Unlearning conflict avoidance - 10

[25yearsmlc]

Hi loualea,

EE is Essential Experience, one of the best things I've ever done. It is on the web.

I thought I'd add to this^^ b/c it deserves more detail, if you are interested.

Essential Experience (aka "EE") Is a personal growth workshop conducted over a long weekend. It is now primarily based in Philadelphia, PA.

It's Not to be confused with EST or Landmark, and I've been to both of those. Those were useful to me, but I saw some harshness with a few people at EST, and Landmark spent a lot of time recruiting & that rubbed me the wrong way.

EE Is based on the work of several psychoanalysts and Jungian analysis, along with Virginia Satir and other leading "self actualization" thinkers. David Crump designed it and his protege, Dr. Eric Hoffman now leads the workshop.

Because It's experiential, instead of lectures, or a lot of Q & A, (in which people like me, can "rehearse" or edit my responses), it has exercises which are designed to help you discover things about yourself and how you relate to the world, like nothing else.

So You can't hide from your reaction. Nor do you have to share if you are not ready. But if you don't put yourself out there in EE (Or life) you won't get nearly as much out of it.

The EE workshop clarifies where you are in your life & how to get where you want to go. For me, it was among the most profound experiences of my life.

Several DBers have now gone and all felt it was life changing. Those were the words they used, and it's what I still say about it.

I felt that after attending EE, my life was lived with more intent & clarity. I was and am happier b/c of it, even today, many years later.

EE is not designed for couples, per se. I have seen some go as couples, and I think they were in solid marriages. They loved it and said it got them to a deeper level.
There are reasons to do it alone, however. I think having a spouse there can be inhibiting. Maybe you have issues from childhood you don't want to share in front of a spouse, & in my case, I had issues with my mil, and I would not have addressed them in front of h.

I'm a wife/mom, sister/daughter and am a L. Like most women, I have a lot of "roles" I play in life.

EE helped me with every one of those roles. I also think it really helped my career (tax deductible!!) and of course it helped my marriage. I was a happier woman.

My h was not the type of man to attend "touchy feely" things. He saw me off at the airport and wished me well.

But when I came out of the gate at the airport, he said he immediately noticed I was "serene"! He noticed changes in my behavior from that minute & he saw
that those changes lasted. I felt an inner contentment I'd never felt before.

He wanted to see what it was all about. So, he chose to go to the next workshop a few months later. (Of course I was thrilled).

I didn't hear from him the first 2 days and I actually started to worry that he was thinking I was a lunatic for so loving it. But he called me late that night and said "I want to thank you for this --its' the best gift anyone has ever given me."

Since then, he and I have returned to assist other participants go thru their own workshop. That experience, together, was amazing.

DO look up their website (and make sure it's the correct one)... it was life changing for me and everyone I know who has attended has said the same. it's extremely worthwhile. For me it was like 2 Years of therapy in one long weekend. So worth it.


Yes, d15 does like to shop (she said so when I asked!) and I am the one with the wallet. W has inculcated d15 with a certain Calvinist do not spend money attitude, while I am easier on that front. So thanks for the idea: I'll give daughter a shopping evening at a nice store in Stockholm (beyond - I am smiling at the irony, MLC - the short history of literature book I already have for her - she really liked Gombrich's History of the World book, so it is not an unfitting gift).

Yes, 10 years is a long time - people often talk about a marathon here...

Luke

If the 10 years consisted of you doing the DB program, I'd say "gee, monitor for results and there are none" so I'd say DB failed.

But Luke, yes You have been around here for 10 years...but from my point of view, 9 of those years were not spent Dbing. From my point of view I see you remaining virtually unchanged within your m, for almost a decade. So it's not really "patience" or "perseverance" so much as being stuck.

Your behavior recently changed and by changed, I mean how you are outside of your family.

Thanks to the EE workshop you have changed in other areas of your life.

I see that and I delight in it.

But what do you see as new and different within the family?