DAY 10, March 9.

I had the strangest training experience today in Brussels, a stranger experience than I have had in some time.

Once again it was a group filled with wonderful people who all had some experience with the three principles, including a contingent of six female psychotherapists or counselors from the Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp. Delightful people, including the others in the group.

I think the training was called something like, “Deepening Your Grounding” or something like that.

First, when I walked into the Four Points Hotel, in which the training was to be held, I got a kick out of seeing a big picture of me in Brussels announcing the training. Véronique, in her typical fashion, had done a fabulous job in pulling it all together.

This training was going great, both in the morning and when we started in the afternoon. Then within the last hour, a wonderful man named Chris brought up that it was all about choice.

I said it really wasn’t about choice; that it was about seeing, which came before choice—that choice was not really possible if people didn’t see they had a choice and, while great if the notion of choice worked for him, but if we was planning on telling others that it was about choice it could be frustrating for them to tell them they had a choice when they didn’t see that they did.

Well, Chris would not let this go, and before I knew what had happened another woman joined him and the feeling in the room dropped. It all happened so fast I didn’t see it coming.

I had really not run into anything like this in years; in fact, the same issue had come up in Colchester, I said pretty much the same thing about it, they saw something new about it and we moved on.

But despite my saying at the very beginning of the training that if people wanted to see new it would be best to forget what you knew and hear fresh, Chris held onto this like a pit-bull.

I think I realized too late that things had gotten out of hand because I was so surprised that nothing I said made a difference. By this time lots of other people had chimed in.

So it went on for about a half hour when I realized everyone was in their heads too much and I had to do something to change the topic and the energy at the same time. I saw that there were about 15 minutes left to go in the training, and I shifted to what was far more important was to realize who we are at our essence behind all that, and I talked about that for a while until I felt the feeling come back, and the group felt fine again.

Then just the ending time came someone brought up that he felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest (I think because if what had happened in that half-hour), yet he said he felt peaceful at the same time and he said that dichotomy puzzled him, and I couldn’t really deal with that in a way to do it justice because it was past time to go.

So I don’t think the group even ended in the kind of feeling I was hoping for. But after it was over many of the attendees came up to me and told me how great a training it was for them. Go figure!

A very strange training experience for me. But apparently most of it went very well. Yet one half-hour out of the whole day and the very end colored it for me. Or I should say my own thinking allowed it to, and that is interesting to me.

Then it was off to the Netherlands, driving with Angus and Jos, and Jos very kindly put me up for the night in Rhenen and we had a nice dinner together.

Postscript:

Someone wrote me that I may have misrepresented the Belgian training in what I had written about it. I didn’t mean to, and I’ll just let her tell it in her own words, because she’s right:

“It was such a wonderful day, with such a nice feeling throughout – it’s a pity that people who will read this post will read so little about the warm feeling and the learning, and so much about this little hour where some people got into their heads… All the people who attended the training were delighted and had an amazing experience of the day, and that’s what I will remember of this day. It was a huge success…”