LAST CHANCE TO BOOK
WORKSHOP STARTS
SATURDAY 11th September
ALL SESSIONS ARE RECORDED SO YOU CAN MISS ONE AND STILL CATCH UP
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
THE QUEST FOR MATURITY, SOUL & RESILIENCE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
An Initiatory Programme for Men and Women
Scroll down for free of charge access to talk
THE HIDDEN FACE OF SHAME
at the bottom of this email
Each session will be recorded so that if you miss one, you can catch up in your own time. We will generate a community, with self-facilitated small group meetings in between the main sessions. William ran a workshop using this format that started in November 2020, and he was so impressed with how helpful and effective it was, that we have decided to run one together.
“In the middle of the journey of life, I awoke to find myself
in a dark wood where the way was wholly lost.”
Thus the great poet Dante begins ‘The Divine Comedy’, his journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Seven hundred years later we are, once again, beset by uncertainty and existential threat – living through what many believe to be the end of an epoch. How do we find our way in such dark and uncertain times? How do we navigate our own Inferno? How do we meet the mystery?
In this eight-part online programme, beginning on 12th September 2021, Juliet Grayson and William Ayot explore ways to wholeness, healing and a soulful sense of belonging in a troubled world. Each three-hour session will stand alone but build – through teaching, exercises, inter-action and ritual – into an initiatory programme for men and women – exploring the great mystery of maturity.
Session themes to be explored session by session:
- Family First: Beginnings and Roles
- The Second Self: Embracing the Shadow
- Initiations: Conscious and Unconscious
- Life Purpose and Meeting the World
- Living in Paradox: Love and Relationship
- Turning for Home: The Beginning of Healing
- A Deeper Dive: Making and Breaking
- Full Circle: Spirituality, Nature and Coming Home
Course Content in More Depth
“To begin at the beginning…” Having looked at the terms and parameters of our journey, we delve into our beginnings, childhood roles and the experience of innocence. Topics include:
- How we are made and imprinted.
- Attachment styles and a sense of belonging.
- Stereotypes and designated roles.
- The open child, and the rapture of being alive.
- The loss of innocence and the sacred.
A clear-eyed look at the human shadow – source of our greatest troubles, unforeseen dangers, and unexplored potentials. Topics include:
- The birth of the Shadow and our dark potentials.
- The Bipolar shadow of too much and too little.
- Shadow on the grand scale – evil in society.
- Eating the Shadow and “making the darkness conscious”.
- The Golden Shadow and our hidden potential.
Occurring throughout life, initiations are about more than transitions from adolescence into adulthood. This session looks at ongoing initiation as a positive necessity. Topics include:
- Milestones and marking initiations in life.
- Trauma and loss as initiation.
- Self-initiations and unconscious initiation.
- Grounding grandiosity: naivety, narcissism and initiation.
- Ritual initiations and rites of passage.
Here we look at our interface with the world – at vocation and direction. Are we on the right path? Are we leaders or followers? And are we ready to stand up and be counted? Topics include:
- Finding true purpose: right challenge, right path.
- Passion and action: standing up and speaking out.
- Life as an art-form: ambit and ambition.
- Making a difference: leading and serving.
- Becoming who we really are: work and the soul.
This session looks into the people-growing machine that is relationship –unpicking the confusions and contradictions of becoming and belonging. Topics include:
- The path of love: from romance to reality.
- We are one: the dangers of fusion.
- The wounded heart and the dark side of relationship.
- Attachment & autonomy the dance of differentiation.
- Yes, no and maybe, the art of negotiation.
Some call it a mid-life crisis, others a great awakening – but there comes a point in life where the soul comes a-knocking and old ways of doing things just don’t work anymore. Topics include:
- The soul’s insistence: recognising the call.
- Refusal and denial, inaction and avoidance.
- Crisis and awakening – the road to wholeness.
- Guides and teachers – staying on the path.
- First things first: the order of the work.
The core of the work lies in meeting ourselves, making deals with our soul (or psyche) and addressing those parts of ourselves we’ve so often failed to challenge or change. Topics Include:
- If not now, when? Grasping the nettle.
- Fears and resentments: the door to change.
- Working with our grief, anger and shame.
- Addictions, avoidances and self-sabotage.
- In the belly of the beast – self-care and support.
Having looked at our past and our blocks to generativity, our final session brings us to a point where we can start to develop a richer inner life and spirituality. Topics include:
- The generative heart and the gift of compassion
- Reconnecting with nature and the Anima Mundi.
- Ritual, offering and addressing the Other.
- Gratitude, devotion, and the arts of surrender
- Letting go and self-acceptance: coming home
Building a self-development community
During this workshop we will encourage the group to create a community. We will assign people small groups, to reflect, share and explore. There will be initial guidance, and then these self-facilitated study groups will make their own arrangements to meet between sessions.
We will provide a closed, online forum for whole group discussion. There will be a relevant resource section, where participants are invited to post information that is related to the course content. There could be online articles, essays, YouTube clips, and so forth.
The Practicalities
The programme will consist of eight live meetings with William and Juliet.
Each meeting will last approximately 3 hours.
There will be self-facilitated small discussion groups between the meetings, and an online group forum.
Tutors: William Ayot and Juliet Grayson . They will usually co-facilitate. There may be an occasional exception, where only one of them leads the group.
Live Lecture/Workshops: Saturdays 2 – 5pm (UK Time).
Where: Online using Zoom Meetings (Sessions will be recorded in case you need to miss one)
Meeting Dates: Fortnightly from Saturday September 11th 2021 for 8 sessions.
Cost for the whole programme:
£660 full price.
Need time to pay: contact [email protected] with the details of what you can realistically manage per month.
Recordings: All talks will be recorded.
Registration: Requires two steps:
1) Fill in this registration form (which has a few questions)
2) TO PAY IN FULL . Click here
If you would like payment terms (i.e. paying over a longer period of time) email [email protected] and [email protected]
NOT YET READY TO REGISTER FOR THIS YEAR, BUT INTERESTED IF THEY REPEAT THIS WORKSHOP? At this stage we think this will be a 'one off' programme. But who knows. If you want to register interest in case it is run again, then please click here to be sent info as we update it
FOR ALL THE DETAILS ABOUT PRACTICALITIES go to https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/a-matter-of-life-and-death/
Recordings: All talks will be recorded.
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THE HIDDEN FACE OF SHAME –
FREE OF CHARGE WEBINAR RECORDING
If you’d like to see Juliet and William in action, we are offering you the chance to watch the first of the Series : Exploring Shame, free of charge. (The rest of the series of 7 can be purchased at £10 each, or £50 for the 7 talks).
To watch Shame 1: The Hidden Face of Shame free of charge
1) go to https://jandw.thinkific.com/ and
2) create an account.
3) Find Shame 1: The Hidden Face of Shame, and
4) use the code free_shame1 to watch this for free.
Thanks for reading this far!
Love
Juliet
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