​In this workshop you are invited to choose an emotive piece on which you would work with the help of others in the workshop.

The idea for this workshop came originally from Marian van Wijngaarden in the Netherlands and was the basis of a weekend event at Donkerbroek in the Netherlands.

At CCI 2012 in the Netherlands, Joke Stassen and I offered a similar workshop one afternoon which was a wonderful experience.  It is best if the number of participants were limited to a maximum of 10, but preferably 8.

Interested? Bring some pieces of emotive music on a USB stick or MP3 player so you can choose on which one to work. 

​Lilian offers a Co-counselling workshop demonstrating the use of Role Play techniques, characters, chairs and voices to help externalise Inner Conflict. This can help make the issues involved clearer. The conflicting aspects of our dialogue, given voice and form become more tangible, therefore negotiating with one's inner world becomes more possible, ultimately making choosing between Life Options more entertaining than painful. This is related to ways of working on the oppressor/victim/rescuer triangle, bringing in the balancer with enough overview to release the ties which bind us to self-destructive ways of Being. Opposing needs are often a real challenge when making choices. What-ever your issue or topic, bring something which really engages you to this workshop and enliven your skilful Being. 

​​ “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo & Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

John Proctor, The Crucible Act 4

The name given to me by my parents is Geoffrey Hamilton Rowe.  I am know by many names.  Geoffrey, Geoff, Strijder, Mr Rowe, Rowe, Chuck to give but a few.  Some I engage with easily and effortlessly, others grate and make me cringe. 

• How do you feel about your name?
• What does it mean for you?
• When you married, did you give up your name?
• How has your name influenced your character?
• What name would you choose for yourself?

The power of a name and its value has long been immortalized in prose, poetry, and religious ceremony. Everyone recognizes himself or herself by name.  In this workshop, we will have an opportunity to explore our names, to consider how they have shaped us and fantasize what name we might choose for ourselves. 

​The core idea of cooperative inquiry, also known as collaborative inquiry, is to 'research with’ rather than to ‘research on’ people. This means that all active participants are fully involved in research decisions as co-researchers around a shared topic. 

​This workshop has been inspired by a saying of Tichnathan, a leading Buddhist monk in Plum Village, France. Here the inspiration stops, as the workshop is certainly not a Buddhist one. Through the years I have collected evidence-based research about a sense of happiness and how to maintain it in adverse conditions. My findings and experiences with it after my chronic pain episode and stroke is what I would like to share in this experiential workshop. 

​In this workshop I would like to show you two videos: one about ‘Fixed and growth mind sets” by Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University. The other is about ‘The power of vulnerability.’ by Brené Brown, professor at University of Houston.

There will be co-counselling exercises and sessions to explore the implications of these videos for co-counselling theory and practice.

By the way, a Devil’s Advocate is someone who is one the hand committed to a cause, in my case CCI co-counselling, while at the same time trying to identify its inherent weaknesses in order to avoid unnecessary mistakes.

In other words, the workshop focuses on what to avoid in Co-Counselling and what to embrace in order to empower yourself and get on with your life wholeheartedly. 

​When in childhood religious doctrines are combined with strictly enforced obedience and conformity, Religious Trauma can be triggered. This workshop is for people who experienced religious doctrines.

Some religious doctrines that can trigger Trauma
The ‘Born in sin’ or ‘We are all sinners’ doctrine often fuels fear in children. Eternal damnation or annihilation is promised to all people who fail to escape their ‘Borne in sin’ status. Small children have the capability to visualise the promised horrors, especially when provided with its imagery. Some of the religions are very much focused on actively instilling these fears.

‘Salvation’ is on offer, but only for people who put the effort into acquiring the now needed salvation. Here children are completely at the mercy of religious adults who ‘know’ what is needed for their salvation: obedience, submission and surrendering without questions. The promises of conformity and obedience are great, while the threats for disobedience are dire, both for the present life and the hereafter.

To make matters worse, salvation is more easily lost than won. So avoiding hell becomes an eternal and uncertain struggle for salvation, creating swings between hope, fear and loneliness.

Children learn to distrust their bodies because it might ‘misbehave’ or express inner thoughts and experiences that are very likely going to be used as evidence against them: ‘Here you are: you are bad, you are a sinner!’. Trusting people and your own body experience becomes a dangerous affair.  Children are regularly reminded not to forget that ‘God sees and knows all, even your innermost thoughts!’  As a consequence your body and even your dreams need to be kept continuously under control otherwise it might misbehave and bring you into trouble.

There seems to be no escape. The following Us-Them doctrines are another lock of the religious prison. ‘We are the only people to whom God has revealed Himself/Herself/Itself/as Universe correctly. We got it right; all other religions got it wrong due to influence of Satan/Evil/Pigs. The World is a fallen/broken place run by Satan anyway. There is hope: Jesus/Mohammed/Messias will come back and put everything right. Ensure that He will save you as well!’

In other words, children are taught to be afraid of themselves and everything and everybody outside their own religion.  Stay with God’s own people, otherwise you are damned for sure.

For many people leaving their religious fold has been extra traumatic due to the loss of family and friends when they were needed most.

I would like to propose starting the workshop with sharing your experiences with religious doctrines. Next I propose to explore how glorious life can be after religious trauma. All this followed by a closing ‘ritual’. 

​A space to be as you are, all are welcome here.

Allow your body to move and be moved by music from around the globe.

Let your body be supported by luscious swirling notes

Be invigorated by fiery percussive beats

Free your body and your mind and discover of what is coming out

Release yourself into spontaneous movement

Feel the joy of connecting with fellow dancers

Come to a point of completeness

ENJOY EXPLORE OBSERVE and you will surprise yourself. 

​We will be together over May weekend which includes the second part of the Celtic festival of Beltane on 1st May. This is the Festival which welcomes in the Sun, celebrating Fertility in The Land and her people. The Beltane Fire is actually lit on 30th April, when marrying couples jump over the embers of the fire. The Earth Goddess and The Green Man are honoured, as Spring burgeons forth leaves and Nature gives birth to her young. Traditionally handfastings take place, for a year and a day at Beltane and are broken on May 1st the following year if the couple decide not to remain together, Once handfasted 3 times the couple are regarded as together for Life.  The Lord of Misrule is given his head between midnight and dawn of Beltane, allowing random couplings, to help keep order in place the rest of the year.

Washing your face in the dew, to encourage beauty, is done on May Day when all the couples, who have taken to the grass for a night of lustful freedom, rise early to return to their own homes and get on with Life. Maypoles wind in the blessings for a year. The dance of the fixed village Maypole releases the blessings bound in the year before and new blessings and hopes for the community are created as the colourful ribbons are rewound in the dance where all intertwine to co-create order once more. 

May Day is also celebrated in Britain as a national worker's holiday, expressing solidarity with the International Worker's Movement. This reflects the notion of blessings all around the world being sent, inherent in the Beltane Celebration of Nature in both Masculine and Feminine forms. The Green Man is carved into many churches because many stone masons honoured the Old Ways while building christian churches. Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian has well over 100 Green Men of different ages carved into her Magdalene Chapel walls.

We would like co-create a CoCo Beltane May-Fire Festival. As we all arrive on 1st May, perhaps we could co-create the fire for 2nd May, weather permitting. We could also have a preparation workshop around releasing burdens and making annual commitments, which can happen, whether or not we have the weather for the fire wood to be dry and lightable. Even with great weather the fire can only happen if we have wood gatherers willing to assist the process.

We hope the creation of a Maypole Dance will also be possible. It is up to you. Lilian Brzoska will be delighted to hear from anyone who wishes to Co-faciltate the Fire Festivities and/ or the Maypole Circle of Life. We encourage the bringing of long, colourful ribbons. Your Queen of the May and May King (Green Man) finery will also be welcomed, It can also be created while awakening your own Inner Sun, celebrating the Fertility of ideas and feelings of connection to one another and to Nature, in our Co-counselling International gathering. We look forward to all the possibilities engaging with this powerful, ancient Festival gives us, in this year of Homecoming when Scotland will decide her own future once again.