Many people disputed my conclusions, especially that “Ken Wilber and Integral have historically been associated with many toxic groups, authoritarian leaders, and religious cults, so this new community center [Integral Center in Boulder] seems to be making decisions consistent with past problematic associations.” Others disputed my conclusion that the purpose of Circling was to induce abreaction, claiming that the technique has evolved and no longer emphasizes abreaction (but it still occurs sometimes), and that circling in general is not aggressive.

There is a video currently on the Authentic Man Program YouTube channel that supports my conclusions, especially that of an authoritarian, dominant or aggressive communication style present in the methods of Authentic World.

In the following video posted to YouTube, Travis Decker aka Decker Cunov–president and founder of Authentic SF (also Authentic Man Program, Authentic World, Authentic Woman Experience)–has an intense conversation with a young woman called “Sandra.” This video is a sample from a $147 downloadable program teaching men how to create emotional and sexual intimacy with women called “Getting Her World.”

(Trigger Warning: themes of psychological and sexual control)

In this clip, “Decker” uses his knowledge of techniques that I believe originate from various psychotherapies including Gestalt, hypnosis, and Transactional Analysis along with dominant body language (leaning in; unblinking, continual eye contact), curse words, and sexual suggestion for an unspecified outcome. (Edited on 4/4/2012 at 4:26pm for factual clarity after comments from Decker in the Facebook thread. New text in red.)

Gestalt and Hypnosis Techniques

At 2:34 the conversation goes like this:

Decker: I don’t even remember your name.
Sandra: Huh. See? This is bad.
D: Is it?
S: [eyes up and to the left] Umm…
D: Stay with me.

Eyes moving up and to the left is usually in terms of NLP a sign of accessing “visual constructed” internal processing. What that means is that a person’s eyes moving in that direction usually (but not always) indicates they are thinking, possibly by constructing inner pictures. Why did Decker say “stay with me” here?

One possibility is that prolonged eye contact is a method of trance induction. It’s also commonly interpreted a sign of either aggression or intimacy or both. By holding intense, unblinking eye contact for several minutes, most people will go into a trance-like state. This trance-like state might be interpreted by Decker as “emotional intimacy.” If that’s the case, he might interpret breaking eye contact as breaking the intimacy and therefore gives the suggestion “stay with me.” Indeed, Sandra drops noticeably into trance at 4:18-4:30 (she stops talking, facial muscles relax, blinking stops, etc.).

An interpersonal trance state like locking eye contact certain does create a kind of emotional intimacy, but it’s important to note that emotional intimacy occurs in both life-affirming and harmful contexts. For instance, locking eyes with a gang member in a dark alley is a very dangerous kind of intimacy. Being emotionally connected does not necessarily mean that the connection is mutually beneficial, consensual, or appropriate, or that some other game isn’t being played.

Another possibility is that this is a technique from Gestalt psychotherapy. Gestalt emphasizes working “in the here and now” instead of the verbal content of the conversation.

At 3:39 in the following classic video demonstration, Fritz Perls’, founder of Gestalt Therapy, says, “I disregard most of the content of what the patient says and concentrate most on the nonverbal level as this is the only one which is less subject to self-deception…on the non-verbal level, the relevant gestalt will always emerge and can be dealt with in the here and now.”

At 7:11 Perls’ points and says, “now what are you doing with your feet now.” “Gloria” laughs and says, “I’m afraid you’re going to notice everything I do!” This strikes me as similar to Decker’s suggestion “stay with me,” although without first pointing out her eye movements.

Transactional Analysis Techniques

At 3:44 Decker says, “you don’t have to [remember other people's names], but they better. That’s the game you play.” Pointing out what game other people are playing is a technique from the Transactional Analysis (TA) school of psychotherapy called “name the game.” Games are ways in which people relate by playing various roles, especially ways that are problematic. TA was popularized in the 1964 book Games People Play and the 1967 book I’m Ok, You’re Ok. Many people adopted principles of TA into daily conversation after the popularity of these books.

After “naming the game,” at 4:10 Decker gives two options: either a man plays Sandra’s game, or…

“I don’t fall for that shit at all. And then where I’m left is, I take you home tonight, I make you cum, I enjoy our bodies together, but I don’t know how much further I’d go. Because if I’m willing to put my cards on the table, and you’re not? Then I’ll enjoy you, like ‘oh that’s cute.’ But I’m not gonna [pants like a dog] do all the work.”

Decker expresses his intention to have a one-night stand with Sandra at this point in the video, but couches it in ambiguous language so it’s not clear whether his embedded commands are statements of his real intentions or just talking generally. He says “if I’m willing to put my cards on the table” but at no point during this short clip has he said anything at all about himself. He has put none of his cards on the table.

In a debriefing with AMP trainer “Garrison,” Decker again reiterates his willingness to have a one-night stand with Sandra at 6:14:

“I’m not willing to entertain you and be a little wind-up toy. And, if I’m not going to do that I’ll still fuck you, I’ll still enjoy you, for a night, but I’m going to look elsewhere for someone who’s willing to actually play, not hide out.”

“Play” is a particularly interesting choice of words in this context considering Decker’s use of Transactional Analysis with Sandra. What game is Decker playing with women? It seems to me the rules of Decker’s game are the following:

• There are two players in this game: the Opener, and the Opened.
• The game is played on a heterosexual date.
• The Opener is played by a man and the Opened is played by a woman.
• The role of the Opener is to get the Opened to become emotionally intimate, for example to cry, by first refusing to play the Opened’s game, and then by using techniques of Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, curse words and sexual suggestion, along with unflinching eye contact to induce trance and/or abreaction in the Opened.
• If the Opened is not willing to play properly by crying or otherwise expressing emotional intimacy, trance, or abreaction, the Opener may still choose to pursue using the Opener for his own sexual enjoyment.
• If the Opened is willing to play by crying or becoming vulnerable, then the Opener may decide to continue the game.
• The game ends when the Opened refuses to play, and after the Opener has used the Opened for his own sexual enjoyment.

We could call the game Decker is playing in this video, “let me see how fast I can break you open.” Decker plays the role of the Opener, who demands “emotional intimacy” and who’s role is to break the other person psychologically until they cry or otherwise show a strong emotional response.

How To Win a Game

The question I have is, “why does this woman, who doesn’t know this man, owe him sexual or emotional intimacy?” According to RAINN, 1 in 6 women in the United States have been the victim of attempted or completed rape, 54% of which have never gone reported. 2/3rds of sexual assault are committed by someone the victim knows.

Given this context, why should a woman like Sandra open up to a man like Decker on a date, or be willing to have sex with him that night? His language was “I take you home tonight, I make you cum, I enjoy our bodies together.” Language of consent is conspicuously missing from these sentences. His present-tense statements about his intended actions presuppose that she has no choice in the matter or has already consented.

At 5:22 Decker makes assumptions that Sandra consented: “she doesn’t feel insulted, it’s a safe place for her.” But in this short clip at least, he never asked. Perhaps they cut out this section and he’s quoting her? Or perhaps he’s doing more mind-reading.

Instead of developing a trustworthy relationship through time that proves he’s not a rapist, Decker in the role of Opener demands that this woman open to him now, and will not take “no” for an answer. In fact, a “no” to the intimacy game (a phrase also used by Authentic World-associated groups) he is playing means he intends to “enjoy our bodies together” anyway.

At 7:43, Garrison asks Decker, “Now, would you have delivered something like this on a date.” Decker says, “Totally. Absolutely. With this much fun. … What’s more interesting to me is this dance, not the content.”

So Decker’s dates involve this same kind of conversation: unflinching eye contact, the “let me see how fast I can break you open” game, a willingness to use a woman for his own pleasure if she doesn’t want to play his game.

In the theory of Transactional Analysis, the only way to win a game is to refuse to play, as Decker refuses to play Sandra’s game. To refuse to play Decker’s game however means to refuse to open emotionally and sexually–to walk away–and also to refuse Decker’s judgment of what that means about you: that you are “hiding out” (versus having reasonable doubts about his intrusive psychological interrogating).

(Interestingly, my refusal to play a similar game–minus the sexual intimacy–seemed to be the thing which most upset most “Authentic World” members in the Facebook thread about my previous article. The same thing happened when I refused to play the game in the men’s group which I was briefly a part of that did the circling exercise I described.)

Is This Game Abusive?

Whether this sort of thing constitutes abuse is a matter of extent and consent. There’s a big difference between being chained up and whipped in a dungeon without consent vs. with consent. The former constitutes kidnapping and assault, the latter just some fun role play between consenting adults. If we assume this game is explicitly consensual, the best we could say is that it is some sort of kinky psychological role play, and possibly therapeutic–just as going to a Dominatrix might be therapeutic for a control-freak executive.

In response to a question about whether he would engage in this kind of conversation on a date, Decker says “absolutely.” He doesn’t specify whether he alerts potential dates to the kind of kinky psychological games he is absolutely willing to engage in and whether they want to play too, and understand the rules.

We all engage in less extreme versions of these techniques and games in daily life. For instance you might point out an anxious tic in someone by saying, “I noticed you keep brushing your hair behind your ears–are you nervous?” In small amounts, this kind of “calling out” is certainly not abusive or coercive. Therapy and hypnosis however take these kinds of normal, everyday behaviors and amplify them for the purpose of making significant changes to personality and behavior. Because of that, consent is built into legal structures around the profession of psychotherapy to prevent abuses of power.

In my opinion, a man using the tools of therapy in an intense encounter or interrogation of a woman, for the purposes of dating, and without consent is the worst form of “dual relationship.” Even if these ways of communicating aren’t called therapy, they certainly can create a dependent, power-imbalanced sexual and emotional relationship. If there is explicit, verbal consent, we could consider this a kind of “lifestyle D/s” (Dominance and submission role play as a lifestyle), or perhaps just an occasional kinky D/s encounter, depending on how often you play. Either way, the practitioners of such techniques have an obligation to get explicit, verbal consent, and to make the nature of the power game being played clear, as well as how to stop playing at any time. Even then, there is never any guarantee that consent is always present. (See Safe, Sane, and Consensual vs. Risk-aware consensual kink–links obviously NSFW.)

In another video described in this blog post on Integral Life, Decker talks with his wife, presumably in a similar fashion, until she begins crying in his lap. Perhaps the introduction of a “safe word” could be helpful for those couples who wish to play such kinky intimacy games. Otherwise there is no clear way for a person to stop playing if it becomes too much for them. Making assumptions about consent when using powerful psychological techniques on your partner is not a particularly good way to make sure everybody is enjoying the game.

Because these safe guards do not seem to be in place within the dominating therapy techniques employed by Authentic World and it’s subsidiary groups, my recommendation to readers is still to avoid these groups and their products…unless you’re into that sort of thing. There are many safer alternatives that are not playing power and control games for those of us who don’t wish to play, yet still want to develop good communication skills for mutually-beneficial, drama-free, mature and harmonious relationships.

Since comments are still broken due to comment spam overwhelm, let’s do comments on Facebook again. Or you can email your thoughts to info [at] beyondgrowth [dot] net.

For instance, a security person in an IT department might get hired specifically to try and break through their web security to get a password they shouldn’t be able to get. A different kind of hacker might break in to the same system just to see if he or she can. A third might hack the security to steal a bank account number to then transfer money out of. And a fourth hacker might take down a website in protest, as in the many protests the group Anonymous has engaged in.

Lifehacking is a buzzword that has attempted to rub off the cool mystique of hacking culture to the rest of life (online and off), but frequently refers to lame nonsense like backing up your computer hard drive, or boring lists of tips on facing your fears–neither of which involve breaking systems or testing the limits.

My previous post was what I’d consider lifehacking: pointing out limits of change techniques, in this case for safety and effectiveness. Many people reacted as if I’d hacked their web site, or let myself inside their apartment when they were away. Few people like to have the limits of their systems tested, even if they say that their life is all about growth and evolution.

But that’s exactly what we should be doing a whole lot more of. Fuck this lame shit about backing up hard drives and tips for this or that. Anyone who writes another article like that and calls it “lifehacking” should be ashamed of themselves.

I’m not calling for a change in language or rhetoric. Calling yourself remarkable is of the most unremarkable thing of all. I’m saying let’s engineer a better world by seeing where the systems of this world break, hopefully long in advance. Go out and break something today, something you love (not SOMEONE though).

Let’s stress test our communities, break our favorite techniques to make them better, imagine what would happen if we took everything to its logical conclusion. Don’t wait until it breaks on it’s own. We learn by breaking stuff, so break early, break often.

For example, Core Transformation is my favorite personal change technique. It’s so good it was hard for me to find a way to break it. But today I recommended to someone they do a different technique–a technique I don’t even use–based on the particulars of their situation. I only knew to do that because I’ve stress tested CT by doing it hundreds of times and thinking about it a ton over the course of a few years. I know the limits of my favorite technique, not just its benefits. I’ve spent quite a bit of time contemplating how it could be used for evil too, just so I’d be aware if I ever started drifting in that direction.

Willpower research has shown that visualizing positive outcomes are not as useful in achieving a goal as imagining obstacles and ways to overcome those obstacles. Breaking your favorite system will teach you much more about how it works than just using it as directed.

Don’t fantasize about your future, go out and break something today. Then you’ll discover what’s really possible.

Speaking of broken, comments are currently broken due to massive volume of comment spam. We’re working on it…

Recently Authentic World has become associated with a local community center in Boulder, Colorado called Integral Center (formerly Boulder Integral/Boulder Center for Integral Living). This community center is loosely associated with Ken Wilber’s Integral philosophy and Integral Life company. The new community center is emphasizing “a renewed focus on Integral Community and Relationship” which in practice means doing a lot of this circling technique in evening meetings and weekend workshops.

I observed this circling process just one time several years ago, as facilitated by a leader of the Authentic Man Program, so some of my recollections may be inaccurate. Since I’ve written previously about not singling out individuals on this blog anymore, and since my purpose in this article is to give my observations and interpretations of the technique itself for general analysis of it’s structure, I will leave names anonymous.

The reason I’m writing this is because many people I know and like are still involved with Integral, and I’ve not yet been able to express my observations and objections to this method in any context in which they would be heard. This is particularly ironic given the purpose of the circling technique is sometimes expressed as “seeing and being seen,” but in any case, writing is a method of expressing myself that I feel it is easier for me regardless of whether I’m “seen” or not.

Context
The group was a new men’s group in it’s 3rd or 4th meeting. A guest facilitator was invited into the group for the first time. He was from out of town.

The group had never done circling before. Circling was not explained as a process. The facilitator asked for a volunteer.

Client #1
The person being circled was not asked what they wanted. The facilitator was not said to be a psychotherapist, but indicated to me that he was trained in NLP. No disclosure forms were signed.

The client appeared anxious, gesturing nervously. The facilitator entered into non-verbal rapport by matching and mirroring physiology (body posture, breathing rates, gestures, etc.).

The facilitator then described his own experience, especially his feelings of what he imagined it was like to be the client. He also used mind-reading (guessing what the client experiences) and psychoanalysis into what he thought being the client was like, in an emotionally intense encounter (as in Encounter groups from the 1950′s). He also asked questions of the client, primarily about feelings (emotional and bodily). The facilitator calibrated with the client’s verbal and nonverbal feedback and adjusted his verbal patter to this feedback. The client appeared progressively more uncomfortable as this went along.

The facilitator seemed quite skilled at what he was doing. He frequently pointed out things to observe to the rest of the group, but was in complete control of the process and did not seek help in facilitating from participants in the group.

My interpretation was that the facilitator’s verbal patter was a combination of rapport building and aggressively humiliating/shaming the client’s psychological defense mechanisms for the purposes of inducing a dramatic abreaction.

Once the client abreacted (sobbing violently within about 10 minutes of being “circled”), the facilitator instructed the client to lie on the floor and instructed the group to place hands on the client as support as he cried, which we all did.

There was no ecology check (checking for objections or side-effects of the change/technique) or future-pacing (imagining having a new, more resourceful response in the future). I interpreted this to mean that the facilitator considered the abreaction therapeutic in itself and so did not bother to check, despite him claiming training in NLP.

The client was debriefed and he said he re-experienced a recent, moderately traumatic event during the abreaction–something he had forgotten about–and reported feeling relieved.

Client #2
Again no outcome was elicited from the client, leading me to believe that the facilitator thought the process itself is therapeutic without defining any client outcome. Again this is a strong departure from NLP change processes in which clients define outcomes and where abreaction is generally avoided.

The client had a background in martial arts and internal martial arts. The facilitator matched and mirrored physiology and began speaking his emotional and somatic experience aloud in combination with mind-reading and psychoanalyzing the client. None of his statements or analysis made the client abreact. The facilitator blamed this on the client as him being too emotionally guarded. The client agreed verbally, saying it may have to do with his martial arts practices, but still appeared unmoved. The client expressed a desire to feel more. The facilitator became more and more aggressive in his psychoanalysis but nothing lead to abreaction so he terminated the “circling.”

I interpreted the facilitator to be frustrated as he tried to “break” the client and elicit an abreaction. The facilitator explained to the group that it was OK to not get a strong emotional response from a client. I interpreted this to mean that he was saying it’s OK for the process to fail, that the goal was to get an abreaction but that it doesn’t work every time even for an experienced facilitator.

Again there was no ecology check or future-pacing because there was no defined outcome and apparently no change (which was undefined).

There was a third client but I can’t recall what happened then.

After
After the meeting, that night I felt unstable emotionally, high and hypomanic. The next day I felt emotionally exhausted, unstable, and mildly depressed.

Conclusions
Circling seems to be a method of group psychotherapy in the vein of 1950′s Encounter groups or Large Group Awareness Trainings. The primary purpose as a technique appears to be to induce abreactions through gaining nonverbal rapport, engaging in aggressive/challenging mind-reading and psychoanalysis, and then providing emotional and physical support once the client abreacts.

No outcomes are defined which implies that practitioners of circling assume that abreactions induced under nonverbal rapport are themselves beneficial regardless of client context or outcomes, a dubious assumption.

It is well known that abreaction is an unpredictable therapeutic intervention. Carl Jung expressed interest early in abreaction therapies but later rejected abreaction as a therapeutic method. In particular, abreaction has the common side-effect in many cases of simply reliving traumatic events over and over without gaining a more resourceful response. Psychological debriefing, a similar approach where a person recalls a recent traumatic experience and expresses their feelings about it to a therapist, has been shown to be the least effective treatment for PTSD, often making things much worse. Many toxic, cult-like groups like Scientology use abreaction therapies due to the intense emotional experience that bonds individuals to the group.

My conclusion is that circling uses an outdated and potentially harmful method of abreaction therapy in a context that should be called group therapy but is not following proper legal or ethical guidelines to do so. The structure of the process itself runs many risks, especially that of unnecessarily re-experiencing traumatic memories, and creating a cult-like therapy group which emphasizes aggressive emotionality. Ken Wilber and Integral have historically been associated with many toxic groups, authoritarian leaders, and religious cults, so this new community center seems to be making decisions consistent with past problematic associations.

Since there are many safer and more effective alternatives to abreaction psychotherapy, in my opinion there is no reason to select circling as a way to improve one’s relationships.

Comments are currently broken due to comment spam. You can send your love letters and hate mail to info [at] beyondgrowth [dot] net.

Update 3/27/2012 6:33pm: Some discussion is occurring on Facebook here. You’ll have to friend me or some friend of mine to view and reply (you can always unfriend me later–no hard feelings).

At first I wasn’t even aware that I was engaged in such unconscious behaviors, so I often denied other people’s observations and accusations. When I became aware, I frequently felt embarrassed and resolved to stop such behaviors, but many times couldn’t because I wasn’t aware I was doing it and so I didn’t know how to stop.

When I was made aware of my unconscious movements by others, I tried holding myself still through bodily tension, but that just made me more anxious as the energy built up inside almost ready to burst. This is what I mostly did during my youth because I didn’t know of any other option than to self-monitor myself constantly and tense my body so I wouldn’t attract unwanted attention for my “stimming.” I learned to split my attention between what was happening outside and what my body was doing. As a result, I became extremely self-conscious which gave me a great deal of anxiety in social situations.

In high school I found a few books on meditation and Buddhism at a used book store and tried sitting still and meditating. I remember the first time I sat down to meditate. I resolved to sit perfectly still for 30 minutes but literally could not sit in one place let alone still for five. I practiced a little here and there will almost no success, but kept trying whenever I could.

In college I happened upon a book on self-hypnosis that a friend loaned me. I attempted some relaxation exercises which were nice, and some arm levitation which failed utterly. Somehow I got the idea to try relaxing my feet by placing my attention there and acting as if I were dead. I figured if I was dead, I wouldn’t need to move and bounce nor tense my muscles (luckily I didn’t know about rigor mortis). So I just gave up on moving or tensing and just let the muscles in my feet relax.

I first focused just on my big toe for as long as I possibly could until I could feel it start buzzing pleasantly. Then I scanned my other toes, then the ball of my foot, then the arch, then the heel, then the top of my foot, and finally my ankle, until my whole foot was buzzing and tingling. The sensation is similar to how a limb feels when you sleep on it funny and it goes numb but then wakes up, except more pleasant than the painful “pins and needles” feeling.

I then tried the same exercise with my hands while at a music concert. Many of my friends were in the conservatory of music at my university and so I went to many senior recitals that year, but always got antsy and started bouncing and tapping and drumming away. So I put my attention on one hand, starting with the tips of my thumb, slowly scanning that thumb and acting like it went numb or I was dead and thus didn’t need to tense or move at all, letting go completely. After a few minutes, sometimes 10 or more, it too began to buzz and tingle, and then I could continue until my entire hand would go numb and tingly, or sometimes both hands and both feet by the end of a 90 minute concert.

I noticed that my mental state also changed when I did this. I went from anxious with my mind racing (my default mode at the time) to much more calm and clear, my body buzzing and tingling and generally feeling quite relaxed. I wondered what would happen if I could get my whole body feeling this way, but it struck me as something that would take a very long time since it frequently took me 20 minutes or more just to get a nice buzzing going in one foot.

Later a friend turned me onto S.N. Goenka’s 10-day Vipassana meditation courses. I found the Vipassana technique to be surprisingly similar to my self-hypnosis technique in many ways, except not focused on going numb or making your body buzz, but instead being very aware of bodily sensations with a precise awareness without reacting, scanning from head to toe. The results ended up being somewhat similar however, as the natural progression of my meditations went from feeling lots of gross bodily pain to subtler pleasant buzzing and a flow of sensation all over. After my first course I noticed that emotions are made up of physical sensations for the first time in my life! I always thought emotions were just thoughts and hadn’t noticed they had a physical component to them. I realized then how poor my bodily awareness had been. And by my third course, I could sit all day without a problem—a big change from my first five minutes!

Most recently, I’ve become interested in whether my personal experience applies to that six-pack abs of meditation, “inner peace.” I’ve experienced inner peace numerous times through meditation, self-hypnosis, and Core Transformation, but it isn’t a lasting, ongoing peace yet. I still get nervous about some things, I still have ADD-like behaviors, and I still have a hard time letting my mind settle. Even when I have scanned the body with great precision in Vipassana, I can still be thinking about something else at the same time, due to the skill I developed in splitting my attention.

To focus on one thing at a time is frequently painful for me, and the basic “shamatha” (literally translated as “calm-abiding”) mediation where you focus on just one thing (the sensation of the breath at the nostrils, a specific body part, a mantra, or whatever) is something I feel I haven’t progressed in at all really, despite my progress in other techniques. Shamatha is the first technique I learned (and the first that many people learn), yet I still can’t keep my mind focused for very long before I’m like that kid again, unaware that his leg is bouncing—except this time it’s my mind, and there’s nobody to point it out to me except me.

Could it be that ongoing mental chatter, aka “the monkey mind” is like the nervous twitching of a leg? My first approach was to tense up against such activity, as if “shamatha” didn’t mean “calm-abiding” but “struggle to control your mind.” This aggressive approach seems like a similar strategy to tensing my body to stop bouncing my leg or tapping my fingers. It doesn’t work all that well for me in any case. I end up snapping at people and demand silence in my environment, something impossible to achieve even deep in the wilderness.

If I were dead, there would be no reason to continue an endless stream of purposeless nonstop thinking, so perhaps I can “die before dying” by just letting go of each thought as it arises. That’s what I’ve been trying lately at least, and it seems more like “calm abiding” than what I was doing before. It’s less about repressing thinking or cutting off one’s ability to think (which unfortunately many people take as the goal of meditation) and more about letting go of unnecessary nervous mental twitching.

Maybe inner peace doesn’t have to be such a struggle as we sometimes make it out to be.

I found this to be a nice application of extending what Steve Andreas calls “scope in time” (from his Six Blind Elephants, vol 1) to get a larger perspective. One of the ways we create meaning from an event that then generates an emotional response is how we represent the experience in terms of time.

I just tried out this exercise from Mike in the video above and added another piece that worked well for me that I wanted to share. I visualized my timeline out in front of me, seeing it out there and seeing that past Duff in a movie frame having an unpleasant emotional experience over there. I made sure to zoom out far enough so that I could see the times with corresponding movies before and after when he was experiencing a more neutral or pleasant experience.

After just two examples from the past I could already get the sense of this new learning beginning to generalize. Try it out for yourself, see how it helps you get a larger perspective, and add your thoughts in the comments below (a free Intense Debate or WordPress.com account is required to post due to large volume of comment spam).

It hasn’t been 3 months, but I’ve given it a fair trial for about a month, and have been thinking about this brilliant program quite extensively during that time. As a fitness product, I’d give it 4/5 stars—even though the system itself is fundamentally flawed in certain subtle and all-important ways. In fact, TACFIT Warrior provides an excellent platform for discussion about the purpose of personal development itself. Ultimately I think it’s a brilliant system, but still a tilted vessel for personal transformation.

The Imperfect Vessel Model

In Yoga for Transformation, Gary Kraftsow summarizes the obstacles to wholeness using the “imperfect vessel” model:

While the ancients taught that we all have an inherent potential for wholeness, they were also keenly aware of the obstacles that keep us from it. And, in relation to our ability to practice those integrative and transformative techniques that eventually lead to freedom and wholeness, they spoke of four basic types of imperfect vessels, which they portrayed symbolically and in their esoteric teaching and practices as follows:

The Upside-Down Vessel

The upside-down vessel symbolizes fundamental disorientation. It represents an individual with a closed mind and a closed heart. The view of the ancients was that the first steps in personal transformation are the recognition of the reality of suffering, knowledge of the causes of sufferings, and the wish to change our condition. These people who are represented by the upside-down vessel are either unaware of their suffering, unwilling to accept their own role in it, or unable to envision the possibility of change. And in these cases, there is no role for personal practice.

The Dirty Vessel

The dirty vessel represents those people whose systems are toxic at some level. This includes not only physical toxicity, but also psychological or emotional toxicity. In all such cases, the first step in personal practice is necessarily purification.

The Leaky Vessel

The leaky vessel is unable to hold whatever is put into it. It symbolizes those who are unable to sustain practice and to build energy in their systems. This condition may be the result of an unstable mind, too many distractions, and/or an unhealthy lifestyle. And in all such cases, the first steps in personal practice are disciplines that may include renunciation of certain activities as well as practices designed to seal the leaks.

The Tilted Vessel

The tilted vessel is able to contain a certain amount of whatever is put into it, but it loses some. It symbolizes those who receive practices and teachings and make progress, but are unable to maximize their full potential. There are a variety of possible reasons for this condition, including, for example, a distorted perspective on the methods and purposes of practice. And, in these cases, certain practices were designed to “right” the vessel.

While Kraftsow is describing spiritual practitioners, these distinctions also apply to teachings on personal transformation. Notably, Sonnon’s fitness programs—including TACFIT Warrior—patch up the leaky vessel by very intelligently designing routines that include joint mobility and stretching to compensate for the primary exercises, as well as cycling intensity throughout the week and from month to month. In fact, his Circular Strength Training programs are largely designed to do just that—to help you to “sustain practice and build energy” and strength in your physical system through smart exercise program design. Sonnon’s IntuFlow joint mobility program and Prasara Yoga are practices “designed to seal the leaks” from the immobility of daily life and the stresses of training and other physical work. I still use IntuFlow almost daily and highly recommend it. The beginner level (1 of 4 levels of increasing movement sophistication) is available for free from Sonnon’s organization on YouTube:

Now might be a good time to mention that in terms of physical development, I’ve been a leaky vessel until very recently. I eat fairly healthy and exercise daily, but have often started physical exercise programs and had to stop due to injury (often just minor tweaks to joints and tendons) or fatigue from overdoing it. I’d say probably 80% or more of exercisers are at this same level or below, and a similar percentage of exercise programs are leaky vessels that don’t instruct participants in how to train properly for sustainable health and fitness gains. In fact, most of what passes for “health” and “fitness” is exactly the opposite. In that way, TACFIT Warrior and Sonnon’s other programs are way ahead of the pack, far ahead of The 4-Hour Body for instance. I’ve found IntuFlow and Sonnon’s clubbells very helpful in that regard.

Patching The Holes, but Still Tilted

TACFIT Warrior brilliantly includes IntuFlow joint mobility warmups and Prasara Yoga cooldowns, chosen specifically to compensate for the 6 progressive bodyweight agility exercises that make up the bulk of the program. TACFIT Warrior also follows a variable intensity “wave” wherein you do no intensity (joint mobility), low intensity (stretching/yoga), moderate intensity (the specific bodyweight drills), and high intensity (same drills but faster) days in sequence.

However, TACFIT Warrior still seems to have the parking break on. It’s philosophy is divided against itself, wanting both to find transformative liberation, but also to focus on (and get) all the worldly goodies and achievements the ego can desire. This seems to be because of a “distorted perspective on the methods and purposes of practice.” Specifically, the purpose of TACFIT Warrior is to train in various agility-focused bodyweight exercises in order to reach a Flow state, wherein one links this Flow state to one’s chosen goals through visualization while exercising. Again this is actually quite brilliant! Rather than force a “peak experience” of mania through aggressive positivity as Tony Robbins encourages, one reaches Flow through diligent practice of complex movement sequences, and in the process becomes quite physically agile. Here’s an example of the agility drills taught in TACFIT Warrior, performed expertly by CST coach and fitness blogger John Sifferman:

Flow States and Enlightenment

Another stated purpose of the program is to attain a Flow state that rides the edge of physical stress before it peaks over into strain. Sonnon states that the medium intensity day is thus the pinnacle of the program. Yet it still includes a high intensity day where the exerciser is supposed to get their heart rate over 85% heart rate maximum and subjective intensity level of 8-10 out of 10.

John Douilliard in his fascinating book Body, Mind, and Sport found that by incorporating mouth-closed ujayii (or “Darth Vader”) style breathing and careful attention to stress levels, athletes could train themselves in a short period of time to exert maximum output with a perceived exertion level of a 4—where with normal breathing the exertion level would peak at a 10. Douilliard’s athletes also consistently found that they entered “The Zone” using his methods, their heart rates settled at around 50% heart rate max, and they even registered as having high Alpha brain wave activity, a frequency usually associated with meditation or biofeedback. This held true even for professional athletes playing their sport with the utmost physical intensity. One “non athlete” using Douilliard’s methods was apparently able to run for 17 miles at a 6 minute pace-per-mile taking only 6 breaths a minute and with an average heart rate of 120 beats per minute.

If TACFIT Warrior is truly about cultivating Flow, about being “effectively efficient” as Sonnon says, why train high perceived intensity at all? It seems to me that perceived intensity should always be kept very low, while increasing the amount of work one can do while remaining totally calm, as if in the eye of the hurricane. Sonnon’s reasoning for training high intensity is so that you train how to come out of stress states more rapidly (which he argues is highly relevant to military, police, martial arts, and other “tactical” professions), but again—why train to enter them at all? Wouldn’t it be far better to train how to perform at high levels while enjoying one’s self and avoiding activation of the sympathetic nervous system? Which is better—knowing how to calm down quickly, or how to not get stressed in the first place? If I want to train how to deal with excessive anger, I wouldn’t recommend getting really angry and seeing how quickly I can calm down—I’d find ways of dissolving the triggers to becoming angry in the first place, and find ways to be more resourceful so I wouldn’t have to rage at all. In this way, TACFIT Warrior seems to be working against itself and would be a far stronger offering if it dropped high intensity days altogether in favor of more moderate intensity Flow-state days.

When it comes to instruction in agility, Sonnon really shines. But when it comes to teaching Being and stillness, Sonnon would be better off outsourcing the job! A curious and potent example occurs on the TACFIT Warrior yoga video for low intensity days. The last pose is savasana or corpse pose, lying on your back, for 1 minute. Typically yoga classes end with savasana (my favorite 90-minute yoga class allows 15 minutes for savasana), and many yoga teachers emphasize that savasana is the beginning of true yoga wherein one learns to completely surrender into pure Being. Sonnon’s phone goes off during his 1-minute savasana instruction and notably he didn’t re-record this segment, but simply kept talking as he silenced it. I think this speaks volumes about the “tiltedness” of this program.

An even deeper problem with TACFIT Warrior is this: Flow states are transcendent experiences wherein one loses all self-consciousness, yet in TACFIT Warrior the instruction is to link this state to a very personal desire! This approach short-circuits the spiritually transformative potential inherent in Flow state experiences and attempts to create a self identity out of them. Buddhists will immediately recognize the problem here, as any and all states of mind—including Flow states and other spiritual highs—are subject to the three characteristics of all sensate phenomena:

1. Impermanence. Flow states, just as all states, don’t last. In fact, there’s no way to make them last. So just let it go and…woah, back in the Flow!
2. Suffering. Because Flow states don’t last and yet they feel really good, there is a very human tendency to cling to them. Doing so just causes unnecessary suffering for yourself and others. It also ironically blocks the Flow!
3. No-self. During a Flow state, there’s nobody home—it’s an experience lacking self consciousness, which is exactly what’s so profound about it. It will do you no good at all to create a self out of this selfless state—not only will it cause you to suffer, it will also prevent the Flow state itself.

This isn’t mere Buddhist dogma—check it out for yourself!

Sonnon is by far not the first to make this particular error—the entire self-help world largely consists of dirty and leaky vessels with a few rare tilted ones leading the pack (and a one in a million perfect vessel looking very ordinary standing in the corner). Specifically, the technique of linking a trance or Flow state to a desired outcome is an incredibly common theme, and if anything Sonnon does it brilliantly! Tony Robbins attempts to do this same thing but uses mania as his “peak state” instead of a complex and balanced Flow state, leading to very negative side-effects. The negative side-effects of a method like Sonnon’s in TACFIT Warrior are much more subtle but can often be intuited if not made explicit.

One such subtle problem with TACFIT Warrior and it’s predecessor TACFIT Commando is that these products are specifically about making military, police, martial artists, and other professionals in potentially violent encounters to become more agile…yet agility is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself! A more agile psychopath is a frightening thing indeed. While Sonnon does include an exegesis of The Book of Five Rings in TACFIT Warrior, thus emphasizing classical virtues like honesty, I’d prefer a program that places it’s focus squarely on eliminating the root causes of violence itself rather than making more efficient, agile killers (and I’m guessing Slavoj Žižek would agree, but he’d probably reference a whole lot more Lacan in his explanation).

Sonnon has repeatedly made statements on his blog and elsewhere to the effect that we need more agile “tactical” professionals so that we don’t need to use as much force in keeping the peace. It’s a common enough argument with some validity to be sure, yet still I think this is missing the heart of the matter when it comes to violence. Albert Einstein used his brilliance in service of our nation to create the first atomic bomb which was then used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many people to this day say that these horrific bombings which killed between 150,000 and 246,000 civilians instantly were justified because of the additional deaths prevented by a land invasion. Einstein did not share this opinion, perhaps hinting at his ongoing guilt when he stated “One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” I’m with Einstein on this one—not harming as many is not good enough. We must cease engaging in violence altogether to attain peace, whether inner or outer.

Marketing and Miracles

I promised I would also review Sonnon’s marketing in my review of TACFIT Warrior. In a nutshell, the marketing is overly aggressive and overpromises without giving enough specifics about the product, as if compensating for lack of faith in the methods themselves. The aggressive push actually devalues the product in my opinion—if it were sold with a softer touch and more clarity, it would actually make it a better product. Many others have already said this about Sonnon’s marketing, so I’m sure this feedback is nothing new to him. Several of Sonnon’s head coaches (especially Ryan Hurst) have adopted a softer marketing style and he would do good in my opinion to model their marketing (see the Prasara Primer for example, although I hate the javascript popup when you try to close the window). That said, I didn’t find any outright lies in the marketing of TACFIT Warrior which again is far beyond most of what passes for “health” and “fitness” in our culture of marketing disinformation (Ab-Doer anyone?). In fact, I think this product will in fact help you to attain it’s stated goals—I simply have qualms with the goals themselves!

In my research for this article I also came across criticisms of Coach Sonnon in some dark corners of the internet. Some doubt his achievements are legit, especially his involvement with Sambo and his training of an Israeli Special Forces team. These criticisms appear to me to be pure speculation, but I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Sonnon expertly faked his credentials. I think it’s much more likely that Sonnon achieved exactly what he said he did, but that he exaggerates the importance of his achievements in his personal branding due to some lingering personal insecurities (not to mention that our culture rewards this sort of thing), and that his detractors are reacting to this overcompensation. As with his brilliant products, the issue is not the thing itself so much as the aggressive overcompensation for the thing. Interestingly, Sonnon’s methods are attempts to address aggressive overcompensation in physical training where people push their bodies too hard, whereas Sonnon emphasizes balanced approaches to high achievement. It seems he might benefit from the lesson he is teaching others in exercise by applying it to his own psychological development.

Interestingly, Sonnon cites Amma, known as “the hugging saint,” as his inspiration for creating Prasara Yoga. Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, or “Amma” for short, is famous for giving people powerful experiences of unconditional love while hugging them, often hugging one person after another continuously for 18 or more hours a day. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of gurus like Amma who use special powers (siddhis) precisely because no matter how many times they say “the love you feel in my presence is actually in you,” the truth is that many people feel unconditional love only in the presence of gurus like Amma. The net result is a cult-like following (or sometimes a full on cult), not a bunch of liberated individuals living their ordinary lives from their true nature as Love:

Apparently, the ashramites had put up a sign for Amma’s visit, which the Green Ave. residents were fine with. But after Amma’s visit, the residents wanted the sign down as it was in breach of the local covenant. After a long period without response from Amma’s folks, the residents took it upon themselves to remove the sign. When they showed up to do so, the ashramites attending the sign made a few phone calls. Soon afterward, a bus showed up with 50 goons and Amma’s love came at the Green Ave. residents with canes and crow bars.

(I should make it explicit that I don’t think Sonnon is a cult-worshipper of Amma. Many people have powerful experiences in the presence of gurus like Amma without then entering the seedy inner circles where the worst abuses of power occur and therefore usually have no idea that they are even going on.)

Gurus like Amma seem to me a poor substitute for finding one’s own wholeness and true nature, but on the other hand they can sometimes wake up sleepy seekers to the possibility of finding such a place of Being within. According to Georg Feuerstein, guru yoga has three levels—outer, inner, and secret. One often starts with an outer guru, projecting all of one’s spiritual essence onto the other. Ideally (at least in my opinion), the guru denies having (or refrains from using) such magical powers and quickly points the student within to their inner guru, intuition, intelligence, Being, or whatever you want to call it. With a less noble guru, a student may end up dependent and subservient only to eventually become disillusioned with the specific guru or the path itself (see Saints and Psychopaths by Bill Hamilton and Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path by Mariana Caplan). Sometimes this disillusionment can be the beginning of true freedom. Eventually some seekers go beyond inner vs. outer, finding that the teaching is a well-kept secret that has always been out in the open for those with eyes to see. Finally the veil of ignorance is lifted and everything and everyone becomes one’s guru, and Being becomes one’s ordinary daily reality.

Be the Paradox

Getting back to the purpose of TACFIT Warrior, Flow states are subject to the three characteristics of all sensate phenomena: they don’t last (impermanence), clinging to them causes suffering, and there’s no permanent selfhood that can be created out of them. However, Flow state experiences can point us to a way of living that is Being-focused or process-focused instead of outcome-focused. To enter a state of Flow, we must forget ourselves and enter our direct, present-moment experience. As soon as we try and create an identity out of the Flow state, we are no longer in one! As soon as we crave another Flow state, we have lost the possibility of getting one. As soon as we reject our current state as not as good as a Flow state, we have barred the doorway to Flow entirely. Flow comes from an unconditional acceptance and engagement with the present moment—but an acceptance that seems to evade the conscious, willful mind. Entering a Flow state is therefore a classic be spontaneous paradox:

Any request or command for a spontaneous act will cause other persons to be unable to perform the act spontaneously. Whether it’s to: “Go to sleep”, “Show me you love me”, “Be happy”, or even “Do a good job”, the mere gracing of their ears with the request will make it difficult or impossible for them to perform as requested. This is the reason why actors before a stage performance are told to “Break a leg”. Since breaking a leg can only happen spontaneously, it will not happen on command, and the actors are not stuck in the exquisite “Be Spontaneous” paradox of being wished to “Perform well tonight”. Even the simple request by a photographer to “Smile” will evoke a faked or posed smile in place of a genuine one. True unhappiness enthusiasts are experts at the “Be Spontaneous” paradox.

So whatever you do, don’t find it easy to consistently enter a Flow state as your ongoing way of Being from now on!

Flow states happen precisely because we aren’t there—they are states where self-consciousness is temporarily missing and pure Being is the only thing present. Buddhists would call this waking up to Reality! This is the problem with TACFIT Warrior in a nutshell. It seems like it wants to be about waking up, but it’s more like dreaming one is awake. Flow states are still depicted as “other,” are still “altered states” rather than “the natural state.” These Flow states also aren’t good enough in themselves, but tools to get something else. This kind of practice is cultivating the conditional “if-then” egoic approach to happiness—if I get a Flow state, then I’ll achieve my goals, and then I’ll be happy—rather than using the Flow state to cultivate being A-OK with existence as it’s happening, right now…and now, and now, and now…regardless of conditions.

In my experience, you do not need to become highly agile and coordinated to enter a state of Being—in fact, there are no qualifications whatsoever. Paradoxically, there are methods to enter states of timeless and unselfconscious Being (developing physical agility is one of them!), and the ability to do so seems to follow a predictable developmental path, but all methods ultimately still depend on the blessing of Grace.

Steven Barnes’ encouraging voiceovers for the “mission simulation” follow-along videos are also incongruent with achieving a Flow state, at least for me. When he says “crush it,” I found my muscles unnecessarily tensing and getting fewer reps (and having less fun) as a result. When he encourages exercisers to fight the negative, lying voices in your head, it also didn’t fit with my experience, for I’ve done a lot of work creating good relationships with all parts of me such that I don’t have parts of me that lie to me habitually anymore. This instruction seemed like an invitation to create more inner conflict, not a conflict-free Flow state. Perhaps it was a brilliant “break a leg” kind of paradoxical intervention, but more likely the aggressive push yourself attitude was borrowed from conventional leaky vessel exercise paradigms wherein one fights against oneself—a terrible waste of energy. In any case, I’m still waiting for TACFIT Buddha. Hopefully Sonnon’s vessel with be righted and we will see the development of programs promoting real peace and harmony in the near future. In this case, it is true that it’s easier to be a critic, as I have no idea how to create such a product that would improve upon TACFIT Warrior and integrate my critique. In the end, I’ve decided this product isn’t for me, but I continue to use IntuFlow and recently purchased two of Sonnon’s 15 pound clubbells which I’m very much enjoying.

So in this case, what are “practices designed to ‘right’ the vessel?” My bias of course is in favor of Core Transformation, a profound practice created by Connirae Andreas that I’ve found to go as deep and thorough as is psychologically and spiritually possible. Yoga itself surely has practices for correcting such tilts as well, but as I’m not a yoga teacher I can’t speak to what practices might correct for the errors I see in TACFIT Warrior. I also think that some of the writings and practices of Moshe Feldenkrais may apply (see this article “How to Learn: A Manual“), as well as the breathing and mindfulness techniques of John Douillard found in Body, Mind, and Sport, which I am currently reading and practicing as well.

I could write a lot more about TACFIT Warrior, but I’m afraid most readers will already find this article tl;dr. I invite you to add your thoughts to the discussion, whether or not you have purchased or used this specific program, in the comments below.

It has now been nearly three weeks since James Arthur Ray reached the rank of level 60 cult leader after his “spiritual warrior” sweat lodge ceremony left three of his followers dead.  McDuffee wrote two excellent posts following the incident,  him and Theo have since gone on to face Ray personally at his event in Denver a few weeks ago, and was quoted in the New York Times in the process. Nevertheless these events have brought to the forefront the potential damaging consequences of the super-star personal development guru all over again.  This incident has caused many people to think about the persuasive processes utilized and technologies of the self that James Arthur Ray and other guru’s have so consistently offered to the masses.

There are a wide variety of assumptions that come into play when individuals find themselves involved in personal development.  They must trust that the guru knows what they are talking about, that they have their best intentions at heart, aren’t going to walk off the stage after five minutes of talking and so on.  However, the most pivotal and important assumption is the belief that understanding how technologies of the self-function translates directly into the ability to effectively use them in the world. This is where I split from most of the personal development paradigm.  I think that technologies of the self must be synthesized by the self in a subjective manner.

Printing Money and Other Exercises In Futility

Let us consider a revolutionary software company.  This software company has produced Windows software that promises to legally and perfectly print money for an ordinary ink-jet printer.  All it requires is a few parameters filled into the application, such as the amount of each bill, the total amount to be printed, and so on.  From the outset, this sounds quite fantastical, yet the messages of the marketers of the software are steadfast and absolutely positive that their software works as advertised.  The problem is that the software isn’t entirely compatible with everyone’s computer systems.  The developers seem to have had issues adapting it to a variety of hardware, including the printers, motherboards, processors etc. required to making it work.  As a result, when you purchase the software at the initially low price of $50, it doesn’t do such a great job of printing your money.  It has pictures of dinosaurs printed instead of dead presidents, or it has all the wrong colors, texture, or monetary institutions printed on it.

The software company realizes this, and continually works hard to make their software compatible with all hardware platforms.  Every so often they produce a new software patch, which promises to make the money printing software work for everyone.  Finally, the money has the correct look about it, yet it doesn’t quite feel like money.  It feels like regular office paper heavily saturated with ink, and doesn’t have the depth of real money.  Each time a new patch comes out, they charge for it, and since they are promising to get you closer and closer to the ability to print money once and for all, they are quite justified in charging more and more for their software patches.  First it is $500, then when that patch does not accurately and perfectly print money, they offer a second patch, which is a more “advanced” version that costs $5,000.  All the while, each and every patch the company produces fails to print money as promised.

Much like the never-ending steam of books, seminars, and “spiritual warrior retreats” of James Arthur Ray, no software patch will ever make the money printing software get it “right.” This is because it is impossible to print believable currency with an ink-jet printer.  Money is printed using highly proprietary processes which cannot be replicated with everyday consumer technology.  Yet the software company told you that it would work!  The problem here is that the software company was lying.  This is the problem with the personal development industry.  Gurus posit that you can achieve a great goal, and when their first product doesn’t work, they continually and consistently pedal products offering the same dream from new and interesting angles suggesting the first, second, and third products just weren’t quite enough for them to “get it.”  Freedom, money, power, and sexual gratification are on offer, vices that in the context of the money software analogy are downright ridiculous.

Ray-actualizing, Meta-programming, and You

Personal development gurus then, are offering mind software.  But in the realm of mind-software something is lost in translation, we are unable to run software written by another programmer properly and our hardware and operating systems just aren’t quite up to snuff to accomplish the feats that gurus promise.  In a sense I’m looking for more subjectivity, and less objectivity.  Personal development was once called “self-help” but has since largely shed this term because of negative cultural connotations.  However, the core of personal development should still be about personal cultivation, not following the maps of others.  I want to make a distinction between the software itself, and the programming language. I am advocating that as individuals we learn the programming language of the mind, instead of installing software of the self that do not account for our own personal, subjective experience of life. There is room then to interact with teachers of mental meta-programming.  It is obvious that this territory is currently very vague and requires a great deal more work.  What I’m suggesting is for an individual to self-actualize, not Ray-actualize, and that the source of your knowledge directly impacts your ability to synthesize end results.