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Jon Bredal grew up in North Dakota, where his experience of close-knit, small town community, and his early exposure to native American Lakota culture would prove central inspirations along his life path.
Completing his Master of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, Jon spent twenty years in the classroom teaching, coaching, and counselling middle and high school students in Minnesota, Colorado, and Texas, as well as for the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Early in his teaching career he created stirring teaching tools which explored pro-peace messages, gender stereotyping in children's literature, child abuse in the historical context, and native American folklore—years before these themes became mainstream.
In the 1970's he and his partner Susan Lloyd founded an award-winning documentary company which created uniquely moving and accurate historical films. This path took his young family throughout the American West, further deepening his resonance with native history and culture. As script writer, he honed his remarkable ability to both distil and broadcast the essence of knowledge, the clarity of which continues to speak directly to the heart.
Midlife sparked a period of intense spiritual seeking for Jon, bringing him to discover kinesiology and Brain Gym, then the best known and most powerful integrative movement method of the time. He studied this craft and over the years has blended his experience, insight, and exposure to other modalities into his own unique method of healing which assists people of all ages in developing skills that lead to inner peace and personal power.
For his work with foster care families, Jon received the 1987 Distinguished Service Award from Family Focus (Denver, Colorado) for his writing, speaking, and counselling of families involved in child abuse. He went on to work with the Seattle Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration as well as Washington Public Schools, giving in-service trainings and private sessions for juvenile offenders and at-risk students. During this time he also made presentations for the Washington Council for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and he has testified on behalf of gay parental rights. In addition, for three years he taught inmates of the Washington State Prison how to transform reactive behavior patterns.
Jon Bredal's committed contributions to the field of child development, family systems healing, and natural play are unparalleled at this time. Through a combination of reflex activations, joyful play, and spontaneous movement, Jon brings a greatly simplified process to kinesiology that more powerfully harnesses the inner healing abilities of each individual so they can integrate their primitive reflexes by themselves. His capacity for immediately diagnosing blocked reflexes is extraordinary, but it is his warm hearted style and infectious spontaneity that engages his entire audience. He makes the space for healing play so safe and accepting, that people of all ages may release their blockages effectively and joyfully. Jon Bredal makes healing for children and bonding for families deeply fun and deeply transformative—like no one else.
During the past several years, from his private practice, Jon has helped children heal some of the most challenging difficulties facing them today: ADD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression, sensory disorders, and autism, among others. His love of North American indigenous culture continues to inform the work he does with the Six Nations, Toquat, and Okanagan Nations. He has led workshops, given courses and consulted in over forty schools, community centers and treatment facilities throughout Europe and the Americas, where he now regularly teaches Healing with Children, and the Breakthrough Solutions Workshop Series.
Father of three and grandfather to seven children, Jon lives in the mountains near Wolf Creek, Oregon, and can be contacted at jonbredal@earthlink.net.
The Interview
In this interview, holistic healer Jill Meyer speaks to Jon Bredal about the main inspirations in his life, what he believes is missing from modern childhood, and he defines reflexes for the average person. Read on...
Q: I see that you feel a connection to native American Indian culture: can you talk a little bit about the role that has had in your life, and how it has informed your work?
Jon: My early experience with Native Americans gave me my first, most powerful feeling of spiritual resonance. At the time I did not know the name for it, but the drumming, dancing and chanting, and storytelling left a huge impression on me. I went looking for arrowheads with my Dad, and my Mom told me all about Sacajawea. Men like Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Thunder Rolling Over Mountains(Chief Joseph), Geronimo, and Cochise were my childhood heroes. I had a deja vu trance while picking wild chokecherries, the sensation of the wind sweeping over the prairie and the feeling of togetherness when playing basketball with the Lakota guys all made me feel like I had been there before.
Q: I believe sports is a huge part of life for small town folks in the Dakotas: how important has sport been in your life and what has it taught you?
Jon: For me, growing up playing sports gave me a sense of freedom, excitement, inner power and a deep connection with other boys and men. I learned how to work with others effectively. The main lesson sports taught me is to trust the flow, wait for the opportunities to surface and then take bold action.
Q: Jon, how was your experience of childhood different from what children generally experience today?
Jon: I grew up in a prairie town with a population of under 150. There were no computers or television, no movie theater, daycare center or shopping mall. There was one general store. However, it was a community in which all the children played together, all ages and boys and girls, too. There was amazing freedom to play, imagine, move, explore and create. Parents were involved with their children and were present in their lives. Everyone knew everyone. I've never experienced the joy of community like this since. However, by changing priorities so families play and heal together, we can create the same sense of community today.
Q: It seems paradoxical that right now, with so many people becoming seemingly more enlightened and more connected to spirit than ever before, it appears that the modern childhood experience has become more fraught with problems: learning blocks, exclusion through overweight, compulsive or uncontrollable behaviors like bed soiling, et cetera. You see this every day with children. Do you see an explanation for this disconnect-what are some of the reasons for why kids are showing such disastrous affects?
Jon: I feel the main reason for the epidemic of childhood difficulties is the lack of consistent, loving, emotional presence and joyful interaction from their parents. There is not enough early floor movement for infants to fully develop cognitively: too much TV watching, overuse of computers, too much homework and sitting at desks without sufficient play and movement - and physical movement is the single greatest factor of optimal brain function. In addition, there are a myriad of other factors including: stress during pregnancy, birth trauma, cesarean delivery, lack of bonding, drugs or alcohol, vaccinations, environmental toxicity, dietary imbalances, abandonment through early child care, and toxic electromagnetic fields. This is the dark ages for children in this society.
Q: You have stunning results helping clients and children integrate early infant reflexes that have otherwise inhibited them physically, cognitively, and emotionally. Could you explain in the simplest of layman's terms: what are early infant reflexes, what do they signify, what does their incompletion signify, and how are they completed?
Jon: Infant reflexes are inherent, automatic movements that surface while babies are in the womb and during the first several months of life. Their purpose is to help humans develop physically, mentally, and emotionally so they can survive. A safe, loving environment and plenty of floor space are required to complete these natural movement patterns; the baby must be able to move and explore. A child who is stressed or unable to move experiences a domino effect of incomplete and blocked reflexes, remaining stuck at early stages: one undeveloped reflex inhibits those which should be completed after it in the normal sequence of maturing. If these movement patterns do not get completed or stay stuck, they cause a wide range of difficulties including sensory challenges, fidgeting, compulsive behavior, lack of impulse control, anxiety, dyslexia, ADD, to name a few. Today there is an epidemic of primitive reflexes getting stuck in children and causing problems. However, the internal template is always available to be completed. Through specific kinds of play, natural expressive movement, developmental movement, rocking movement, repatternings and plenty of love and acceptance, stuck primitive reflexes can be completed at any age, often with amazing speed.
Q: You have facilitated some healing miracles through your work with children. What have been some of the most striking examples of immediate healing that you have seen?
Jon: One of the most memorable healings I recall is working with a fifteen-year-old young man who had just come out of detention. He had been in special education his whole childhood. He would fidget constantly, had difficulty focusing, could not look me in the eye, had huge anger issues and lacked impulse control. He would fight in class and once jumped on a teacher's back. I worked with him several times over the course of about four months. The next school year he became the best student in the school, so he was mainstreamed into a regular high school. His fidgeting had disappeared, as had most of his inappropriate behavior, plus he was able to control his impulses and maintain his focus. He also had developed more empathy and self-acceptance. The last two years of high school he achieved a 3.9 grade point average.
Q: I know you have had a history of mentoring disturbed young men through destructive patterns, providing a haven of guidance for them, and have also worked with inmates in prisons. Can you describe how or why this has been a calling of yours, and how it has affected your understanding?
Jon: At one point in my career, I felt a great impulse to work with youth offenders and prison inmates. I feel privileged to have co-created healing with these men. I felt comfortable with them and sensed that I had known them before; I had dreams of being in prison myself. I found them to be essentially the same as everyone else. I offered them a process they could use to dissolve their reactivity to external events and claim their internal power. I believe that given the appropriate kind of healing opportunity and an effective self-clearing process, anyone can become whole and leave destructive behavior behind.
Q: There are so many healers and speakers out there these days, and some of them appear to talk a good game, and have all the right moves, but on a soul level, one can feel that they have not cleared their own personal congestion, as you put it. How do you keep yourself fit? How do you come from a clean place, where you are not holding judgements and resistance toward clients, but rather succeed in holding a space for everyone to reach the highest level of healing that they individually need in that moment?
Jon: In essence, healing is the free, unobstructed flow of love energy through our bodies. Before an individual healing session or workshop, I clear the space energetically; ask for divine assistance from all evolved beings that work with me. I create an intention of co-creating the most profound and joyful healing for all concerned, including myself. During sessions and workshops I heal along with everyone else. When I notice any judgement toward someone, I take responsibility for it and do my best to transform it into acceptance. In everyday life, when I encounter struggle, internal resistance to events, or fear-based emotions, I use my self-healing process to transform the energetically limiting belief I am holding. I am open to working with other healers with whom I resonate. Every morning, I create the intention that every interaction during the day will be a sacred exchange of healing energy. I receive wonderful healing from spending many hours in nature.
Q: One of your daughters has said that you were the kind of dad that every kid in the neighborhood wanted to have, they would light up in your presence because you would play with and include everyone. How has being a father informed your work? What aspects of fathering do you bring to your healing?
Jon: When I was a child, I played a lot--within my family, with cousins and with neighborhood and farm kids. I played organized sports well into my thirties. I did my best to play and have fun with my own children. I have three wonderful daughters, who have always been spontaneous, creative and playful. I learned from them that play and creativity vibrates at a very high level. These are healing energies all by themselves.
In a sense, I believe that we are all parents to all the children. I always feel that when a child or children shows up to be with me, we have both chosen, on a deep level, to heal with each other. I do my best to allow the love vibration to flow through my heart to their heart. We receive healing mainly through the high resonance of joy and acceptance that we create through play. Often we act out unresolved issues. It is mostly unconscious. All families have the potential to do the same thing.
I feel like I never lost touch with that natural, internal desire to play and have fun. I've always loved children. They touch the joy within me, open my heart and help me to realize that the highest, most evolved form of consciousness is the natural play state.
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