Exploring Your Childhood & The Archetype of The Innocent (the child)
Writing about childhood experiences in this program involves a deep level of personal reflection and contemplation that is stimulated by readings, writing exercises, short videos and much more, including end of day mentoring sessions to offer objective insights into your learnings and help you synthesise everything.
Meditation Retreat, Road Trip and the Middle Path
Feeling a bit listless in our ordinary routines, many of us like to spice life up with a road trip and all the sensory delight they can bring.
Others take the opposite approach, gravitating to meditation retreats in the hopes of giving their overstimulated and exhausted minds a break, by emptying them.
The programs we run straddle the middle path. Tranquil surrounds and reflective questions help to still the waters, while the diversity of activities and the provoking nature of it helps to shake you out of ruts and enculturated thinking.
Writing About Childhood - Retreat Location
Writing Studio - The Blue Mountains | Outskirts of Sydney
As society goes through major upheaval, connecting with our stories has never been more important Read More
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Feedback from Course Participants
Stimulating. Inspiring. Confronting. Educational. Eye-opening. Humbling. Challenging. I wasn’t expecting to be so deeply moved. Loved the whole course! -Rick B
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Revisiting Childhood - A Rich Source of Personal Development
Awakening Or Reconnecting With Your Inner Child
We all know that staying as a child when our development facets have moved into adulthood only stunts our growth. Equally damaging, however, is losing touch with our childlike selves to adopt stoic and joyless adult roles or armour. Our program involves celebrating the gifts your childhood brought, cultivates gratitude and looks at where you can foster more of the healthy traits of the child, or innocent archetype, into your life.
A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires. ~ Paulo Coelho
Shadow Work
Although we continue to revere ‘the ideal childhood’, the most interesting and humane adults tend to be those who have found the gifts in their woundings. Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” He spoke of the need to confront brokenness in order to find resurrection and return. Only when we explore shadow work and integrate those disconnected parts of ourselves, can we become whole and healthy. Otherwise we remain what William Faulkner called a Man-Child, or escape into Pollyanna denial where grief and other unpleasant emotions are avoided, rather than transmuted.
The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. ~ Frank McCourt
Health and Wellbeing
It is universally accepted that childhood, or the first phase of our life, has an enormous bearing on how capable we become of living happy, high-functioning lives as adults. Psychologist Erik Erikson argued that if we fail to integrate healthy development stages we will inevitably have to revisit them. This program helps you to identify areas you mastered as well as those that need to shift, either in thought or behaviour. Reclaiming the wonder, appreciation, enthusiasm and optimism of the child archetype can fertilise all of the aspects to your life. Think of someone integrated, such as the Dalai Lama. He’s disciplined, yet light. Purposeful, yet playful.
True adulthood, or psychological maturity, has become an uncommon achievement in Western and Westernized societies, and genuine elderhood nearly nonexistent. ~ Bill Plotkin
Details About The Life Writing Program
Consider embarking on this Write of Passage in order to
✴︎ Undertake Narrative Writing About Childhood
✴︎ Gain Insight Into How To Write A Childhood Memoir
✴︎Begin Writing About Childhood Trauma
✴︎Write A Short Story About A Memory From Your Childhood
✴︎ Undertake Personal Development
✴︎ Explore Life Story Writing & Create A Foundation To Build A Memoir
✴︎ Discover Archetypal Psychology & A More Imaginative Approach To Self-Understanding
Cost: $590 for a 2 day program
Inclusions: Accommodation, meals, workbooks and personal mentoring/debriefing
Location: Katoomba, Blue Mountains NSW
Program Outline:
Day 1
Morning Session
Explore workbook readings and insights relating to childhood, with optional writing exercises.
Lunch
Afternoon Session
Explore workbook readings and insights relating to childhood, with optional writing exercises.
Optional debriefing session to help locate themes and patterns which can be used as the basis for writing about an event from your childhood.
Dinner (or the option for you to take in one of the local dining facilities)
Optional evening session (immersive, non writing activities)
Day 2
Morning Session
Explore workbook readings and insights relating to the archetype of the child (the Innocent), with optional writing exercises.
Lunch
Afternoon Session
Explore workbook readings and insights relating to the archetype of the child (the Innocent), with optional writing exercises.
Optional debriefing session to help locate themes and patterns which can be used as the basis for writing about an event from your childhood.
We each have an interesting and story to share. This program looks at writing your life story with an exploration of adolescence.
