Most of last week I spent in a beautiful Vancouver in Canada. I went there to learn & present the Integrative Movement Therapy called the STANCE-DANCE in a big conference for psychotherapists in honour of 100 years of life of Virginia Satir. The Stance-Dance was wonderfully perceived and we had many more people who wanted to join us but the room was too small. ‘Nice problem to have’, someone said to me afterwards. Next year we need a bigger room and we need to plan more sessions around the world. Every time we have a Stance-Dance, people love it. There is some magic to it as it’s a simple way to release fear and deal with stress. On my way back, my flight from Canada was cancelled. While there was a lot of frustration in the waiting crowd during constant changes of time, and despite the fact that I had to reorganise subsequent plans, I realised that my resilience level was different this time. Something has shifted and I didn’t know what exactly. I felt more calm and at peace than before I came to Canada. I started analysing what helped me at that moment. Where in normal circumstances I would be frustrated (I couldn’t be with my kids as I promised to them), I was in a loving space this time. The answer was, I had some deep connection with friends and like-minded people and that made me more resilient to stress. We are wired to connect. We are designed to be social animals and when we stay too long in our own cocoon, be it at work or home, we easily get sensitive to external triggers and feel bogged down or lonely. So as simple as having your hobby shared with friends, having a family reunion, organising face-to-face quality time with people who share your passion, will help you raise your level of resilience. When was the last time you did that? I would love to hear from you. You know I get inspiration from knowing how you are doing. Enriching connections among us, we stay connected and we automatically increase our social & personal resilience. And we so much need this in time of political separation. Separation of views creates fear. Fear provokes hatred and violence. How can we create more peace and more love, inside ourselves, to combat tough changes in life? Let’s get more resilient, let’s connect more. Wishing you a great week. Darya P.S.: We are opening doors to our Enriching Online Programme (http://daryahaitoglou.com/1-enrich-your-relationships-programme/) starting September 15th 2016 straight after a big trip to Tibet (http://daryahaitoglou.com/tibet-retreat-2/). Enriching Programme is a wonderful platform that helps people connect and learn how to stay resilient in an ever-changing world. Learning to be flexible and in touch with our deepest yearnings, based on a ground-braking research in a field of neuro-science. Join us and spread a good word to those who need it.
Spiritual Awakening in a busy world When we are born in a city and grow up surrounded by concrete buildings, we sometimes lose touch with nature and our family of origin. We think it is normal to rush and run our life spending hours inside our virtual world of social media, computer programs, emails, texting, browsing and games. We rarely go to see nature and spend time just breathing in smells and sounds of natural surroundings. Why? Because we get lazy. We sit in our offices and homes and get comfortable. That’s what happened to me when I lost touch with myself and nature. I was born in a city full of concrete and going to nature was something left for a weekend and when my weekends became full of travelling plans for my work and family there was almost no place for nature. Sad but true. I woke up one day and realised that I could spend the whole day and probably the whole week inside a house or an office or inside a car without getting out there in nature to breath fresh air and walk. Just walk. It’s not difficult, really. I used to walk with my parents when I was small but now…I just work. I look after my kids. I have fun with other people in other places and bars and restaurants and houses. I only go to see nature on holidays. And when I say ‘see’ I mean it. It is a rather awkward encounter. I observe rather that be in it or with it. I look at it and admire as I admire a piece of music that I have not heard for a long time. A rare meal that I happened to eat that moment. It’s kind of an outside perspective and feel sad about it. I admit it, although I enjoyed walking in nature, I also found it boring. I could do so many more things at the same time! It was boring to just walk and do nothing. The nature was so still, it made me feel strange as though I rushed too much. It was not giving me additional information for my busy mind, it was just there. And it made me feel wanting to see my phone again or listen to a podcast. But one day I was awed by a big oak tree that had been there probably a few centuries but I didn’t see it. It was in my yard. I have not noticed it for a long time and there, when I finally saw it, I was amazed. How beautiful and peaceful it was. Just a tree. And it was a moment of my spiritual awakening. From then moment onwards I started walking slowly, noticing leaves behind my feet, I noticed sounds of trees. I stopped listening to podcasts and even music when I walked. I just became a small part of nature. It was a walking meditation. I imagined trees were talking to me and I talked to them. I started attracting attention of small animals which I didn’t notice before. Little birds, insects, squirrels, cats. There were a lot of creatures around and it came to my realisation that it was all there waiting for my awakening. I finally started to enjoy myself. Spiritual awakening is a moment of appreciation of what there is for you. Right very moment.
Virginia Satir (26 June 1916 – 10 September 1988) is known for her approach to family therapy and her systemic work such as family reconstruction. She is widely regarded as the “Mother of Family Therapy”. Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988. She is also known for creating the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model developed through clinical studies. Change management and organizational gurus of the 1990s and 2000s embraced this model to define how change impacts organizations. After graduating social work school, Satir began working in private practice. She met with her first family that she worked in 1951, and by 1955 was working with Illinois Psychiatric Institute, encouraging other therapists to focus on families instead of individual patients. By the end of the decade she had moved to California, where she cofounded the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California. MRI received a grant from NIMH in 1962, allowing them to begin the first formal family therapy training program ever offered; Satir was hired as its Training Director. One of Satir’s most novel ideas at the time, was that the “presenting issue” or “surface problem” itself was seldom the real problem; rather, how people coped with the issue created the problem.” Satir also offered insights into the particular problems that low self-esteem could cause in relationships. Honors and Awards Received 1976 Awarded Gold Medal of “Outstanding and Consistent Service to Mankind” by the University of Chicago. 1978 Awarded honorary doctorate in Social Sciences from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 1982 Selected by the West German Government as one of the twelve most influential leaders in the world today. 1984 Named Honorary Founding Chair of PAIRS Foundation 1985 Time magazine quotes a colleague, “She can fill any auditorium in the country”, after her stellar contribution to the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. 1985 Selected by the prestigious National Academy of Practice as one of two members to advise on health concerns to the Congress of the United States. 1986 Selected as member of the International Council of Elders, a society developed by the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. 1987 Named Honorary Member of the Czechoslovakian Medical Society. She was honored in the California Social Work Hall of Distinction. In two national surveys of Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists, she was voted the most influential therapist.
Here are a few highlights of ENRICHing experiential workshops. What we did and how it was in Geneva, Switzerland, with a wonderful group of soul-mates.
It was an amazing experience both for participants and trainers! Greece is just wonderful and we had the brightest sunshine, the deepest emotions and most wonderful revelations! Natural magic in action!
Last legacy of Virginia Satir before her death was a trip to Russia in 1988. To honour this, we went to conduct 8 workshops with 200 people and here are a few photographs of what & how we did it.
Welcome to the Virginia Satir Institute, UK website. We are an affiliate of the Virginia Satir Global NetworkOur Mission is to create heart connections using Virginia Satir legacy in family therapy and couple systemic approach.
