About Us
Contact | Charlie Badenhop and the Seishindo Team | The meaning of Seishindo | Core Principles | Kudos
Seishindo is a human potential discipline designed to help you live in an emotionally-balanced, life-affirming manner.
Seishindo invites you to enter into a fuller relationship with yourself, while becoming more aware of your surroundings and experiencing the connection that you have to all of life.
Core Principles
Nothing stays the same forever
We are all perfectly imperfect – and we are all much more than the sum of our parts.
Trust in your intelligence, talents, creativity, and soul.
Every person is capable of great things, and you have all the resources you need to live a fulfilling, satisfying life. Every relationship and occurrence in your life has the opportunity to be a life-affirming gift.
Your body holds the answer to many puzzles your cognitive mind can’t comprehend on its own.
Your body is intelligent, expressive, and wise. It communicates clearly and with sophistication – when you learn to listen.
Life is a paradox you can’t ever fully comprehend unless you meld the wisdom of your rational mind with the wisdom of your emotional mind.
Logic and emotion are two sides of the same coin.
You can’t truly have one without the other.
Emotional Digestion
In order for you to feel healthy and comfortably in control of your life, your body needs to assimilate and emotionally digest the meaning of your experience. In this sense we say, emotional digestion is a crucial aspect of your overall health.
Pain, stress, and dis-ease arise from excess energy trapped in the body.
You can “turn down the heat” that leads to stress, by ventilating your system with breath and movement.
Awareness
The more you’re aware of yourself, those you are in relationships with, and your surroundings, the greater your potential to live in a life affirming manner.
Living calmness
When you’re calm, you foster a release of muscular holding patterns, which leads to a calming of your nervous system and physiology, and a greater awareness of the moment.
When you calm your physiology you greatly increase your ability to calm your emotions and feel “centered”.
When you feel centered you calm your “somatic mind”—The intelligence that orchestrates all of the activities and functions of your body.
When you calm your somatic mind you calm your brain activity, and thus your thinking, and your internal dialogue. This leads to the calming of your rational mind; your intellect.
When your rational mind is calm, you experience what it’s like to think with your body as well as with your brain. By cultivating the capacity to think with your body and your brain, you become better able to wisely work with the core issues you face in your life.
Your problems become recognized as “grist for your mill”. Making it possible for you to further grow and evolve. You understand that everything is just as it should be, just as it is.
Embodied Presence
When you’re centered you feel at home in your body, and aware in the present moment. Fully alive, and ready to live a complete and satisfying life, you enter into a flow state we call “Embodied Presence”
Embodied Presence = Centered
When you experience Embodied Presence, you become aware of how your body activates the thoughts and actions of your rational mind, and you build the brain-body pathways of communication that set in motion positive change and transformation. At such times, you release excess energy trapped in your body and convert this excess energy into fuel for positive change.
When you manifest and express Embodied Presence, what you say, what you do, and who you are, are all the same.
Breath
One of the best ways to harness the energy you have in your system, and thus improve your overall health, vitality, and creativity, is learning how to gently control the way you breathe.
Oriental traditions tell us an abundant supply of oxygen is crucial to one’s health and well-being. Western science tells us an insufficient amount of oxygen in the system leads over time to acidosis, anxiety, and in severe conditions, panic attacks and an inability to think clearly.
Breathing is a bodily function that is normally outside of your conscious awareness, outside of your conscious control. By becoming mindful of your breathing process and gently controlling the flow of your breath, you feel more at home in your body, and better able to control the course of your life.
The flow of your breath mirrors the flow of your thinking mind. Calming your breathing process helps calm your thinking process. Your thoughts, be it internal dialogue or verbal communication, ride on your breath. The quality of your breathing will greatly affect the quality of your thinking.
When you breathe in a relaxed manner you promote creativity and a more positive outlook on life. When you inhale in a relaxed manner you literally “inspire” yourself as you draw in oxygen from your surroundings.
When you breathe freely and easily, you’ll tend to be healthy and experience a deep sense of well-being. If you are breathing freely and easily, you won’t be feeling stressed out! This understanding is an elemental part of the Seishindo Stress Management Program.
You can see these core principles at work in our Corporate Programs, Personal Programs, Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, and Health and Bodywork.
Explore these core principles for yourself by engaging with the key practices available on the Seishindo Practices page.
And of course you’re welcome to contact me at any time to learn more about Seishindo and how it can help you live with enthusiasm, compassion, and a sense of truly belonging in the world.
Seishindo draws upon Eastern and Western thought, including…
Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido
This form of Aikido, whose name means coordination of spirit and body, is known as Ki Society Aikido outside of Japan. It was developed by Koichi Tohei.
The Aikido practitioner learns to coordinate the activity of body, thinking mind, and spirit, neutralizing or dampening attacks before they’re launched.
Seishindo applies these principles of Aikido to communication, relationships, and the development of embodied leadership.
Noguchi Sei Tai
Named after its creator Haruchika Noguchi, Sei tai refers to properly ordered body, or the ways in which the body moves naturally and either stores or releases energy.
Noguchi sensei said, “The body is like a top. Unless it’s moving, you don’t know what it’s meant to be or how to use it.”
Both illness and health are created by your patterns of movement and the ways your body restricts or releases the natural flow of energy throughout your system. This is true for individuals and organizations alike.
In Sei tai we work with you – as an individual or an organization – to find a more natural flow of movement, freeing you to perform with greater flexibility, ease, and focus.
Sei tai shows the importance of working with the organic flow of life and work, rather than intellectually discussing what you might want to do differently.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
NLP is the art, science, and practice of understanding and valuing people. It’s sometimes called “The Owner’s and Operator’s Manual for the Human Mind.”
“Neuro” refers to how experience is received through your five senses.
“Linguistic” describes how the information received through those five senses is translated into language – the words you use to describe your world to yourself and others.
“Programming” indicates the highly-structured framework used to organize experience within your mind and body.
NLP is considered by many to be a foremost field of study for achieving excellence in communication, shared leadership, creativity, and conflict resolution. It helps you explore how mental strategies, communication patterns, and value systems influence a wide range of your business and personal activities.
Ericksonian Hypnosis
Originated by Milton Erikson, M.D., this discipline provides a view into how we construct, communicate, and self-identify within our individual models of reality.
Recognizing that you and everyone you encounter has a unique personal structure of logic and emotion helps you build strong relationships, communicate clearly, and change detrimental habit patterns.
Cybernetics
Although it’s generally considered to be the realm of engineers and those who are more interested in computers and circuit boards than in people, cybernetics provides powerful insights into how human communication is systematic in nature and outside of our conscious awareness.
As you become aware of your habitual patterns of expression, you realize how to adapt and modify them to the specific situations of your life.
These practices, teachings, and disciplines form the foundation of Seishindo
To learn more, visit the Seishindo Practices page, where you’ll find several core Practices to experience for yourself. Don’t we want to suggest a download here?
Or you can review the Corporate or Personal programs I offer.
And of course you can contact me at any time with questions, or to explore how studying Seishindo might benefit yourself and those you work with.