Experiences
"...a place where I can feel safe, be accepted, have trust and be exactly the one I am without playing a role..."
Aita Päts, Sweden
48 years old, educated as teacher (ages 10-13 years), been running wholesale company with own designs of gifts in natural materials for the last 14 years (the company is sold a year ago), now starting up leading groups with QiGong, TaiChi and meditation.
The first time I visited Osho Risk, I got a feeling that finally I had found a 'home' - a place where I can feel safe, be accepted, have trust and be exactly the one I am without playing a role - a deep feeling of belonging and sharing.
The Therapist Training is the best gift I have ever given to myself. I have never before felt so 'seen' and accepted. Sides of myself that I was ashamed of before, I can today be proud of. I am relating to life in a more conscious way and I can feel myself in a larger perspective, as a natural part of true nature. I can feel more love and joy in small things and happenings, in every part of nature.
I am carrying a huge, warm gratefulness in my heart to all the people at Risk for running a place for a more loving mankind and a better future on Earth. The training has made me sure of my purpose to also work for more love and consciousness. I never want to stop this process! I am already longing for more!
"...Dont try too much, then you only miss it..."
Lars Brenaa – Norwegian Businessman
At the age of 43, after working for 25 years as a business executive, I realized that I was waking up every morning in a chronic state of stress. My lifestyle included managing other people in work projects, being active in sports, traveling around the world, and using whatever spare time was left to figure out how to be good enough to fit in with everybody else.
Once upon a time, it had been satisfying to live like this, but now somehting wasn’t working. The joy was gone. It felt like I was repeating myself every single day. I was not really living, just surviving.
This realization motivated me to search for something more essential, something more fulfilling, and I joined the Therapist Training to see if that could give me some insights.
It is impossible to describe in a few words the transformation that has happened to me during the 18 months of participating in the training. I know for sure that it has saved my life, rescuing me from routine, habit, meaningless survival.
Every time we met as participants to experience a different segment of the training, new things happend to me and I could reach deeper inside myself. The process has opened up in me the possibilities of how I really want to live my life. It has been a great gift.
Most probably, this would not have been possible without the staff at Osho Risk and the patient and wise therapists who guided us through our process, as well as all the people in the Buddafield who received me in a friendly, open and nonjudgmental way.
This great experience has given me a chance to really be myself and not a product of my social education and conditioning.
Thank you all.
"I feel a kindness towards myself now. This environment nurtures that, specially the meditations. I have been seeing what meditation really is over the last 18 months."
Astha - age 24, Dublin, Ireland
I just completed collage - ITEC diploma Anatomy and Physiology, Holistic and Aromatherapy Massage, Reflexology, Diet & Nutrition. NCVA Award in Communication, Business Studies, Desktop Publishing, Human Growth and Development, Marketing.
The group has been such a big part of my life, so it is feels a bit sad to leave now. This place has been a tremendous support. It given me space and time to really see and feel and to be who I am at the moment. I have got a completely different way of experiencing myself.
I used to feel so much hurt and emptiness inside, so I would hit out all the time. I was rejecting myself. Now I can see more of the positive things inside. I realise that I have value - I am important to myself. I feel a kindness towards myself now. This environment nurtures that, specially the meditations. I have been seeing what meditation really is over the last 18 months.
Meditation and everything else in this place is so down-to-earth, not New Age airy-fairy. No hocus-pocus spiritual psycho-sh... It is so normal!
"Right now I feel freer to be me. I recognize parts of my conditioning, which has kept me in the box and still (sometimes) keeps me there. I have met and (sometimes) accepted my own vulnerability, seeing that being vulnerable is a sign of strength. Before the training I thought that vulnerability was a sign of weakness. "
Charlotte Rudenstam, Sweden.
Journalist and communication trainer.
The mother of 3 kids. Three years of therapy experience before this training.
I was looking for a way to "find myself" and grow, to be able to accept my self as I am, and to be less afraid.
I had experienced body-orientated psychotherapy a few times and felt immediately that it was my thing. I can not manipulate the reactions in my body, the way I can manipulate my words, when lying on the coach of my Freudian therapist.
Right now I feel freer to be me. I recognize parts of my conditioning, which has kept me in the box and still (sometimes) keeps me there. I have met and (sometimes) accepted my own vulnerability, seeing that being vulnerable is a sign of strength. Before the training I thought that vulnerability was a sign of weakness.
Having fellow travelers is very important to me, being mirrored by others, learning from other people's processes. The friendship and safe environment in the group has helped me to open up.
For me it has been very helpful to learn to be aware of my body, to accept it and listen to it. Now I can often hear its needs, and that is of great help in my daily life. Now I dare to live in a very open and loving relationship!!
My concepts of psychology and spirituality have widened, and the spiritual side does not frighten me, as it used to do. At some moments I can feel that I am belonging to Existence, as everyone else does. This has made me more humble towards life, towards other people and myself. It feels that life is a wonder and that we all are here for a reason. Before the training I got sometimes glimpses in that direction, but that scared me and I felt ashamed of that. Today I am more at ease living with this "knowledge".
I feel very welcome every time I come to Risk and I like the atmosphere, an atmosphere that tells me that I am okay, whatever I do, whatever I feel, whoever I am. I don't feel any restrictions and that I have to perform in any way - and for me that is really nice. I also like the food, the working meditations, that helps me to be more natural. Love, the love of life, the quality of acceptance that I meet at Risk is very important to me.
"It is probably the best thing I have ever done."
Thomas Perret, age 33, Finland, M.Sc. (econ.)
I participated in the eleven weeks of the Therapist Training between November 2006 and May 2008. It is probably the best thing I have ever done.
It’s a very personal process and for me it was all about daring to look inside – to really look – and to expose what I saw just as it was. To look at my fears and anxieties and hopes and lust and shame and judgements – all those things that I didn't like to look at in my daily life. I used to keep them at a distance, but they had still been there, making me cautious and anxious and calculating and generally a scared guy with an attitude. I used to feel like I didn’t have a full membership in the club. And it sucked–to the point that I didn’t wanna go on like that anymore. I wanted to see where the fear came from and what it really consisted of. And here at Risk, I was able to do that with the help of the amazing therapists and the loving and approving feeling that the group created.
In my opinion, this work that you are doing here at Risk is what we in Finnish call “sitä itseään” – the very stuff, the absolute essentials. I am happy and grateful to have found you. And I am very happy and grateful towards myself for taking the jump.
