Cultivating Calm, Metabolizing Stress – a New Course of psychodynamic skill-building for our Times
My courses, as you may remember, focused on cultivating the skills of presence and the emotional metabolism of difficult states of stress, so as to be able to bring your calm, open and solid heart-based state to yourself and your life.
In 2021, as it became clear that the structures and systems we depend on for the basics of life were beginning to crumble, the course members of the groups brought more feelings of crisis, upheaval, trauma and confusion to the course. I gradually realized that what I had prepared to teach was no longer meeting the needs of the time. But what would that new course look like?
I’ve taken a few months off, have been metabolizing my own emotions and confusion. I needed that.
In the middle of all this, I remembered a book that I completed in 2010 but never published. I am an author of non-fiction health-related books, and this was a book of metaphysical fiction, though based in true historic events and encompassing actual human experiences of, well, metaphysics.
In summer, 2021, I took the book out of storage and found a quiet place to read. The words of the text, which I’d all but forgotten, spoke to me with fresh meaning, as if I was reading someone else’s words. It was a remarkable experience. A voice from my past was reminding me who I am, as if I was being re-introduced to myself.
I showed the book to friends, and was frankly amazed that they loved it. With their feedback to motivate me, I set about polishing and now publishing this book. Perhaps you will give it a read, and see if it does anything for you? Send me an email to let me know.
Now that the book is “done,” and we have perhaps two months until the summer heat and local fires set in, I am encouraged to give another course, expanding the parameters. See below.
Each class is three consecutive weeks, evenings, from 5 – 6:30 pm, Pacific Time.
Over the course of three evenings, you are guided to be in touch with yourself in ways that open up healing conditions for emotional and physical pain.
Whereas in the past, classes were for healthcare providers, the course is now open to all adults who wish to learn these skills and to practice them in the context of their lives.
We will learn much the same material as previously. However, we will stipulate that after the first class, when we all share whatever we care to of ourselves and our lives and concerns, the emphasis will be on quiet work with minimal discussion, except for myself leading the exercises. Specifically–if you are a talkative person or if you have a need to have a personal interview for hypnotherapy, we can do that. To join the class, however, we are seeking to create a sense of calm and quiet focus in the group.
The reason for this is the increased size of the class. Whereas before, the class number was restricted to 3 – 5 persons, now the number is 6 – 9.
Bring your friends, your spouse, your colleagues. Let there be an element of team-building. The only pre-requisite is a sincere desire to learn the skills of quiet presence, that is, the ability to sift into states of open calm, and to return to and live from this place even as we face so much ongoing crisis in the world.