The Leval Story: A shared desire for an easier way.
Leval was founded by renowned bodywork therapist Adam Michael Cook and spiritual coach Jacyntha Kamor
In respective practices, Adam and Jacyntha heard similar concerns from his high-performing clientele.
While their clients had attained incredible professional success as leaders in business, the arts, media, politics and wellness, many expressed they were missing a deeper level of connection in their lives – and felt they still weren’t living up to their full potential.
Despite their achievements, Adam and Jacyntha's clients dealt with anxiety, depression, unresolved trauma and negative emotions, which impacted every facet of their lives – their relationships, physical health, mental wellness and sense of fulfillment. From psychedelics to silent retreats, some had tried different approaches to access higher states of consciousness, but they’d found the benefits fleeting or the techniques unsustainable.
The pair saw a need for a new approach to spiritual and personal development – one that could be integrated into everyday life. The Leval Method developed from expertise in the fields of meditation, bodywork, energy awareness, breath and movement, and
a desire to help clients expand, evolve and thrive.
OUR FOUNDERS
Adam Cook
Adam Michael Cook is considered one of New York City’s top practitioners of corrective bodywork.
In his private practice in New York City and the Hamptons, Adam serves as the bodywork therapist of choice for an elite and growing clientele of celebrities and Fortune 100 executives. His ability to intuit his clients’ physical and energetic needs has garnered praise and reports of profound spiritual growth both on and off the table.
Adam holds degrees in science, business management and massage therapy, and he credits his spiritual training with furthering his innate strengths as a leader and teacher. While Adam and Jacyntha founded Leval together, Adam will lead the classes as Jacyntha acts as a consultant and mentor.
Jacyntha Kamor
As a distinguished professional leadership coach and international voice and movement educator, Jacyntha Kamor has helped thousands of students and clients reach remarkable levels of personal and professional growth.
Jacyntha has worked as a leadership development coach with executives of Fortune 500 companies, and been a facilitator, coach and teacher in Europe and across the US, from indigenous lands to the country’s most recognized institutions of higher education, including Harvard, Duke and Columbia.
Jacyntha holds a bachelor’s degree in movement therapy, and certificates in holistic health and nutrition coaching, reiki, bodywork and psychotherapy. In her own spiritual quest, Jacyntha has studied with many of the world’s most respected healers, shamans and spiritual teachers. Her work with individuals around the globe has confirmed her belief that each of us possesses extraordinary inner resources, including the capacity to heal and transform our lives from within.
Interview
An Action Plan for Your Soul: An Interview with Adam Cook
Read on and listen in to hear how Adam's bodywork practice led him to create a new approach to meditation.How have your own experiences influenced your decision to create Leval?
I deeply needed a connection to spirituality that felt like me, that felt attainable, and that didn't feel kind of kooky and wacky, or too mystical or cult-y. I just wanted to have a deep spiritual experience – and then I wanted to go to work after. I didn't want to have to adopt somebody else's understanding of spirituality.
We're very used to saying someone else knows better, I'll listen to them. That's not to say that we shouldn't listen to experts in their field, because they're extremely helpful. However, in addition, I think we must start tuning in to the inner wisdom that we're used to stifling.
When it comes to bodywork, what are your specific areas of expertise? How do they tie in with this physical approach to meditation?
My deep understanding and connection with people, and my ability to feel what they're going through, has led me to creating this approach. Because my brain is always internalizing what I'm feeling with my hands, I'm able to take my physical experience of spirituality and translate it verbally.
What need did you see among your clients for this kind of meditation practice?
The need that I see is for depth and truth and implementation. There are a lot of programs out there where you can go and learn something in a weekend, and it feels really good. But then you go back to your old setting, your old life, and it becomes very difficult to implement whatever it was that you learned – whatever technique or modality. I wanted to create these courses so that you can successfully implement the things your intuition is desperately begging for and utilize this incredible gift of a human body.
How do you see that meditation ties in with bodywork?
We're very aware of and familiar with our physical body. It's made of bones and muscles, and skin and organs. But we may not understand that there is a "subtle body" of physical energy within and around our physical body that we can't see, but we can feel it and work with it. You can start managing your body differently just with your thoughts and energy movement.
What do you mean when you say, "You are your own guru"?
When I say you are your own guru, I mean that it's time to start tapping into this inner infinite wisdom and inner infinite love that we all are created from and start putting it to use in our physical bodies. I'm going to teach this protocol to you and my thoughts around it, but you don't have to adopt every single word I say. It's a very personalized protocol that you co-create.
What does meditation and the Leval Method do for a practitioner?
When you learn the Leval Method, it's not an experience that someone does to you. You're not paying a practitioner to do something for you, you're learning how to do it on your own, on demand, so you get to use these skills forever.
These skills bring deep clarity; that deep loving empathy for other people and their human experience; creativity in your own life; and feeling a deep love for your own body; and finally feeling a deeper connection to source – where we came from, what we are, why we're here.
You talk about creating a vision for the life you want to create for yourself. How do you see that meditation helps achieve that?
When a person sits down to create a vision and an action plan for their life, and it's not informed by meditation, it's probably limited to the rational mind and need for control. When you go into a deep meditative state and you have source energy working in your body, when you ask intuition to come to the forefront and you simply answer questions with as little thought as possible, there's a deeper truth that comes through. When you break down the information that comes out of you in those states, you're getting an action plan from your soul, rather than only your rational thinking mind that just wants to recreate what is safe for you, which is what you've already lived.
I'm not here to say I know how to live the best way, do exactly what I do. I'm here to unlock something in you and allow for you to have a deeply personal relationship spiritually, and to your body, and then create an actionable plan in your life for change and growth.