Our next Webinar: It will be on Sunday, June 14, at 10am Pacific time. It will be dedicated to Members' questions/comments about our Advanced Lessons, Self-Help Sessions, Challenging cases, personal uses or anything else that will help us climb our Stairway to Miracles.
Newbie and Oldbie questions encouraged.
We will begin with a fascinating discussion with four of our Members who have dedicated themselves to studying our Course in depth. They have formed a practice group for this purpose and, as you will see in the letter below from Marion Bilich, the results have been impressive.
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Note From Marion Bilich, PhD
Gary,
Just wanted to update you on the study group Mary McGrory started a few months ago aimed at helping us thoroughly work the 30 lessons together. There are four of us, Mary Mcgrory, Anne Ryan, Nancy McKinney. and me (Marion Bilich). I speak for all four of us when I say that we have been having a wonderful time and feel we are learning in ways we never would have on our own. The benefits have gone beyond what we’d expected when we signed up.
Our weekly group lasts for 90 minutes. For the first 45 minutes we discuss the week’s lesson. In the second half of the session, one person becomes the focus and we help that person with a troubling issue or specific event inviting in the Unseen Therapist. We have humorously called that “being in the hot seat.” Despite the name, it has been anything but a stressful experience to be that focus person. Week after week, we are grateful for the experience of being on the receiving end of all that love.
Here are some of the highlights of what we have learned from studying the lessons together:
Accountability
Since there is a weekly assignment (typically one lesson), and we know that we’ll be discussing that lesson in the group, there is an incentive to do the reading (and thinking) during the week. Working on one’s own, it is often all too easy to put off reading the lessons because other things demand attention. Weeks can go by without working on any lessons. Being accountable to the other group members keeps us on track.
Interestingly, we found that some of us, at least at first, were approaching the reading assignments like “school homework,” cramming it in at the last minutes. Over the weeks, we discovered that if we didn’t take the time to read and digest the lessons and answer the questions at the end, we were missing out.
We have concluded that having at least a week between lesson gives us the time to truly digest the material.
Diverse Insights and Perspectives
Each one of us sees the material a bit differently, and it is enlightening to hear the others’ takes on the lesson for the week. Sometimes someone will mine a nougat of useful information or a brilliant insight that I had completely missed during my own reading. Our discussions of those nougats spark more insights.
It’s Lovelier the Second Time Around
Especially for those of us who have studied EFT for a long time, it’s easy to do a cursory reading of the lessons the first time around- “Yeah, I know that already…” I thought impatiently at times.
What I found in re-reading the lessons in preparation for our group discussion, is that I gave each lesson more thought, taking time to answer the questions. And to my surprise I was learning more than I’d expected. More insights, more understanding. In some ways, re-reading the material after having had a year and a half of practicing with the Unseen Therapist was like re-watching a movie or tv show from my childhood. There was SO much I’d missed when I was a child.
Need for Flexibility
When we began the group we had “contracted” to do a lesson a week, but when we got to Lesson 7 (How to Find Specific Events Underlying Emotional Issues), we realized that there was so much material to discuss and apply in our own lives that one week didn’t feel like enough. Anne suggested that we take an extra week to work on that lesson.
We all agreed that was a great idea, but I was struck by how wedded I (and others) had been to the structure we’d created and how we’d treated it like “school” where the rules are set and we have to follow them like good students. We laughed about our inflexibility, but we’d learned an important lesson about the need for flexibility in a study group.
When Mary announced the formation of a study group to do the lessons, she received many more requests to join than she could accommodate. She’d decided that four group members was optimal. I agree. That leaves a lot of people out there without this wonderful resource.
I want to encourage others to form their own study groups. I would be happy to consult with anyone who is thinking of forming or becoming part of this type of practice group.
With love,
Marion
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