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.
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.
