Clearing the Air™ Workshops
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The CTA Experience
About the WorkThe highly acclaimed Clearing the Air workshop series featured various interactive group experiences. It explored the wounds we hold around our family of origin, and how these initial wounds have continued to impact our adult lives. The series was designed to help men and women break through the unresolved issues that impede forgiveness and personal freedom.
The workshops were experiential in nature. There was very little lecture. The intention was to break through barriers and old patterns through movement, Tantrum Yoga® express and release work, breathwork, psychodrama, meditation, and processes that excavate wounds and ties that keep us stuck. It was an intense and transformational series of four-day, three-night events offered for 12 men or 12 women..
Breath work is more than inhaling and exhaling. It’s an opportunity to get in touch with our inherent feelings and release blocks that keep us from experiencing true intimacy (to quote Stan Dale - "in to me you see") with ourselves and others. This is a system, developed back in the mid-80's by Gordon Clay, to release stored or pent-up emotions without resorting to any form of violence. There is no need for our children or anyone else to see us hitting pillows to release anger, or to kick or punch a bag, slam doors or phones, or display violent behavior when experincing deeper levels of anger and rage. Tantrum Yoga (i.e., authentic movement for the inner child) is a system that also makes it safe for partners to experience their anger without fearing that either one will become physically violent. In a culture that seems to think that where there is anger, there is violence, Tantrum Yoga provides the tools to dismantle this perception without stuffing your anger or using anything else (drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, sex, work, television, cigarettes, coffee - and the list is endless) to numb out. It supports coming into your real feelings, not those created feelings that you learned in order to be safe, to get what you wanted, or to cover fear, anger, sadness or pain. It allows the clearing of stuck feelings to make an opening for true intimacy and joy. For as long as anger, blame or resentment toward someone is held, it is impossible to reach true intimacy with that person. As Carrie Fisher said, "Resentment (and anger and blame) is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
Contraindications and Medical Information
CTA Workshops were intended as a personal growth experience and should not be looked upon as a substitute for psychotherapy. They can involve dramatic experiences accompanied by strong release. Contraindications mean that these workshops are not appropriate for pregnant women, persons with cardiovascular problems, severe hypertension, mental illness, recent surgery or fractures, acute infectious illness, or epilepsy. If you have any doubt about whether you should participate, consult your physician and/or therapist as well as the facilitator well before attending. (This is provided for history since we aren't running the workshops any longer.)
If you have attended Healing the Father Wound® or Healing the Mother Wound®, and would like access to additional pertinent information, please email us here. Include your name, address, email, phone number, which workshop you attended and the date you went through. We will email you the appropriate access code for this additional protected community area. Then, in the future, click here for access.
There is a level of intimacy and safety that is reached in the gender reconciliation workshop Clearing the Air Between Women & Men (formerly known as Family Reunion) that many people have longed for. In 1993 a number of the men and women who had participated in the workshop chose to meet again at Harbin Hot Springs for a gathering. Gatherings of graduates of this workshop have been happening ever since. Though the 1993 reunion was limited to the people who had attended the 1993 Family Reunion workshop, every subsequent gathering has been open to anyone who has attended a workshop in the CTA workshop series, and a compatible friend.
These gatherings are based on our work in Clearing the Air:
- OHNSI - Open-hearted, non-sexual intimacy
- No hitting or kicking of anyone, anything or yourself
- Remain alcohol and drug free.
They have included dance, guerilla theatre, art projects, rituals, processes, as well as plenty of free time to connect and play. These gatherings have been hosted by various members of the community from California to Oregon, and Minnesota to West Virginia. If you wish to attend, click here for contact information, dates and to register. We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming gathering.
How's life? We would like to hear from you, no matter how long ago you took any of our workshops. We're looking into the future to see what might be next and could really use your input to help guide us. Click here.
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