D2

Transpersonal Movement-Expression to build trust/respect within Diversity:

Sharing self-identity’s knowledge supported by unconditional regards

Rosa Granadillo-Schwentker PhD, R-DMT

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

California Institute of Integral Studies

Transpersonal Integrated Energy Therapies

Abstract

Within a sacred space, participants explore and share personal knowledge of self-

formation and its relation with diversity. Transpersonal movement and expression

provides the container for personal narrative/arts to emerge. Concepts such as ethnicity,

physical disabilities, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economical status, religious

beliefs, ideology, and culture among others, are discussed. The transpersonal movement

expression based on Carl Rogers’ work promotes a climate of safety, respect, inclusion,

and belonging to explore self-identity while finding a voice to acknowledge cultural

differences and similarities in an empathic, non-judgmental, supportive, and nurturing

environment.

Description

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce participants to transpersonal

movement expression as a tool to explore self-formation, self-concept, cultural identity,

and to concepts linked to diversity. This is done in a climate of trust for each other’s

differences while exercising unconditional regard, which involves accepting a person

without judgment of any kind.

In this world of racial and cultural differences, cultural identity emerges as an

ever-evolving construct, implying that the exposure to different realities shifts our

behavioral and ideological existence. Thomas & Schwarzbaum (2011) suggest that while

individuals are in relationship with other people, organizations, institutions, and the

community, their views of reality and personal consciousness change (p.5-6). An

individual’s identity can be and is affected by her/his affiliation to her/his racial-cultural

groups entrenched in local and broader sociocultural contexts (McRae & Short, 2011, p.

31). Understanding the importance of proper and effective skills aimed to engage

individuals from diverse backgrounds in our work is imperative. McRae & Short (2011)

talk about how using proper principles and standards while working with diverse groups

can allow for the emergence of an environment of respect and integrity for individual and

group differences (p.13).

Carl Rogers accentuates the importance of laying aside the views and values you

hold for yourself in order to enter another's world without prejudice or evaluation. In this

context, human beings are defined as self-actualizing creatures whose core is plagued by

a positive drive for perfection. For Rogers, the goal of the individual is to become himself

[herself] (Rogers, 1961, p.108).

While searching and sharing our cultural identity, movement as integrative

process tends to bring a sense of awareness and relationship among body, mind, feeling,

and spirit, revealing unknown and unexplored parts of the self (Halprin in Levine &

Levine, p.135). Movement is used in working with themes of interaction and relationship,

which are explored repeatedly to help clients transcend their possible sense of isolation

(McNiff, 1981, p.115). Our bodies contain our life stories (Halprin, 2003, p.17). These

stories include our sense of self and the history of self-formation with our values and

culture-ideological perceptions and social presence. In dance movement therapy and

movement expression, the emphasis is on the relationship of self and community within a

frame of expression, and in the sharing of energy to validate our being (Chaiklin, 2009, in

Chaiklin & Wengrower, p.5).

The transpersonal dimension of this work is present while we respect the ever-

flowing of consciousness in the here and now, being in the present, not in the past, not in

the future, just in the here and now, unconditionally supporting the client. Transpersonal

movement expression involves moving from the sacred essence of the being, or heart,

thus experiencing genuine spiritual awareness. This sacredness is at the core of the self,

or true personal self, that is taken as the divine perfect spiritual space inside us. Natalie

Rogers (1993) mentions the close relationship between transpersonal and spiritual

experiences (p.199); we agree with her in the sense that the arts may invoke the spirit that

emerges while stepping into a non-ordinary state of consciousness.

Carl Rogers’ congruence, empathy, and respect toward the individual translate

into unconditional consideration, helping in the development of a healthy and vibrant

self-concept and self-identity. Since empathy involves a substantial amount of

unconditional regard and seems to play a crucial role in interpersonal and cross-cultural

relations, we assume that when empathy is present, self-expression tends to flow.

Rosenberg (2005), a communication expert and trainer, defines empathy as the respectful

understanding of what others are experiencing (p.104). He goes on to say that when

empathizing with others we touch their humanness and realize the common qualities we

share (115). Rogers (1961) mentions a major barrier to communication as our natural

tendencies to judge, evaluate, or approve or disapprove statements from others (p.330). It

is expected that unconditional regard and an absence of risk to the person’s self-structure

and self-formation will allow for the emerging of a healthy self-concept, opening

windows for the flow of self-expression and communication among different people.

Diversity is defined as an understanding of cultural differences where race,

spiritual beliefs, ethnicity, age, physical abilities, ideologies, economic-social class, and

spiritual practices sometimes play a role as interface in appreciating each other. We

believe that barriers to unconditional regard and empathic presence in the here and now

are mostly cultural differences, preconceived ideas, and internalized beliefs. Marbley

(2011) did qualitative research using “an amalgam of cultural stories” from the

experience, impression, and voices of counselors as clients and as mental health

professionals. The majority of them were beleaguered with dissonance between their

counseling and their cultural backgrounds. They shared how they “felt disempowered,

devaluated, and invalidated as persons of color in and out of counseling” (p.189).

However, they managed to rise from negative experiences and help to meet the needs of

people of color and everyone as well; as one of the participants mentioned, “what is

needed in the mental health field is to love, to appreciate others and to humble ourselves”

(p.189).

Conference attendees of all cultural backgrounds and orientations come to explore

their historical personal knowledge of self-structure and self-identity. Dancing together,

they link personal self-identity discoveries with concepts from diversity such as ethnicity,

age, physical disabilities, language, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economical status,

race, ideology, religious beliefs, and culture, among others. Transpersonal psychology, as

an approach that integrates the emotional-psychic and spiritual-consciousness

dimensions, is embedded in the movement method used for the experience. For

Corthright (1997), transpersonal psychotherapy is the exploration of this spiritual

consciousness (p.54).

This transpersonal movement expression approach weaves different modalities of

the arts, such as dance, drama, visual art, sculpture, ritual, and music, allowing one art to

influence another as in the creative connection of Natalie Rogers. The body, as a

receptacle of emotions and memories, is the vehicle to initiate the session where

movement is always the starting point of the process. Inner and outer rhythms are

explored in the beginning of the session as part of a ritual, as a way to create a re-

connection with our true nature. Thus, movement, art, sounding, and music will help us

tap our inner core or essence, to enter our wellspring of creative vitality (Rogers, 1993,

p.45). In this way, we are crafting a safe container where participants can explore a non-

verbal style of communicating with each other, allowing them to open themselves to

diverse ways of knowing or to explore each other’s consciousness.

Personal voices, processes, and movement pattern preferences will be discussed

and examined. The goal of this workshop is to learn how the use of Rogerian-oriented

transpersonal movement expression can help to promote a climate of safety, respect,

inclusion, and value while encouraging the freedom to explore differences and

acknowledge similarities within an empathic, trusting, supportive, and nurturing

environment. Results could be the beginning of the creation of space where participants

bridge into their true self, understand each other, feel a sense of belonging, celebrate, and

embrace the rich dimension of the diversity of their uniqueness as a group. These remind

us of a memorable part of a seminal poem by Rustin (1983):

“The bridge I must be

Is the bridge to my own power

I must translate

My own fears

Mediate

My own weaknesses

I must be the bridge to nowhere

But my true self

And then

I will be useful.” (In Moraga & Anzaldua, p. xxii).

In this work, we create bridges between our inner-outer realities while at the same

time we related with each other in a respectful and trusting way. In conclusion, we may

say that the freedom and unconditional acceptance provided by the Rogerian approach is

used by clients to explore who they really are. In this tapping into their real consciousness

or true self, people may access a space of feeling comfortable enough to share and evolve

within the group in this supportive and positive environment.

Carl Rogers may have set the foundations for the development of the actual

Positive Psychology discipline. Positive Psychology authors, Fredrickson & Kurtz

(2011), highlight the importance of acceptance, being open to the environment, letting go

of expectations, and creating high quality connections with others as elements that

facilitate the growth of positivity in life (in Donalson et. al., p.44). We need this

optimistic attitude in our existences. We immigrants, people of color, people that are

different, and people with multiple identities among others, we are terribly in need of

acceptance, unconditional love, and compassion. This is happening in our ever more

diverse, pluralistic society and country, at times shaken under the pressure of unsolved

belligerent personal-family, social-community, and worldly conflicts. Most of the time,

these conflicts are just communication misunderstandings and misinterpretations due to

the polarization into two separated realities and consciousnesses that results from “us”

and “them” thinking.

It is our hope that participants in this session will find their voice and the proper

language to produce and share personal narrative/arts pieces in the hearing and sharing of

stories that mirror their group/collective and individual presence in this diverse world.

Lugoners (1990) beautifully put it while explaining why she uses bilingual (Spanish-

English) writing: “I want to point to the possibility of becoming playful in the use of

different voices and…appreciate this playfulness…The more fully this playfulness is

appreciated, the less broken I am to you”(in Anzaldua, p.46). This is about finding a

voice and a way to use it.

With this experience, we desire for members of the group to achieve the task of

building sufficiently strong bridges of trust with their true-beings, to explore not only

their self-formation and self-identity, but also to develop a voice to articulate their

experiences with others. Here we are re-creating an ambience where different opinions

can be voiced and listened to, an ambience where diverse people could learn from each

other’s ways of knowing or from each other’s consciousness. Bert Hellinger (2001) says,

while talking about honoring our mother, that we can quietly always use the following

affirmation: “I bow down to you with respect”(p.155). I have found that this can be used

with everyone, since respect is the door that opens to expression, safeness, and ultimately

to trust.

References

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