02 Jan Body Harmony Association Backstory

Dear interested party,

Various Body Harmony Association (BHA) committee members have been contacted by Body Harmony students, practitioners and teachers asking about recent changes. Many questions are about the formation of the BHA Inc. which has been described by some as a ‘division’ in the community. The BHA Inc. is not about division, the BHA Inc. came out of a common desire to bring Body Harmony to the world.

For this reason our committee has written an explanation as to why we formed and the perspective we come from.

Sincerely,
Body Harmony Association Inc.

Body Harmony Association Backstory: 

Before forming the Body Harmony Association (BHA), the founding committee members spent many years studying, practicing and teaching Body Harmony with its founder, Don McFarland. Some committee members are the longest running active teachers/practitioners in the Body Harmony community. With commitment and a deep love for the work, many of the BHA’s founding committee members invested substantial amounts of their lives and money in building Body Harmony businesses and ongoing study with Don McFarland. For some this was over several decades.

Twelve of the 13 founding BHA committee members were Body Harmony teachers certified by Don and the guild he formed. They also experienced how that guild functioned over many years.

Don was a phenomenal body worker and a great teacher. His legacy, Body Harmony, is a gift which the BHA would like to see flourish and become available to everyone. Unfortunately, the guild never offered the services and benefits guild members expected from their representative organization.

A brief summary of the main issues is provided below:

There was little benefit in being a member of the guild in terms of the support and resources the guild provided to members.
The guild did not present a professional face to the world and there was no support offered to promote and grow Body Harmony either through available resources or an accessible and functional website.

There was no transparency regarding the use of guild membership fees.
There was minimal opportunity to influence decisions of the guild. This included no defined governance arrangements.

There were no mutually beneficial relationships sought out with other models of work in the global therapeutic community.

It is the BHA’s view that the above issues resulted in the guild being unable to respond to many opportunities to expand the Body Harmony community and promote Body Harmony professionally.
However it did mean there was a 30 year gestation period of refining Body Harmony within a small community to create extraordinary and unique bodywork worth sharing with the world!
Just before Don’s death in September 2015, a new interim Body Harmony guild committee was formed with Don’s blessing that Body Harmony be owned and coordinated by the Body Harmony community. It was hoped that formation of this interim group would lead to many improvements in its operation. This interim group consisted of Duncan Hogg, Linda McFarland, Lindsay McLeod, Andrea Royen, Vicki Wooller, and by Rockie Mitchell.

Unfortunately, nine months after the formation of the interim Body Harmony guild committee there was no real progress. At this stage Duncan Hogg, Lindsay McLeod and Andrea Royen resigned, due to frustration at the committee’s inability to start addressing the issues already mentioned above.

This was of significant concern to many in the Body Harmony community who were hoping for positive and beneficial change.

Don taught us to be proactive agents of change in our lives, therefore…
After considering these events with the interim committee a group began to gather via webinar to explore possibilities to move forward.

The BHA committee was formed and commenced building a professional and transparent organization to support and promote Body Harmony in the best way they thought possible.
During this setup period, it took time to form a functional professional body and establish internal management processes with integrity. BHA decided it more appropriate to not share this information with the Body Harmony community until announcements came from a stable platform so that communication from BHA Inc. could occur in a supportive way, demonstrate results and be able to start providing a professional association for the Body Harmony community.

The BHA founding committee members registered Body Harmony Association Inc. as a legally recognized not for profit incorporated association on October 19th 2016.

The BHA Inc. invites you to join us on this exciting journey. We do not see division or a split. The BHA has been formed out of a common desire to bring this beautiful work to the world and lift it to a professional level without removing that which makes it so uniquely effective and special.

You are most welcome to be a member of both the guild and the BHA Inc. if you desire.

The Body Harmony Association is for every body.