Henri looked desperate, holding on to his seat, pushing back, far away in his imagination trying to find an answer to this question. Was he hoping that I would provide the answer he could not see?

How often had I seen this posture, this attitude? I couldn’t remember. Henri was totally unaware that he was in fact inviting me into a game, asking me to “save” him.

Games are elements of the dynamics of human relationships. Dr. Eric Berne, the father of Transactional Analysis, described then in his famous book “Games People Play”. It was Dr. Stephen Karpman who provided us with the methodology to describe the scheme, by creating his Drama Triangle he made it easy to recognize games.

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a module lead by Steve Karpman. His teaching involved intuition and awareness and allowed for a great start into the Dynamic Profiles Model I have been learning about since then.

Integrity: Physical, Psychological and Moral

The model resonates around three different aspects of our integrity: Physical, Psychological and Moral. According to the model securing these three components of personal integrity allows us to be in harmony with our environment, resonate, be a charismatic person, be visible and heard.

Psychological integrity allows us to concentrate our energy onto our projects and be performant. Moral integrity is the ability to know our values, our mission and stay true to our principles and values. Physical Integrity concentrates on the space we need around us to keep our capacity to act.

None of these are static! Whatever we needed this year or in this situation might not correspond to what we will need next year, needed ten years ago or want to have in a different situation. We continuously learn, change and grow. We follow cycles and will have periods of our lives where things resonate or are dissonant. We can be subject to a Resonance or a Dissonance Cycle as well as mix of these.

The 3R cycle describes the relationship between Resonance, Resistance and Resilience whereas the 3D Cycle will show the interdependency of Dissonance, Deficiency and Dependence. We can see how these elements and cycles are linked with each other as changing one of the elements to the other will allow to enter the other Cycle, e.g. the loss of resilience can make dependent and vice versa.

Resonance, Resistance, Resilience

The combination of Resonance, Resistance and Resilience becomes a cycle through which we can grow, sometimes within this cycle, sometimes when coming back from the other cycle. To secure our integrity and to remain aligned with our environment, be part of it and feel at ease in it we need the 3R.

Resonance is described as the alignment between our thinking, feeling and acting. Thinking of waves I would describe the right balance between feelings, thoughts and actions in combination with the right distance to and within our environment. The clarity of my thoughts, my ability to share feelings and the truthfulness between my image and my actions will determine if my resonance is visible and remains adapted to a changing situation.

Resistance can also be seen as a movement, it is the ability to alternate tension we establish and release. We need our Resistance when being attacked or feeling aggressed, our limits are endangered. Being able to create a tension an release it means to have flexible limits while securing them. It is only when pulling our pushing too hard that our resistance, that we can break possibly coming into a state of deficiency.

The third one, Resilience is our capacity to “go back to the initial state”, having been hurt, having been aggressed it is Resilience which helps us to regain the power on ourselves, to realign our image with reality.

Approach

Lovers of a pragmatic approach, Jérôme Lefeuvre and Pierre Agnèse who developed the Dynamic Profiles Model showed us how we could find and use tools to develop the different steps of the 3R cycle as well as secure our 3 essential integrities. For now assisting with Psychological Integrity is the main ambition of their approach aiming at providing an adequate method to develop Resistance.

The model integrates the Drama Triangle as well as other research done by Steve Karpman for which Jérôme and Pierre have been certified as Master Trainers. Steve allowed them to integrate his research into their own model and develop it a self-defense method from there on.

In our training we started by learning a most important aspect: the posture. Just as in any sport, it is also true in martial art and in life, the right posture will ease our movements, even make them possible. We went into a dojo and experienced movement, posture, stability and found that self-defense is a matter of knowing the equilibrium of each other’s stance, being attentive and respectful.

Beyond movement posture is also the reflection of our inner state. The way to experience this was easily found through the theatrical aspect of the Drama Triangle. It was natural to go on stage and in a theatre. There, we aimed at experiencing the art of making emotions visible, reaching out to feel and show them.

Practice and Experience where my key elements to reach insights beyond the theory.

Noticing my silence Henri became aware of the way he was sitting in his chair and changed his posture. This was the right moment for me to step back and check out the idea of the right posture with him.

Accessing it with the right tools could assist while achieving his goal: Be lucid, Be benevolent, Be constructive.

The constructive approach used by Henri was to ask his friends, mentors and colleagues what passion they had seen him pursue, understanding that he might not be the only one able and needed to find the answer he had reached back into clear thinking. He had had to use his kindliness towards himself. to accept the support

Instead of reducing the image of himself as he had been doing when inviting me into the game, he had now found a way to work on his Resilience.

[Original publication via frogstalk.com, April 21, 2014]