Next Introductory Weekend Workshop coming in 2019
In a introductory weekend workshop, practitioners will learn about:
Contact: The skill of contact sets up a collaborative relationship between practitioner and patient, empowering the patient to be a primary part of his or her own healing process. While many practitioners say that this is a goal of working with their patients, few have inthemoment skills that make this collaboration happen. Contact is the momenttomoment verbal acknowledgment, in short, simple statements, of the patients present experience—including the things arising that the practitioner is tracking, which the patient might not be fully conscious of (gestures, posture, emotions, attitudes, themes, and so forth).
Mindfulness: Directing Awareness A fourth Hakomi skill—working in mindfulness—is the hallmark of the Hakomi Method. Mindfulness is a presentcentered, receptive state of mind where one observes what is. Mindfulness is a gateway to discoverin and resolving the complexity inherent in chronic disease patterns. For example, we can start with the pain a patient feels in her stomach area. From here, we guide the patient’s awareness to “stay” with the direct experience of her bodily sensations in the moment. With the spaciousness and curiosity that mindfulness provides, other channels of information about the current “held” pattern become available: thoughts, emotions, images, and memories. By staying with the presentmoment experience that is arising around the symptom, practitioners can translate present experience back into qualities and movements of qi, in order to aid both the practitioner and patient in constructing effective and efficient treatment plans.
Loving Presence & the Healing Relationship: In Oriental Medicine, the etiology of internal disease is linked to the emotions. Psychological studies reveal that a primary influence in successful treatment is the rapport between practitioner and patient. Treatment method is often less relevant in its effect on outcomes than the interpersonal connection. What are the qualities of that connection that facilitate healing? In Hakomi, we call these qualities loving presence: rooted firmly in the present moment, receiving the patient’s personhood, noticing what energy is needed, adjusting internally to invoke the missing energy. This shift in the practitioner starts the healing process.
Seeing Deeply: Tracking Being attuned to our patients allows this: an ability to sense the qi in the moment, to see what is really happening, to recognize what’s working and where there’s some adjusting of the qi needed. Being attuned includes things like: hearing the fluctuations and quality of tone and speed in speech; cognitive perceptions like noticing themes and emotions underlying the story being told; and watching various gestures and postures that relay the movement of qi and tell the inner story behind the patient’s symptom presentation. In Hakomi work, this deep observational skill, which we call tracking, is refined to a sophisticated degree. We notice small, often unconscious (to the patient) shifts in body, mind, and emotion that are indicators of underlying patterns, and then bring them into the patients awareness (contact them) so they can be studied, worked with, and if necessary shifted toward more functional and healthy balance.
For more information on the Training or Introductory Workshop contact:
Rupesh Chhagan, L.Ac, CHP
512.917.3404
rupesh@windhorsemedicine.com
OM + Hakomi: A Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Approach to Working with Qi 