The Odoki Method has five stages - people engage at the stage that most suits them. Each builds on the prior, providing building blocks that move towards an ever deeper experience of wellbeing. Some will want to complete all stages, others might work with just one and gain sufficient benefit for their own needs.
1. Regulation
When we perceive a threat, a special part of our brain is triggered - the sympathetic nervous system. This redirects energy and resources from our brain to our limbs - we don’t need to think when faced with a lion/tiger/etc - we need to run. Yet, modern threats don’t function the same - they don’t walk away like a lion or tiger might, and we can find ourselves staying in the sympathetic nervous system longer than we might want. Fight/flight responses, panic attacks, PTSD, trauma, and more.
The good news is that most of the threats we perceive around us in the modern world are perceived through our predictive processing brain. And with the Odoki Method, we can begin to train our brain to have alternative responses to these threats.
2. Sensing
In this stage, we learn about the “felt sense”. There’s a different part of our brain, that processes information differently to our thinking mind. And it communicates with us via our body - through what we call the “felt sense”.
Learning how to engage with the felt sense can bring about a significant change in our experience of life. We no longer need to run away from our experience - we start to learn its language, and to realise that it is actually trying to share something with us - something it would be valuable for us to hear.
3: Identity
So far, we’ve been learning some basics about how the brain works. In terms of Predictive Processing, we’ve been learning how to look at experience and trigger small prediction error events that bring about meaningful change in our lives.
However, the brain’s predictive system is hierarchical. We make some predictions on the basis of others. If we go looking for some of the deeper predictions, and trigger a prediction error event here, we can witness a more significant change in our experience of life. The rest of the Method, from this point on, is exploring these deeper predictions.
In this stage, we explore our sense of identity, our sense of “me”.
4: Reactivity
Once we’re ready to move beyond stage 3, we can begin to explore reactivity. We can begin to explore the mechanisms of reactivity, and find it can bring about a significant quietening - where reactivity gives up for good. No more anxiety, anger, frustration. Life becomes much simpler after this.
5: Completion
This final stage encapsulates a number of subtle inquiries, including space/time and further levels of identity. When completed, this stage commonly leaves the client with a deep sense of ‘knowing’ that can be invaluable throughout life.