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Djursland, 2001
This text covers a trip to Væksthøjskolen Djursland July 22-August 4. (The word "vækst" means growth - in this case emotional and spiritual growth, among other things. A "højskole" is not a high school in the sense the American high schools are. Originally they were meant for ordinary education in an extraordinary way: teaching farmers how to read and write, because they never learned it as children. Later the concept has become much more varied. Djursland is a peninsula of Jutland.)Week 1
The first week was simply entitled "Helbredelse" - you can translate it into Healing or Recovery, take your pick. The teachers were 3 of the regular teachers this school have. I didn't know any of them when we started, and when we ended I was simply very happy to have met Andreas Nordby, and to have seen the paintings of Irene Mihlendorf. Andreas has "my job" - teaching, writing, healing - doing a lot of the stuff I dream of doing, and making a living of it. Irene simply paint very beautiful, happy, colorful pictures, and I was happy to be taught by her.The topic of this course was all over the place, and I liked that - being able to sample a little bit of everything, when it comes to the world of healing, where a lot of opinions and techniques exist. Here I will simply tell you about the bits I liked most.
We learned a lot about projection. That what fascinate us in others, probably are sides to our selves we don't want to admit. Maybe we don't want to seem aggressive, and blame everybody else for being it. Maybe we don't think we're intelligent, and praise everybody else for being it! So it's a place to start working, on becoming a balanced human being, where every part of us is expressed - maybe a lot, maybe a little, but not always and not never. That way we'll also be able to see other people for what they are, and not just in terms of (not) being aggressive/intelligent... We learned a simple exercise to straighten things out - I'm not sure the technique is important, but the point is simply to say "I now stop projecting unto you, and I will stop being the target of your projection on me". I intend to work with this.
We worked a lot with colors and paint (guided by Irene, mentioned above). And I learned a lot from this, including that I like to paint! So I'm going to paint some more!
Sometimes an exercise would simply start with some dance, and maybe a song where we could sing along. Again, I'd like do this at home, whenever I feel like I could use some more energy. Such a simple trick!
A few pictures from this first week: the school, and one of Irene's paintings.
School
Painting
Weekend
Surprisingly enough, the weekend also had some significance. People started leaving early Friday, and the last left Sunday afternoon, those who didn't stay on for the next week. This experience of endlessly saying goodbye made me decide to leave early myself the next weekend. It was also hard for me to stick by "I can't just party on now, I have to rest between my 2 weeks here". But I did it!Week 2
The second week was called "Livskvalitet og livsfilosofi, der helbreder" (Quality of life and a life philosophy, which heals). The teacher was a guest, Søren Ventegodt, who is researching what can be said about physical health, quality of life and the connection between the two. He's a medical doctor too, and writes books.This course brought up a lot of anger and disappointment in me. Søren acted in a weird way. We made teams of 2 for the week, and my team mate acted in a weird way. And so on. But if I have understood the point of this course at all, this was supposed to happen! And more than a month later, I am still discovering new bits about what actually happened. Søren told us, he would do everything to "reflect" us (those projections again!) truly - and that a true, honest mirror hurts to look at. So a lot of pain came out - so we could work with it, and release it!
There was emphasis on working 3 ways: physically, emotionally, and with learning a new life philosophy. The physical way was introduced with the Rosen method. Being a very gentle method, where the body is simply touched, or maybe stretched a little, this is supposed to release emotions and memories, again so work can be done with them. I tried, liked it, and will try some more, combining it with the 2 other aspects.
Our life philosophy seems to be merely a lot of decisions - and some of those decisions are really dumb! A Danish proverb goes "Don't fly any higher than the wings can carry you - or better yet, stay at the ground" - with a philosophy like that, nobody will ever even try going for a perfect, excellent life! The theory goes: at some point, we experienced emotional pain - then we made a decision, that made the pain disappear, or maybe just lessen - but later that pain/decision showed up in the body instead. Some of the work we did was to try to find the point in time where some original decision was taken (and made sense, and wasn't dumb at all) - expose that decision to the light of day, try to release that decision, while experiencing the pain, that we avoided by taking that decision. Again, I tried doing it, and it seems to do something for me, so I'll try working with this some more.
One of the exercises was writing a wish list. 5 items, that really makes it tickle to think about. One of my wishes is: I want to go to New York on the Concorde. As I am not wealthy, and as the Concorde isn't going anywhere at the moment, that might seem like an unreachable target. But boy, I tell you, for some reason it tickles when I think about it! And once this item is on my wish list, I can work on getting there - I guess my main work here will be to get the money together.
Conclusion
For me, these 2 weeks also represent a new start in my life. In September I will start on a new school, and hopefully I will be a therapist (a rebirther) 3 years later. In a sense going to this school was part of my education - trying out all sorts of techniques, to be better at the one technique I have chosen to learn more about.These 2 weeks also were good in them selves. I have gotten a lot of inspiration: books to read, techniques to try (again), paintings to make... I gained a lot of insights, but as I consider them to be part of my personal life, I have not shared them here. And on my way home, I took a big decision, which already affects my life a lot. I am happy I did this. I don't know whether I'll be back, but it's not impossible.
Addendum
I didn't start on the new school in September, as the new school didn't start at all. My plans to become a therapist are shelved for now. But I don't regret doing this even in that light. My big decision was to take a new course in looking for a new job, and it has paid off: in November I will become a teacher (so far I have been a programmer). So I guess for the next couple of years I will concentrate on learning how to teach, and then I can get back to the therapist plans later.Created: 31 October, 2001 - Last changed: 19 May, 2008 - Comments (0)