Thank you all—seasoned webinar-users and techno-phobes alike—for being part of today’s webinar with Dan.

During Dan’s Wheel of Awareness exercise, I was struck by two things.

First, it became so apparent to me that perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of our humanity is that we’re all symphonic conductors, coordinating in our unique ways the unimaginable vast range of  sensory, cognitive, and neural capabilities that live inside of us. The second is how little of this vast orchestra most of us utilize or even pay attention to in our day-to-day lives. Instead we allow our world to narrow into familiar patterns of thought, sensation and feelings as if that’s all that life could be.

At the heart of therapeutic work is the shift that Dan described moving from being passengers simply drawn along through life to recognizing our ability to be captains actively directly the course of our own development. The Wheel of Awareness was a mini-demonstration for me what it might mean to shift from one relationship to life to another.

This Week’s Assignment:

Just to clarify your assignment before next week’s session, there are two components of what Dan’s asked us to do: one experiential exercise and a conceptual activity. Both would be enhanced greatly by sharing experiences, ideas and questions with someone on the Study Buddy list as you go over with each other reactions and personal highlights from the first webinar session.

First, Dan asked us to take time over the next several days to return regularly to the Wheel of Awareness and concentrate on one segment of the rim each day. Find a quiet place for just a few moments every day and take some time to concentrate alternately on your external senses, intero-sensations, mental activities, and your relational segment. Just notice what happens as you do.

Second, he’d like us to consider the Triangle of Well-Being, whose points encompass Relationship, Brain, and Mind, and consider: how are these three concepts related? What’s shared among mind, brain, and relationships, and how are they central to our experience of self and other? Dan would like us to explore these questions, and we’ll discuss them further next time.

We invite everyone to post thoughts, ideas, and related experiences throughout the week on the Enhanced Learning Forum.  Particularly valuable would be hearing from everyone how you’ve begun to integrate any ideas, insights or discoveries from the webinar into your practice and your daily life.

Thank you all for helping us create together the learning community that is this webinar—see you next week!

Thanks,

Rich Simon,
Editor, Psychotherapy Networker

Please take a moment to put into words whatever stood out for you about today’s webinar.

It might be a particular bit of information, a new insight, a reaction to the overall experience of the session, or an unexpected connection that might not have occurred to you before. By contributing to the Comment Board, you’re not only stimulating your own brain, you're contributing to the entire group’s overall sense of discovery and exploration.

To give us all a better feeling of community, we invite you to include your name and hometown with whatever posting you care to make.