November 13, Sunday.

Yet another amazing retreat day. We started out playing an audiofile of a counseling session I had conducted with a difficult client. The reason I chose this session was it was not clear whether it was a good session or a bad session. I wanted people to see what they got from it and see what worked and what didn’t work. I’m not sure that went over as well as I hoped it would. Next we allowed other participants to share their difficult clients, and we did a couple of role-plays where we gave feedback on how well people did.

The highlight of the training day came when we had a real live guinea pig come in, and Gabriela did a session with her in front of the group. The young woman came out feeling a lot more hope than she had before. The discussion afterwards was especially good, where we dealt with the issue of what happens if you have an insight and then you wake up the next morning and feel hopeless again, such as in depression. With an understanding of the Principles that hopeless feeling takes on a different meaning. Instead of meaning reality that life sucks and there’s no way out, now the feeling means it must be an illusion of my own creation that I’m feeling this way, that it’s only my thinking playing tricks on me, and I don’t have to be frightened by it.

The true highlight of the day, however, came when Lise led another equally effective singing session, and this time after her session she performed about five songs herself. Lisa is a very, very gifted singer, and she has so much soul. The feeling in that room was so beautiful. Then it led to a spontaneous song and sort-of-dance session with great laughter and such a beautiful, beautiful feeling. I am so happy to be part of this group of people.