An Opportunity to Consider Your Life: Past, Present, Future

        During my middler year in seminary, a classmate invited me to a workshop she'd decided to attend at Loyola University.  It was both a time and financial commitment for an unemployed student...but what I read about it was intriguing enough to go along.  Now, twenty-five years later, I have the opportunity to offer a similar invitation.  I'm going to "At a Journal Workshop"... do you want to come too?

       A couple of questions you might be asking yourself right now.  Do I really need a workshop to teach me how to journal?  I don't even want to journal!  Why would I spend the time?  What is it I can hope to gain?  Is it really worth it?  Is this really something I should consider doing?  These are just a few, you can add your own.

       But, my invitation--based on my own experience--is sincere.  Over the past twenty-five years I've gone back to what I learned about my own life at my first workshop, again and again.  I've used Dr. Progoff's system of asking deep questions to help me in discerning my life, events and opportunities.  I've taught some of his most helpful techniques in retreats and to others who have sought my input in their own decision-making. I've helped folks write Steppingstones--those touchstones of our life and experience that are formative; but may be invisible to us. And as it was for me, it's helped people to really listen to their life with sincerity and often to find something new that they'd not considered.

       Ira Progoff, PhD. was a student of Carl Jung and himself a successful therapist. This method of journaling he pioneered, is structured to help us get at those things in the inner core of our being and to gain fuller perspective about ourselves.  It also guides us towards taking action in our life that we may have not yet seen or considered.  

      What I have found is that beyond being a tool of self-motivation or actualization, these few steps are a path of creativity, of healing and is deeply spiritual work.  It invites us into ourselves... and into the place of Spirit within...where God whispers at a level for which we might not often take the time to listen, hear or understand.

       Though the workshop is done in a group, your work is solitary.  There is no sharing what you write or think.  But together, we do our own wondering and remembering and are invited to write it down and explore it gently with ourselves.  I still recall my time at Loyola University in Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan in 1991.  It became for me one of those markers in life, where from that place forward I would be changed.

        Peace River Spirituality Center @ Pine Shores Presbyterian Church is hosting a "At a Journal Workshop" event April 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th. You can register for Friday April 8th and Saturday April 9th, alone -- or for all four days.  A block of rooms is being reserved at the Holiday Inn in Sarasota and a shuttle will be provided to and from the hotel to Pine Shores.  If you require Continuing Education credits, 12 CEU Credits are available. You can read more about the workshop, Dr. Progoff and Dialogue House at:     www.intensivejournal.org

        So again my invitation.  Join me!  I am so excited to be a part of bringing the Journal Workshop to Sarasota. I look forward to the work we'll be doing together.  I'd love to answer any questions you may still have.  Email me: thecelticmonk@att.net   I also have a brochure that I can drop in snail mail to you or send as an attachment.

Blessings and Peace to you,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller 

thecelticmonk