John Bagdasarian is part of the core leadership team at The LivWeal Institute. With a dense and varied background as an actor/writer, and in the creative humanities, producing television spots for ABC/Disney, creating a reality TV series that sold to Irish TV, John is now the Creative Director for The LivWeal Institute where he connects the hearts of leaders with the integrity of the Institute’s products and programs. With many years of consistent practice as a deep listener, heart-led communicator and most recently as a body/mind/spirit STRETCH practitioner, John brings his curious and committed approach to discovering the stuck spots and limitations for greater fluidity and freedom as part of the team with Jennifer Love. John enjoys the process of finding the balance of integrity within the relationship between people, products, programs and human performance.

BACKGROUND

Generationally born into a post world-war family, and raised in the expansive potential of the 70s and 80s John has always felt like he has one foot in the old world, and the other in the new, emergent and interconnected paradigm shift of today’s world.

John began his professional career in New York where he trained as an actor at the Actor’s Studio which was rediscovering who it was as James Lipton launched Inside the Actor’s Studio with Bravo. No stranger to the transitions of old world meets new world, it was here that John’s fascination and understanding of human behavior began. As an actor John explored the teaching of character study, unsticking limitations and preconceived ideas in order to get out of the way and let the art/expression live truthfully rather than from ego. What if we don’t have to become the character because we are the character? And, how can we hold onto our own sovereignty in a profession that asks us to be someone we’re not?…questions serving him later in his career.

In California, John’s career expanded into becoming a Creative Executive in film, and as a Writer/Producer in Television Promotions, meeting with writers, agents and executives; reading scripts, developing ideas and procuring creative projects and properties as investments and creative collaborations. John was a writer/producer in ABC Network’s promotions and marketing department writing spots to air, and he has freelanced as a script advisor supporting writers to refine their stories and bring them to market. John is a natural collaborator, and the learning from his experience at The Actor’s Studio and his experience as a Writer/Producer merged as passion for refining stories through a particular lens of focus: integrity, curiosity, authenticity.

This evolution in John’s work, brought him to the next important step in his career. He began training and learning to become a certified Council Facilitator at the Ojai Foundation in Ojai, California. There, he received a comprehensive education and practice in heart-led communication, and interconnectedness through circle-based communication. John immersed himself in Council’s curriculum based on ancient dialogic traditions and practices from around the world. While training as a Council Facilitator, his skillset deepened, learning how to hold sacred space and facilitate ceremony as a Fire Keeper at the Ojai Foundation and discovering the importance of and interest in rites of passage. The ancient practices of interconnectedness learned at the Ojai Foundation mixed with his own lived experience of creative integrity led him to lead and assist facilitation in five day rites-retreats for high school seniors, and was the beginning of John’s exploration into ritual and ceremony.

John’s work began as a theater actor, which grew into creative storytelling. It then expanded into rites of passage facilitation which then led to an embodiment of his work when he found his way to Santa Barbara, nestled between the rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Here, his creative work invited a new integration to include the human body when he became a practitioner of Resistance Flexibility. This method of body work delves deep into the layers of fascial connective tissues to release stuck and limited spots caused by trauma, injuries and/or repetitive patterns, allowing for a more balanced, positive and regenerative state of being.

The body then becomes a way to self-locate where we are on a physiological level, but also it’s a holding environment where the physical becomes an interpreter for the mental/emotional life within. It is at the intersection of our individual growth and development with that of the relationship to ‘other’ and the collective which is where John enjoys exploring and applying his affinity and skill around relationship building and desire to seek ‘win win’ scenarios whenever possible.

TODAY

While in Santa Barbara, he met Jennifer Love, where John’s work as a creative artist, deep listener and interconnected heart-led communications facilitator and mind/body/spirit STRETCH practitioner came together with his devotion to peaceful integrity and building relationships that reflect that as much as possible. All of his life he’s known himself to be a ‘positive’ critic, a discerning and curious philosopher, an integrous producer, and an extroverted observer. John strives to appreciate and embody the clarity and creativity that happens when opposing sides of the same story are held as equal. John’s questions are always: How does this serve and who is it serving, such that it facilitates the connection of individual integrity to the shared relationship with other along the path of our human evolution. Today he is honored to be part of the team at The LivWeal Institute where his process and dedication to peaceful integrity in products, production and within people are of deep service.

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