“ The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ” - George Bernard Shaw
“ It is possible that the entire healing relationship is actually founded on friendship. ” - Saki Santorelli
“ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ” - George Santayana
Yesterday we had the sixth session of this twelve evening "Life skills" course. I wrote last week about the fifth session. A dozen slides covering material we explored are viewable/downloadable at slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice
” - Martin Luther King
Yesterday evening was the fifth session of this 12 evening training course. I wrote about the fourth session last week. As usual, this evening, the material we were due to cover was described in a dozen Powerpoint slides which the participants received as a handout. See slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.
“From the place where we are right/Flowers will never grow/In the spring.
The place where we are right/Is hard and trampled/Like a yard.
But doubts and loves/Dig up the world/Like a mole, a plow/And a whisper will be heard in the place/Where the ruined/House once stood.
” - Yehuda Amichai
So yesterday we had the fourth evening of this twelve session course. I posted on the third session last week. What we covered is illustrated on the Powerpoint handouts I gave out as two six-slides-to-a-page handouts. Click on slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF to see.
“ Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you. ” - Jackson Brown
“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
” - Theodore Roosevelt
So it was the second session of the group yesterday. I blogged about the first session last week. Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis. It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting. It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind. They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.
“ A bird will drop frozen from a bough without once having felt sorry for itself. ” - D.H. Lawrence
Yesterday we had the first evening of the Life Skills group. I've written in the past about the background planning behind this group. How did this first meeting go? Well there were nine of us - eight participants and myself. Rather demandingly I'm both running a new course and trying to get used to new technology at the same time. For years, when running small group trainings here at our house, I've used an overhead projector to shine transparencies up onto the wall. For a while I've wanted to upgrade to a laptop and data projector, and this evening I went ahead to put this into practice.
“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.
” - Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO
In the 1970's I taught yoga and several different types of meditation. In the 1980's I began teaching courses in Autogenic Training, a form of deep relaxation/meditation. I continued running Autogenic classes for about 25 years. In addition to the relaxation/meditation exercises, the teaching also covered several other life skill/stress management techniques. For a much fuller description of these eight session courses, visit the Autogenic Training section of this website.
