Soltura Workshops

Soltura is an experience for self-improvement and self-worth. A vibrant and dynamic experience, it strips away barriers and defenses, reconnects individuals with their inner self, empowers their voice, and ignites a desire and willingness to take control of their lives by working toward resolution of challenges impacting personal fulfillment. For more information visit our website at Soltura.net

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"There is no other place, there is no other time. There is only now." This whole week we've looked at the ways we use technology to insulate us even as we claim to be connected. But distraction and mindfulness are mutually exclusive. Ask yourself, are you present? Really present? Would your loved ones agree? If you answered "No," Soltura is a heroic journey to your Now, with all its wonder.

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We're talking all relationships, not just romantic connections.

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When I found this video, I couldn't not post it.

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The Subtle Grip of Technology.

I dare you to spend a day without your phone or technological vice of choice. See where your mind goes. I tried this a month ago, and I realized when I was on the bus, I was looking at my phone because it was something to do, not because I even wanted to look at it.

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An eloquent plea to connect for your Tuesday.

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» Hiding Behind Your Phone? - World of Psychology

As technology advances, certain ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ continue to manifest. Among the pros: We can readily be in touch with friends and family; simple text message

Show of hands—how many of us have pretended to use our phone to dodge an awkward or uncomfortable moment? Maybe that was a moment when we could have grown.Show of hands—how many of us have pretended to use our phone to dodge an awkward or uncomfortable moment? Maybe that was a moment when we could have grown.

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What medium are you reading this on? Your smartphone? Your laptop? Your desktop? Are you multi-tasking? Are you picking up your phone just to check facebook in a small hole in your day? Did you just open up Facebook even though you were already checking it? (I've done that last one.) Our theme this week is technology, and the way technology keeps us from ourselves and each other. We encourage you to share posts you like and use that as an excuse to ask the person you share it with when they're next available to meet up in person. :)

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Soltura personal growth workshops empower people of all ages to reconnect with inner strengths, face life issues and find meaningful ways to move forward.

If you've found this week that you're still trying to be the man your father taught you to be, the stoic knight who supports his family, and you want your armor off, Soltura is a wonderful first step to change. We have a men's workshop available in November. Register today.

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Parenting Wisdom, Via Post-it Notes.

We wanted to end the week with one parent's humorous perspective on raising kids.

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A Good Hard Look at Yourself

by Nicholas Schwarzenberger

Doug dancing during the Knight's Dilemma workshop.

Doug M. and I both attended the Soltura Men’s Part 1 Workshop, The Knight’s Dilemma in August of 2013.

Nick: You attended your Part 1 workshop with me back in August of last year—So just to start, what was your life like before you attended the workshop?

Before I attended my Part 1, I was in an unhealthy place in terms of building relationships, dealing with my sense of self and vocation. I worked at a job that wasn't really satisfying and I felt like I wanted to be in a better place personally in terms of vocation and certainly in terms of relationships. There was a lot of brokenness in my life at that time; I was probably drinking more than was healthy and my marriage was not in the healthiest place. We struggled with a lot of issues—a lack of clarity about who we were, for and to each other.

Your wife, Jacque, had completed her Part 3 workshop, is that right?

Yes, she'd done the whole trilogy.

So she was the one who suggested it?

Yes, that's right. She had wanted me to do a Soltura workshop for a long time and I wasn't really resisting it, it's just that I was letting a lot of other things get in the way of making the commitment. She always came back from Soltura with a new sense of vitality and a new sense of herself, and she thought it would be the best thing in the world for me personally and also for us, in terms of the way we communicate. She was really the evangelist and ass kicker that got me to attend my first workshop.

What was the turning point for you…you said you hadn't been resisting but other stuff had gotten in the way? What changed? 

Well, we'd actually been struggling in our relationship for a while and that finally came to a head over how we weren't communicating and connecting. I had a history of not doing well in relationships and the more we talked about it, the more distant we seemed to be. She wanted me to go because our relationship needed this level of communication and understanding. She understood that I needed inner work on what had been poisoning my relationships, causing me to bail on them when they were more unpleasant to be in than they were pleasant. So I think it was a crisis in that neither of us was getting what we wanted from the relationship. Jacque felt the workshop could make a huge difference and now, from the other the side of it, I agree that it really did save our relationship. That and the work we've continued to do with each other since that time. We probably wouldn't have done that work unless she had kept prodding me to attend the workshop.

So, you went into it for your marriage but that wasn't what you ended up working on when you got there, right?

Yeah, the front of my head said the reason for going was because of our relationship, but the back of my head said there's some stuff back there that keeps me doing the same thing over and over. I had enough understanding to know that the choices and things that have happened are connected to something. The Soltura workshop really put me in touch with what that was, with the brokenness of my childhood, the brokenness of the only other significant woman in my life besides the different women I'd been married to—that being my mother. I'd known for a long time that the difficulty of that relationship had been nudging me all of my developing years and my adult life, but the workshop actually made me dig into that and begin to see how much that has affected me as an adult man. The work I did wasn't so much focused on Jacque's and my relationship—though it sort of came into play—but the work I did had much more to do with going back to where things first got twisted in a relationship I should have been able to depend on and look to for nurturing, care and protection, and it just was not that way at all.

So you went through your Part 1 workshop, the Knight's Dilemma, what was the experience for you? Coming out of it, what did you feel? Did you feel different?

I felt as different as anybody would feel being forced down a garbage disposal. [Laughs]

[Laughing] Care to elaborate?

That's not entirely fair. I mean, the process itself, my God, it was excruciating—to me. I don't know if I shared this with you before, but all that loud music was a real trigger for me, really hard on me while I was in that chaos trying to maintain a sense of balance and sanity—when in fact that was the last thing I should have been doing. But I'm so geared toward controlling myself in times of chaos, being the cool head that keeps control of things, it was a real contradiction for me to be in that setting, and the loud music triggered so many bad memories from my childhood and the abandonment and all of that stuff. So that was really difficult. I kept trying to slip back into my protective mode of being in control all the time and the other side was trying to resist that so I could do the work I needed to do … you know, as Carole was so fond of saying, sit in my own shit.

Coming out, I felt a lightness in my being, I felt like ... like I had been cured of cancer or something, purging myself of all the things that were dragging me back into old personality traits, all the things that I had used to explain myself or justify actions or rationalize actions, I found myself questioning that Doug. When I get to the same place now, I ask myself, why would you do that when you freed yourself from that? So, I felt free, I felt light in my being, I felt like I was learning to be myself all over again as an individual, as a person alone and as a person in my relationships. My dogs like me better—

Really?

I don't know, I don't know if that's true. You know, I feed them so they always love me.

You're pulling my leg.

I am. Jacque and I communicate on a better, more honest level. I mean, we certainly aren't walking on water together, but we are together much better than we were before. You know, after I came back I quit the job I had, and I have a different job now. I went out and looked for different employment because that job was not what I wanted to do. I loved the people I worked with, but it was also a non-profit, and, as some non-profits are, it was kind of an ugly and exploitive place. They would use me up and not give me a thing in return. I have a different job and I'm enjoying that. I feel emotionally sounder, I've taken on some new personal practices that are improving my sense of who I am and my awareness and my liveliness. Yeah, I've made lots of changes and feel better. I'm a better person making better choices about myself.

You said Soltura helped your relationship with Jacque. Did it change any of your other relationships?

I find myself hearing my friends differently and responding to them differently. Overall, I think I interact with people better and I'm more perceptive at times when people are distancing themselves or not sincerely interested in knowing me so that I guess that they don't get too close or don't know too much.

What would you say to someone who's considering doing a Soltura workshop but might be on the fence? Is there any advice or anything you'd want to tell them? Is there any advice you wish someone had told you?

I would say go, certainly go if you want to give yourself a good, hard look. Don't go if you're expecting a comfortable retreat. Go, if you want to learn how to fall in love with yourself again. I've learned how to love myself again.

To learn more about our personal growth workshops, visit our website at http://www.soltura.net

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This is the first video of a project about Fatherhood. The filmmaker asks his father about his experience as a parent, and it's wonderful. He encapsulates so much about how we need to reconsider what being a dad means.

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What are you teaching your kids?

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For Husbands to be Happier in Their Marriages, Some May Need to Stop Trying to be ‘Good’.

Over the years, men have been hearing myths about what "good husbands" do and don't do. Heather Gray busts these myths for the sake of their marriages and happiness.

Let's take apart some of the myths about what makes a good husband. Do you think this article missed any?

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Parenting Boys with Large Doses of Shame Works.

This article's title is delightfully misleading. It's a thoughtful meditation on shame as a parenting technique and how much it can hurt our children. If you're of the mindset "my parents did that to me and I turned out alright!", I encourage you to give this article a read and reconsider.

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This week we focus on men: specifically, fathers and husbands. Just as women's roles have changed drastically over the course of a few generations, so have men's. The difference is that as men we seem a little slower to recognize this, and so we resort to the same ideas of manhood that our fathers espoused. Men become stoic providers who feel they must be the pillars around which their families are built; they feel they must be heroes carrying the world. Yet doing so robs men of a variety of connections, to their spouses, children, and themselves. Soltura provides a safe environment where men can explore different perspectives on themselves, their emotions, and their ideas of masculinity. This week we're going to sample some of the possible ways of thinking about manhood that are out there. As always, please share anything that grabs your attention with a man in your life!

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I keep this bookmarked, myself. It's such an uplifting reminder of how to be sympathetic to ourselves and others.

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