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Tuning the Heart-Healing the Healer

A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Healing the Healer

Lead by Tom Holmes

This workshop is primarily focused on those in the helping professions, but it can also be helpful to anyone experiencing stress and potential burnout. Spiritual practices from a variety of religious traditions together with internal systems work will be used to deepen and strengthen compassion and healing for ourselves and others. These will include meditation, Peace Dances, mindfulness, and Zen big heart/mind practice. Drawing on the wisdom from these spiritual traditions and from psychological understanding we will explore the causes of suffering and ways of dealing with suffering in everyday life. We will look at patterns of responses and beliefs which cause us to become stuck and which keep us from having access to the place of peace and compassion in our heart.

The Internal Family Systems model of therapy is an important tool in "Healing the Healer" because it helps us see and understand our own reactions to difficult clients and to situations in our life which lead to constriction and loss of energy. This model will help develop our inner observing capacity and, combined with spiritual practices, will support our offering compassionate awareness and acceptance to parts of ourselves in need of healing. This awareness and acceptance will support a return of balance, energy and integration into our lives and our practice.

Tuition:

The Tuition for the workshop is $160 (this includes lunch and dinner on Saturday)

  • The Workshop runs from 7:00 Friday evening to 12:30 noon on Sunday (please arrive by 6:30 to be able to settle in before the workshop starts.)
  • Breakfasts are on your own in the cabins, which have complete kitchens, or where-ever you are staying. We will begin at 9:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Accommodations:

The retreat huts at Gilchrist are $80 for two nights.

  • There are only 10 cabin spaces available. They will be given on a first-come first-serve basis, so register early.
  • The cabin reservations are all made through me so don't call Gilchrist for these.
  • Check in time, for the cabins, is between 4:00 and 6:30 on Friday.
  • Cabin check out time is 2:00 on Sunday.

There may be rooms available at the Hermitage retreat center right next door to Gilchrist.

Registration:

Registration Deadline is March 22, 2007

Costs:

  • Tuition (2 meals) and the Gilchrist cabin $240
  • Tuition only $160 (2 meals included)
  • If tuition only, you will coordinate your own housing and breakfasts.

Mail Checks made out to Tom Holmes and send them to:

2923 Memory Lane , Kalamazoo , MI 49006

If you have questions contact me at: tomholmes42@gmail.com or by phone, 269 344-0836.

For more information about Gilchrist and directions you can go to their web site: http://www.fetzer.org/GilChrist.aspx?PageID=GilChrist

Biographical Information :

Tom Holmes has his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and an MSW . He is professor emeritus at Western Michigan University where he taught for more than twenty years in the Holistic Health Care Program and the School of Social Work . For the past twenty-five years he has been working with the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy. He leads workshops on "Healing the Healer" and "Tuning the Heart of the Healer" which offer helping professionals in the US and Europe personal renewal and a deepening of their therapeutic work through the integration of spirituality and the therapeutic process. You can find out more information on Tom's work at www.wingedheart.org .