Cultivate Awareness

Man has no body distinct from his soul. - William Blake

Often, as one resolves and brings into balance many of the issues related to his or her somatic structure, there becomes an expanded longing within that person to explore more deeply the inner dimensions of the body.

This deep desire for an experiential awakening and understanding of one's internal world is often nurtured by questions such as:

Where did my pain or trauma originate?
How can I continue to open my body?
How can I support these changes to hold?
How can I expand my inner awareness?
How can I live and move from my inner being?

The desire to cultivate an inner awareness is also fed by a curiosity to explore more subtle patterns and states, such as, the ease of being, the flow of energy, effortless movement, and an integrated postural balance. Within the domains of this inner investigation comes the integration of the mental, emotional, and intuitive patterns of being into the body's structure.

By cultivating awareness of postural balance and the ease of movement, we find ourselves exploring the hidden dimensions of beingness within the active forces of gravity. Integral Synthesis is the process of using the body in partnership with Structural Integration (Rolfing) as a medium of discovery in the exploration of awareness as it pertains to the spatial and temporal planes of consciousness, the experiencer with the experience, and the soul with the vessel of its passage through life.

To work through the body is to work with our internal experience and not simply to strive for a better posture, alleviate a physical symptom, elicit a certain emotional response or move more gracefully, although all that might happen. - Richard Heckler
Working Through the Body

Following are examples of how Structural Integration (Rolfing) can aid in the cultivation of awareness and the integral synthesis of harmonizing the journey of the soul with the wisdom of the body:

Awareness of the Body in Space

Here we develop and cultivate an expanded awareness of the qualities of structure, space, and movement of the body within the x, y, z planes of the spatial fabric. The primary reference for this exploration unfolds from Dr. Rolf's "line of awareness" which uses balance and beingness as the cornerstones of awareness within the dimensions of the self contained by the fields of gravity.

Core-Sleeve Awareness

Within the dialogue of core and sleeve layering distinctions, we explore the relationships between the conscious mind with the body mind, intention with action, support with release, and beingness with movement. Our process is to contact and refine with awareness, intention, and movement the relationship between the body's inner layers of core structural support with its extrinsic layers of movement, action and operation.

Awareness of Polarities

Conceptual thinking creates polarities, not the intelligence of the body. With the silence of the body as the referential experience, polarities such as support to release, movement to stillness, imbalance to balance, action to reaction, and intention to experience are explored.

Awareness of the Body in Time

There is the exploration of our history as our bodies are reflections of our journeys through time. The body also lives in the present tense before meaning is applied to it. With the body as an instrument of discovery, themes on the passage of time, states and stages of personal evolution, and the physiological structure of transformation are explored.

Emotional response is behavior, is function. All behavior is expressed through the musculoskeletal system. All function is an expression of structure and form and correlates directly with material structure. - Ida P. Rolf

Examples of the various potentialities where Structural Integration (Rolfing) can support the discovery, development, and expansion of an inner awareness of the body's internal dimensions are as follows:

Meditators

By opening and balancing the body, one experiences more freedom to allow the physical body to no longer be a detriment to one's meditation practice. The body becomes a clearer and lighter vehicle which allows the meditator to pursue his or her practice with fewer distractions from the somatic plane.

Yoga, Martial Arts, Qigong, Tai Chi Chuan, Feldenkrais, The Alexander Technique, Pilates, and other Subtle Movement Arts

Those who use the body as a medium of exploration within the realms of a deeper somatic awareness, energy flow, effortless movement, and integrated expressions of beingness, action, and reflection through form, will enjoy Structural Integration (Rolfing) as a compliment to their explorations. Structural Integration can serve as a supportive practice to open, integrate, and ground these discoveries of the inner dimensions of being and somatic awareness.

Acupuncture, Ayurvedic, Chiropractic, Massage, Bodywork, Energy work, Healers, and other Somatic Practioners

Structural Integration (Rolfing) can be an effective supportive practice to these primary modalities by helping to remove blockages, expand openings, integrate new information, and provide a deeper sense of groundedness and balance for the whole physical body. This process would be accomplished as a collaboration in support of the primary caregivers' intentions and treatment for the growth, healing, and recovery of his or her client.

As in all matter organized into biological units, there is a pattern, an order, in human bodies. Humans can change toward orderliness, or they can change away from it.- Ida P. Rolf