Training for Transformation

Our bodies reveal our lives. This is a rare opportunity to learn what yours says about you. Much of our suffering is created by unhealthy patterns of feeling and acting that helped us survive the traumas of childhood, but then got stuck in our bodies.These patterns are not our true self: They cover up our true self and prevent us from shining.

The understanding of how these survival patterns show in our bodies was originally developed from the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich by Alexander Lowen. Lowen related character types to particular body shapes and structures. He created a map showing five main ‘Body Types’. This map both shows us where we got stuck and how we can eventually free ourselves and return to the present moment.

We will spend a whole day on each body type, learning experientially what each character type feels like from the inside.

This work is illuminated by the understanding of meditation: that there is a place of pure presence inside each one of us, beyond all protective adaptations and character types.

This process guides you through your teenage years, healing the wounds of that time and retrieving the qualities that are the essence of a healthy teenager.

The awakening sexual energy of a teenager is a gift. It is not only a potential source of physical pleasure; it also makes life an adventure and eventually a search.

Healing and embracing your inner teenager now, as an adult, will bring back into your present life a sense of daring to go beyond what is familiar routine. It will create the space for something new in your life.

The transforming power in your own body, when understood and practiced, can change anything life brings from a suffering into a gift of grace. Emotions and body reactions are not your enemies, they are teachers. When you learn the wisdom of the body, the heart and the nervous system, you can grow and change with every situation that appears in life.

You will have a chance to understand the messages you received in childhood about your emotions: how they impacted you at the time and how they come up in your life now. You will learn how to continue healing them in your adult life through accepting and owning them rather than blaming others. This way you can receive the gift that each emotional experience brings.

The body remembers and the body knows. When you can listen, it becomes your healer. When you let the body express feelings through dance, you open to the depth and beauty of life as it is. Something new happens. Life becomes a mystery to be lived, rather than a problem to be solved.

Through this inquiry and the heart’s acceptance we learn to be truthful with ourselves, making space for our needs and for new, more nourishing ways of being with people in all kinds of relationships. We cannot “do” change. But we can create the space within for alchemy to happen.

Elements of this alchemy:

Acceptance: the heart center can embrace what is with compassion – even life’s opposites. The mind cannot do that.

Aliveness: the intensity and fire of being fully alive in everything such as sadness, anger, love, tenderness, relaxation….when expressed through dance it moves energy and brings joy.

Meditation: when we have lived something totally, it is easier to watch. When we can bring witnessing and silence to anything, integration happens.

The power of the heart’s acceptance and presence expands your capacity to receive life. It grows each time you welcome and feel rather than reject and fight with what is. This resilience helps you in today’s unpredictable world, and in your personal life.

We will also look at emotional intelligence and trauma from the perspective of Somatic Experiencing, one of today’s emerging body-based trauma therapies. You will learn some of its science and keys, and how these relate to inner alchemy. If you work with people, it increases your ability to hold someone as they are, with love. This is the backbone of being an effective therapist.

Life is a mysterious unfolding. With each turn we take there is new information for us to process and digest. Just when we think we have figured it out, life brings us new situations to test our inner connection. Awareness is not about having a fixed idea, but more about being able to love yourself and others no matter what is going on around you.

In this course we will take a look at what is in the way of keeping us flowing. We will experiment with moving the obstacles out of the way and support the understanding that we are connected to a loving existence.

It is important to remember that we can not always control our circumstances. However, we do have the power to decide how we take care of ourselves and make the most loving choices possible.

This section is about discovering that wholeness within which is already there. It is about getting more in contact with ones life energy, with the inner lover, bringing back projections. This is how we can start having more enriched and nourishing relationships on all levels: with ourselves, with partners, friends, people at work.

Polarity is always in play in all aspects of our lives. Osho reminds us that Tantra has known this for 5000 years. Polarity charges us. In the polarity we become alive. Polarity is juice. First we meet in the outer and later the outer meeting can become an inner meeting. This play is Tantra. 

We will dance through the currents in the outer and inner play of polarity: In Eros, in the pull of attraction, in the male and female qualities and whatever might surface during these six days. We will honour and value each other. Celebrate the same journey we all are on from meetings on the outside towards wholeness within.

The teachings are based on Osho’s vision and the Tibetan Buddhist Tantra taught to us by Neel Fasting at Vaekstcentret. It is an energetic and meditative approach (not problem oriented), that brings understanding, awareness, space, and deeper acceptance. From here, transformation and growth can happen.

The connection with the body is an immense resource. With meditation and movement we will be opening up to the sensitivity to the flow of life, to the life energy in the body. From here we will naturally connect with the resources within, with possibilities of becoming more authentic.

Meditation practise is a fundamental part of this group. We will be using Osho’s active meditations, heart meditations, guided meditations and meditations from Tantra to balance the inner flow, within ourselves and also how to use these in our intimate relationships.

Key areas of exploration in this part include:

Energy – becoming sensitive to the flow in our energy system

Emotions and their role in our relationships

Eros – Strengthening our connection with the inner source

Joy – Connecting with the source and becoming available to joy

Sexuality as an expression of our life energy

Male / female polarity – getting to know our inner opposite sex

Understanding the difference between rising and falling in love

Heart – deepening our connection with the heart

Meditation – understanding its importance on a deeper level

There is no nudity and no exercises are done in couples

This course is the last part of the Osho Risk Training and it seems only natural to take a closer look at the issues that arise around the death and dying.

In our daily routine, death seems to be far away. Only when a person close to us dies or when we get confronted with an illness that could be life-threatening we suddenly become aware of the fact that we do not last forever.

There is a shock, fear and panic. It seems that everything we took for granted suddenly could disappear into thin air and all the security we relied on is gone:

‘What is it that really matters for me in this life?’. ‘Why am I here and what is it that I really want?’ The ego with its ambitions, expectations, worries and anxieties starts freaking out.

In this course we take a closer look: ‘Do I live authentically what is there in me that wants to be lived? What am I avoiding – what keeps me busy and distracts from my real longing?

Am I willing to let go – to let go of security and comfort? If this is the end now, what do I regret to have done or not done? Do I really trust the river of life so that it can take me to the ocean? With all these questions we will go through an intense process of meditation. It will create an opportunity to reconsider and listen to our deepest inner truths.