Tag Archives: future

Untrain yourself and start becoming friends with your body

Dear reader,

previous blog post “Were You Trained to Hate Your Body?” has prompted this. In my line of work, I have never met a woman or a man who would not have at least one issue, struggle or cause for embarrassment about the way how their body looked, behaved or their habits around it. And yet I believe, with some time and motivation, we can un-train ourselves and find a way forward to becoming at peace or even friends with our bodies. So I have created this online training programme for all of us who would like to break this cycle of self-hate and turn it into something worthwhile.

Your past does not have to mess up with your future. Your past failures can be made into your future successes.

This online training will consist of five separate online videos, which you will receive every week to your mailboxes. The videos will tackle different aspects of our being and performance and will also offer you exercises which you can do alone or together with someone you trust.

The second part of the training will be individual sessions. In these conversations we will be focusing on the outcomes specially tailored to you and your hopes. Each participant will have an opportunity for two individual sessions.

FOR WHOM?

Anyone who can in some way relate to this blog post.

HOW LONG?

Whenever you feel ready to register and lasting for 5 weeks.

HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD I DEVOTE AND HOW WILL WE WORK?

As much time as you want. The video sessions will be sent directly to your email address, after you register for this training. Then it is up to you how fast you go. There will be five slots, one per week. As for individual conversations, we will together look out for a time which suits us both and meet online, so you can enjoy our conversation from your own couch! The videos will be in English, as the training is designed for international audience. Individual sessions can be done in other languages of your preference (Slovenian or other Southern Slavic language, German or Spanish).

GREAT! HOW DO I JOIN?

You can register through this online form. There is a symbolic participation fee of 50£, which includes all the videos, individual sessions and support through the training, so that really everybody can join. After registering you will receive an email with logistic and payment details.

QUESTIONS?

Here for you to answer.

I created this training because I believe in its usefulness. And I believe in the importance of this topic. As it is not a part of Ribalon’s regular trainings, we’ll only take up to 10 people on a first come, first serve basis. 

I am so hopeful because you reacted. Together we can shape a better future, starting with ourselves.

Biba

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La Dolce Vita. Why not?

 

 

It’s Never Too Late to have a Happy Childhood

Dear reader,

often clients and others ask me whether they will ever be able to recover from what’s happened to them in the past. Some of them have experienced severe abuse, some of them have been hurt by their parents or siblings, others have been exposed to bullying or harassment. It so often happens that when we become older, we gradually resemble our parents, whether we like it or not. We might even catch ourselves demonstrating the same behaviour that we so much hated when our mother did it, yet now we’re performing the same reaction. We are spinning in patterns we adopted long before we were aware of our own being and though at times it looks good, we fail to change or escape them.

Can it be done? Can the past stop messing up with our future? Can we take over and live our life without being stigmatized by our past and can we finally start to breathe? Or is it hopeless, because it’s in our DNA or inacessible, because we were too young to remember or it’s simply too late?

Ben Furman, a well known Solution Focused therapist wrote a book titled “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood”. It’s never too late to define yourself brand new. You are not trapped in old patterns, relationships, habits for good, always and forever ever. This doesn’t have to be. You are able to construct yourself in a different way, so that your past stops messing up with your future. In order to achieve this, it is not so important to have the right answers. It is much more important to be asking yourself the right questions. Remember: the same thinking that got you into the situation you want to escape from, is very unlikely to get you out of there. So you need new questions that will bring you to new, useful answers. And that’s mostly what we do in our coaching or therapy sessions.

If you want to learn how to ask useful questions, stay tuned. A very first Slovenian Solution Focused Training is well on its way and on this training you can learn how to ask useful questions and which questions are important to draw a different path for you or for those around you.

Good luck defininig yourself brand new!

Biba

tunis cat

It’s never too late to play and to experience joy.

 

A Word about Expectations, Regret and Disappointment

Dear reader and especially dear students at the Faculty of Arts,

I’ve got some sad news for you and this is the reason why I didn’t post any blog posts for a while. There will no longer be Brief Coaching project at your faculty. The faculty leadership decided not to support the project and make it available for you. To make a long story short about what happened: as I’ve opened Ribalon institute, I wanted to make the project more sustainable, transparent and professional. So I was adviced to hand in an official request suggesting that. This was in January 2015. In February I was called up for a meeting that I told you about. The dean decided to acquire professional opinion about the project from department of psychology and I was asked to wait and not to pursue any Solution Focused activities at the faculty until further notice. So I didn’t and this is the reason why nothing was going on at this faculty. The informed decisions and professional judgments from departments of psychology and education were first favourable towards the idea and found the project’s settings ok, but then something went wrong with the technicalities and faculty management failed to see the worth of the project and failed to place it within the faculty system. I was not engaged during that process so I’m not familiar with any details. The bottom line was that the faculty turned my request down and asked me to withdraw. So I did.

What this means for you is that you will not be able to access any support services or join the activities that took place under Brief Coaching project any longer from within the faculty. I’m really sorry for that, especially for those who have greatly benefited from it. But that does not mean that you cannot attend through some other channel. Write to me and we’ll find a way.

What this whole thing means for me, since most of my work since 2007 has been at this very faculty and I felt loyal and really favourable towards the faculty which I used to call “my faculty”? It means a lesson. I could be disappointed or I could regret all the time and years spent there working voluntary. But I don’t. I’ve learned that my expectations might have been too high and that’s not the faculty’s problem – it is entirely my problem. And because it is my problem, this means I have the influence and can do something about it.

I view this as a sign that it’s time to move forward. The expert opinion from both departments showed that they found the project good and decent. The external expert opinion which I have obtained from EBTA (European Brief Therapy Association) also thought the project was carefully planned and well executed. So I have no doubts about any professional settings or my own competence. And I have some of the best supervisors that I learn from. And I have my own coaches.

Secondly, I’ve learned that I’ve developed and grown. I no longer settle for average and I respect myself enough that I’m able to close a chapter that fails to recognize my work and worth. It took me a long time to get there, but now I know that I’ve made it. And it makes me proud and courageous.

The same day I received the official answer from this faculty, I got a call from another one. Asking if I could prepare something broader than merely workshops. Like a training programme and some other things. It was a moment of one window closing and another, way brighter, opening. So I’m very much looking forward to new opportunities, because I know I don’t need to depend on anyone and I know that I like to connect and collaborate with everyone.

Even though a lot of my plans have been destroyed because of this sad news and I will probably have a period of unstable and a very insecure time, this clearly indicates that I need to do something differently. I’ve learned a lesson to set my expectations low, my confidence high, which consequently results in no disappointment and at last, I have no regrets about anything. Life gives you lemons, so have some lemonade as they say. I even found out that actually I like lemonade and it’s healthy too.

Hope to be in touch with you my fellow students and hope to see you sometimes again. Take care.

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My cat and my nephew building a better future together.