’s nothing […]
    Active Pause
  • Bruce Gibbs: Finding the right distance from our experience April 17, 2022
    We explore a concept that is very important to Bruce Gibbs, finding the right distance from our experience. We talk about how the right distance varies with the context, for instance how it is different in meditation and in Focusing. And we talk about what finding that distance entails. Bruce Gibbs, Ph.D., has explored consciousness, […]
    Active Pause

Relational Mindfulness with Serge Prengel

Embodied Spirituality

In my work, I am accustomed to thinking in terms of embodied experience. That is, mind and body are not separate entities. I think of the mind as an emerging property of the human organism. Where does the notion of spirituality fit with this kind of outlook? The word "spirituality" refers to "spirit". Traditionally, spirit is seen as immaterial, the opposite of flesh and blood. It is what animates the body, gives it life. In many traditions, it is something that leaves the body after death, and continues to live on its own once disembodied. So, essentially, the word "spirit" evokes the very opposite of "embodiment." There is such a chasm between these two notions that it makes it hard to conceive that they could be integrated. Indeed, if you only contemplate these two propositions as logical statements, you simply cannot find a way to reconcile them.

SPT BOOKSHELF

Book Reviews

Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (Finally) Live Free

  By Nancy Eichhorn, Ph.D. My inner editor smiles (envision a Cheshire Cat grin) when reviewing a new book and its layout includes all the necessary...
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The Practice of Embodying Emotions: A Guide to Improving Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes

This morning I felt a connective epiphany, a strong resonance, while reading Raja Selvam’s new book, The Practice of Embodying Emotions, chapter 9 specifically, I felt like someone in the driver’s seat actually knew where he was going, directed by an intuitive GPS taking him and me to an emotional place that made sense: sensorimotor emotions. I offer my review of his book in hopes it might shed light on clients you are working with or perhaps something within yourself as well.
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Why You’re Still Stuck : How to Break Through and Awaken to Your True...

“If you’re confused and frustrated despite all you know and achieved, or how much you’ve worked on yourself, this book offers 18 unconventional approaches that reveal how you got stuck, how to finally break through, and awaken to your True Self.”
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