Zen Counseling Training: The Art of Working with People
This training teaches the essential therapeutic attitude and inner skills that are needed to support a client to move beyond mind.
While not focusing on studying a particular method of therapy, we combine western psychotherapeutic approaches with eastern meditation techniques.
Our understanding is based in Osho’s vision of spiritual transformation and we learn how to support such transformation in ourselves and in others.
In a journey of 3 workshops we explore essential phases of session giving and working with people.
Each course can be accessed individually, in any order, as a complete workshop in itself.
TRUST AND SELF LOVE
ZEN COUNCELING TRAINING INTRO
In these days we learn how to connect again with inner and and outer resources and discover love for ourselves, confidence and trust. Rather than being focused on what is missing, we learn to recognise our own unique inner qualities that we have been gifted with.
When we heal old wounds from childhood experiences of being criticised or judged and learn to re-connect with our true strength and natural self love, we gain at the same time the ability to be more present and centered when being with clients or other people in general. Then we become capable to nourish what is already healthy in the other and our approach in helping people becomes less problem and more resource oriented.
We will also practise communication skills that support self-awareness and self confidence and in this way create a loving and healing energy field. Rather than being goal-oriented, we rejoice in spontaneous expression that arises out of presence. In this way our life becomes more a celebration rather than a problem that needs fixing.
COUNSELING SKILLS AND RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS
ZEN COUNSELING TRAINING 1
Experiencing authentic love is the basis of all healing. Because of past conditioning our so-called love is often mixed with demands or we unconsciously try to rescue someone from suffering. This ‘bonding love’ lacks the quality of restfulness and respect for the other and has its origin in unresolved bonds to our parents.
During this training we learn to stay more connected to ourselves when we relate to others and to overcome old dysfunctional relating patterns. Using a Gestalt model we explore the relationship to our parents and to love partners and explore how such relationships can flow more harmoniously. We unlearn wrong beliefs about love and reconnect to its essential meaning and in this way allow ourselves to grow in love.
On a training level we develop compassion towards a client that comes out of an empty heart rather than from a desire to help. We practise how to support a person to explore his own relationship dynamics and how to balance nourishing a client’s essence and confronting his defences. As our approach will not be technique-oriented, participants will be able to apply their new skills and insights to a wide range of different sessions and situations where they are in a position of helping people.
THE INNER MALE FEMALE DYNAMIC
ZEN COUNSELING TRAINING 2
Based on the insights from module 2 about how relationships work we learn about the relationship between our inner man and woman.
Through various meditations and guided exercises we discover how our inner male and female side relate with each other, who is dominant and takes too much space and which side tends to withdraw.
We explore their unique nature and what would help each of them to find their authentic expression in our life. Ideally, both have space to express themselves, and in this way, they can find their own fulfilment.
Unhappiness or frustration usually arise if one side is not being heard or seen and we often project this onto our love partners. Once our inner relationship reaches more balance, our relating to others simultaneously becomes more harmonious.
We find inner satisfaction when we learn to listen and follow the impulses of our authentic nature and this will eventually allow us to find a work and a creative expression that we enjoy.
The gained insights will allow us to work with a client in a way that nourishes his being and individuality rather than support his dreams, desires and ambitions that are part of his personality. We will also crystallise and dissolve personal problems around life issues such as relationship, work and meditation.
“Yes, my therapists are the best in the world, for the simple reason that other therapists are only therapists, they are not meditators. My therapists are meditators too. Therapy is a superficial thing. It can help to clean the ground, but just to have a clean ground is not to have a garden. You will need something more.” OSHO, Light on the Path
