A personal account of working with Andrea and Paul

"​A Choose Again workshop in summer 2015 in Berlin introduced me to the Six Steps, and I learned that I have to take full responsibility for my thinking. This is harder than it sounds – my inner resistance was large."

"My name is Doris, I am 57 years old, and I live in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, have 2 grown children and am working as a project manager.
For the first time I experienced a brief moment of inner peace 10 years ago, I was in my mid-40s, it was an incredible moment, completely unspectacular and unexpected. I rested in myself, on a day just before Christmas, cold, damp and cloudy, in Berlin, in a busy street … and I was happy. At that time I thought, “I want this more often.” The years went by, many a moment was similar and I lived my old daily grind, on and on until I was burned out – exhaustion depression.
I took the opportunity that lies in this disease and started psychotherapy. I discovered Yoga, (which I had previously always ridiculed) and a drama course for which I was completely untalented. I realized after psychotherapy which inner beliefs and limits I live by. In the mid-nineties, after my first breakdown and divorce, I had already recognised some, but I had only changed them on an intellectual level. So I needed a way to really implement these changes, beyond my intellect. I then went in search of a way to raise my intellectually acquired new beliefs on the emotional level. This proved to be extremely difficult because the psychotherapy to this date (2012) had no answers.
In the meantime, my friend Andrea discovered the Choose Again Center in Costa Rica and began to work with their philosophy. Initially, I was very critical. The more I learned, however, from the work in the center, the more it interested me, for it was very different from what I already knew. A Choose Again workshop in summer 2015 in Berlin introduced me to the Six Steps, and I learned that I have to take full responsibility for my thinking. This is harder than it sounds – my inner resistance was large.
Since September I have attended Andrea’s weekly Skype Circle. I learn that it is mainly the little things from the past, or in the future, that are triggered by an event in the present and then go round in my head and produce discomfort. Often I ignore this, however, in everyday life, and it builds up. The regular Skype meetings give me the time and space to process this and I’ll step by step in my own pace ahead."
(Translated from German)