What exactly IS Souldrama?

[Connie Miller]

I have had many responses asking about Souldrama, what is it, what is this thing, is it new agey, etc.I would like to share with you and clarify exactly what Souldrama is and its purpose in hopes of sharing this process with all of you. I hope this clarifies the process. Connie Miller TEP, USA
Intuition “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift”. Einstein
Today we look for the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it and search again for the meaning of life.We must look for ways to recreate ourselves and to create spiritually intelligent leadership.Our creativity holds the key to our life’s dream, purpose, or calling.However, we place many obstacles between our creative gifts and ourselves.Creativity is the ability to manifest what has real meaning and purpose for us, our soul’s mission.
More than ever, individuals find themselves experiencing a lack of meaning in their lives and an attendant sense of spiritual desolation, consequently, many people are increasingly embarking upon a spiritual journey, seeking to discover their true selves, searching for a higher purpose and meaning to their lives.J.L. Moreno, was a deeply spiritual man who believed that God is in each one of us. His philosophy, documented in his many writings, is that we have the responsibility to continue the works of our Creator. He valued the goodness in each one of us and believed that creativity flowed through and was renewed in every moment in every individual. Moreno's action methods of psychodrama and sociometry serve as an alternative to many of the forms of passive psychotherapy. Psychodrama builds community, self-awareness and the ability to solve problems. Souldrama® is an outgrowth of psychodrama. It is a therapeutic teaching tool based upon psychodramatic process that is designed for psychotherapists and other helping professionals to move past resistance in their life -clients who cannot move forward even though they may have finished their family of origin issues. 
As mental health professionals, we address psychological aspects of a client’s problems but largely overlook the significance of their spirituality. That’s because spirituality wasn’t part of our training and we tend to think of spirituality and therapy as mutually exclusive – a kind of church-and-state mentality.But spirituality isn’t a synonym for religion. It’s an energy that defines the way we view our world. And when we access this energy it empowers us with self-faith and courage to resolve problems and move ahead.We can use this energy to move past resistance and create spiritually intelligent leadership.To support clients in identifying their vision and moving forward in achieving their life’s purpose, we need new, creative therapeutic tools to access our spiritual intelligence. 
What is meant by a spiritual journey?This spiritual journey is not necessarily confined to a religious framework. Although the words may vary, many authors provide a common thread.In general, they refer to the spiritual journey as a process of focusing within, in order to gain an awareness of Self. Only through this awareness of self can individuals become truly actualized and find meaning and purpose in their work and in their lives.This is the individuation process, which produces both an interconnection with self and a connection with others, fostering a sense of order and balance in an otherwise chaotic life.
The journey toward spirituality represents the quest to unite one's inner and outer world, to provide meaning and purpose to one’s life.The search, and consequent realization, provides an individual with a sense of alignment and order or a spiritual cohesiveness, which instills a sense of rightness and well-being It can be described as a feeling of being in the flow.It is a sense of wholeness, a oneness with who we are and an awareness of how we fit with our external environment.
SouldramaÒ(Miller, 2000, 2007, 2006, 2007) is a psychospiritual developmental model that leads one through six stages of spiritual development aligning the ego and soul.There are three levels of intelligence that one moves through the rational, emotional and spiritual during this circular technique. It enables one to recognize and move on to their higher purpose, therefore creating more spiritually intelligent leadership. It is intended to be used as multi disciplinary training system that combines mind, body and spirit to create a therapeutic energy within a group process; Souldrama allows the soul to become a co-creator in a person’s life. This is the soul’s mission to co: create.
 Humans in general prefer constancy and status quo to instability and change, and therefore when change inevitably comes the there is resistanceto avoid the transition between the status quo and whatever comes next. The avoidance can come in the form of indecision, ambivalence, and procrastination. It can come in the form of impulsive jumping headfirst. In either case the underlying fear driving the avoidance is of unpredictability, disorder, and confusion: chaos. How do we consciously make a doorway for transformation ‘to a higher level possible self, a selfactualized self, or a transpersonal self?
Souldrama is designed to help move through resistance. One of the great dangers of transformational work is that the ego attempts to sidestep deep psychological work by leaping into the transcendent too soon. This is because the ego always thinks itself to be much more advanced than it actually is. As we understand it, the spiritual journey is not about becoming perfect. It’s about acceptance, releasing judgment, and embracing everything in wholeness.
The ego brings forth resistance. The way to move through the resistance is to move through the stages of intelligence.In each stage, more of the ego is aligned with the soul. Both spiritual and psychotherapeutic growth requires the building of transitional space within which to do necessary integrative work. Transitional space is a personal space between security (secure attachment) and autonomy (freedom to explore), and can be one of harmonious balance or of terrifying chaos. This is provided on the stage of psychodrama and a process of Souldrama offers six stages of spiritual growth represented by veils that separate stages of transformation that move s one through the rational intelligence, the emotional intelligence and the spiritual intelligence within a group atmosphere.
There have been many formulations of stages in the development of consciousness, or spiritual development, or development toward the optimal expression of humanity. Souldrama charts the stages of growth that go through the rational IQ, the emotional IQ and the spiritual IQ focusing also on the transitional states between stages in development.Under the various formulations of developmental stages each stage of development charts the emergence of a specific developmental potential through a sequence of stages of growth.Each stage steps significantly beyond its predecessors, while including them in an expanded experience of self. 
Souldrama may be conceptualized as a combination of developmental stages, or perhaps as a combination of spiritual and existential intelligences each one building on and incorporating the earlier stages in such a way that no stage can be skipped and the sequential order of the emerging stages is a relatively fixed aspect of the human experience. In other words the stages are hierarchical, and development proceeds by transcendence through each stage and integration of each one.
Veils can be a doorway through which to enter a transpersonal experience. The first two stages or veils represent the rational intelligence, the second two stages represent the emotional intelligence and the third stages represent the spiritual intelligence.The seventh stage is the “invisible” stage is one where one can be on their higher purpose fully integrated until it is time to repeat the stages of growth to develop even more.
The personal transformation that occurs is hierarchal within the structure of the veils (which represent stages of spiritual growth) and that personal transformation that occurs is within a social system of the group. The process of Souldrama is circular as is the spiritual journey in life because once we learn one lesson we go back and begin another lesson. Souldrama stresses the importance of social interactions and groups to reinforce personal development to enhance the sense of connectedness and community.
These workshops proposes a combination and integration of the theoretical frameworks of methods of Miller’s, Zohar’s, Moreno’s, Blatner’sand Jung’s models as a source of insight and introduction to a much needed new model for the process of individual spiritual growth.This new model of Souldrama can assist in providing an environment that releases the unique creativity, imagination, and growth of individuals as they follow their spiritual paths to wholeness and provide a foundation for integrating the discovery of self with work deemed to be meaningful and full of purpose.
My ApproachThis action-oriented multidisciplinary training system adds a psychospiritual element to psychodrama called Souldrama ®, is a process that aligns ego and soul to enable us to access our spiritual intelligence. The following workshops will demonstrate and enable participants to train and participate in the process of Souldrama® while helping them to discover and move past their own resistances in their lives.
The International Institute of Souldrama Souldrama®: A Therapeutic Action Model to Create Spiritually Intelligent Leadership

June 22-25, 2007 Boughton Place, Highland, NY

Aug 9-12, 2007 Sao Paulo, Brazil

October 5-11, 2007 Carcavelos, Portugal

November 2-3 2007 Introduction to Souldrama Spring Lake Heights, NJ

December 29-30, St Petersburg Beach Florida Introduction to Souldrama

January 11-18, 2008 Boughton Place, Highland, NY

Feb 1-10 , 2008 Victoria Australia

April 28 -May 2, 2008 Sedona Arizona USA

June 30-July 4, 2008 Amsterdam, Holland

If you would like to sponsor or promote a workshop in your country please callor e mail connie at souldrama.com, www.souldrama.com, 1-800-821-9919








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