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I was in France this September to help with staffing at the two Choose Again Las Labadous workshops.  I’d love to share some thoughts and images that have stayed with me. My time in France was beautiful, scary, frustrating, joyful, challenging, heart-opening and mind-opening. Let me tell you a little more.


The train to Las Labadous

Paris: Montpellier Station. The start of my trip from Paris to Carcasonne.  Busy, rushing and crowds of people at the station.  Everyone seemed to know where they were going and where to find their train. I did not. Frustration, fear and anxiety which turned to:

Resting quietly on the train, deep appreciation as the countryside unrolled. Grassy hills, fences, cows, small towns, ancient houses, tiny villages.  Bits and pieces of old stone fortresses and fences.  Small, prosperous looking dairy and fruit farms. Grapes, healthy green vines winding skyward. A feeling of years and centuries past.

Arrival in Carcasonne: a loving welcome from Christine and Martin, two Choose Again friends, also the owners and hosts and part of staffing at the Las Labadous retreat.  Driving through more green fields, country roads and roundabouts, winding up and then down again as we headed into the valley where Las Labadous rests.


Las Labadous Retreat Centre

Nestled in a quiet corner of the Aude valley.  Peaceful.  Large trees of many different shapes and species. Sheltering with a kindly presence. The foothills of the Pyrenees resting in the distance: a feeling of ancient grace.

Above us, on one side, an old, tiny town: Rennes-le-Chateau. Remnants of the castle, stories of Mary Magdalene travelling and settling.  Softness in the air.  A kindly presence holds all in place.

On the far side of the valley, and well above us, the remnant another castle, Chateau Bezu.  Perching high on a mountain, with the barest remains of a tiny chapel. Soft green trees and fields.  Mystery clinging to life on the steep edge of a mountain.


The heart of the retreat:
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Participants (clients and staff) from a variety of countries in Europe, and the US and Canada.  Some arrived with happiness, others came in the company of fear and self-condemnation.  A few felt they had been lax in their inner work, and were discouraged, looking to re-orient themselves back into clarity and peace.  Others came with a pleasant sense of anticipation, looking forward to deepening the well-being that the Choose Again work had brought them.

Staff were joined in one purpose: to be of service, knowing that our minds would be healed more deeply as we interacted in service and love with others.

In the retreats, there was honesty, even urgency at times, as people spoke of their challenges, shared in a heart-felt way of their longing for peace. Some spoke in anger or fear as they mentioned grievances they could not forget and the love they could not find. This was the first step – next came the powerful and sometimes joyful desire to take full responsibility for the experience personal suffering.  Followed by an equally strong desire to look at it clearly in order to process and release the underpinning beliefs.

I’m guilty
I’m unlovable
I’m alone, 
I’ve been abandoned.  

Over and over there was determination far beyond mere willingness, to release the habit of the same few beliefs that the ego builds a life on.

I heard different words, different languages sometimes, spoken perhaps with tears, anger or laughter, but always the same intention: letting it go, letting it all go.  I saw people exploring peace, feeling the strength of the goodness within.  Keeping it company until it felt like a friend.
Daring to find a home in the love that stays steady on shifting sands.  

Time moved quickly, and it moved slowly, but all was done that needed to be done.  Healing flowed in and through and around each of us, weaving its way through hearts and minds. Each received as they could, and took away what best suited their purpose. 

After the last workshop ended, I was relaxing in my room, enjoying a final night at Las Labadous. Savouring the feel of all that had gone before and beginning to think about my journey home – its possibilities and unknowns, as I continued on.


Heading home:

A couple of days later at Charles de Gaulle airport: An overwhelming crush of people, slowly stopping and starting again as we were moved through security. Stern looking agents and officers, tired looking airport employees, herding us into line.  

Finally, through it, out the other side and into a glorious and quiet corner of Starbucks, near the gate my plane would be leaving from.  I sipped my coffee, relaxed into the couch I was sitting on.  I picked up my book, and I read this:

“…………Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the decision to wake.  The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love………………”. 

ACIM

The will to love……yes.  The workshop, in a nutshell.

​-Dawn Green

Interested in learning to practice the Six Steps for yourself? Check out our half-day introductory intensives and experience this work for yourself.

"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises."
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Dear Friends, 
I have been using the above quote from lesson 12 (ACIM) as a foundational teaching in circles and sessions lately. I have come to realize (yes, I am slow) that what we learned in the 1930's, and the last 5 or so years again, is that a repeated message, true or false, becomes true in the minds of the reader over time. The message I glean from the above quote is that I have to train the 'decision maker' to step up and recognize that the information coming from the ego will at all times be consistent with my core beliefs. Once that recognition is accepted I then have to learn to turn to the Loving Self, patiently waiting within, and ask: "Is there another way of seeing this?" I, the ego, has an immediate assessment ready but that information will never lead me to a peaceful approach to whatever seems to be happening.

When I use my definition of Love - joyful surrender to what Is - I am speaking to just that process: surrender to the interpretation the Self is at all times ready to provide. The reason that is inevitably a 'joyful surrender' is that the Self will always provide an interpretation that leads to healing. The meaning that the Self gives to whatever seems to be happening is always one that would make me "indescribably happy". There is something astonishing and enticing in those words: "indescribably happy". Who would not want that? Well, very few it turns out. The resistance to ignoring the ego's judgment is tenacious. The ego is the only thing 'I' (the ego) trusts, what a surprise. 

There is also a strange reaction to the idea of being 'indescribably happy' and that is the ego invariably will say: "that would be boring" and then the old red herring of constant sunshine being boring is tossed on the table. "I like my feelings, just like I like the seasons." And, then, when asked: "If you had the choice to be gloriously happy right now, or stay in your current state of depression (or anxiety, or rage, or worry), a person will always answer that happiness would naturally be preferred, just not constantly. It re-boggles the pre-boggled mind.

Give yourself the discipline to practice the above paragraph, it will change the way you react to any potential upset and is a perfect adjunct to the Six Step Process. A wonderful New Year's resolution would be: "I am going to question everything I now believe to be true and I am going to ask the Guide within to help me see what IS True under all circumstances."

Love,
Diederik

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Diederik Wolsak is the Founder and Program Director of Choose Again and author of Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom.

Are you feeling stuck in unwanted patterns of emotions and behaviour?
Could it be that your coping skills are keeping you there?
There is a downside to coping. By facing emotions head on, rather than pushing them away you can become unstuck and actually thrive. I’m going to point to a transformative way of dealing with difficult emotions. 


At this challenging time in human history we’ve all needed to fall back on our coping skills to get us through unusual circumstances such as lockdowns, zoom overload, or working from home without a dedicated office space. These situations have given rise to feelings of isolation, overwhelm, anxiety and countless others.


Coping is how we deescalate a situation or turn down the volume on unwanted emotions. Whether it is counting to ten to avoid bursting with anger, downing a glass of wine after a stressful day of working from home, or binging on Netflix to quiet anxiety over endless bad news, we have found ways to get by. The problem is that this is a temporary solution and the root cause of our emotional reactions has not been tackled. There is a downside to merely ‘coping’. The same emotions will keep coming up and the pattern is held in place.


There is a better way that will allow you to thrive rather than just survive. Our emotions can help us get to the root cause of our upsetting feelings and heal them there where it can actually produce lasting change. That’s where the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom come in.


SOLUTION
Here are the necessary steps (for the complete version see Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom by Diederik Wolsak):

• Allow yourself to feel

Allow yourself to feel the emotion, rather than push it away. It might be necessary to use a coping skill in the moment, but then revisit the painful emotion later in the evening or when you have more time to take a closer look. We humans can get into an emotional state just by thinking about an event, so don’t worry about forgetting what the feeling was – it’ll be right there in an instant. Identify the emotion you are trying to cope with. Is it anger, fear, worry, rage? How would you describe it in a word?

• Process your Upset! Apply the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom

If you are reading this post, it is likely that you have some knowledge of the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom (Wolsak 2018). For those unfamiliar with it, here’s the basic idea: 


Whenever we are experiencing an emotion (other than love, joy or peace), we can be considered to be upset. Our emotional reactions are driven by the negative beliefs that we formed about ourselves in early childhood events which we have experienced as being traumatic and these are stored in our systems. We can therefore feel our way back in our memories to find the initiating incidents and the beliefs about ourselves we made up as a result. It is not true that you are unlovable because you broke your grandmother’s favourite vase or didn’t win the spelling Bee. We can forgive ourselves for making up negative beliefs that were never true and remind ourselves of our Inherent Worth. Reassure yourself that nothing you do or say or did or said can change the truth of that. This realization frees us and changes our behavior patterns. You will find that you are no longer triggered to the same degree when your adverse childhood experience is reinterpreted in this way. 

• Practice

Be vigilant with your emotions and process them frequently so that you can quickly identify which negative beliefs are driving the emotion that you are experiencing. We usually have just a few ‘go to’ emotions which are driven by some pretty common underlying beliefs, such as ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m bad’, ‘I’m weak’ or ‘I don’t belong’.  You’ll soon become adept at spotting the beliefs and correcting them so that the process doesn’t take more than a few seconds. Choose Again offers numerous in-person and online circles every week to keep you on track and workshops both in person and live on Zoom.  Mastering the Six Steps is an online course that you can take at your own leisure online. www.choose-again.com


SUMMARY
Coping skills by nature help us to avoid looking at root cause of emotional reactions. There is a time and place for them – they allow us to survive, but to thrive you can revisit painful emotions and use them to heal old limiting beliefs that you made up as young children. The Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom provides a proven path to calm and self-realization. 
To recap, here are the steps:

• Allow yourself to feel
• Apply the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom to your upsets
• Keep practicing!

CONCLUSION
Turn surviving into thriving in any situation by welcoming the emotions that coping skills downplay. By following emotions into memories (using the Six Steps to Freedom), you can go to the root cause of the discomfort that COVID-19, relationship problems, climate change, and other challenging situations seem to provoke in us. Practicing the Choose Again Six Step process regularly will lead to the ability to stay calm rather than needing to ‘cope’.


Helpful resources:
Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom by Diederik Wolsak RPC, MPCP
Choose Again online Circles
Mastering the Six Steps online course

​​Everything is a Neutral Fact
 
Lessons you can share with your kids or with your inner child.
By Anne Andrew
 
#1 Everything is a neutral fact
These are just facts:

• School’s out.
• I broke the window with my soccer ball.
• Mum or Dad yelled (parents do that sometimes!)​

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​ There’s nothing inherently upsetting about these facts, but we may feel good or bad about them because of our thoughts about them. The good news is that we can change our thoughts – we are in control of our thoughts. That’s pretty good to know!
 
Facts have no emotion attached to them in and of themselves. However, we react to facts based on our beliefs (ideas) about ourselves. It is your thoughts that cause you to feel bad. So, if mom or dad yells at you, you are likely to be upset – not by the yelling itself, but by what you think it means about you.
 
It is just a fact that the person in front of you is going red in the face, looking angry and speaking at a higher volume than usual, but you are upset about this if you have a made-up idea about yourself that is being triggered.
 
The following made-up ideas would likely be triggered by this scenario:
 
I’m not safe
I’m bad
I’m guilty
I’m not loveable
I’m powerless
 
It is almost certain that you have all these beliefs and more. The reason is that you were a tiny being when you came into the world and you are looked after by big people who share these made-up ideas. It can be terrifying at times! It is important to know that these ideas are not true.
 
Action Steps:
List your ‘triggers’ as statements of fact. So, for example, if you were upset by something your friend said to you or the reaction of your sister, or something you did that was clumsy, just
write:
 
My sister laughed when I broke my favorite model airplane.
My friend called me stupid (or whatever it was).
I spilled juice on the carpet.
 
Now look at the list and see that when these are stated as facts they no longer have the same emotional charge.
 
Wanting things to be different than they are is painful. By stating facts, you now know that this thing happened. Wishing that it didn’t doesn’t help at all.
 
Actually, the fact that the trigger event happened can be a really good thing because if you have an emotional reaction to any event (or fact) you’ll know that you have an idea about yourself that isn’t true. You can learn how to find and fix those mistaken ideas. Eventually you may even be able to welcome triggers! We’ll work on that another time.

Anne Andrew

Anne Andrew is the author of What They Don’t Teach in Prenatal Class:  The Key to Raising Trouble-Free Kids and Teens and teaches workshops for parents in person and online. You can find this blog and other teachings here:

https://www.anneandrew.com/blog/choose-again-minis-lessons-you-can-share-with-your-kids-or-with-your-inner-child

The software is our beliefs that we have taken to be true during our childhood. We give meaning to big, but also to apparently small events that are untrue.
For example, praise for good grades in school can mean that love must be earned. When a computer crashes, you can press Control + Alt + Delete. The task manager pops up and you can see which processes are currently running on the computer. We can do the same when we have the feeling our lives crash. With which beliefs have we programmed ourselves that keep us from living a more happy and freer life?
​True freedom is cleaning up the old programs and forgive ourselves for the falsehoods we believed were true. An interesting fact is that the famous Windows XP background with the green pastures is called ‘bliss’. When we clean out the mess, bliss remains.
Warm regards,
Floris

What can possibly be awkward about silence?
It isn’t the silence that is awkward, it’s your thoughts, that you notice in silence, that are awkward. It is the mental process of figuring out how to stop the nagging voice in your head asking what is it that you need to say to fill the void, to impress, to impart information, to collude, or to invite so-called friendship. 

Process the Awkward Feeling
Here’s the good news: If you feel awkward when faced with silence or a ‘pregnant pause’ in the conversation then you can welcome that awkwardness as a healing opportunity – It’s Step One of the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom! Simply proceed through the rest of the six steps noting that THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE SILENCE IT’S ABOUT YOU. Feel the feeling. Remember the first time you felt that same way. What did it say about you that you felt that way as a young child? Forgive yourself for your mistaken belief. Then check back in with your feelings in the memory and in the current situation.
 
You know you have made peace with silence when the term ‘awkward silence’ no longer applies. After a while it will be welcomed as means for communion rather than communication.
One of the most intimate experiences you can have is to share silence with someone while watching a sunset or gazing at a great view. 
 
Silence is Golden
There is an Arab proverb written on the mantel of the fireplace in the dining room at Les Labadous:
 
“Don’t open your mouth to speak unless what you have to say is more beautiful than silence.”
 
If silence is so beautiful, then why it is so difficult for us to maintain silence at El Cielo, at Les Labadous and other workshops or retreats?
 
Hafiz offers one answer:
 
"Is not most talking a crazed defense of a crumbling fort?"
 
We might not like to admit it, but talking simply defends our ego’s attempts to convince us that we are the separate beings that we have self-created. The persona we present—the skiing, hiking, successful lawyer, the sporty academic, or the artsy, loving parent—is just the icing on the ego identity that we consciously or subconsciously believe to be a vicious, nasty piece of work. We use conversations to tell others who we think we are and to collude with who they think they are. When we know who we Truly are there are no words needed. There is nothing to convey. Your essence and mine are the same. What is there to talk about?
 
Choose Silence
Silence is another tool in the Choose Again toolbox, just as important as the Choose Again Six Steps to Freedom, because it provides a means by which we can notice our thoughts and feelings—they are not buried beneath needless chatter so they can be challenged and processed. It can help to strengthen the decision-maker. 
 
 
Use Silence to Strengthen the Decision-Maker
Deciding between silence and the ’need’ to talk is one effective way of strengthening the decision-maker. Catch the thought “I need to speak now” then engage the decision-maker first. Run through the THINK formula before talking: Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Important? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? And is it more beautiful than silence? Can it be communicated without being spoken aloud? I can choose to be silent. Choosing to stay quiet is a choice to listen to the Self rather than the ego, which uses words to further its cause.
 
 
Practice
Next time you are in a social situation pay attention to what you talk about. Make a note of your conversations and later figure out what roles those conversations played. Did they confirm the ego identity that you made up or did they bring you closer to knowing the essence of your being?  What are the beliefs that were confirmed or denied? Who do you think you were getting to know? Another ego or the essence of another? If you learned something new - what was that information for? What does that information confirm or deny?
 
Dig deep and discover the meaninglessness of most conversations and the way they maintain the belief that we are separate beings. Choose the communion offered in silence instead of the distraction offered in chatter.
 
As Poonja frequently reminds us:
Simply be quiet

Question 1:  “If you get a 'bad' feeling about an interaction with someone, how can you tell if this bad feeling is just from the past coloring your perception of the present or a real intuitive warning that this person is not trustworthy and out to harm you?”  
 
This is not a simple question or one that can be answered quickly.

Remember Step 2? Step 2 says, unequivocally: It is about me. Any and all feelings are chosen by me and 'by me' I mean the 'self' I made up, a belief in other words. So the bad feeling may be chosen by a belief that I deserve to be punished for example and I see the 'punisher' in this person. Or it could mean that have done what I suspect this person 

could do. Or ... I could go on. Only you know which belief chose your reaction. Whatever I experience at any time is a replay of something that happened a long time ago. (in my case as long as 77 years ago). That does not mean that the form of the experience is the same, but the feeling is. That feeling sends me a message about me. This is how I get to the belief, the feeling guides me there. And then process the belief and look at this person again through a clean lens. Clearly if this person is known to be untrustworthy (or, rather, if this person has a strong belief in their guilt) you do not leave your wallet lying around. Trust in Allah, but tie up your camels.   

I am not really concerned with intuition as it can so easily be used by the ego to defend unloving behaviour or provide a ‘respectful’, and unquestioned, cover for a mistaken core belief.  
 
The second question was: “What if you cannot connect any incidence from your childhood to present feelings of anxiety about certain situations?  Can some perceptions of present situations be influenced by past live experiences?”

If I cannot connect the feeling to a specific memory, simply ask what message the feeling is giving me about me. If I am upset, a quick way to the belief is to ask: "What am I believing about ME right now?" Whatever that belief is, it is never True. How do I know it is not True? I am not at peace.
 
Just as I am not concerned with 'intuition' I am equally unconcerned with 'past lives'. It really does not matter. NOW is the time I can heal old beliefs whether I made them up 75 years ago or when I was a Pharaoh 4378 years ago. I am never a victim of the past or of time. 

Love,
Diederik

There’s an inherent contradiction when it comes to doing spiritual work. If the answer lies within, then why travel somewhere else to find it? Simply meditate on the question, “Who am I,” and all will be revealed.
But what fun is that?
And how do I cultivate the humility, discipline and willingness to go within and heal in the first place?
The answer can sometimes be simple, by sharing the process with others.

​There is something empowering about the shared permission and trust that is built while working together with others on a common goal, it elevates the potential for everyone in the group.
On many occasions, being present with others in our programs has uncovered my own buried memories and emotions, there to be finally recognized, healed and forgiven… and when the energy is just right, a single heartfelt process can have a broad and healing impact on an entire group, without some of us even needing to say a word.
For me this makes the work that we share at Choose Again uniquely efficient and broadly accessible. And our recent time in France was no exception. When the goal is peace, extraordinary people will find each other and work together to remove what seemed to be impossible barriers.
To that end I am enormously grateful to be a part of facilitating these gatherings, and I look forward to seeing each of you some time along the way.
Andrew is a Choose Again Workshop and Retreat Organizer. You can reach him at any time to have a friendly conversation about our programs and other resources available to you.
Email: Enquiries@Choose-Again.com
Toll Free: 888-832-5959

Learn more about the workshops in the South of France