mentoring & INTEGRATION
~ MODEL OF WHOLENESS ~ HEALING ~ COMMUNITY ~
~ MENTORING ~ INTEGRATION ~
Facilitating people and groups usually requires many skills in diverse healing modalities, in addition to indigenous, traditional and non-traditional spiritual traditions and practices. It is essential that facilitators continue their education in a range of professional, experiential trainings to be able to meet each person’s unique situation and continue to develop their own capacity to transform pain into pleasure.
CWays Home works with an integral model of mentoring, and with integration, based on the ancient Taoist philosophies of Nature. It requires a fundamentally different approach than psychotherapy as it is not based on alleviating symptoms but rather allowing the psyche to naturally guide the spiritual awakening process to guide people in to wholeness. It is in this state that animism, the interconnectedness and sacredness of all life, makes sense.
USING THE MODEL
The awakening model assumes that every experience, no matter how ecstatic or how traumatic is of equal value within the consciousness of life. The forces that create and destroy life can be utilized either consciously or unconsciously. It is one’s ability to experience and understand these relationships, to be able to play and dance with the Divine through all directions, that demonstrates what this work is about.
To become a facilitator in this work means you develop and apply the model as a living experience for creating all aspects of your service. It shows you the ways to use imagination to create learning environments, develop themes, play music, do integrations and care for clients between sessions. The model provides the basis for your own self care and spiritual practices. Most of all, it is central to the development and expression of your core authentic Self, your spiritual essence.
Cultivating presence by continuously meeting yourself anew and practicing presence is the essential task. Your guidance will then hold a loving resonant field that is more powerful than the distress and dramas your clients present. You will be guiding from a deep well of love, guiding in relationship with the Divine, sharing pathways from your own experience as well as using techniques that assist the refinement of the personality.
Healing
Most people come into this work because they are interested in healing – themselves, other people and the world. Most healing is predicted on the notion that there is something wrong, something that must be fixed, someone that must be healed, some daemon that must be expunged, and if you modify certain attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles, you will get free of pain, become ‘normal’ or at least gain a modicum of socially acceptable functioning. Whilst all of this is very important, it is not what this work is about.
The strongest resonant field for the human being to come into harmony with life and themselves is generated by the human heart in relationship with the Divine, with Nature. It is not striving for personality perfection, not the way we think we or someone else “should” be, not the state where “it’s all good.” What lies in the greater reality of wholeness, is the awareness of what Nature intends for each person – a state of harmony originating in love. This requires a perspective more expansive and more humbling than most of our narcissistic healing modalities, which are generated without consideration of ourselves as species in the great web of life.
To begin to experience where Nature needs that person to be within the complex tapestry of Life, this model suggests we must cultivate the wisdom of not knowing and surrender into working with the intelligence of Nature. Life has created in all its vast wisdom, a path for each person. The depth and complexity of the choices of that path will always hold the secrets to their, and our own, greatest mysteries. When you enter into that mystery with loving presence, when you allow your perspective to expand into this integral model of consciousness, that is when the most profound healing happens. The guidance that arises has a tangible quality to it, a quality of love that allows people to embrace themselves and others with the deepest acceptance of the truth of any experience, at any level of consciousness. It allows each person to become responsible for their choices and experience organic spontaneity.
Community
Each one of us on this path is called to be engaged in the creation of a more holistic, integrated community, one that is Life sustaining and love embracing. Your clients become your teachers, showing you the harvest of your inner work through their offerings of trust and friendship. Every person you meet can be a discovery of a new part of your humanity, a new window into your soul’s diversity.
For facilitators, this means we get to know and love the community of characters and stories that live within us. People will trigger the remaining unresolved issues of your history, the aspects and relationships you have yet to embrace within yourself. We all need a safe place to be able to go for guidance when this happens. Traditionally, some form of supervision is offered to trainees. I prefer to call it super-vision, which supports you in seeing your experience from multiple perspectives. This allows you to discover your own resolution to the relationships causing you dis-ease.
Most of your clients will be stressed. The way that you mange your own internal and external pressures will model the power of this work to make a lasting difference in the community. Every facilitator will wrestle with the issues of lack of abundance of work and/or the consuming demands of too much success. Learning to sense and feel the flow of your own tides and being willing to expand and contract your work is necessary to maintaining the quality of relationships with your clients, as well as with your family and friends. It means we embrace the feminine forces of emotional and personal limitations and the demands of our true calling, with an appreciation for the gravity of what we do. Work becomes a dance rather than a struggle, as you breathe with your own rhythms in harmony with the ebb and flows of life.
Mentoring
The way I enjoy assisting facilitators grow into their service is based upon the development of loving consciousness and imagination in relationship using the wheel of life. (Actually, the map is multidimensional. For the ease of this description, we will remain a while yet in flatland.)
As the work is based on experience, the more experiences you have of the work, the greater your understanding will be and hence, your ability to translate it into your service. There is plenty of scope for facilitators to create learning environments that express their individual passions and interests. The more aligned you are with what you love doing, the greater the richness of the flow that gets created. I am happy to support you into your clearest expression of your service as a passion, in a responsible manner. There are four directions to the guidance I offer:
- Individual super-vision is offered in relation to experiences with your clients, in your personal disciplines and practices or your relationships as part of mentoring groups organized by facilitators in training. This may also take place on the phone or in person with me or in intensive private retreats.
- There are a number of spaces available for trainee facilitator at each of my intensive retreats. We meet before each ritual and do an additional integration session at the end. You may fully participate in the intensive, or experience the field naturally, offering guidance if you feel called.
- Additional tools: In addition to the work, I also offer trainings in emotional development, shamanic breathwork, psychodrama, sandplay and symbolic language, sacred sexuality and biomimicry for the human heart.
- There will also be opportunities for facilitators to gather, share their passions and experiment with new ideas and skills with each other. This forum will be a way to share the incredible wealth of knowledge and wisdom we have in our community and find out who is available to provide skills you may not have.
There are so many opportunities to do the work now. I know many of you will be experiencing conflicts of commitment and stress due to your limits of availability and resources. Its OK! There will be many opportunities and you do not have to do every event that is offered in addition to the official training.
When people undertake to commence or advance their studies, it is recognized that there are periods of intense pressure, especially during career transitions. When you begin to organize groups and do sessions, you will generate the income and supportive environments that allow you to undertake more training. If you know where you are on the wheel in relation to your developmental needs as a facilitator, you will be able to more clearly make choices that are congruent with your life and dreams. As you apply the model, the differentiation between training, personal growth and spiritual awakening experiences, it all dissolves. All of life becomes the learning environment.
INTEGRATION
Integration offers:
- deep self reflection as share stories, and opportunities to see ourselves more honestly and authentically.
- a sense of belonging to oneself and to the community, an ongoing sense of connectedness.
- a safe place to explore choices, decisions and consequences of our beliefs, emotions and actions.
- a progressive environment in which we can evolve from too much doing into more Being.
- a nurturing, safe environment to share our wisdom, knowledge and resources with each other.
- the remembrance that we are all already whole, that trauma is but one landscape within us, and that our ability to learn emotional agility is an essential key to our well being.