Our Practices
This page contains information about practices developed and/or licensed to Awaken to Meaning, often designed by past and present principals of the Vervaeke Foundation.
Our platform also offers several other practices and types of practices, designed elsewhere or public domain, such as Authentic Relating, Meditation and Embodiment (Feldenkrais, Yoga, etc…)
Dialectic-into-Dialogos Practice
This dialogue-based practice, derived from the Socratic tradition, turns the art of conversation into a more ancient way of doing philosophy – a living form of disclosure and discovery, and a path for cultivating virtue, insight and a pursuit of the Good.
We offer an intensive training (The 12-Week Dialectic-into-Dialogos Intensive) in the different skills of this technique, providing ongoing instruction and mentorship, creative and relationship-building exercises, regular group practice, and readings from relevant philosophical traditions. We have several testimonials on the impact of this course from past participants on the Courses & Training page, where you can often find information on the next offering of the Intensive. Participants of this intensive gain complimentary access to weekly hosted practices by certified facilitators.
In this early example of the practice, DiD is executed in person, affording possibilities offered via having bodies share the same space.
A recent and more tightly structured example.
We also offer a Level 1 Facilitation course for keen practitioners who are interested in becoming official facilitators of the practice for newcomers. Certified graduates of this program are encouraged to participate in the continued growth and development of the practice along with Christopher Mastropietro and Taylor Barratt (the principle stewards of DiD). Some offer online and in-person introductory sessions for those curious about the practice.
The current list of Certified Level 1 Facilitators is:
Joseph Ramirez
Omri Cohen
Practice Stewards: Christopher Mastropietro & Taylor Barratt
Socratic Imaginal Self-Reflection
This practice offers access to the transformational power of the imaginal. Inspired by various forms of art-therapy (but not therapy itself), this practice orients it’s practitioners into an emergent space of creativity and contemplation going through the nine “INs” (Intention, Inventio, Indwell, Internalize, Inspire, Inquiry, Integration, Insight and Instruct). This practice is often offered in a format of fellowship to guide the group into the right frame of presence, and closes out with additional aid for integration of this often powerful experience.
Currently this practice is offered as part of the “Working with the Imaginal” workshop, as part of our ATM Saturdays series of weekly workshops.
Practice Designers: John Vervaeke, Taylor Barratt, Ethan Hsieh, Christopher Mastropietro
The Socratic Search Space
Philosophy has an ambiguous relationship with “resolving” personal problems. It often concerns itself with big ideas. But big ideas only become real in the concrete experience of life, and the pains that come with moment-to-moment decisions. When we obsess over specific problems, we tend to lose the big picture. When we abstract to the big picture, we can lose the relevance and vitality that exist in specific problems. Philosophy fails us if it does not hold these two scales in tension. But if we put them in dialogue, we can notice patterns we couldn’t see before, and find perspectives that can change our capacities for action and decision.
The Socratic Search Space is a practice that helps to hold this tension, and search it for insight. In this exercise, a group of four people convene around one participant’s problem. The problem is introduced, explored, and translated into a dilemma. The dilemma invites each participant to share the tension, to bear part of the burden, and to find a virtue that can respond to the feeling of impasse. The Socratic Search Space is the evolution of the Dialectic into Dialogos practice. It does not try to solve our problems outright, but helps us to find fellowship within our dilemmas, and opens a communal space for curiosity, inquiry, and contemplation.
We, at ATM, are currently working on programming that will provide alternative entry points into this important practice and expect to announce something in the Spring of 2025.
Practice Designers: John Vervaeke, Rick Repetti, Taylor Barratt, Ryan Barton, Ethan Hsieh, Christopher Mastropietro, Ryan Barton
A Note about Facilitated Practice
Awaken to Meaning was an incubated project of the Vervaeke Foundation and at the time of it’s inception we originally planned to offer a database of practices to help facilitate the proliferation of them, deeper into public consciousness. However just as quickly as we said Yes to this, the caveats came in and we realized our ethical responsibility when it comes to the powerful impact of many types of practice. Several of us on the team had previous experiences where practices were misunderstood or misused, tainting the original intention for the practice as conceived by it’s designers and stewards.
As such, we have decided that several practices should be provided within a facilitated context. This context helps ensure the orientation offered for the practice is certified by the designers/stewards. It also provides the opportunity to address clarifying questions for practitioners and facilitates the continued development of the practice through sustainable channels. It also ensures opportunities for integration and the offering of aftercare for those moments of substantial impact. One thing that many of us understand is the concept that ‘trauma is always in the room’. And while we are not offering therapeutic services directly (see “Support” for friends offering such services), we take our responsibility of inviting people into novel and sometimes challenging situations (often necessary for unfolding) seriously.
Of course the maintenance of such an ecology of resources takes time, and the typical exchange for the resource of time in our culture is financial compensation. On that front, we acknowledge not everyone is able to freely offer this typical exchange. We try to, where possible, funded and requested, to offer scholarships, discounts and payment plans. We’re also a small team, several of us holding/wearing many different hats, it’s difficult to make a living from this type of work without aggressive marketing, sales and often, dilution of intent.
We also understand the challenge of ‘gatekeeping’, and as facilitators and leaders of transformational work, we also hold an ethical responsibility, which needs to take priority. As such, none of these practices are offered as open-source or public domain at this time.
That said, as our practices grow and develop, for the ones where the risks of adverse use or reaction are low, we may release information about intent and structure. But as you might expect, still with a strong recommendation to practice in an official guided and facilitated context and an encouragement to ask clarifying questions to ensure right-relationship / orientation to each practices intent.