Come as you are - leave as you want to be! 7th - 14th June 2012

Get what you want in Life - A Retreat to move forward – finding inner happiness and serenity:
 
We all have times in our life when we know that we can no longer go on as we are – there may have been a major change in our lives, we may feel overwhelmed by stress, anger, depression, abandonment, bereavement, anxiety, worry, fear, panic, sadness, apathy, disgust, despair, lack of confidence or low self esteem and even lack of insight and understanding or a lack of spiritual direction or a direction in our Life. We may be self - medicatingwith food, alcohol or drugs either prescribed or recreational. We might havewondered if “this is it”? Or is there another way? I think there is always another better way!
 What I have realised in my many years as a Hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner and questioning Human Being is that most of the above – by no means exhaustive list – there are common factors and I have come to believe that there is another way forward that can be addressed by the dynamics of a group retreat where we all learn from each other.
 An actor friend of mine,Phillip Martin Brown, known for “Waterloo Road” on the BBC TV – wondered if I was offering to help you move backwards slowly up a Mountain! Phil is a joker – but he is also right – it is actually about stepping back slowly and looking at ourselves as if we were looking at someone else’s life – to see how to move forwards more happily and serenely.
 I have a practice called Edge of the World Hypnotherapy and NLP - and I was practising in Harley Street London -until I realised that I wanted to help people move forward more than I wanted a posh address. The name of my practice came from a play that I co – wrote while still an actor teacher student back in the 1970’s at New College of Speech and Drama (Now Middlesex University) for the Edinburgh Festival called “A Desert of Eden”; which was about the poet John Clare.
 Clare wrote how when a small child he lost his way or “got out of his knowledge” while looking for the Edge of the World and, having been lost for some time, eventually found his way back after many adventures, and confronting his fears, to his little village of Helpston near Peterborough and “everything seemed so different.”
 That to me is the perfect example of how we can transform our perception and perspective. In new NLP terms: “The Map is not the territory” - in other words we make up our own reality based on our experiences and more importantly what our parents teachers and friends teach us is “true”. However – no-one has a monopoly on truth – and what is true can shift a number of times in your lifetime – so to avoid self torture we need to have an openness to learning and a tolerance and understanding of difference. The point is, to quote Richard Bandler: “How much happiness can you stand?” And if you are directionless and unhappy – why invest all that energy in preparing to fail when you could be finding: How to be Happier?
Using new and original approaches we will explore through trance how to remove “what stops you” from a fuller Life. The course is held in the glorious Garfagnana Mountains and, while literally on the Edge of the World, with glorious vistas also offers you the opportunity to explore another Life – to see how ordinary Italians live – to visit some beautiful places and walk and talk and mountain bike or sit in the hot tub and ruminate on Life with fellow seekers after their own truth.
 There is also the opportunity for “one to ones” with me - and everyone will get at least one private session and CDs to take away for further “tranceformation”. The bottom line is that the answers lie within and we hope to open you up to changes – both in your Life but also in your Spiritual Life.
 I have worked as an Actor, Theatre Director, Teacher at all levels and Playwright as well as a Deep Trance, NLP practitioner, Hypnoanalyst and Hypnotherapist for over 35 years and I bring a mix of all those skills together. This course is about me facilitating personal growth and change in you and the group… and having a lot of fun as well as gaining insights and understanding of our individual process of development.
 The course also draws on the ideas of those visionaries: Richard Bandler, polymath co-founder of NLP and now insightful understanding of theHuman Condition, Joseph Connor – whose analysis of myths formed the basis of the Star Wars and Matrix series of films and the Glasgow welder, who rediscovered the three basic principles that run through all spiritual teachings, Sydney Banks.
 The Buddah is supposed to have suggested on his death bed: “Don’t follow me – find your own light.” I hope that you will begin to see a way forward from our week together.
 http://www.hypnosisresearchinstitute.org/index.cfm/2011/3/8/Storytellers-The-Actor-The-Hypnotherapist-the-Holy-Man-and-the-Shaman
 
Graham Howes ASHPH NHR GHR registered GHSC regulated CNHC approved and regulated