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The Method

Heart and Wings - Supporting your inner growth

We aim to support those who strive for inner growth in 3 very different ways:

- guided group sessions aimed at inner growth

- coaching in individual sessions

- providing solutions on a material level

Contents of the growth series

Heart and Wings - Supporting your inner growth

The introduction starts with a bit of information, a bit of theory if you like, a small explanation on how psychological research or ancient traditions approach a specific theme.

Below you can find 14 themes further divided in specific subjects. Each session will start with one subject. We tend to follow the order listed below, introducing things step by step. However, in certain cases, for example if a specific question is raised or a specific need is observed, the order may be changed so we can work on what is most useful for everyone.

Introduction/Theory
1. Changing onself for the better
  1. Ways to be happy
  2. Changing oneself
  3. Having positive attitudes
  4. Overcoming obstacles to change
  5. Who would you rather be?
  6. How to overcome lack of discipline
  7. Before making a change
2. Findings from positive psychology
  1. PERMA model of happiness
  2. Stress & focus vs Broaden and build
  3. Rolemodels
  4. Compassion & the 3 brain systems
  5. ‘I am struggling’
3. Training the mind - Mo Gawdats ‘Solve 4 Happy’
  1. The story of Mo Gawdat
  2. The happiness algorithm
  3. The 6 grand illusions
  4. The 7 blind spots
  5. The 5 fundamental truths
4. Training the Heart – Heart Coherence
5. Ancient Wisdom & psychological findings
  1. Identification
  2. Perception
  3. behaviour
    1. Interactive Biospychosocial model
    2. Layers of biological influences
    3. Layers of social and cultural influences
    4. Individual behaviour
6. How we feel & how we can change
  1. Impact of Balance vs imbalance of stimuli
  2. Interaction of 3 Aspects of being
  3. Learning mechanism
  4. Difficulties in changing
    1. Conflicts between the 3 aspects of being
    2. Obstacles to change
7. Understanding conflict
8. Increasing inner strength
  1. Resilience
  2. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind
  3. Compassion
  4. Self compassion
9. Controlling the mind
  1. Alan Watkings
  2. Marisa Peer
  3. Loretta Graziano Breuning
10. Mental illness (Depression/anxiety/burnout/panic attacks...)
11. Purifying the mind
  1. Why purify the mind?
  2. How to purify the mind
    1. Directing your thoughts, feelings and actions
    2. Using music
    3. Using intention while focussing on the breath
12. Love
  1. Love and happiness
  2. Connecting to the world arround us
13. Beauty
  1. Inner beauty
  2. Expressing beauty
  3. Enjoying beauty
14. Harmony
  1. inner harmony
  2. embracing harmony
  3. bringing harmony

Practise

The main part however is about doing the work, practising, not preaching!

You can do these exercises by yourself at home and it will certainly help if you do so from time to time.

But, for several reasons, it is easier and leads to better results when we practise these exercises in a group

The list of excercises is not exhaustive. Usually we will do one or two excercises from each category.

Introduction/Theory
Practice
1. Quietening down
  1. focus on breath
  2. focus on music
  3. attunement in silence
  4. Loosening tensions in the body
2. Energizing excercise
  1. focus on inner sensations and intentions
  2. daoist meditation
  3. Breathing through the subtle treshholds
3. Training the mind
  1. Inspirational texts
  2. Visualisations
  3. Mantra/wazaief
  4. Positive suggestions
4. Heart excercise
  1. Excercise on gratitude
  2. Excercise on blessings
  3. Training Heart Coherence

Closing

Finally, we finish the practice - looking back on the day, on what we experienced, what we learned, sharing experiences and setting clear intentions towards daily life or towards the next session.

3. Closing

Reflecting
Sharing experiences
Setting intentions

... and finally to round up things, there is some time to have a cup of tea together, have a small chat and ask questions. For practical purposes, the 'tea time' is limited to 15 minutes.