The BIG Question … “Why MythoSelf?”

Author’s Preface:

It’s been quite some time since I’ve sat down to write a post for Blognostra … for a million and one reasons!!!

I’ve been fixated on shifting my presentations to what I’ve begun to call the “Foolish Wisdom” an alternative life perspective that’s all about seeing the world in ways you haven’t before considered.

Another project that’s been consuming my time is finishing up the new book manuscript I’ve been working on (… lot’s of writing has gone into that!). I’m tentatively entitling it: “Foolish Wisdom Book One: An Apprentice of Wonder” … and it’s about my time learning with Roye and developing the MythoSelf Process. I’ve done my best to capture the feel of what it was like growing into the role I now work from, and some of the learning I’ve accumulated along the way.

I’ve also been working on the total revision of my main training presentations, i.e.: the MythoSelf Professional Training (more about that below in the P.S.), and what had been the original Performance Design workshop I developed for doing group personal work into the current presentation of the Foolish Wisdom/Performance Design combined weekend workshop I’ve just run in New Hope, PA last month (very cool format and workshop IMO).

I don’t want to go into the deep, deep details … but let’s suffice it to say that I’ve been busy as a stud bull.

WWWWH…W:
Who? What? When? Where? How? … Why?

The big question that continues to resonate around my work is “Why bother with MythoSelf® Process training … or work with a MythoSelf® Facilitator or Trainer?”

To answer this question I had to address the questions (plural) surrounding the MythoSelf Process … “WWWWH…W” … Who? What? When? Where? How? … and then the one that all the others depend upon, “Why?” comes into direct focus. But rather than make this a book unto itself I’m going to jump directly to the “Why” question.

Why MythoSelf®? …
The answer can be contained in the simple answer … PERFORMANCE!

I’ve been working on the design and refinement of the MythoSelf Process for over twenty years now … a kind of obsessive, compulsive love affair of sorts. Each time I ask myself the question, “Why bother?” again I get to the same place … “PERFORMANCE!” I’ll break it down just a bit …

The MythoSelf Process is built on the premise that …

My clients are seeking a common resolution …
to achieve an outcome that exceeds or eludes them from the way the are operating in the world  today.

This is beyond “problem solving” or even “doing” in the classic sense of the word. The MythoSelf Process work focuses on shifting the relationship between being and becoming from separate or distinct to singular. Okay, that’s kind of esoteric and dense, so we’ll go through it step by step a bit.

Almost everything we are exposed to educationally suggests that the world is static or moving towards a static state. We’re constantly looking for the steady, stable state … e.g.: homeostasis.

For  instance we could use an example from the world of medicine. The ideal that’s suggested is physiological homeostasis, that the body is constantly moving towards some ideal state even when it’s not stabilized there at that state.

The same could be said to be true in regard to the way some folks think about the ideal psychological state, e.g.: calm, loving, peaceful …

We could also look to the world of business, where I’ve played for a quite some time around folks at the top levels in the game. In business there’s a kind of “dynamic steady state” that the aim … a steady state of growth … an endless desire for more.

Even our language suggests a preferential “static state” when it nominalizes words like “love” as though this is a fixed way of being.

Which brings us to the concept of “Being” itself.

There is no ongoing “State of Being” … this is Plato’s mistake, i.e.: the ideal.

We are always in a state of Becoming AND in a state of instantaneous Being.

We go from “Being” to “Being” to “Being” … in an unbroken stream of events that are our lives. In each event we are “Being” and we are “Becoming” … a singularity that almost everyone finds difficult to hold on to conceptually … yet, there you go!

However, when you get this concept deep into your bones, absorb it and operate from it viscerally … that you cannot help “Being” in any given moment … you literally cannot not “Be” … AND you get that the “Being-ness” you possess in this moment is simultaneously “Becoming-ness” as well, you are free to choose.

When you are free to choose you become present as a performer of a higher caliber than you could possibly ever be while you are operating from a static state.

It really is that simple … when you are free to choose your performance skyrockets … it goes off the charts … you’ll exceed your wildest imagination.

But this idea comes with a profound caveat, i.e.: you have to be free to choose … and that’s one of the most unlikely things you’ll ever encounter … a human being who’s free to choose.

Why/How the MythoSelf® Process Creates The Freedom To Choose

The most significant thing that you can do if you want to embody this concept of begin and becoming flowing into a singularity you can begin operating from is to remain aware of your sense of self AND simultaneously of the change happening at all times around (and in) you.

The essential premise of the MythoSelf Process is to work with the idea of change and changelessness in simultaneity.

In order to do this we have to go beyond language. Language, as soon as it is spoken or written, freezes what is spoken or written about in the words spoken to represent what is being pointed at by them.

Getting this bit about language is critical if you want to get what I’m pointing at here myself.

Language only points to experience, including the experience of things … not the experience or things themselves.

Most people treat the language that they and others use as the experience or things themselves, NOT  as a pointer towards those experiences or things. HOWEVER … language also has the ability to generate experience itself in the system of the individual using or experiencing it. This is just a critical a concept, because when people experience language it “feels” like they are experiencing what the language points at not something that points to something else.

The MythoSelf Process introduces the body directly into the conversation, bypassing the confusion that language creates when it is misunderstood to be the experience or thing itself. Because we focus on what is happening at the experiential level in the body we can (and do) access the pre-representational forms that are not the experience or things themselves.

The other thing the MythoSelf Process does is organize and align the conversation along a positive trajectory, i.e.: in regard to what is working, and how to move from that to how it must be present, to create intended future outcomes.

A powerful applied principal of the MythoSelf Process is what is referred to within the MythoSelf model as a “Future Memory” … a wholeform, embodied experience of the future state experience/outcome. The Future Memory creates a teleological pull towards the realization of the outcome experience by virtue of holding and expressing a way of being that constantly updates in a moment to moment way based on an emergent and unfolding present.

This is all aimed at a singularity of sorts as well … not a fixed singularity, but a dynamic singularity … ADAPTABILITY.

Why Is Adaptability So Powerful???

The main question I’ve been posing here is:

Why bother with the MythoSelf Process at all … either studying it … or experiencing it for yourself?

We can point to an answer based on the ideas I’ve outlined above and say …

It can truly be summed up by the idea of ADAPTABILITY.

Why adaptability?

Because the world … heck, the entire cosmos as far as we can tell …  is in a constant state of flux, it’s dynamically and endlessly changing.

We are all dealing with uncertainty in one way or another. The individual who can perceive most clearly the situation as it is based on the existing data in the system has the most options available to them.

Rather than operating based on a single path forward the adaptable individual continually makes choices that are most likely to reset the system to aim at the outcome intended.

By resetting the system it becomes possible to reset the opportunities the system presents to us. These folks are not locked in a static state experience that resides within the cause and effect paradigm most people are limited to, they can choose adaptability. Regardless of the seeming present state situational limitations or constraints … the individual who can choose from alternative futures can aim the system as they desire it to be based on a future state.

The primary idea here is attuning to the subtle, sublime signals in the system and making subtle, sublime adjustments to use the signals as beacons to realize the alternative future of choice. Rather than being powerless because of circumstances, adaptability allows you to use the circumstances to your advantage … think, Mac Gyver, or Colonel Hannibal from the A-Team … now generalize that to everything.

The Next Step:
Professional MythoSelf® Process Training

Professional training is the most powerful way to access the ideas of MythoSelf Process, first incorporating them into your own life … and gaining the skills to lead others to a powerful, wholeform position themselves.

From the start the entire MythoSelf Process will be present in each moment during the training. Instead of presenting the material as a series of steps or topics, every step of the presentation will be presented as a wholeform immersion experience. By working with the participants in the training program with whatever is present for them in the moment the MythoSelf Process becomes a living, organic experience in the room.

Unlike in standard educational pedagogy, only after the fact, once the experience has been presented in wholeform, is there any intention to unpack it for the participants.

The same thing is true of learning to replicate the work presented. Instead of building from a series of steps, MythoSelf Process training is learned in wholeform as well, by actually engaging in entire pieces of work with other participants. The advantage of keeping the programs small is that there is ample opportunity for direct supervision as you’re learning the material, however when operating in a wholeform design it’s almost impossible to do it any other way … in this case think about how you learned your cradle/birth language.

Anyone who has experienced Professional MythoSelf Training gets it in their bones. Once you experience something in wholeform it’s yours forever.

Best,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

P.S.: If you want to see into the Professional MythoSelf Training program a bit deeper you’ll find the logistics and details here:

Professional MythoSelf Training: Module 1