MythoSelf Process Training

Mapping Consciousness

by Joseph Riggio · Aug 23, 2022

Thoughts on Werner Erhard’s EST, Richard Bandler’s NLP and Joseph Riggio’s MythoSelf Process Models

“A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” – Alfred Korzybski

This may be one of the most used, most misquoted, and most misunderstood comments driving multiple models of human cognition and behavior.

Maps, Territories and Models

The reason I say this about the Korzybski quote “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” is because it’s so often presented as, “A map is not the territory.” FULL STOP!

“A map is not the territory.” is a very different notion than “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” READ THEM BOTH CAREFULLY, AND NOTICE WHAT THEY ARE POINTING TO SPECIFICALLY.

I am a picky user of language, because language is our primary means of representing “what is”… i.e. the world, reality … and we act on our representations of “what is” NOT on “what is.”

Language is a composition of symbols in a syntax and grammar that give rise to semantic form, i.e.: meaning, or more accurately, the meaning we apply to the sequence of symbols in the language we use (see Saussure and his comments on signals and signifiers for more clarity).

The semiotician, Umberto Eco, introduced a concept about text as potentially “open” versus “closed,” meaning that the texts are “fields of meaning” and not “strings of meaning.” This idea gives the semantic power (the ability to create and choose meaning) to the reader versus the author. Even when the author might clearly intend a meaning in an open text, it is the reader that confers it.

I believe that this is also true in verbal communication, i.e.: that the listener confers meaning, and not the speaker.

Based on this observation the author and the speaker create fields of meaning from which their readers and listeners can confer the meaning they intend, without trying to close the system.

To confer meaning in an open system the author or speaker need then to infer the meaning in the way they present the information they are representing, because the reader and listener will always interpret what is written or spoken and not simply absorb it “as is” unchanged. To do this requires a deep understanding of how the intended audience will transform what is presented as they interpret and incorporate it for themselves. There are some cases in theater and film that I can think of where the playwright or screenwriter has done this particularly well.

Presenting meaning in theater and film has the advantage of a four-dimensional format to express the intended meaning via physical expression and interaction with all that implies, happening through movement in space and time. The richness of the four-dimensional aspect of representation more closely simulates our lived experience than can be expressed in a two-dimensional format like text. Text however has the advantage of remaining more open, leaving more room to imply meaning without directly conferring it. Speaking can also remain more open in this way, with the advantage of simultaneously layering inferences in the non-verbal aspect between the speaker and listeners.

Hypnotic protocol takes advantage of this open framework in speaking, and in the hands of a master writer in text as well. Inference resides at the heart of hypnotic protocol. By the precise and creative use of suggestion a pathway can be formed that provides the least resistance for the listener or reader to confer meaning. Many playwrights and screenwriters use hypnotic protocol to create the experience they want to confer to their audience, leaving less room for interpretation as the actors’ work unfolds the story being represented by them.

Let’s bring this back again now, with the fullness of what I’ve shared to the comment by Korzybski, “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” Maps seek to capture in representational form the structure of a territory, e.g.: a context or process, that allows the user to navigate and transverse the territory the map represents with a degree of confidence that they will successfully get from where they begin to where they intend to arrive.

The consideration of Korzybski’s comment then isn’t that maps aren’t what they represent, i.e.: “The map is not the territory.” but that maps are tools to navigate and transverse territories that when “correct” will be useful in doing so. Keeping this in mind we can move on to models which provide a similar if not the same function.

EST, NLP & the MythoSelf Process Models:

All three of these models, EST, NLP and the MythoSelf Process model, use the fundamental concept that Korzybski suggests in what may be the most famous quote coming from his own General Semantics model, i.e.: “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”

Werner Erhard and EST:

In the case of EST, NLP, and the MythoSelf Process a model of reality, or more precisely, a model of how to conceive of reality and our interactions in it, is organized and presented.

I am a huge fan of Werner Erhard’s work and his EST model. In that work, Werner points back to some of the fundamental notions of Martin Heidegger’s ontological and phenomenological philosophy, especially his considerations on “being.” To massively simplify that application portion of Werner’s model he points to the perceiver of a context as giving meaning to the context, literally bringing the context into being by conferring meaning. He takes this idea to an extreme in suggesting that by our “word” – literally our speaking into being – we bring contexts forth and can transform ourselves and the world we occupy by doing so.

The inverse of this is also true of Werner’s work, that by not “being our word” we live in a state akin to an automaton simply responding to the context we encounter like “meat machines” moved around by the feelings aroused by the stimuli we experience. The process that functions to create the cause-and-effect response of the so-call meat machine is the “story” we are living inside of that we presume is real, when in fact it’s just the stories that have been conferred upon us, that we have now colluded with, and from there bring forth new stories that contain the same contexts as the stories we have incorporated. This process creates a never-ending loop of repeating the same story of our life over and over with little or no relief.

By “speaking our word” we can bring new contexts into being, and transform the story into the one we desire wholeform. One of the flaws I perceive in the EST model is the suggesting that we lead from “being” and not “thinking” or “doing” … and, and yet there is not mechanism or process provided for creating our “word” and thereby transforming our “story” without the “thinking” required to do so. The EST model can be a very powerful to create transformation, but requires a devolution into solipsisim to function as it’s presented.

If I take the EST model literally the Rene Descartes ontological catch phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” becomes “I think it, therefore it is.” Without too much stretching the EST model can viewed through Korzybski’s conception of maps, as a ontological distortion that might read, “The map IS the territory.”

Richard Bandler and NLP

The NLP model starts in a very different place than the EST model. NLP begins with the idea that what we know as being real is really representation, and the process we use to create, manipulate and utilize our representations determines how well they will work for us in creating the outcomes we desire.

Werner Erhard in the EST model suggests that transformation happens by speaking it into the world, ignoring the story of how we have known the world to be, and choosing a context that brings into being our intentions. This process, as I’ve presented it above, is known in EST circles as “being your word,” i.e.: because I say it is so it will be so. (NOTE: I love this idea, even as I see the flaws in it … flaws I see even when it works. Being personally driven in a phenomenologically empirical way to arrive at my own conceptions, the human cost of this method of living and bringing into being my intended outcomes is just too high for me to personally accept.)

In the NLP model as presented by Richard Bandler there is a cognitive process that begins and ends in representational forms of sensorial experience that are able to be intentionally modified and manipulated to create a better map of the world from the point of view of functional usefulness. The individual who perceives the world does so by the way they represent the world to themselves internally, as well as to the degree that they are able to observe the world as it is, i.e.: to align their internal representations in a way that accurately describes the external context as it is now. The step after being able to accurately represent the world as it is now, is to have the flexibility to represent the world as you’d like it to be, and to manipulate the way you internally represent your experiences to generate responses that bring about your desired outcomes.

NLP also has a secondary application of being able to map the way others internally represent the world to themselves by calibrating their verbal and non-verbal expressions in communication. A significant part of the process of mapping the internal representations of any context, i.e.: past, present or future, is contained in the language use to express the context by the language user.

Withing the NLP model you have multiple sub-models that are designed to make sense of the language patterns of the user, e.g.: the Meta-Model and Meta-Programs, and to use language interventions to modify these patterns to a more useful form, e.g.: reframing and hypnosis. In addition NLP users are trained to notice the non-verbal aspects in communication as well, for instance the representational system preferences of an individual in context, e.g.: visual vs auditory, or visual to auditory, or visual and auditory. Any combination and sequence of the sensory modalites can be present, and a skilled NLP user will be able to discern by tracking language usage and non-verbal patterns what these combination and sequences are as they communicate and calibrate what they are observing.

In the NLP model this ability to calibrate the way contexts are represented internally, and to modify these representations allow the NLP user to transform their experience of the context, make new choices, and create the intended outcome with much greater facility. It is also possible to use these same skills in communicating with other to bring about intended outcomes with them as well.

Joseph Riggio and the MythoSelf Process Model

Joseph Riggio (me, in the third person) has designed the MythoSelf Process model drawing on and from both of the models presented above, the EST and NLP models. In addition there is a deep draw on and from Roye Fraser’s Generative Imprint model.

The Generative Imprint model can be considered an applicaiton of the NLP model emphasizing the access to the excitatory bias and using wholeform communication to do that, and then leaping beyond the representation of reality within the framework of the excitatory bias to a deeper transcendent experience of being alive in a wellformed way that expresses as a pervasive sense of wellbeing and infinite possibilities. In Roye’s model this transcendent experience is the Generative Imprint and is held in “symbolic, iconic, representational form.”

“Form” is a critical consideration in Roye’s model and work. He literally being from and ends what happens in the model by accessing the form of the Generative Imprint. Accessing the Generative Imprint aligns an individual with themselves in relation to their sense of place and possibility to the Universe or the Cosmos as it’s unfolding in real time. The experience of accessing the Generative Imprint brings the indvidual into a very hightened sense of being present through time, i.e.: their past, present and future, in a deeply aware, sensorial way.

I was a student of Roye’s in an intensive seven-year apprenticeship, becoming deeply immersed in the Generative Imprint model, how to access it and apply it for myself and with others. The main processes used to access and elicit the form of the Generative Imprint are based in the NLP model and it’s applicaitons.

After working closely with Roye and observing how he interacted with his clients over several thousands of hours in the training and clinical context with him there was no doubt regarding the intensity of his use of somatic form as well as semanitc form in his work. This observation led me to the first expression of what is now the MythoSelf Process model. The first unique distinction I brought to the MythoSelf Process model that moved it some distance away from the other three models I have been presenting and discussing is the primacy of the use of the body and tracking somatic from at the macro and micro levels of expression.

Somatic Form in the MythoSelf Process Model

The main premise of the MythoSelf Process model has always been that the ontology of the individual is grounded somaticaly, i.e.: in the body. The somatic form gives rise to semantic form as sensorial experience is expressed in body sensations and responses. In the MythoSelf Process model we know reality as we experience it in sensorial form before there is any post-sensorial representation.

This idea of pre-representational sensorial form drives all of the transformational interventions within the MythoSelf Process model that allow a user to access and modify their awareness of reality and being, as well as the reponses available to them to take action in the world creating their intended outcomes.

In the MythoSelf Process model we hold a primary presumption that all of our experiences, including the realization of our intended outcomes, are a function of the action we take and choose not to/fail to take. The action we take are our behavioral responses, so if we desire anything in our lives, including the desire for it to be different in some way we need to modify our behavioral responses that keep the way we experience our lives as we do intact.

Because we accept that we are ontologically grounded somatically, and our sensorial awareness drives our experience and way of knowing the world, we cannot change our behavior without first changing how we are in ourselves, i.e: somatically, and the way we experience the contexts we occupy sensorially. So within the MythoSelf Process model transformation becomes a soma-semantic function of shifting the sensorial filters we use and the way we sort and process the information we are experiencing and responding to in the action we take (or choose not to/fail to take).

This distinction of driving behavior sensorially, but shifting what and how we are perceiving in and about the contexts we occupy create a significant distinction in the MythoSelf Process model as a a priori model of behavioral change. Within the model we never seek to directly change behavior, instead we simply change the perceptions of reality we hold in the contexts we occupy, and those we intend to occupy, and allow our behaviors to follow form that way of perceiving ourselves and the context we are in or are moving towards. (NOTE: This process can be, and often is, applied to past contexts and events as we consider them too, leading to a reorganization of how we know the world about us and ourselvees in relation to it to be, including our relationships with others … past, present and future.)

The Use of Story in the MythoSelf Process Model

A final commnent on the MythoSelf Process model for this writing concerns the use of story, specifically autobiographical narrative, in creating and stablizing the awareness of ourselves in relation to a specific perceptual position we hold and operate from to create our intended outcomes. This idea that story contains and holds our awareness intact connects the MythoSelf Process to Werner’s EST, Bandler’s NLP and Fraser’s Generative Imprint models. A distinction in the applicaition of story in the MythoSelf Process model is that we hold story as “open” versus “closed” in the way Umberto Eco suggests is possible. In the MythoSelf Process model a facilitator working with a client will create a story-form that infers the possibilities of creating and experiencing the intended outcomes of the client. The story-form connects both the specific autobiographical narrative of the individual client to the “field of meaning” that is also suggested by other stories in mythic form that support the individual in remaining in choice regardless of the extant, empirical evidience that suggests a given path, allowing them to draw on a much wider and bigger range of human experience and possibilities than they could contain on their own.

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Sarasota, FL, 23 Aug 2022

1000 Days of Training …

by Joseph Riggio · Jan 26, 2022

My journey to becoming a Master NLP™ Trainer … and, the Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

“Uchi-deshi” … that’s probably a meaningless phrase to you, unless you are a dedicated martial artist, and have hung around the martial arts world for some time, especially the Japanese arts, like Judo or Aikido.

The phrase, Uchi-deshi, closely translated into English would be “inside student,” referring to a dedicated student of the martial arts who lives in the dojo, commits to a full-time practice in the art they are studying, and takes on responsibilities to the dojo’s master teacher and to service in the upkeep and care of the dojo too.

What’s amazing is that these students not only work in the dojo, cleaning, doing minor chores, maintenance, acting as an assistant to the master, and often taking on some of the teaching role for other more junior students as well … they often pay for the privilege of being an Uchi-deshi, and must be able to support themselves financially and independently while in such an apprentice relationship.

I bring this all up because it’s the closest I can come to the apprentice model I experienced with Roye, my mentor and master, while studying the arts of NLP and Roye’s “Generative Imprint” model with him. For seven years I spent the better part of 40 weeks a year attending training programs with Roye, or assisting him when he was working with clients, and often picking him up at the airport or running to the bank to take care of something for him. It was a grueling schedule because my cost for this much training was in the range of $100K/year, plus travel and housing (there wasn’t any live in dojo to stay in, so lots of hotel rooms in addition to the few times I stayed on a sofa in Roye’s home), so I had to work full time, while also studying 8+ hours a day when I wasn’t actually in the consulting or training room with Roye.

Truth is … I wouldn’t trade day of those seven years for seven extra years of life.

There’s just no way I could be who I am today without having spent those seven years apprenticing in the manner in which I did … it was indeed grueling, often uncomfortable and discouraging, and there were many days I thought would be my last, but it was a privilege every day for those seven years.

I remember a particular moment about three months after meeting Roye for the first time, I had asked him to help me with something and he promised he would. I was confident that if Roye promised me that he could help me get something I wanted from training with him I would get it, but after weeks and weeks of waiting, and asking for it over and over, it seemed I wasn’t getting any closer to having it. So I waited some more.

This went on for months, and finally I decided if he wasn’t going to help me I would just get on with it and figure it out for myself, in fact I decided I was done with Roye, and after I completed the commitment to getting my NLP™ Master Facilitator certification with him I was out of there. So I kept at it, showing up, doing the homework, reading prodigiously in NLP, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and cognitive science, averaging a least a book a week, and in some weeks three books. I spend hours every day writing and reviewing my notes too. And, Roye would hand out what he referred to as “hypno-hymnals,” hypnotic scripts that he work on personalizing for me, with me, going back and forth using fax machines to share what I’d written and then incorporating his hand written notes in the margins back into the script that he’d send me back. I must have done this with hundreds of pages of these ‘hymnals’ over just that first year with Roye.

Suddenly, on a Sunday afternoon or a three-day workshop with Roye, sitting in the circle with him, I asked my question again, after Roye ran his typical routine of going around to everyone in the room and asking, “What do you want?” focusing us to think about why we were there that day, and what we wanted from it. When it came to me, I once again asked for the same thing I’d been asking for over the past few months, not expecting anything different than what I’d already gotten in regard to this request … nothing!

Roye did nothing to disappoint me either, because he simply acknowledged my request as he had every other time I made it, and then moved on to the next person. As expected there wasn’t any lightening from the heavens, nor some internal seismic event, just another day in the “hypnotorium” … Roye’s term for the space he set up to doing training in with his students and clients. Yet, sometime later that day, after lunch, Roye was working with a client in front of the room and did something that made what I’d been asking for over the many months since I began studying with him become crystalline clear and obvious … and, I swear to this day he subtly glanced in my direction to see if I’d picked it up. I was dazed and in awe, one of the very few times in my life I was truly speechless, because I realized in that moment that he’d shown me that very thing probably hundreds of times since I’d first asked!

Roye wasn’t holding back at all … I was just incapable of getting what he was offering until I’d seen it again and again, and again. When I finally saw it, it was as though dark scales blinding me had dropped from my eyes, and for the first time I could see the world clearly. Not only did I see what Roye had done, exactly and precisely what I had been asking him to demonstrate for me, but a thousand other things he’d been doing over those same months I’d been waiting for this moment became clear to me as well.

That was the beginning of my humbling. I have to admit prior to that moment I pretty much acted like an arrogant asshole, thinking I knew much more than I did, feeling somehow better than my peers who were so slow in picking this stuff up from my short-sighted observations. In that moment of revelation I realized how little I knew, and for the first time grasped some idea of how deep the rabbit hole I climbed into when I entered the hypnotorium went … a lot further down than I could see from where I was standing was about the only thing I was sure of that day.

Well, obviously, since I’m telling you this story, I didn’t quit, in fact that’s when I doubled down and committed to being available for every weekend, every workshop and anything that Roye would open up to me. I also began making time to join training with Richard Bandler whenever I could, and other famous (to me) NLP™ Trainers like John Grinder and Robert Dilts … I went everywhere and saw everyone, including some of the most famous hypnotists I could catch up with whenever possible. Not a week went by where I wasn’t reading two or three books simultaneously and spending hours on bulletin boards in the early Internet days. I was in … hook, line and sinker, a fish out of water, determined to master the art of swimming … even if that meant upstream and against the current until I got it.

As I said already, that was the start of a seven year apprenticeship with Roye, one I’m eternally grateful to him making available to me … even though I believed I earned every opportunity given to me, with my sweat, blood and tears offered up as payment in full. That was in the late 1980s, and my the early 1990s I was working full time as an NLP™ Trainer and Consulting, working with sales teams internationally, and eventually working my way up to the C-Suite doing leadership development workshops and coaching senior executives for multinational corporate clients.

There was a famous SNL (Saturday Night Live) skit in the early days of that television show, where the comedian Garrett Morris played the baseball player Chico Escuela. In that skit Chico would say, “Baseball been berry, berry good to me.” mimicking the real live MLB player, Sammy Sosa’s Dominican accent. It was a funny skit that stuck with me, and I often think in the privacy of my own mind, “NLP been berry, berry good to me.”

I liken my journey so far to a kid who began playing sandlot baseball, one of millions, who makes it onto a Little League team, maybe one of ten to make that transition from the sandlot successfully. And, then moving along getting on a high school team and then a college team, leaving behind may as many as 10,000 of the kids who all began throwing baseball around with their friends, or if they were lucky enough, playing catch with a father who showed them how throw a baseball properly. Finally, one of a 1000 of those college players makes it through the minor leagues and into MLB, getting drafted by a team who give them a shot, and if they are good enough they then get the honor of entering baseball’s Hall of Fame, maybe one of a million or more.

I’m one of those lucky guys who’s been given the opportunity to do what so many others who picked up a book and read about hypnosis or NLP or coaching, and then found someone to take a class with, and maybe finished a certification program of some kind and even started a part-time practice, hoped to achieve. I’ve traveled around the world training some of the very top, elite performers in every field of excellence, and I’ve been paid very well to do it … enjoying what I so often refer to as a magical life. I know it all began when I stumbled across an ad to go to a single 3-day training on the old Blue Dell Farm, in Pemberton, NJ, where Roye had set up his hypnotorium, and I made that first phone call to find up more about it.

Ever since then I’ve been saying that life has been “… berry, berry good to me.”

All the best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

P.S. – I’ve trained just a handful of folks in my version of taking on apprentices like Roye invited me to be with him, at least two of them picked up their roots and moved to live close to where I was living at the time to have that kind of access, another couple I can think of just came to anything and everything I was doing until they absorbed enough of what was going on to claim mastery themselves, and at least one of these folks lived with me as a housemate for a while literally pestering me in daily conversations and dialogue, and picking up everything … almost by osmosis you could say.

I don’t really have a formal program for Uchi-deshi, nor can you come and live me, but I am opening a very limited and small window for anyone who thinks they might want to explore engaging in an intimate mentoring relationship to master the art of transformational change with me. I have “graduated” the last of the group I’d been working with in this way, and I’m ready to work with a few more folks who are up to the commitment to becoming one of the best there’s ever been … because not only do I think of the folks who have studied with me this way, but their reputations now precede them as the master’s they’ve become (if you are interested I’m happy to set it up for you to speak with a few of them to help you decide after we speak and agree that it might make sense for you to drink the potion Alice found, and enter the warren for a while …

Just go here to arrange an appointment … https://live.vcita.com/site/josephriggio/online-scheduling?service=k1zlmegpqkoykvri

NOTE: This link will only be available for a limited time, so if you’re interested schedule a time now. I reserve the right to cancel this opportunity at any time without notice, but I trust if the student is ready …

Outlaw Thinking: Part 3

by Joseph Riggio · Nov 9, 2020

grok

grok/ɡräk/Learn to pronounceverbINFORMAL•US

understand (something) intuitively or by empathy. “because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”
- empathize or communicate sympathetically; establish a rapport. “nestling earth couple would like to find water brothers to grok with in peace”

Grok/ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment”, Heinlein’s concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that “the book’s major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term”.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok)

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

It’s what I do … I grok.

I am a Master Grokker.

I grok professionally with and for others.

SO …

I , Joseph Riggio, grok the MythoSelf Process, and within that universe of understanding, the underlying developmental modeling principals that the building of worldviews, and the narratives that form and inform them, ultimately rests upon.

Now, if you’ll stick with me for a short bit longer I’ll get to how and why this may be of critical important to you too.

Hackers also grok, as in “I hack reality, because I grok it.”

The word was later woven into hacker culture, appearing in the earliest editions of the Jargon File from the early 80s, which was later edited and republished by famous programmer Eric S. Raymond under the title The New Hacker’s Dictionary.

The primary definition given there is consistent with Heinlein’s, but the more religious and mystical connotations have been dropped:

To understand. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you “know” LISP is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you “grok” LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash.

Here’s an especially interesting bit for me:

When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity.

I am quite literally asserting that after thirty plus years of immersing myself in the work I do, i.e.: the MythoSelf Process, and all the bits and pieces that it contains and it built up from and in relation to, I grok this stuff like nobody’s business!

NOW onto why this is all important, maybe critical, for and to you …

I’ve been laying out a premise for what I’ve playfully been calling Outlaw Thinking in my last couple of posts.

The essence of the idea is that A) I think (and therefore communicate) differently … other than as folks normally associate what thinking is or how it should be done, i.e.: in a straight linear way, from point A to point B, as efficiently and directly as possible … and, B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

Okay here that is again …

B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

SIMPLY … I train people to grok their world, their work, their own lives, and the other folks they engage and interact with … and I also train folks to do this work I do with others, so they can help their clients grok too.

Now you have what you need to decide if this is important, or even critical, to where you find yourself in your life today.

If getting to this kind of thinking and communication in your life and work means something to you, you’re in the right place … YOU’VE FOUND IT!

OUTLAW THINKING REVISITED:

So what do I do again, and why is it important, or critical, for you:

Applying the MythoSelf Process model with my clients helps them to unwind sticky, or wicked, problems and situations in their lives, relationships, work and businesses.

“Grokking” the MythoSelf Process model gives me a kind of genius superpower … because it makes it obvious what level of thinking someone is operating from, and where the limitation in their cognitive process exists, and then points the way to resolve that so that my clients can literally upgrade their mind.

The “genius” in the model is available to anyone who groks it, and that’s ultimately the effect of working with someone deeply versed in the MythoSelf Process.

All perspectives, or worldviews, rest on narratives that describe what is real for the individual, or organization, that is living within and in relation to the narrative … the stories they tell about themselves, others and the world as we know it to be.

The MythoSelf Process model uncovers the existing narrative, as well as the “primal narrative” — the origin narrative that contains the uncorrupted and uncompromised form of the individual or organization, before any attempts where made to reshape them to fit into what society wants them to become.

The primal narrative is the pure mythic form of the individual or organization, and provides access to a teleological trajectory the pulls them into the most desirable future possible for them. In some models of transformational work this would be referred to as becoming authentic, or operating authentically.

The advantage of accessing the primal narrative, or mythic form, that working within the MythoSelf Process provides any user, is that decision making becomes unclouded, and action taking become virtually automatic in relation to creating the outcomes you intend … the effect is that taking effective action, and creating results, feels effortless.

Solving wicked problems is especially important to what we’re discussing here, what I’ve call Outlaw Thinking.

The MythoSelf Process allows you to process complexity that gives rise to wicked problems, and develop effective strategies that unravel the complex issues that have tentacles in multiple directions, having multiple consequences that are overlapped, intertwined and potentially costly if you fail to resolve them, and when they are resolved well are highly rewarding.

Doing this requires operating from a different mind and elevating your performance in relation to the world we now live in today.

The deep challenges we face include:

A brain that evolved somewhere between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago, not in the complex and interrelated global world we now move in
Cultural learning and impositions designed hundreds of years ago, imposing explicit laws and implicit rules that order our lives today, that no longer effectively represent the world we are living in now

Only by upgrading your worldview, i.e.: effectively upgrading your mind, can you hope to effectively deal with the actual levels of complexity and circumstances we live in relation to on a daily basis today.

The MythoSelf Process is a method for working with someone who will guide you through the specific things you need to do to shift how you are experiencing yourself and your life, usually in relation to a specific situation or circumstance you are currently facing, that then generalized the upgraded pattern of thinking throughout your life.

Beyond the MythoSelf Process work with a facilitator or trainer of the Process, there is an opportunity to learn more about the foundational principals that form and inform the Process.

These principals used with the MythoSelf Process model are built on a developmental model of cognitive maturity, and will dramatically shift the way you think and the way you communicate (because quite literally communication is thinking — as you raise the level of your cognitive maturity communication, and language use in particular, become a controlling mechanism for thought).

If you’re ready to take the next steps in exploring how you can make this kind of leap in advancing yourself, your thinking and your communication have a look here now:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1, there’s no need to wait any longer, reach out to me directly at: joseph@josephriggio.com, and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

Changing Minds …

by Joseph Riggio · Oct 28, 2020

Escaping The Matrix

“Remember … there is no spoon.”

(Author’s Note: This one is going to go deep fast, and then loop around a bit, all requiring some commitment, probably demanding a few readings, but I bet it will be worth many readings after you’ve read it once … ENJOY!)

Take A Walk With Me On The Wild Side of POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE

For thirty years I’ve been working with clients personally and professionally helping them become more:

Powerful in their lives, i.e.: able to take the action that leads to the results and outcomes they intend
Creative in how they approach thinking and decision-making, with an aim at helping them become more adaptable and artful in acting strategically
Influential in their interactions, becoming masterful at communicating authentically and persuasively to engage, enroll and empower others

This is ultimately about how you can develop deep personal mastery so you can create the life you want to be living … a life lived on your own terms, without compromise.

So if you’re ready walk with me for a bit and we’ll explore the journey I’ve take to where I am today in the work I do.

A Little Background:

In the early 1980s I began developing a model of thinking about thinking, or more specifically thinking about how to improve thinking, that I called “Transformational Applied Philosophy” … T.A.P.

I named what I was working on Transformational Applied Philosophy because I was focused on building a phenomenologically grounded model of transformational ontological change, designed around the work of a few philosophers I was reading deeply at the time.

The philosophers I was reading at the time included: Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel (post-kantian logic and phenomenology), Edmund Husserl (existential phenomenology), Arthur Schopenhauer (aesthetic existentialism), Martin Heidegger (existential ontology), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (embodied ontological existentialism), Ludwig Wittgenstein (metaphysics and analytic philosophy of language), and John Searle (analytic and linguistic philosophy/philosophy of mind).

Then I went on and found a few more philosophers who I added to the mix of my reading, social ontologists like Gilles Deleuze, a couple of the hermeneutic philosophers like Jurgen Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and those in the domain of philosphy of mind, neurophilosophy, cognition and embodiment like Patricia Churchland and, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

All of that reading was significant because philosophy has been informing people about how to live their lives well, to find a path of authenticity and purpose. Reading philosophy can be challenging, it dense and sometimes very dry too. And, one thing literally leads to another … and another, and another … ad infinitum, until you’ve read the entire canon of Western Philosophy at least (which of course I haven’t, and neither has anyone I know of, but some professional philosophers sure seem to have read 90% of it!).

I still read philosophy actively, more of the later kind … philosophy of mind, cognitive science and neurophilosophy … and this forms a great deal of my background, and current focus, about how I think about thinking, and help others to think better … i.e.: with greater clarity and more precision, leading to a dramatic increase in the ability to think with passion and strategically.

My realization was that while approaching my work with clients philosophically had great and deep value, what I am aiming at required something more than what staying just in the domain of philosophy offers me and my clients.

Going Beyond The Basics

When I found them I fell in love with informal logic and embodiment. This was especially true as the embodiment movement led through the extended mind phase led by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s work (following Gregory Bateson), and evolved to an understanding enactivism/enactment, where the premise is that the mind exists in the interaction with the environment. Quite literally the environment, and the objects in it, the total context, is as much a part of the mind of the individual as the individual’s neural processing and physical/sensory experience.

So I began to look more and more into the domain of somatics and folks from F.M. Alexander to Moshe Feldenkrais to Thomas Hanna. That took me deep for many years, way into anatomy, physiology, and eventually into neuroscience too. But, because I was led there by an interest in the idea of undifferentiated body-mind singularity my focus for about five years centered on studying cerebellar response where movement predominates thinking, proprioception and vestibulation.

HEY, PLEASE STAY WITH ME … WE’RE GETTING THERE …

Somehow this stuff made sense to me as a set of intertwined connections linking and weaving it all together, especially when I began looking at it through the lens of narrative and mythology, and the structure of storytelling.

This phase of my work was deeply grounded in studying the work of Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythologist, and his “Hero’s Journey” model. There’s no way you can do this and avoid looking at the work of many other folks in related fields from psychology (e.g.: Carl Jung) to ethology (Konrad Lorenz) and anthropology (e.g.: Gregory Bateson), linking what I call the biological imperative with the creative imperative, leading to an aesthetic orientation.

Sometime in the late 1990s I was introduced to the work of Clare W. Graves, the developmental social pyschologist. Dr. Graves work impacted my thinking on many levels and shifted the framework of the model I been developing for almost ten years by that point. For the next ten years I would study the work of the post-autonomous, post-conventional developmentalists including Jane Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and William Torbert.

OKAY, WE’RE THERE!!! (WELL ALMOST THIS TIME, REALLY …)

Mythological Expressions

By the early 1990s I’d begun referring to my model as “The Mythogenic Self Process” which became the “MythoSelf Process” by around 1994.

That was because of the impact of Joseph Campbell on my work. Adding up all the pieces led me to take a mythological turn, or what I think of equally as a narrative turn. I began to realize that our entire relationship to reality is structured like story, i.e.: in narrative or mythic form.

I’d moved well beyond the limited philosophical approach I’d begun thinking was the way to achieve significant transformational change with clients.

The way I approached transformation early on was based on a premise that the way we hold and process information in our brains as the manipulation of representations, both sensory memories and/or abstractions. That’s why I became (and to some extent remain) so fascinated with a philosophical approach. This approach has great validity when dealing with the cognitive process of making sense of and manipulating information, e.g.: language.

What was missing were the two elements that have become the signature pieces of the MythoSelf Process, sensorial cognition and dynamic movement. When I added these to using a narrative approach to uncovering the mythic form of the frame of reference that holds reality intact for an individual or organization, i.e.: the externalized temporally organized markers that are then internalized and acted upon, it all came together … finally!

(FWIW, I know this all very technical sounding, but I warned you up front this was going to take some commitment, but that it would be worth it, right? BTW, you can ask me about anything you want me to clarify in the comments section below.)

By 1999 I’d already begun training and certifying others to use the model and process I’d designed with great success.

For the next twenty years I’d continue to develop and refine the work I’d designed, and extended the reach of applications from sales and leadership training, to executive coaching, to team development, to intensive individual coaching, to mentoring coaches and consultants to use the model and process with client groups in virtually every specialization imaginable and with clients from eight to over eighty years of age.

What I had in hand was …

An aesthetically oriented, phenomenologically grounded and embodied model of transformational ontological changework that took into account developmental levels of awareness engaging the mythological form that supported the fundamental autobiographical narrative from which individuals and groups define reality as they know it to be in any given moment, operating it enactively.

WOW!!!

That’s surely a mouthful (and why I just refer to it simply as the MythoSelf Process model).

To get what it really is we’re dealing with all of that is actually essential. What makes this so strange to consider however is the typical orientation to reductionism, silos and linear thinking versus synthesis, integration and systemic thinking.

BUT … you can’t deal with dynamic complex systems, e.g.: human systems, without addressing the reality of that they are in fact dynamic complex systems!

The model of transformational changework I built, the MythoSelf Model, then is a model that shifts the fundamental way you perceive, think about and act in the world.

What’s at the center of the model is the shift in thinking from linear to systemic, and from fuzzy to precise. This requires a whole new way of using your brain than most people have ever experienced, one that is both more integrated and, far more embodied and wholeform than your education has ever made available for you to access.

Two other aspects of using your brain in this way is how embodied the experience becomes as you being thinking through and with body-based processing (somatically organized) as well as mentally-based processing (semantically organized) as an enfolded and entwined processing model of thought … and, how sensual and aesthetic this way of thinking is organized. When using the MythoSelf Process model as the basis of how you experience, perceive, process and act in the world aiming for beauty and elegance in form becomes a most sought for characteristic. Essentially this drives sensuality into decision making and performance (strategic action aimed at an intended outcome), making them beautiful as well.

Storytelling & Narrative Communication As A Control System

Way back when … virtually at the same time I began this journey from my study of the philosophers I’ve already mentioned, I also was beginning to read in the field of cybernetics, and cybernetic control systems based in communication.

I felt from the start that there was a direct correlation between what I was reading in cybernetic theory and the work I wanted to master in helping individuals and organizations make transformational changes. What I couldn’t put together was the mathematical orientation of many of the cybernetic thinkers I was studying at the time and how to apply them directly to helping people make the changes they desired.

The idea of systems that provided and operated on feedback made perfect sense, yet the mechanism of how to apply this directly with my clients eluded me for many years. It took the connection between mythological form/narrative and developmental theory to make sense of it as I now have and apply in my work with clients.

While the idea of a primary cybernetically organized mechanism to assist clients to make change made perfect sense, the specific methodology was a bit trickier to fully explicate and define.

When I brought together all of the systemic work I had been doing with individuals and organizations, as well as the mechanism of mythological form/narrative applied within a developmentally organized approach, it all became very clear that what I knew was working could be codified.

Stories are intrinsically cybernetic in the sense that they are self-contained systems. In stories language “controls” the movement of the narrative in terms of content, space as place, and temporality.

Where someone perceives themselves in space and time relative to the content in consideration determines what the content represents to and for them, and what’s possible as a result.

Narrative structure is based in organizing temporally, and placing actors and agents in relation to one another relatively in space, i.e.: who’s affected by the events that happen and how, where the events are happening, as well as when the events happen, are all part of narrative structure.

Organizing the stories we tell ourselves and others, as well as the stories others tell … especially those they tell about us … are all part of the mythic form of our life that organizes who we know ourselves to be in relation to reality as we know it to be.

Therefore the most powerful skill we can possess may be our ability to design, craft and tell potent stories … in storytelling we contain POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE simultaneously. When we tell stories intentionally, to ourselves or others, we shape and reshape reality as we know it, and in regard to how we relate to it.

Transformational storytelling sits at the heart and soul of the MythoSelf Process model. Storytelling is the essential and central skill that allows someone to create a future possibility that doesn’t exist for them as they are today. Using stories also opens up the possibility of shifting away from those things that limit an individual or organization.

I’ve designed the MythoSelf Process to allow facilitators of the Process to help clients make significant shifts towards what they want, as they simultaneously reset their relationship to what had been limiting them in the past, using narrative form as a means of updating their personal mythology.

Using a wholeform approach that takes into account sensorial and dynamic movement processing, as well as content driven sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making, defines the MythoSelf Process more than just a narrative or storytelling methodology as they are normally approached.

The MythoSelf Process creates a new wholeform reality by blending somatic and semantic modeling within a narrative, storytelling process that resets the temporal and spatial relationship of a client to the future-based position they intend to achieve.

Holding The Space For Clients Until They Can Hold It For Themselves

The new wholeform reality created by combining somatic and semantic modeling using a narrative, storytelling approach shifts the filters of perception and the sorting patterns that lead to sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making that precede taking action that produced the results that lead to achieving outcomes.

Only when an individual’s or organization’s filters and sorting patterns are fully organized and aligned with the outcome that’s intended, will the trajectory of action create the results needed to achieve the outcome that’s desired.

By shifting the filters and sorting patterns to align with a newly intended future, the individual or organization shifts the way they are paying attention, what they notice for, and how they notice for it, as well as what it means, needed to create that future intended outcome. This amounts to stepping into and living a new story that forecasts and leads to a new emergent reality.

Like this, what to do becomes obvious, even when it requires significant work to accomplish. In this way, operating from within the new story structure, moving towards the new emergent reality becomes effortless … regardless of how challenging it may be to do what’s necessary.

As the agent of change, “I” was the primary mechanism I had been seeking, and the specific way I could organize myself in relation to my clients to assist them in bringing about the change they sought when they engaged me became instantly clear as well (although it’s taken me another ten years to document and codify it fully).

There are two aspects to applying the MythoSelf Process in the way I have been building up to and describing … first by establishing the stories that need to be told and re-told, and second by holding a position in relation to your client that demands they operate from the position they’ll be in when they achieve their outcome. Doing this requires understanding all the “science” part of what I’ve been laying out here, as well as the “art” of knowing how to step into and adopt the position of choice.

In this way bits and pieces of what your clients need to be aware of starts becoming obvious to them. As the become aware of what they need, they simultaneously become more able to hold the position they need for themselves where noticing in this way is automatic and natural for them (without needing you to provide the structure and stimulus to prompt them to hold this position).

Over time the new position, actually a new reality for them, becomes how they are without effort or trying, it’s quite literally who they become (with your help of course, until you don’t need to help anymore).

This is a radical departure from how most processes, approaches, methodologies and models of transformational change operate. In virtually every other way of prompting transformational change it’s what the change artist does with or to the client that makes the difference. In the MythoSelf Process model the way you are as you do what you do with or to the client is what makes all the difference.

“Holding the position” is a cybernetic process, and personal communication … including the art of storytelling … is the ultimate control function in the system.

Stories form the mechanism to provide the intervention, or interventions, required to shift the system so the individual can find a way to permanently occupy the new position of choice, opening the pathway to a new possibility, a new future, beyond what would have been possible before resetting the system to the new position created in the relationship between the client and the facilitator.

In the end becoming that person, the one who can hold the position necessary makes it all worthwhile to have done all the reading, study and the thousands of hours of client work required to know how to discover what to do and how to do it, and then to do it.

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process

Sarasota, FL

P.S.: – If you would like to discuss the MythoSelf Process more, either as a coach or consultant … or, with the intention of exploring how experiencing the MythoSelf Work might help you personally … let’s talk, set up a complimentary consultation at your convenience: Schedule Time To Talk With Joseph Now

Surviving Myself

by Joseph Riggio · Oct 7, 2020

Beginning again … and staring anew …

A little more than thirty years ago last month, September 2020, I began a journey that I didn’t fully understand as I took the first steps on the path that led me to where I find myself today.

Truth be told if I properly unwind the spiral of time, tracing back the tendrils enfolded within to the source, the journey began long before … and I can’t actually tell that story because I don’t really know it.

That story began before I was able to track what was happening, or how, let alone having any consideration of why.

The story I refer to, that must remain unknown, is common to all … the story of our becoming before we know ourselves to be, at least in any truly conscious way.

“My people” … those who cared for me, raised me, instilled me with my earliest beliefs and examples of how to be in the world … set me up to become who I know myself to be today in ways I doubt could ever be fully unpacked.

I believe myself to be who I know myself to be, and it sure seems and feels that this is ‘me’.

At the same time I am astute enough to know that many aspects of ‘me’ are actually remnants of my upbringing and of hundreds or thousands of subsequent experiences that have embedded themselves on and within the ‘me’ I know myself to be … which seem from the inside to be aspects of my own creation, because I’ve long ago lost the source of how they came into being in the first place.

So I’ll ask you to indulge me and allow me to begin my story much later this time, around the age of 30 give or take a year or two either way.

BEGINNINGS: The MythoSelf Process

For the years since then I’ve both unofficially and officially been practicing what I call the MythoSelf Process, or when first conceived originally, the Mythogenic Self.

Most of all this is an idea, a concept or notion, if you will, that points to a way of knowing ourselves to be, that places us at the center of the Universe.

Now it’s important to state that this particular way of referencing and organizing one’s self doesn’t preference you to be uniquely at the center of the Universe, but places anyone who is contemplating their place in the Universe simultaneously and without cessation at the center of the Universe … so you and everyone else is at the center of the Universe by virtue of the simple consideration that makes it so.

This idea, of being at the center of the Universe, is not the most complex idea in the model I’ve been practicing, the MythoSelf Process model, but until it’s grasped … or better groked … it remains a bit confusing to most who are used to Cartesian thinking and especially Cartesian graphing.

THINKING … in more than one dimension

That’s largely because most people have been trained to think in only two dimensions … for example …

This and That, or, Here and There, or, Then and Now … and so on.

Rarely you have someone who can actually process in three dimensions …

This and That or some other thing, time place … and so on.

And, damn few who ever ever consider living in relation to four dimensional thinking …

This and That or some other thing only now and then not now … because the Universe is both dynamic and fractal by all evidence we have at our disposal.

So let’s change the language and labeling just a bit to avoid some of what might otherwise be confusing.

Let’s call the first kind of thinking, two dimensional, This and That, binary thinking

Let’s call the second kind of thinking proposed above, This and That or some other thing, multidimensional thinking.

And, let’s call the third proposed pattern for thinking, This and That and some other thing only now and then not now, fractal thinking.

THINKING … Part 2: Why Bother?

OKAY … if you made it this far you might be asking “WHY?” … “Why bother with all this Joseph?”

Fair enough, because when you upgrade your thinking you improve your life. That simple.

For the entire thirty plus years I’m referencing that’s been my focus …

How do I upgrade my thinking and the quality of my life, and subsequently, how do I help others do the same themselves?

That essentially is what the MythoSelf Process work is all about, so I’m starting at the core, not necessarily the beginning.

I’ll assume for argument’s sake that you’re beginning to grok even more than you think about the MythoSelf Process and why I believe it’s so valuable to myself and others.

Let’s start again with more of the early story, and I think that will make all this much easier to grasp.

In late 1980s I participated in Werner Erhard’s “The Forum” … as he described it then, a conversation that we are in even when we don’t recognize that we have been engaged in it for as long as we know ourselves (my phrasing, not his).

That experience was transformational for me, and led me to study NLP, meet Roye Fraser, start training people, develop the MythoSelf Process, and build and international training and consulting organization, and coaching and facilitating thousands of people in the essential fundamentals of the Process.

Quite frankly, the beginning was so pretty, because it began when I was largely out of sorts about myself and my place in the Universe, not feeling much like I was at the center at all.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was coming to the end of my first marriage, I was struggling to make ends meet financially because I’d just walked away from a lucrative role as partner in an Interior Architecture and Design firm I helped to found with two other partners, I had just begun training dogs full time in transition to I don’t know what, and soon I’d be living back at “home” with my parents for a few years …

What I did know was that I was unsettled, and the source was internal and not external. I had to come to terms with something about myself that was unsettling, but I didn’t quite know what it was, or in reality even where to begin looking for it.

I’d already done a lot of self examination and searching. I was a product of the 1970s, and the near universal quest to “find oneself.”

I’d read all the pop psychology and spiritual books that were prominent at the time. I practiced meditation, tried yoga, fasted, followed a path of Christian contemplative mysticism, read a lot of the books on Zen translated into English at the time, even tried ‘sitting’ for a while … but my mind had been trained in a Western form of thought, and while all those things continued to fascinate me, they were “The WAY” for me personally.

But in my late teens I’d come across some reading that opened another possibility to me, including Carlos Castenada’s “Don Juan” books and a particular book by W.D. Norwood, “The Judoka.”

Finding the 4th WAY

The difference in these books was that the main protagonists were active, not sitting still contemplating their internal world, and I had an innate sense that “The WAY” for me was about being in the world, not apart from it.

That led me to G.I Gurdjieff and the idea of a ‘4th WAY’ … rather than profound meditation, contemplation, prayer or yoga, I could move in the world and use that movement and the interactions that arose as a result as the grist for the mill of deciphering the meaning of life.

This suited me greatly at the time … so I began going further into the idea of living meditation as I thought of it, seeking to extract meaning from the day to day living of my life.

I think that the main thing I was seeking was a purpose for my life, a reason to wake up and get going, but I still lacked an essential quality … directionality.

Pursuing DIRECTIONALITY & Discovering EFFORTLESSNESS

That’s a word I got from my years studying with Roye Fraser … DIRECTIONALITY.

It’s a quality of mind that organizes action in a direction that is aligned with one’s being.

It’s about knowing where and how to direct yourself to take action that supports both who you are and who you intend to become by virtue of where and how you place your attention, and then how you act in relation to what you perceive and intend.

The result of operation with DIRECTIONALITY is that you build a level of precise focus of attention and the action that flows from it such that you’re ability to create outcomes becomes effortless for you, regardless of how difficult the tasks involved.

EFFORTLESSNESS shifts radically when you’re operating out of profound DIRECTIONALITY, because it no longer references how difficult or hard something is to do as most people might measure effort.

For example, imagine a world-class athlete performing at the very top of their game, and engaged in competition in a state of pure flow … in that performance there is no effort.

Or, you might imagine an A-List entertainer … an actor or musician … engaged in a particularly demanding performance, even one that is physically draining or exhausting, but again you’d find their experience while in the performance to them might seem truly effortless.

“… there is no time.”

There is a great scene in the movie Surviving Picasso where Anthony Hopkins playing the character of Picasso is approached by Natascha McElhone who’s playing the character Francoise Gilhot, Picasso’s lover at the end of his life.

In this scene Gihot approaches Picasso who’s been working non-stop in his studio for nine hours and hardly eaten or drunk anything and implores him to take a break because he must be exhausted she thinks, especially because of his advanced age. He refuses, and she reminds him that he’s been at it for nine straight hours. As I recall, in the movie scene I’m referring to here, Picasso simply replies, “When I am working there is no time.”

This is the essence of what EFFORTLESSNESS means within the model I’m beginning to describe and share with you here.

I hope to share a bit more soonest …

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Sarasota, Florida 2020

MythoSelf Process Training

by Joseph Riggio · Jul 18, 2020

MythoSelf Professional Training … For When You’re Ready To Go Beyond Transformation, And Want Mastery

We like to say …

“Transformation Is NOT Mastery”

Most people come to use because they want to make a personal change in their lives, or they need to shift something in their business, and we help them do that using the MythoSelf Process model designed by our founder, Dr. Joseph Riggio. Using the MythoSelf Process model as the basis of all the work we do makes change both rapid and as effortless as humanly possible. This is true whether the intended change is personal, or in an intimate relationship, group or organization. And, while we really mean that “Transformation” and “Mastery” are different things at a very deep and profound level, most people neither need “Mastery” to move on in their life, nor actually want to do what it takes to get it for themselves. Joseph has build the MythoSelf Process model of working with you to access how you are when you are operating “Being At Your Best” effortlessly and almost instantly too, and all of the MythoSelf Facilitators, Master Facilitators and Trainers are well versed in exactly how to use the Process to help you experience this for yourself. Here’s how we describe the MythoSelf Process in our page about Personal Transformation:

In simpler language this means that we’ll focus first on establishing a way of being that you’ll recognize as familiar to you when you’re operating at your best. This will have both specific and precise mental and physical attributes that we will help you access and then stabilize, so … with our input and help you can choose this state of “Being At Your Best” anytime you need it or want it for any reason, or no reason at all … “just because you want it“ … so to speak. Maybe one of the most relevant aspects of how we’ll engage for you to know is that this process is very rapid, moving you from wherever you are now to a powerful position where you can engage in taking action to create the results and outcomes you need and want today. You will experience the initial shift from feeling stuck to experiencing a newly found freedom in the very first session, usually lasting only an hour or so, and it’s possible that you’ll only need to engage with us just that one time to move on and get the results and outcomes you desire. Of course, we’ll be available to go further with you as well, including stabilizing the initial access to operating from your best state to building the strategies you’ll need as you take action beyond even your initial expectations as you realize the possibilities and potential released in the work we do together.

MythoSelf Process Training provides professionals at many levels including executives, entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals in private practices, coaches, consultants and trainers to use the model to create extraordinary outcomes for themselves and with others. The MythoSelf Process model is based in what we call the technology of SomaSemantics, a deep integration of body and mind aimed at becoming aware of the singularity of the embodied felt sense of self that is the body-mind, and it’s in this singularity that all four kinds of communication become simultaneously evident and available. There are at least three specific levels we work at to help our clients create extraordinary outcomes, and then move towards mastery if that’s what they desire too:

Awareness, Acuity and State Control – everyone who undertakes any training in the MythoSelf Process begins with up-leveling their personal awareness in terms of themselves and the situations they find themselves responding to, and also developing their sensory acuity to notice for information in the environment, including their ability to read signals from others they are interacting with, at a previously unprecedented level; and to develop an acute ability at self-regulation and self-management to take control of their internal state experience at will, regardless of the external conditions.[NOTE: Many of our clients come to MythoSelf Process training for this level of mastery. The ultimate result and proof of this level of mastery is the ability to take action effortlessly in alignment with yourself, and to begin producing results and outcomes in relation to the intentions you hold.]

Strategic Thinking and Behavioral Flexibility – right alongside of developing State Control, and the skills required to achieve and sustain it, you will also begin to experience a shift in your perspective and attitude that aligns past, present and future so you can calculate the consequences of your decisions and actions at a much higher quality of precision.You’ll literally begin to see the world in terms of systems and consequences, how one thing relates to another, and how the entire systems relates to parts, and the parts to the system. This is the skill that all great leaders and elite performers possess where they have mastery, we call it “adumbration” or the ability to foresee events before they take place based on what’s known and what can be predicted with some degree of certainty.To a very great extent the MythoSelf Process is model of high-quality decision making aligned with and connected to taking action to realize the results and outcomes associated with the decisions you make. Everyone who trains in and develops mastery in strategic thinking and behavioral flexibility as a result of training in the MythoSelf Process model is therefore uniquely able to help others to make important and significant decisions, and to align their actions with the decisions they make as effortlessly as is humanly possible to achieve extraordinary results and outcomes.[NOTE: This skill-set is a remarkable advantage to have f,or anyone in business, whether we’re looking at leaders, sales professionals, or team contributors. It’s also provides a very powerful edge for coaches, consultants, advisors and trainers of all stripes. The ability to help people move fluidly from remaining stuck and limited in the way they perform, to performing effortlessly to achieving their intended outcomes is the mastery we look to impart and see in folks we train in the MythoSelf Process model at every level of skill.]

Communication Mastery – this is where it all comes together. As in the foundational models that the MythoSelf Process rests upon, NLP/neurolinguistic programming and the Generative Imprint model, developing mastery in applied communication has always been a significant aspect of MythoSelf training. When it comes to how we think about and approach communication mastery in the MythoSelf Process model training we look at four aspects at all times at least – – verbal, non-verbal, somatic and contextual.While many approaches to applied communication address both verbal and non-verbal communication techniques, we go much further in the MythoSelf Process training by raising both somatic and contextual communication training to an equal or better level of skill. We always strive to build training programs that are grounded in at least these four kinds of communication awareness regardless of whether we make that explicit or not in the particular training program in question.[NOTE: Our attention on developing the kind of deep skill we’re discussing here in all four kinds of communication – verbal, non-verbal, somatic and contextual – is especially evident in our intensive facilitator, master facilitator and trainer programs.]

If you’re interested in exploring MythoSelf Professional Training reach out to us and we’ll get into all the details you’ll need to make a decision about how to begin taking the next steps to make that happen …

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We also design custom applications of the MythoSelf Process. For instance, one example of customization of the MythoSelf Process model to a specific application is our Satisfaction Cycle™, a model for leadership, sales and persuasion. We used this model to train individuals and organizations internationally for more than 25 years, training thousands of professionals in what we think of as the most effective model of reaching agreement and achieving compliance in taking agreed upon action ever designed. (NOTE: If you’re interested in more applications of our work in business see our page: Business Consulting.) If you’re interested in training in the MythoSelf Process model for yourself or a business let’s set up a free consultation call to discuss what’s possible to help you decide if what we do is a match for what you need, and how to take the next step forward together …