Integral Transformative Practice International

- Winter Newsletter 2015 -

Dear Friends,

George Leonard's encouraging words ring true, especially when facing the start of a new year: "Learn to love the long plateau of the learning curve. When you look back you will see how much you have grown." Shaping a vision for the coming year, complete with the hopes, dreams and growth you seek can be a daunting, yet ultimately satisfying process. Your clear vision, supported by compelling affirmations, sets the stage for positive change and a fuller realization of your greatest gifts.

What is taking shape for you in 2015? What can we do to serve you more fully?

It's hard to believe that 5 years have flown by since George Leonard passed on. In this issue, Michael Murphy honors George, their friendship and the impact he had on the lives of so many. His spirit lives on in the practice he created with Michael. Bless you, George and Annie, too!

I believe George would be thrilled to see so many wonderful ITP events interwoven throughout 2015. His Aikido student and decades-long friend, Mastery Teacher Charlotte Hatch, will be honored with the George and Annie Leonard Service Award at our ITPI fundraiser, For the Love of ITP, on March 7th in San Rafael, CA. Come partake in this gala event where we raise scholarship funds for our Mastery Program and celebrate our community.

Excitement is building around our ITP International Conference, Catching Fire: The Evolutionary Vision and Practice of ITP, held May 15 - 17 at IONS Earthrise Center in Petaluma. We will be bringing together an esteemed group of scholars from Esalen's Center for Theory and Research (CTR) to describe the evolutionary wave and emerging worldview we are waking up to and contributing to through our practice. Group leaders from ITP Tulsa will present tools for cultivating mastery at this moment in history. Do join us there for this momentous event.

Wishing you delight, nourishment, peace and joy in the coming year --- and right now.

Love and blessings,

Pamela Kramer

ITPI President

Honoring George Leonard

by Michael Murphy

Co-Founder ITP

To start ITP was George's idea. We had long shared the vision upon which it is based; for years we'd explored new ways of growth; and experiencing the ups and downs of the "human potential movement," we'd come to see that our hopes for human advance would never be realized without long-lasting practices to support them. I was writing a book about all this when he proposed that we join forces with his wife, Annie, and friend, Erik Riswold, to create such a program, and for the next two years he was our enterprise's Senior Partner. He invented the ITP Kata. He developed our approach to affirmations. He invented the many exercises that comprise Leonard Energy Training. And as our community of practice took shape, his memorable observations and insights informed our thinking more and more. Today, we still feel his presence.

Read More

Surprising Power of Joy

by Sally Mahe

Member of Mastery and ITP San Rafael

When I first followed George Leonard's lead on the Tao of Practice DVD, I was touched by his warm voice encouraging the practitioner to notice deep within a feeling that "might be joy." It resonated. I embraced the Kata and George's guidance.

Joy has always been one of my key words, feelings, essential qualities. Joy is perhaps the greatest human attribute...it is energy that is deep gladness, that transforms suffering and gives us enduring energy to carry on.

I am recognizing a power emerging around the world in the interfaith movement as people from different traditions and cultures come together. Alongside the tension, ignorance, fear and suspicion, there is a parallel story going on-a palpable quality of joy is rising! If you look, you can see it in the bright eyes and lifted energy when people from diverse traditions come together with intention to cooperate and create a better life. ITP is helping me deepen and expand the presence and power of joy in my own body, mind, heart, spirit, and these insights flow into the work I do.

Click here to order The Tao of Practice DVD

Charlotte Hatch To The Rescue

by Pamela Kramer

ITPI President

George Leonard was advising me several years ago about how to infuse our growing group of ITP practitioners with strong, grounded and vibrant energy. He told me, "Call Charlotte Hatch. You can count on her to help with that." He went on to say in his booming voice, "Bring her in now!"

I'm grateful to George for his sage advice. We are privileged to have Charlotte Hatch in our midst and at the center of all things ITP.

Read More

On Vision

by Max Gaenslen

Mastery Teacher and ITP SF Co-Leader

We believe that every human individual is unique, one of a kind, and that each of us is born with a genius that will manifest in wonderfully unique ways... But none of these capacities can be realized without practice.

- George Leonard and Michael Murphy,

The Life We Are Given

To what extent are you living in harmony with your own deepest imperatives? And if the answer is some version of "not completely," how do you hold that? Are you willing to change? What are you willing to do, internally and externally? What are you going to do?

Read More

Art by Rich Sigberman

Embodied Affirmations in ITP

by Julie Perkins

Member of Mastery and ITP San Rafael

Embodied affirmations support us in living our new vision, and they do this by connecting us to the transformed state in tangible ways. And doesn't that transformed state feel great? Open, capable and alive with infinite possibilities, we are that which we envisioned. We are, in fact, the change we have been seeking. But how do we get to this state, where "our affirmations are living us"?

Read More

Integral Fitness

by Donita Decker

Mastery Teacher and ITP San Rafael Co-Leader

During the last two cycles, the Mastery Group has been working with the evolving concept of Integral Fitness. As we worked with the core practices embracing body, mind, heart and soul, we found that a larger concept of fitness was presenting itself. When founding ITPI, George Leonard and Michael Murphy emphasized the importance of integral practice. To quote them "the ITP practice was integral in that it dealt with body (diet, exercise, yoga), mind (reading and discussions of articles and books on relevant subjects), heart (group process, community activities) and soul (meditation, imaging, sense of wonder).

Read More

Spotlight on Lucy Piper

Mastery 5 Graduate and ITP Tulsa Group Leader

For years, I read whatever George Leonard wrote. In fact, reading Education and Ecstasy was what led me to become a teacher, a career I have been passionate about for 30 years. When The Life We Are Given came out, I read it, thought it was brilliant, and began practicing by myself for a little over a year. I simply did not sustain the practice without any community support.

Read More