Temenos location

We are busy updating the website and have being doing some work on the 'Location' page, feel free to drop by and let us know what you think!


http://www.temenos.ac.uk/location.html

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Soul Food

What a day yesterday!

I am not having any thoughts in particular, despite all the amazing stuff that happened, like they have just merged into one big feeling of satisfaction at being connected with others, and at 'being' in a way that feels warming to my soul.

Was a day of controversy as Brian is of course deeply religious and can talk in Counselling language and in religious language and of course he is also talking, or perhaps more accurately he is actually talking about spirituality.

I was fascinated by his encouragement to engage in a discipline of self love to remain well internally as a person and to remain open to others, the idea of discipline can feel restrictive and yet his description was of making time and space to take in the wonders around us, to ingest and digest healthy portions of 'soul food'.

This was particularly of interest to me as I am a person who easily rushes, and struggles to take moments to stop and reflect, the encouragement to engage in a discipline, to have time set aside so that days and weeks don't pass without any 'soul food', feels like a good one.

Wondering how I will feed myself today ...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Spirituality / Relationship

Been thinking about 'spirituality' in counselling this week as the workshop with Brian Thorne has been getting closer. I think more and more the word 'spirituality' sounds like 'relationship' to me, the relationship that I have with my family, friends, colleagues and of course clients. The connection that I feel and the changes that I experience internally, in my thoughts and feelings feel like a spiritual experience.


Hmmm .... Wondering what I mean by a spiritual experience ....

I guess I feel adjusted,I feel calmer,I feel warmer and I feel more like a whole person, a feeling of doing what I am meant for, a sense of feeling more peaceful towards others and a desire to be with others ...

ooooow! .... That's lots of different things ....

Not sure about 'what I am meant for', I don't think I mean some kind of vocation, but more like this is what this whole experience of being human is geared for. Trying to think of a metaphor ....

Trying to think of something outside of me that is just working smoothly, just purring away, and I get the feeling that it's doing what it does best, that's the feeling I get in relationship. And it feels counterintuitive to me sometimes, when my anxieties are up, when I am tired and want to be alone, when I tend towards alienation. And then I experience relationship, my openness to another and then sense their openness towards me, the feeling is of all the parts inside me working together to do the job that they were meant for.

Feeling less violent, feeling warmer towards other people, seems like qualities that 'spiritual' and/or religious people have searched for and to some extent achieved, and I guess it's something that I have tried to achieve in myself through other means, study, application of myself to certain principles. And while those things are helpful and often worthwhile, I find myself travelling to that place of peace toward another when I attempt to open myself to them as fully as possible in that moment.

Like relationship is a shortcut to what I have strived to MAKE happen in other ways. As I think about the communities I have lived in and the activities I have undertaken, they seem more now like 'something to do' while the relationship develops, perhaps the more anxious we are, the more we need activities around us to engage in while we slowly and very carefully move closer to the people around us.

And here I am bumping into the difference I experience in Counselling, for the most part there isn't another activity to engage in, there is the client, the counsellor and a space. The relationship is not being created while 'doing' something else ...

... or is that the case???

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Finding my true north

Was hearing some talk about conscience this morning, and how it's important not to have another influence that could misdirect my conscience. Like a compass sitting beside a magnet might not point north but gets distracted by the magnet.

Got me thinking about how I find my "true north" my own internal direction that is fully me. Is my conscience my guide in this? I have also been Reading about "unconditional positive regard" or "acceptance" today. And the posibility if growing into ourselves if we have the opportunity to be valued for our existence.

I think it's an unselfish valuing that fuels my growth into who I am, but I need the people around me to trust that I am inherently social, even if it doesn't always look like it, or feel like it, I am still doing the best I can, that my "true north" is a direction towards deep connection with others, an energy that fuels me in pursuit of my own passions and needs that are at the same time connected up to supporting others to expeience and satisfy their own needs and passions.

To be fully unleashed on the world I don't need to worry about my conscience being seared or misdirected but I need to be supported as I fully am. My worry about the person who questions my conscience is their desire to control for their own ends.

Let's fuel each others internal energies to be fully ourselves and grow towards our "true north"


-- Post From My iPhone

Where will the journey take me ...

Today i popped into edinburgh to see this exhibition Joachim Koester - Poison Protocols and Other Histories which proved to be a little over my head but I ended up here

As Others See Us both exhibitions enjoyable and fascinating in their own right.

Gets me thinking about opportunities that arise from and during a journey, ones which would never be envisaged at the start and never opened to us if we dont embark ...

Time Travellers Wife

Just been to see the time travellers wife this afternoon, really enjoyed it and felt moved by the experience!

I love the subject of time travel ... I think it helps me to lift my head up out of my life and think about where I am and what's important to me ... not an easy and perhaps important excercise for me as I can get totally immersed in the present!

One of the key features of the story is the character ... look away if you haven't seen it :) ... time travels back to events with a major emotional and psychological significance. Something that can happen in real life in times of stress, although not actually time travelling (stating the obvious) emotionally I can be right back in a previous experience and responding from that much younger and inexperienced place, everything I have learnt in between becomes innaccessible!

The movie was an interesting way in to this piece of reflection for me!


-- Post From My iPhone

Contact & Depth

Spent some time with a good friend yesterday and we spent time thinking about depth in relationship. I surprised myself as I found myself leaning much more toward the idea of contact, and seeing this in binary form, either as on or off.

This is a concept I was introduced to by Keith Tudor during the online conversation we had in June that will hopefully be posted to www.onlinevents.co.uk shortly.

I do like to experience "depth" in my relationships and have noticed at times chasing this to the point where I may try and force it, or perhaps like I am chasing a "fix". And I notice when I don't feel like I am really connected to the other I can feel unsettled, like something is going wrong.

And I surprised myself yesterday how happy I was with idea of contact, at any depth ....



-- Post From My iPhone