It was in February 2017 that I first heard about Diederik Wolsak’s work and the Six Step process.
At that point I had been a student of the Course in Miracles for 4 months and had been hoping for the miracle that would take me out of the deep anxiety and the feeling of hopelessness that I felt on and off for years. My life had become one coping mechanism after another for years, between a desperate spiritual practice, tools and medicine journeys, workshops, study groups and I had spent thousands of Dollars and countless hours in online courses to try to find out what was wrong with me – I figured there had to be something wrong with me because despite all the efforts, and the deep spiritual journeys, realizations and having lived in an Ashram for years nothing seemed to last more than a couple of days or weeks at best, before that same old feeling of desperation and being a failure came back. What was wrong with me??
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You will often hear Diederik refer to the 'Ripple effect' of the work we do at Choose Again. This is where one person comes to the Intensive Retreat Centre, or a Workshop, and experiences the transformation that the Six Steps to Freedom provides. Then, they take that transformation back to their family, or place of work, and people are curious about what has caused this change. Then, they try the work for themselves!
This is always a privilege to witness, and we want to share with you the story of one family who took this one step further, and started hosting Choose Again workshops in their purpose built Yurt! “If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family” (Ram Das)
Many of us, are profoundly dreading the upcoming holiday season. The idea of being in close quarters with a less-than-functional family can send cold shivers down the spine of even the most enlightened being. “How am I going to handle all the intrigues and unresolved issues that are ever-ready to explode over the dining table? When will it ever end? And how do I get out of this hell-realm alive?” Thankfully it doesn’t have to be this way. In conjunction with our upcoming weekend workshop, "Harmonious Relationships make Happy Holidays" we’ve asked the staff at El Cielo to share some reflections about their past holiday experiences. We wanted to find out whether and how their view of the holidays have changed by applying the Choose Again methodology. We hope their perspective will inspire you. As many of you know, if you have been to El Cielo or a Choose Again workshop, each day ends with gratitude. Around the dining table, everyone shares the things that they are grateful for or the people they are grateful to from the day - ending it on a high note. It feels terrific!
Studies by psychologists and psychiatrists have concluded that grateful people
I’m on my yoga mat; my head is resting on my outstretched legs. It’s very quiet - except for the last drops of the morning rain bouncing off the roof. Melanie’s soothing voice is guiding me and the rest of our small group to surrender into a “Caterpillar” - a classic Yin Yoga pose. “Find your edge...just be present with the sensation. Keep breathing...” My hamstrings feel like they haven’t been stretched for decades, but as the minutes go by I feel how they begin to open up. My whole body is relaxing. My mind is becoming calm and serene. I love Yin Yoga. When the class ends, I walk silently out of the yoga hall, to put my mat away. Breakfast is waiting for us. I’m relaxed, energized, and very grateful to know that fresh fruits, cereals, yogurt, eggs, and tortillas are waiting for me in the dining hall.
I walk in silence. The wind turbines are looming overhead, their blades cutting through the wind, swooshing rhythmically. A narrow asphalt road is leading us into the green horizon. I’m reminded of what a perfect day this has been. I have come to some powerful realisations in the circle this morning, and I am still feeling overflowing with joy and love.
As I feel the bliss rising with me, bubbling like a beautiful fountain which just wants to explode through the crown of my head, I notice my mind trying to make sense of it all. Even though our walk is supposed to be silent, I find that I just can’t hold myself back any longer. I have to share this joy. I turn to one of my walking companions, Simja, a trainee staff members at the centre, and I say to him “I think I may just explode with so much joy!” I have been at El Cielo eight times – not quite the record but close. There are a number of reasons for all those trips (no pun intended), but the main one is very simple – it’s my happy place! Now, if I’ve learned anything from Choose Again and at El Cielo, there is no such thing as a happy place – only a happy heart and that heart can be happy anywhere. That’s true, but like a touchstone, I keep coming back for more of the good feelings I get when I am there.
At El Cielo, the staff are trained to do two things:
“Resolving your own personal conflicts is the first step to ending global conflict.” - Joseph Eliezer I appreciate this thought, and would expand it to say that: Healing the addiction to conflict that lives in my mind is the only thing that will heal the conflict, that seems to be going on, out in the world. I’ve thought about this often in the last few years. Two things that have brought it into focus for me are recent school shootings and the rise of Donald Trump’s popularity as a political candidate in the United States. When I first started hearing about school shootings, they were far from home. I recognized Dear Friends, Remember, bliss is my birthright and whether I claim it now or not matters not one iota, but since it feels so much better... why would I not choose that now? The last weekend I had the great privilege of spending a very intensive time with the Beyond Addiction Team at a Vancouver workshop. The Six Step Process was introduced and practised by all with the result we at Choose Again are so familiar with: “Wow, this is so simple!” and “I can’t believe how much I shifted in just a matter of minutes!” Sat Dharam is a stern task master and she asked me to have a sign- up sheet for one-on-one sessions, fifteen minutes each, I agreed. Well, that meant that I ended up doing twenty two sessions in two days, certainly a new record for me and one that left me stumbling over my eye-lids by the end of Sunday. Hate the Players or Love the Game? A Critique on Critics and our Search for Identity - By Dave Vass4/14/2016 A nickel for your thoughts... I was listening to a local radio station recently when a DJ brought up the hot topic of the day: there had been a study done in Finland by a woman named Salli Antonnen, focusing on why people hated Nickelback so much. Apparently the author of the study wanted to figure out the root cause of the mass popularity of this peanut-gallery phenomenon by researching over 14 years of music reviews, given worldwide, over the course of the band’s career. The conclusions to the author’s study was that: “Nickelback is too much of everything to be enough of something. They follow genre expectations too well, which is seen as empty imitation, but also not well enough, which is |
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