PsychoNoetics Training

The term "psychonoetics” was created to describe what happens when we consciously create intrapsychic and communal spaces which support the awakening of the interior lives of individuals.

When we speak of "psyche”, we speak of the human soul; that which governs the total human being and its interactions with the environment. The psyche

includes but goes beyond the mind; it is an intuited presence that is other than the ego, larger than the ego, and sometimes in conflict with the ego. It also refers to the unconscious aspect of mind, which is a metaphor for unfathomable ocean depths.

"Noetics” refers to the knowledge that comes to us directly through our subjective experience or inner authority, as opposed to studying and receiving information from outer sources. A ‘noetic’ experience depends on the cultivated awareness of our actual, lived experience.

When we support the interior lives of people in a way that invites energy flow and vitality into the body, depth and meaning into the psyche, enthusiasm and sustainability into the spirit, an awakened life begins to happen. When this type of interior awakening happens often enough, and with enough internal and external supports, this interior experience begins to transcend the individual sense of self, and expands into timeless states of transpersonal realms, which we are calling ‘psychonoetic’ experience.

We have developed introductory workshops to offer individuals an opportunity to be exposed to opportunities to experience psychonoetic states of being, and we offer a three year training program to help individuals to hold, elicit and process psychonoetic experiences for their clients.

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The Introductory Workshops and Three Year Professional Training

are led by Michael Mervosh

and Irene Tobler

**** A 3 DAY INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP ****

An Introduction to PsychoNoetic Experiences

ENROLLMENTS NOW BEING ACCEPTED FOR:

Sept 17th-19th , 2010

Cost: 360 Euros or $400 US

Contact: psychonoetics@gmail.com

To enroll or get more information.

**** A 3 YEAR TRAINING PROGRAM ****

Working with PsychoNoetic Experiences

Also held at the Hotel Eden Roc

SAN FELIU DE GUIXOLES, SPAIN

ENROLLMENTS WILL SOON BE ACCEPTED FOR:

THE 2nd TRAINING GROUP STARTING IN NOVEMBER 2010

Cost: 1800 Euros or $2200 US per year

Contact: psychonoetics@gmail.com

To enroll or obtain more details.

The three year PsychoNoetic training has been created for body centered practitioners and therapists from various disciplines who desire to grow their capacity to integrate psychological growth and emotional deepening in order to promote transformative inner states of being. This is offered in a dynamic, supportive and loving communal learning environment that is compassionate and humane as well as clinical and professional.

Particpants attend this training in the hospitable confines of the warm, intimate and charming seaside Hotel Eden Roc, located alongside the exquisitely beautiful and quaint Mediterranean coastal village of San Feliu de Guixoles, north of Barcelona, Spain.

We look to enroll dedicated and devoted practitioners, who have a certain thirst for learning and zest for life, who are willing to immerse themselves in deeply meaningful and moving learning experiences, and engage with a fascinating and diverse range of practitioners from across the US, Europe, and Asia.

Our training groups are limited to 50 participants, and require a three year commitment from each participant. Potential trainees are required to attend at least one introductory workshop in order to be considered for our training.

TRAINING CONTENT

Psychonoetics is the most adequate description that we could create to convey the unique nature of our work. "Psych” is a reference to the psyche, the deep intelligence of the soul; that which includes but goes well beyond the mind. It can also be described as all the psychic components that constitute a human being. "Noetic” refers to the knowledge that comes to us through our own subjective experience, as opposed to studying and receiving information from outer sources. Noetic experiences are experiences that we have directly experienced through our senses, and lived through.

The purpose of this training program is to access this deep level of knowing that lies within our psyches, through the uniquely lived internal and external experiences we encounter as human beings, make meaning of them, and use the energy that we receive from them to live fuller lives, and perhaps make more useful contributions to the world as a result.

Psychonoetic experiences:

· When lived on the deepest level of awareness, brings about a radical change in one’s perspective of reality, a redefinition of one’s identity, one’s worldviews and, as a result, one’s ways of relating to the world.

· Include an opening into the transpersonal realms of reality as well as the experience of the sacred. These openings often come with the experience of gratitude, connectedness with everything and everyone, a feeling of wholeness and awe. They involve all aspects of our being, body, mind, consciousness.

· can happen spontaneously. Often they are the fruit of a long term commitment to a transformational journey. These experiences need then to be integrated into everyday life and become part of who we are.

TRAINING GOALS

1. To support you in having more psychnoetic experiences of your own, both with the communal context of our training, as well as outside of it, and to grow a tolerance and a welcoming towards these types of transformational moments in and beyond time.

2. To teach you to accompany and facilitate a meaningful transformational journey with others, which is physical, psychological and spiritual in nature. You will obtain a greater understanding and appreciation for the conditions required to create psychonoetic awareness and experiences. The training will also help you support people who have had a profound openings into their own interior, and help them integrate these experiences into everyday life.

As a participant in this training, you will be challenged to examine more deeply your own sense of who you believe you are. You will be given practical and useful tools to support your own transformation; then you will practice offering them to others as well.

We practice techniques from different methods of body-oriented psychotherapy, with an emphasis on tracking, building, and sequencing a flow of energy through the body; and at times, releasing or discharging this flow of energy from the body.

We introduce meaningful psychological frames of reference, and practice the application of these theoretical frames in "in-the-moment” practicum sessions. We will explore character styles, human development themes, Jungian and Gestalt perspectives, and other rich sources of psychoanalytic works to develop a multi-faceted and deeply compassionate view of the experience of being human.

We practice mindfulness, breathing and movement techniques from different spiritual traditions, which facilitate the broadening of consciousness and the opening to the sacred. We will also include energy work, chanting, ancient ritual practices and certain aspects of shamanism to help us go beyond the personality self in psycho-noetic work.

We work essentially with what is experienced in present moment time, and seek to experience the sense of an eternal "now” point, which exists beyond linear time.

WORKING WITH MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness can be defined as an opening to and a certain experience within the "now” point, without any judgment or conscious filtering. (Ex. "Mindful breathing” would be the awareness of the in-breath as it begins, last and ends, including all the sensations in the body as they occur within the breath, then the awareness of the pause between in and out-breaths, and then the out-breath from it’s beginning to it’s end, etc.)

In this sense, mindfulness is the continuous paying attention to any and all aspects of our experience as they occur in the present moment. Paying attention includes our physical sensations, thoughts, feelings, emotions as they arise into consciousness, unfold and disappear again, as well as all the influences coming from the outer world through our senses, like sounds smell, touch, etc. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental quality of embracing what is. The quality of mindfulness is essential in becoming aware of our stuck places and habitual patterns of relating to the world around us.

WORKING WITH THE BREATH

The awareness of and altering of breathing patterns to facilitate change in one’s psycho-biology has been used by adepts of almost every spiritual tradition throughout the ages.

Different breathing techniques have been developed and extensively researched by yogis over many centuries in terms of their mind and body altering effects and for the purpose of spiritual growth. Breath is considered the link between the physical and the spiritual realms of existence. Breath or "prana” also refers to the energy circulating in the subtle bodies.

In our training we will cultivate mindfulness with our breathing, and explore how the breath is linked to emotions and consciousness as well as body processes. We will also pay attention to how we avoid breathing in order to protect ourselves from painful feelings.

We will explore how our experience shapes our breathing and our breathing in return shapes our experience.

We will teach different breathing modalities derived from the yogic tradition and other sources as a way to bring about a shift in consciousness.

You will also learn how to fine tune your breath to another and to use breath in a healing or therapeutic relatedness with another.

WORKING WITH THE BODY

Our training is designed to help you experience your body as a vibrational instrument, and to use your body in the presence of another’s body. We will practice using our bodies as a witnessing presence as well as an activating presence for another.

Our work with the body involves mindful awareness, touch, and movement to support and facilitate the building, tolerating and releasing of vital life force energy from within it.

We use the chakra system as a way to link energy and consciousness to our touch and movement, with self and others.

We work with attention to our bodily sensations, and sequencing these sensations through our bodies, in order to access, experience and release deep seated and long held emotions.

Our bodily sensations are not only a gateway into our biographical history, they also recall our prenatal experience, and they present a gateway to collective and transpersonal experiences, such as early childhood memories, past life memories, ancestral memories, and memories from the collective consciousness.

TRANSPERSONAL EXPERIENCES

We define a transpersonal experience as an experience which transcends our ordinary sense of self and self-defined boundaries, as well as our biographical history. A transpersonal experience usually happens within the context of an altered state of consciousness, which can be induced or happen spontaneously when one is present in the "now” point. It essentially leads to an experience of the sacred. This experience can be linked to archetypal images (gods and goddesses, etc), a merging with other species (plants, animals), the recognition of the intricate web of interconnectedness, a sense of profound grace, an experience of luminosity, brilliant light, pure source, and many other reflections of Unity and Oneness.

4 ESSENTIALS OF PSYCHONOETIC WORK

According to the Institute of Noetic Science, there are four essential elements which are found in most spiritual traditions and transformative practices.

In our training we will use these four essentials as a way to lay the groundwork for a truly transformative experience to occur.

1) Intention

For our purposes, "intentionality” is the sense of determination and single-minded focus which you hold towards a certain aim, such as personal growth and transformation. A clearly focused and strongly embodied intention lays the ground for a certain type of experience to occur, both for yourself as well as with a client. It becomes an effortless "force of nature”, so to speak, and sees to it that certain experiences come forth into manifestation.

2) Attention

Attention is the ongoing process of actively witnessing one’s present moment experience. The process of attention helps us see the world with new eyes. We start to see more clearly how our unconscious thought patterns and assumptions drive our behavior, cause us suffering, and block us from paying attention to other aspects of our experience, thus limiting the range and scope of our experiences of reality.

3) Repetition

Just as in physical exercise, repetition is essential for a lasting change in our psychology. Our habitual reactions to reality have shaped and strengthened certain pathways in the brain over the many years of repetition. Synaptic pathways that are used frequently are strengthened while those which are rarely used become weaker. Recent research shows that in some parts of the brain, including the hypocampus, neurogenesis (the formation of new cells) continues throughout our lives.

This allows us to realize that repeated transformative practices help us consciously shape our brains and behaviors in new ways.

4) Guidance

Guidance can come to us from many sources, not just external sources. External guidance must be balanced with one’s own inner wisdom. Outer guidance is helpful to the extent that it leads us towards our own inner authority. Outer guidance can come in many ways, in form of a spiritual teacher, a therapist, a "sangha” or community of like-minded people, or simply the words of wisdom from someone you highly regard or respect. When we start paying attention to present moment experience, we can receive guidance from many useful sources of knowing.

Inner guidance can come in the language of dreams, archetypal images or symbols, synchronicities, or simply from a clarity of beingness and direct knowing.

PsychoNoetic Training – In Summary

We have a five point focus for our work:

1- The Body as our vehicle for Personal Process

2- Mindfulness and Buddhist Perspectives to attend to the mind’s experience of and connection with the Body

3- Subtle Energy Systems within and beyond the Body

4- Psychological and Emotional Awareness within the Body

5- Spiritual Awakening and Transpersonal Experiences within and beyond the Body

These are the various levels of system on which we will work

Intrapsychic – within the self – through meditation, guided imagery, body

scans, movement exercises, teaching transmissions, etc.

Interpersonal - the self with another – through dyad practicum sessions

Group Process - the self among others – through group exercises and process

sessions

Communal Process - the self as part of the whole – through large group

experiences

Universal Processes – beyond the self – through transformational, mystical and

Psycho-Noetics moments outside of time.

These are the various formats through which we will convey Psycho-Noetic experiences:

During the Training:

Lectures

Guided Meditations

Breathing Exercises

Yogic and BioEnergetic Postures

Chakra opening exercises

Practicum Sessions for Personal Work

Group Processes and Experiences

Poetry

Chanting

Intentional Prayer

Outside the Training:

Recommended readings to support one’s learning and Psycho-Noetic experiences.