“

Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength

” - Ralph Sockman

“

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

” - Rumi

“ The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. ” - Ivy Priest

“

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

” - Elbert Hubbard

“

What's in the way is the way

” - Mary O'Malley

“ The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes. ” - Marcel Proust

“ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ” - George Santayana

So it was the second session of the group yesterday.  I blogged about the first session last week.  Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis.  It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting.  It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind.  They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.   

“

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

” - Warren Buffet

Yesterday we had the first evening of the Life Skills group.  I've written in the past about the background planning behind this group.  How did this first meeting go?  Well there were nine of us - eight participants and myself.  Rather demandingly I'm both running a new course and trying to get used to new technology at the same time.  For years, when running small group trainings here at our house, I've used an overhead projector to shine transparencies up onto the wall.  For a while I've wanted to upgrade to a laptop and data projector, and this evening I went ahead to put this into practice.

“

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

” - Viktor Frankl

In the 1970's I taught yoga and several different types of meditation.  In the 1980's I began teaching courses in Autogenic Training, a form of deep relaxation/meditation.  I continued running Autogenic classes for about 25 years.  In addition to the relaxation/meditation exercises, the teaching also covered several other life skill/stress management techniques.  For a much fuller description of these eight session courses, visit the Autogenic Training section of this website.