The MythoSelf Process™ Cheat Sheet by jsriggio

The MythoSelf Process was designed by Dr. Joseph Riggio in the early 1990s. It was initially based on the Generative Imprint™ model developed by Roye Fraser.

Since the original model was designed it has undergone many updates, revisions and refine­ments, especially those involving the use of mythic form and metaph­orical language in relation to autobi­ogr­aphical narrative, the specif­icity and precision of somatic form including cerebellar processing and intell­igence, and the introd­uction of develo­pmental modeling based on the work of indivi­duals like Clare W. Graves, Jane Loevenger, Robert Kegan and Ken Wilber.

Today the coaches, consul­tants, facili­tators and trainers using the model focus on assisting individual and organi­zation clients in creating transf­orm­ational perfor­mance improv­ements. The typical work they do includes developing a greater range of choices and clarity in focusing on high quality outcomes and results. The approach they take is centered in building situat­ional awareness and sensory acuity, developing state control and strategic thinking as well as behavioral flexib­ility leading to extrao­rdinary commun­ication perfor­mance and the ability to create outcomes and results on demand on their own and with others.

Facili­tating Transf­orm­ational Perfor­mance

The MythoSelf Process is designed to allow indivi­duals trained in the process to facilitate transf­orm­ational change leading to break- through perfor­mance.

NOTE: Transf­orm­ational Perfor­mance Requires Fundam­ental Change

Changing perfor­mance requires us to change our percep­tion, changing our perception requires us to change the symbol­ic/­met­aph­orical form, changing the symbolic form requires us to re-encode sensorial experi­ence, re-enc­oding sensorial experience requires us to create new sensorial imprints, creating new sensorial imprints requires creating and transc­oding new direct sensory experience as a new imprint, creating a new imprint requires operating at the level of the felt sense of being.

It is also possible to access older more well-f­ormed sensory and symbolic imprints as an option to creating new imprints as the basis of creating transf­orm­ational perfor­mance.

The Seven Primary Principals Of The MythoSelf Process™

1. All experience is perceived sensor­ially, processed somati­cally and transcoded into symbolic, iconic repres­ent­ational form.

2. Primary sensory percep­tio­ns/­pro­jec­tions generate somatic responses that are subse- quently perceived and encoded symbol­ically.

3. Symbolic, iconic repres­ent­ational form creates a symbolic repres­ent­ational logic with a somatic, semantic and syntactic structure.

4. Symbolic repres­ent­ational logic has an algori­thmic, propos­itional structure that determines meaning, intention and response.

5. Symbolic repres­ent­ational logic is encoded and processed as metaph­orical narrative using the form and structure of story.

6. Autobi­ogr­aphical narrative is the essential story and fundam­ental algorithm, change the story and change the perceptual experi­ence.

7. Autobi­ogr­aphical narrative forms the ground of personal ontology and gives rise to aesthetic (senso­rial) awaren­ess­/pe­rce­ption.

NOTE: Unders­tanding these seven principals is essential to unders­tanding and utilizing the Mythoself Process to facilitate Trans- format­ional Perfor­mance.

When these seven principals are understood indivi­dually and in relation to one another as a system, it is possible to create funda- mental, transf­orm­ational change at an ontolo­gical level with indivi­duals and groups, precip­itating their ability to experience and enact breakt­hrough perfor­mance.

There are a couple of aspects to the MythoSelf Process model that make it unique.

Unique Elements of the Model

Among the most obvious are the intensive attention to somatic processing and commun­ica­tion, the consid­eration of ontolo­gical awareness as the basis of identity, the use of mythic form in the develo­pment of the autobi­ogr­aphical narrative, and the insistence on wholeform commun­ication and learning.

Positive Outlook

Taken together these aspects identify the way someone trained in the MythoSelf Process model approaches their life, their work and their relati­onships with others. The most outsta­nding thing that is noticeable is the way that trained indivi­duals tend towards sorting for what's working, rather than what isn't working. This organizes them by default to have a positive outlook and attitude, and to notice for common­alities as a starting point.

Teleol­ogical Orient­ation

Another unique aspect of the model is the strong teleol­ogical orient­ation that pulls the system forward to the end point, and organizes it in relation to outcome versus circum­stance or response to current evidence only. A model within the model, The Trajectory of Intent, clearly lays out the movement of action forward as influenced by inform­ation flowing from the future to the present and shaping the past in relation to itself. This way of organizing oneself or a system of indivi­duals makes it possible to deal with high levels of uncert­ainty in the moment and remain highly creative in response.

Aesthetic Model

One more unique aspect of the MythoSelf Process model is that it is an aesthetic model that treats sensory experience as primary and prefer­ences it over intell­ect­ual­izing experi­ence. The experience of the sensual is essential to perceiving the data flow in the enviro­nment within the structure and form of the model. The ability to respond aesthe­tically as well is a critical component of perfor­mance as as described in the model.

There are only a few essential notions of the MythoSelf Process™:

Reality Is Extant ... It's Happening

Extant material reality contains and includes us, e.g.: "This is really here ... this is really happen­ing." regardless of what we are aware of, perceive, or our experience of it.

Experience Creates A Felt Sense Of Being

We process sensual experi­ences somati­cally, before we encode them symbol­ically, and the result is experi­enced as a felt sense of being.

Experience Is Encoded Symbol­ically

We process sensual experi­ences somati­cally, and then transcode them into symbolic repres­ent­ations, including but not limited to words, that we encode as the experi­ence.

Perception Is Symbol­ically Organized

Our encoded symbolic repres­ent­ations become the refere­ntial filters we use to process sensorial and imaginal experi­ences.

Imprints And Traumas Create Filters

Signif­icant events are encoded symbol­ically as iconic, sensua­l/s­omatic, metaph­orical forms that create our perceptual filters.

Perception Becomes The Ontolo­gical Filter

Reality is what is perceived as being real, which isn't necess­arily a homomo­rphic perception of extant form or action.

Perception Is Encoded Isomor­phi­cally

Transc­oding sensorial experience generates isomor­phic, i.e.: symbol­ically matched repres­ent­ations, not homomo­rphic "same to same" forms.

Isomorphic Algorithms Generate Meaning

Isomorphic metaphors generate "this means that" algori­thms, your response becomes the meaning, e.g.: your pleasu­re/­dis­ple­asure means I have done something right/­wrong.

Transf­orm­ation Is Algori­thmic Change

Shifting the symbolic form of the refere­ntial filter changes the fundam­ental perception of reality experi­enced and the response to it.

Perception Determines Outcome

What we perceive to be real determines the meaning we assign to what we experience and expect to experi­ence, the outcomes we create or not rest on the percep­tions we hold.

The MythoSelf Process starts from the premise that you can and do choose your fundam­ental orient­ation as either open and sorting for what's working, or closed and sorting for what's not working.

Open & Closed States

The open, or excitatory state, is a state in which you are open to and available to receive new inform­ation and to process inform­ation in new ways. The closed, or inhibitory state, is a state in which you are closed to receiving new inform­ation and/or processing inform­ation in new and different ways.

Both the open/e­xci­tatory and closed­/in­hib­itory states are neurol­ogical states, referring to how the neural systems are organized to perceive and respond to experience and the inform­ation present in relation to it.

GDS - Genera­lized Desired State

A fundam­ental organizing principal of the MythoSelf Process model is that choosing to start from an open, or excita­tory, state leads to higher quality percep­tions, sense making, decision making, behavior and perfor­mance, as well as producing higher quality outcomes and results overall. The most genera­lized desired state (GDS) is a state in which the system is organized positively in relation to possib­ilities and from which a pervasive sense of well being permeates the system­-at­-large, In this case the "­sys­tem­" can refer to a single indivi­dual, a relati­onship, a group, an organi­zation or possibly even an entire community or society of people.

Applic­ations of the MythoSelf Process range from personal develo­pment, to profes­sional improv­ement to wholesale organi­zat­ional transf­orm­ation.

Coaches and Consul­tants

Coaches and consul­tants using the model often work in organi­zat­ion­al/­bus­iness settings or with indivi­duals in such settings around the topics of leadership and sales perfor­mance. They will also work with indivi­duals and groups to improve the connection between strategy and action.

Commun­ication Perfor­mance

Another common applic­ation of the model is commun­ication perfor­mance improv­ement. Practi­tioners of the model will often work with indivi­duals to improve their verbal and non-verbal commun­ication skills, in one to one relati­onships as well as in group enviro­nments such as meetings or presen­tat­ions.

Behavioral Perfor­mance

Some facili­tators use the model to assist clients in resolving behavioral perfor­mance issues they are dealing with ranging from things like habit reform­ation to social anxiety issues and fears, or personal limita­tions like procra­sti­nation, mainta­ining a positive outlook or state control in difficult settings. The crux of most of these issues revolve around the quality of percep­tion, sense making, decision making and behavior leading to an inability to create and produce the specific outcomes and results that the client desires. The resolution is most often an greater range of choices available and the ability to focus with greater clarity on the specific outcomes and results intended.

Transf­orm­ational Perfor­mance

The common­ality across all applic­ations is the concept of Transf­orm­ational Perfor­mance. Transf­orm­ational Perfor­mance is the result of transf­orm­ational change leading to signif­icant perfor­mance breakt­hrough, where the evidence is signif­icant improv­ement in terms of behavioral perfor­mance leading to an ability to create and produce signif­icantly improved outcomes and results in a system previously limited in some specific way.

At the heart of the MythoSelf Process model is your Life Story ...

Mythic Form

In the model the story you tell yourself ... your "Life Story" ... your autobi­ogr­aphical narrative ... is the basis of what directs how you experience yourself in the world, and sets the limits of what you will or won't do. Your "Life Story" is organized mythic­ally, as a metaphor that contains how you know what is true of you. This metaphor has at least three parts ... what you tell yourself, what you tell others about yourself, what others say about you.

All of the elements of your "Life Story" are also organized sequen­tially in time, "this happened and then that happened ..." and for most people that sequence is based in cause and effect, "this happened, and because of that, this happened ..." connecting all the events of your life in an unbroken pattern. This pattern if held as a absolute, concrete structure of cause and effect is also what limits you ... especially the way you know you create success.

In the MythoSelf Process model we reset the story from cause and effect to a teleol­ogical story where the end is know, your outcome or the result you intend, and that organizes what things mean as well as the actions you take in response to what's present and what happens. Using this teleol­ogical process we contin­ually update what we are experi­encing in relation to the the outcomes and results we intend. Building the story this way, we build mythic form, and take control of meaning and the future.

The MythoSelf Model today is built around the dual, spiral matrix of Wholeform™ Commun­ication and Learning. Wholeform is an approach that keeps the entirety of the connec­tions and complexity of intera­ction intact when dealing with experi­ence, inform­ation and the experi­ential processing of inform­ation.

A wholeform approach keeps the integrity of whole intact, instead of presenting something as composed of separate parts of pieces. When teaching a subject the wholeform approach doesn't break the event or process down into separate and distinct steps, but instead presents the entirety of the event as a whole process or action, and in relation to the system within which the event takes place.

Teaching Wholeform

For example, in teaching someone to swing a bat and hit a ball a wholeform approach would present the entire movement as a single event. There wouldn't be a separation of positi­oning the feet and body, lifting the bat, bringing it up and over the shoulder, looking towards the direction the ball will come from, swinging level and through, etc. There would be a simple presen­tation of the event, possibly by example or even letting the learning discover how to hit the ball for themse­lves, while making sugges­tions about adjusting aspects of the action taking, as well as the process of thinking about how to take the action and reflection on the results afterw­ards.

Wholeform Commun­ication

In wholeform commun­ication the same approach is applied. Instead of treating the indivi­duals in the commun­ication event as separate, wholeform commun­ication treats the intera­ction between commun­icators as the event to be attended to and not the experience of individual commun­ica­tors. Unlike mechanical systems where you have transm­itters and receivers that are distinct, in dynamical systems the commun­icators make up a single system that is a whole unto itself, that is self organizing and self refere­ntial.

Because the wholeform approach doesn't break things into parts, or fragment systems into separately occurring events, things like body language (expre­ssion, gesture, posture ...) and verbal exchange are treated as a singul­arity. Also the idea of a separation between expression and response is also removed as the reality of the immediacy of expression and response as singul­arity is realized, as in the way someone responds non-ve­rbally to what they hear and how that non-verbal response immedi­ately shapes what and how the person speaking is saying what they do.