ITPI Spring Newsletter 2017

Spring here in Northern California gives us a vivid expression of renewal. Want a brief practice of it now? If so, take a few intentional breaths...follow your breath down to the soles of your feet...now ground and center...reflect on your body, mind, heart and soul. What is alive in you now? Our ITP practice gives us ample opportunities to become aware, relax and refresh. The gifts to our entire being and those around us are tremendous!

For a glorious adventure of renewal, join us in France this July for our Power of Practice Retreat in Basque country! The 3-day training, an exploration of ITP and LET, is designed for both global newcomers and seasoned practitioners to gather in a beautiful setting to learn, connect, enjoy and renew.

Enjoy our spring issue featuring the powers of practice. From creating your vision, to crafting intentions that are strengthened through conscious practice, we are able to navigate life's challenges with greater effectiveness, creativity, ease - and joy.

Wishing you peace and love,

Pam Kramer

My Trip

By Max Gaenslen

ITP Mastery Teacher and ITP San Francisco Co-leader

I awakened to my soul's purpose in this lifetime on a Greyhound bus, traveling between Ithaca, NY and Manhattan, in December of 2004. Suddenly my life's work became obvious to me. It felt like this purpose had been just sitting there, in plain sight but unnoticed, and upon recognition I suddenly became aware of a common thread between everything that had ever fascinated me: personal development, business, music, psychology, philosophy, spirituality, relationships.

I was (and still am) here to pursue the question of how one meets his or her potential. What is the difference between those who go out in the world and express the divine spark within them and those who feel frustrated and blocked? How do I help the latter become the former? It certainly hasn't been lost on me that I needed to be my own first client.

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The Four Steps of ITP Affirmations:

Language, Imaging, Emotion and Grace

By Charlotte Hatch

ITP Mastery Teacher and ITP San Francisco Founder

The first months of stepping on the ITP path can be exciting on one hand, and very challenging on the other. The thrill of entering a new community and meeting new people, of becoming deliberate about daily practice, and of learning to use intention to realize our affirmations is balanced by the challenges of memorizing the Kata, creating the time and space to practice, and finding the perfect language we can use to clearly express the positive changes in body, mind, heart and soul that we desire.

We need to give ourselves ample time to find that language and try out different phrases until we experience a deep surge of energy in our bodies, an indication that our affirmation integrates us fully. Then we can proceed to roll down the path of practice like a car whose cylinders have been perfectly tuned by a gifted mechanic.

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The Road to Renewal

By Kim Kristenson-Lee

ITP Houston Leadership Team and Mastery Member

Are you facing change or seeking renewal in your life's work? Are you being pulled by possibility, or pushed by discomfort, to find the road to renewal? What can you do to restore your fulfillment and wellness?

Spoiler alert on your future! Your future renewal is not going to be a big, onetime event. Renewal will be a recurring life opportunity, large and small scale. You will be invited to this dance many times. Sometimes this invitation is just a whisper. You will need to pay attention. Accept! Have fun! While "the road to renewal" sounds lofty, it is simply a matter of choice and practice.

The Secret Key to

Renewing Your Practice

By Roger Marsh

ITP Mastery Teacher, GLEE Co-leader

One of my favorite Michael Murphy quotes is, "To practice or not to practice is not the question. The question is what are you practicing." Notice we are always practicing something.

Look into the various areas of your life - body, mind, heart, and soul - and you'll see what you are currently practicing. Let's look at the body, the more physical aspect of our lives. I bet you have a practice of brushing your teeth; a practice of eating some kind of food and drinking some kind of beverage each day; a practice of sleeping in the dark of the night. These are all practices and they are all choices we make, consciously or unconsciously, over and over again.

The dictionary definition of practice is: to do or engage in frequently; make a habit of; to do repeatedly so as to become proficient. The opportunity with ITP is to consciously choose daily practices that uplift and serve our own highest and best selves, the best of humanity, and even the positive evolution of the planet. Our ITP 9 Commitments are things we engage in frequently, that we are making a habit of, and that we are doing repeatedly so as to become proficient.

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From Noise to Quiet

Neurological Responses to the ITP Kata

By Kenneth Piper, MD

ITP Tulsa Co-leader and Mastery Team Coordinator

The Kata is a practice that heightens awareness, movement, flexibility, strength and relaxation. It has additional multi-faceted effects and benefits. After consulting with medical and neuroscience experts, George Leonard refined the ITP Kata to provide a central and peripheral nervous system flow that transforms noise into quiet.

TOO OFTEN DAILY NOISE can present these outcomes:

Mind-Body disconnects; an "in the head" cortex brain dominance ("Monkey mind"); low sensory awareness of body positions, sound, smell, touch, and temperature; a general tightness (from time and doing pressures, multi-tasking, constricted body movement); feeling unbalanced and just "off center."

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The Wimps of the Wilds?

By George Leonard

ITP Co-founder & President Emeritus of Esalen Institute

In our ITP practice, we often employ the body as a wise and sensitive teacher, skillfully helping us achieve the awesome potential in every aspect of our being, even in our ability to sense emotional states. But there is also the body simply as a physical entity through which we meet, influence, and are influenced by the physical world. It is here that we often tend to underestimate our own potential skill and power.

I can't remember my ninth-grade science teacher's name but there's something she once said to our class I've never been able to forget. She told us that the only way our species survived during prehistoric times was through the use of our superior brainpower. She went on to explain that we had no bodily weapons to speak of--no fangs, no claws, no tusks, no horns, no thick fur or tough protective pelts. Not only that, we were comparatively slow of foot. We were, in short, the thin-skinned, big-brained wimps of the wilds.

Spotlight on LoAnne and Stan Olson

ITP Japan Group Leaders

LoAnne and I have been students of personal growth for some time and came to ITP through reading Ken Wilber who referenced George Leonard and Michael Murphy's book, The Life We are Given. As facilitators of Scott Peck's process called Community Building, we were drawn through intuition to further explore ITP as a process more suited to the work we are doing here in Japan and around the world. So after doing Community Building for some years, we decided to make ITP the basis of everything we were doing.

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