Do you want to gain insight into patterns, coherence or core convictions that stop you from living the way you would most like to live? Do you want to experience what it is like when you can get more out of yourself more easily? Are you looking for a way to get out of your head and go to your inner knowing? Or do you want to research what needs to be done in your team, work or project or in relation to the flow to bring back the flow? Do you want to find which (inner) movement is needed to change something?
With the Walking In Your Shoe method you can do all this and much more. And that in an apparently simple but pure and profound way and making use of the self-resolving power that is naturally already present in us.
WIYS or Walking In Your Shoes is a method for empowerment, body wisdom, inner knowing and transformation.
About Walking In Your Shoes
Walking In Your Shoes is a phenomenological Body / Mind method for gaining clarity and helps promote positive change and growth. It makes the invisible visible and provides information about undercurrents, patterns, unconscious entanglements, blockages, resources and solution directions in for example work, relationships, team, company, projects, goals, illness, etc.
Walking In Your Shoes, developed by John F. Cogswell (clinical psychologist) and Joseph Culp (actor / director), is also called the alternative to (Family) Constellations. We know from our own experience that the methods WIYS and Set-ups can be used beautifully next to each other or in combination.
The body-oriented approach of WIYS is used in therapy, coaching and workshops and also in advice and guidance of companies, teams and projects.
How does Walking In Your Shoes work?
It is a Body / Mind process to know yourself and others on a deeper level. The way of working shows a relationship with family constellations. A question or theme is ‘run’ by a ‘representative’ (the ‘Walker’) or by the person himself. During the ‘Walk’ the ‘Walker’ comes into contact with the deep knowing or with the body wisdom. After the ‘Walker’ has started the process by pronouncing a statement, the consciousness changes (similar to that of a representative in an arrangement) and information about the theme is released through the body. It can be seen as an extension of Bert Hellinger’s “Movement of the Soul” combined with a body-oriented research, using the resources from body wisdom.
The method is similar to Constellation work, but does not use (multiple) representants who obtain information from the ‘field’. Instead, Walking In Your Shoes works with a ‘Walker’. This can be a person from the group or the contributor of the question itself. The “Walker” runs in the proverbial shoes of the person, the question or the theme. The participants of questions are also encouraged to ‘walk’ their own themes so that they have direct access to the experience in their bodies. The facilitator guides the ‘Walker’ through the process through which the body experiences directly how it moves from blockage to its own inner resources, and integration by the body takes place as a matter of course. We also work with ‘Double Walks’ in which two ‘Walkers’ are active, for example to investigate the dynamics of all types of relationships. The technique is simple and thorough. Under the guidance of a facilitator, in a one-on-one session or in a group, you can run the most diverse questions. You can think of themes that have to do with:
- relationships
- work
- projects
- passion
- goals
- loved ones
- family systems
- ancestors
- money
- inner parts / aspects
- career
- good luck
- creative projects
- archetypes
- to dream
- core beliefs
- choices and decisions
- disease and symptoms
- pets
- addiction
- blockages and resources and abilities
- to model
- etc.
Walking In Your Shoes is a new effective method for the Netherlands in application areas such as: counseling, health and welfare, coaching, Human Resources, Mediation, Management and leadership, team building, creative fields such as art and dance and writing, alternative medicine, parenting, politics and social domain, hospice, spiritual practice, training, etc.
History of Walking In Your Shoes
In 1986 John Cogswell, clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and Joseph Culp, actor / director in Los Angelos started experimenting with this Body / Mind method. The technique turned out to have a special depth: the ‘Walker’ starts with an intent statement (to be the other person or the theme) and then continues to rely on the process of intuitive, empathic wisdom of the body. By staying tuned to the physical experiences, the ‘Walker’ experienced an in-depth understanding of the person he walked (or for the theme) without knowing this person (well) or knowing prior inner motives. The ‘Walk’ showed accurate and relevant information and the person who walked through felt and heard.
Further experimenting John and Joseph learned that the technique of ‘Walking’ could be used for a very wide range of questions and that this offered new possibilities in both psychotherapy and coaching (by John) and in acting and directing (by Joseph).
Gradually they started to refine the technique and Joseph ultimately ensured that Walking In Your Shoes became transparent and transferable by giving the process of facilitating a ‘Walk’ structure.
Joseph Culp has been giving workshops Walking In Your Shoes in the United States with a number of colleagues for years. In 2006, Walking In Your Shoes was brought to Europe by Christiaan Assel. Christiaan (Germany) worked mostly with Family constellations until then. He saw and experienced that Walking In Your Shoes and Family constellations use a powerful agreement: the knowing field.
Christiaan has been trained by Joseph and has since then taught workshops and facilitators from his institute in Germany. In his book ‘Walking in Your Shoes – walking is understanding’ he calls WIYS a successful alternative for (Family) Constellations.
In 2016, Joseph Culp and Peter de Vries trained the first facilitators in the Netherlands and since then WIYS has also been successfully applied in the Netherlands.
Ingrid Rademakers is one of these first facilitators.
In 2018 she will follow the Train de Trainers training with Joseph Culp to train trainers in the Netherlands and to further disseminate the method in Europe.
In June 2018 a 2-day workshop is given in Deventer by Joseph Culp, co-founder.
In October 2018 a new training for Facilitators starts at JBL training in Deventer by Joseph Culp and Peter de Vries.
Short introduction of Walking in Your shoes by Joseph Culp