Who am I really?
According to the Pathwork (Eva Pierrakos), our divine CORE (sometimes called, “the Center of Right Energy”) is the repository of endless joy, intuition and creativity. It contains wisdom, happiness and the answer to all questions about our growth and development. This CORE part of us would seem to be all we would ever want to be and express. It is also the part of us that knows no fear, understands and sends “units of recognition and transformation” (which we “Core Strokes people” call positive strokes) into the world and welcomes our very life task.
The Divine Qualities of our CORE (or Higher Self or true self) are Love, Power, Serenity and Wisdom. But these divine expressions become easily obscured by other layers in our personality (our Lower self and our Masks) which interpose themselves between our CORE and the world.
Our Lower Self embodies selfish attitudes, willful ignorance, and a desire to destroy life and isolate the self. Here we encounter evil/demonic qualities like Self-Will, Submission, and Fear.
Our Mask Self is the persona we think we should present to the world. This mask is shaped by our childhood experiences and karmic splits we brought into this incarnation. The fundamental belief behind ALL masks is: “I’m not lovable or acceptable the way I am.” We maintain these Mask Selves because we fear rejection if our hatred or selfishness is visible. Consequently, we also mask our Higher Self, feeling ashamed of our beauty and spiritual power.
In our Mask Self, we deny both the worst and the best in our selves. This creates a safe, conventional, but ultimately unfulfilling pseudo-truth about who we are. We strive to live up to an “Idealized Self-Image,” which is always about perfection. The deeper truth about ourselves remains hidden until we embark on a journey of self-discovery. As the frontispiece of the Temple of Delphi instructs, “know thyself,” indicating that we must live in accordance with our true nature.
Man has to look at himself
As children we were made to feel ashamed of our Lower Selves and often of our Masks as well. We feared that being honest about our negative feelings would lead to rejection by our parents, who often did not see our beautiful essence. To cope, we covered our Lower Self feelings with a mask that we hoped would insure our lovability. This placed us in a dilemma: we had to give up an impulse or an essential resource to maintain contact with our caregivers. We understood the need to “behave properly” because any expression of our Lower Self’s perceived badness was not permitted. In some cases we even gave up contact all together, to preserve our impulses. Neither of these pseudo-solutions, felt good on a vibratory level.
The process led to the creation of what Wilhelm Reich, the psychoanalyst-grandfather of body psychotherapy, called a protective or defensive “armor.” With such armor in place, conscious control no longer actively defends against certain impulses or desires. We end up with a relatively unconscious and ultimately unwanted inner prison of suppressed impulses like distrust, fear, hatred, cruelty, separateness and other forms of negativity.
The price we pay for this imprisonment of impulses, feelings and desires is that it also keeps us from experiencing pleasure, which is our birthright and from being in our natural greatness. Reich also called this a character structure, which is the organization of our psychic structure, also visible in our body, posture, and stereotypical ways of acting and reacting to situations, people and the planet. All character structures arise from breaks in mutual connection and when parts of our selves are not welcomed or even considered. It’s as simple as that.
Every break in mutual connection results in a break in development, known as “developmental trauma.” Character armor leads to emotional rigidity, poor contact with others (the walls we build around us), and a feeling of “deadness.”
Examples of character defenses as shown in our MASK include submission and dependency as pseudo-solutions for Love, aggression and control as distortions of Power, or detachment and withdrawal as substitutes and caricatures for Serenity. Beneath the withdrawal lies confusion, chaos, loneliness, and pain. Beneath control and aggression is collapse, helplessness, and pain. Beneath submission is aggression, fear, frustration, and pain. These patterns of fear, withdrawal and avoidance often lead to sensations of inadequacy and unnaturalness, and off course, pain as a consequence of the distortion of the divine qualities that exist in our CORE.
Armoring is living memory.
Wilhelm Reich demonstrated that at the level of the body, all defense mechanisms manifest as chronic holding, energetic under- or overcharged areas, and “energy blocks”. Energy blocks, as described by John C. Pierrakos, MD (a student of Reich and founder of Core Energetics), are stagnated pools of vital substance that accumulate in the defensive perimeter and “armor” it in dysfunctional patterns or character structures.
When we become armored, our pulsation–an intrinsic aspect of life reflecting the dynamic cycle of expansion and contraction (referred to as “in-strokes” and “out-strokes by Chuck Kelley and Will Davis)– is interrupted, and the movement is restricted. This impeded energy flow throughout our body affects our breath, movement, health, vitality, and sexuality.
Reich showed that the body is “living memory” and carries in it the signs and traces of our personal life experience as well as our familial heritage. Various traumatic experiences and learned fears, “impregnate” our character and influence our posture. We may experience this in our lives as a hyper-vulnerability, a lack of sensation, aliveness, stiffness, or tension.
Armoring is demonstrable and therefore we can work with it.
Muscular (and myofascial) armoring needs to be understood as a part of our emotional defense system. It can be palpated as muscle hypertension or hypotension and can observed as an impairment in movement. Patterns of armoring do not strictly follow the pathways of voluntary motor nerves but rather show up as bands or segments, as Wilhelm Reich discovered. This is because armoring is more a result of autonomic nervous system activity, following involuntary patterns more than voluntary motor patterns.
The chronic perpetuation of the defense may result in the hardening (rigid, hyper-response) or weakening (hypo-response) of the muscular aspect, which then holds the particular defense pattern, including the mental-emotional aspects, indefinitely in place.
This process is, by definition, unconscious and resists change. This is a problem, however it may be — slowly and with effort reversed with body-centered psychotherapy.
Armoring in the myofascial tissues
Wilhelm Reich introduced the term “muscular armoring”, but today we know that psychological imprinting applies to other tissues in the body as well, particularly the connective tissue category of “myofascia”. The fascia is a system of fibers that surround nearly all the soft tissues of the body (organs, muscles, etc.), serving to wrap, hold together, link up, and support these structures. We can clinically distinguish between fascia and muscle tissue even though they are intertwined. In Core Strokes, we hold a significant focus on the de-armoring, harmonization and regulation of the myofascial system.
From an anatomical-physiological point of view, the fascia is a more primitive, less differentiated structure than is voluntary musculature, and it functions more along with the reflex system than the voluntary system. Thus, it is more dominant very early in life, before the voluntary system has had a chance to take hold, and it is also more involved in shock trauma situations where the voluntary system is overwhelmed by the involuntary. Restricted fascia can have the tensile strength of up to 2000 pounds per square inch. Additionally, our lymphatic network is located within our fascia. Since the lymphatic system does not have a heart like the circulatory system to pump the lymph, it relies on our bodies movement by the muscles and fascia to squeeze the lymphatic vessels and push the lymph through the system like a low-pressure hose. Unresolved birth issues and other traumatic experiences can be felt in the fascial network, and science has shown that this network is intimately linked to our immune system. Specialized white blood cells in lymph kill off harmful bacteria and viruses. Essentially, the lymphatic system is a cleaning crew for the body.
Original Pulsation, The Energetic Breath Cycle and Character Structure
Wilhelm Reich states that the living organism is characterized by an original “pulsation” in the breathing rhythm of the whole organism. This pulsation provides unity and harmony to the organism. However, energy flow and breath can be interrupted or blocked due to character structures formed early in life. Events in the womb, during breastfeeding, early crawling and walking, identity seeking, and initial experiences of our inner triangle all form deep, recurring patterns. These patterns dominate our lives, leading us to become primarily fragmented, needy, inflated, compressed, or rigid, or a unique combination of these styles.
We observe patterns in our bodies that correspond to different types of armored breathing. Examples include fragmented, needy, inflated, compressed, and rigid breaths. An individual may experience more than one type of focused tension. For instance, a person can have both inflated and fragmented breathing patterns.
In Core Strokes™, we allow clients to consciously engage with their breathing patterns. This engagement opens many possibilities for deeper tissue release during the therapeutic process. By understanding and working with these breath patterns through the stages of the Energetic Breath Cycle, we can facilitate the release of deep-seated tensions and blockages. This process not only promotes physical and emotional well-being but also helps individuals connect more deeply with their true selves, paving the way for a more integrated and fulfilling life.
Releasing the armor, developing the pilot, wrapping the soul with ego with Core Strokes and Postural, Energetic and Emotional Myofascial Integration.
Jack Painter, PhD, founder of the famous Postural Integration® method – helped us understand that in order to aid the person in the process of release (de-armoring) at the level of the fascia, we need a perspective of character style. Depending on the character pattern, myofascial armoring can be seen in various forms: the fascia may be dispersed in clumps, collapsed, have the quality of a liquid balloon, be dense, thick or thin, stringy, soft and malleable on the outside, fibrous or stringy deeper down, or squishy with lack of tone and responsiveness. There exist many variants, in other words.
In Core Strokes™ sessions, the practitioner helps the client to let go of the holding patterns with targeted “strokes” (which we view as “units of recognition”) and invites them to reveal a new part of themselves, or an old part of themselves that has been hiding in their body as symptoms. The presence of the therapist should give the client the courage to begin revealing, purifying and transforming all that surfaces from their inner depths. We like to call these inner depths the Dynamic Ground (in agreement with Michael Washburn), the seat of the deepest level of the unconscious, the inherited or collective unconscious.
Core Strokes: Keeping the balance between bodywork and ego processes
Core Strokes uses the information in the body to gain insights into the unconscious. In therapy we always stay in contact with the client’s ego processes by using a “witness figure” and strengthening what Albert Pesso, another pioneer of body psychotherapy, calls “the Pilot.” As a client or “worker,” you can discover whether your ego is collapsed, underdeveloped, weak or exaggerated, excessively aggressive, and controlling, but not truly strong (overdeveloped). In Core Strokes, we help the client with “ego repair”. This is directly related to including the body in this therapy. With what Al Pesso calls “ego wrapping”, we apply consciousness, name, accept, and give a place to a portion of the soul/self when it appears. We also use “antidoting” with ideal symbolic figures, allowing the client to experience in the “virtual body” what could have been in the past had if fortunate circumstances, interactions and figures had been available. This is where we can rehearse the future and claim our potential for fulfillment and happiness. The ego system becomes healthier, drops the masks and character defense mechanisms, and yields to the Higher Spiritual Self, says John Pierrakos.
The result of an integrated myofascial system
It is very interesting to see how a healthy functioning ego is dependent on an integrated myofascial network. When the biological cells are not in a state of distortion (rigidity or chaos), but in balance and well integrated, the permeable (ego-)skin, which is functionally identical with the myofascial network, helps regulate the balance between receptivity, power and outward expressivity. Here our work with Postural, Energetic and Emotional Myofascial Integration techniques helps us perceive and regulate the flow of energy from the Core in relationship with another person’s Core. Thus, we learn to act healthily within all 5 dimensions of personality (physical, emotional, mental, will and spiritual). The integrated person is at home in their own body — “temple of the soul” –and at home in the world in good relationship with others.
Training opportunities
The basics of Core Strokes ™ can be learned in four separate one-week-long modules. Ida Rolf, the founder of Structural Integration, has said, “Seeing is touch at a distance” and “Touch is seeing up close.” In Core Strokes we see up close how emotions, feelings and thoughts can be released and integrated simultaneously. For more information about introductory workshops, the training curriculum, application, locations and conditions, please find details elsewhere on this website.
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