I went to a personal development seminar with Anna last weekend, one that I had attended once before, more than a decade ago. Partly, it was to reload on the kind of (good) energy that usually develops in that kind of environment, and partly because I was curious how the experience would be like this time compared to the time before...

... and I get to realise how much of this I've already done (and how much more work I still have to do). That's nothing I mind, it was still great to have it all refreshed and to see how I was standing within the message given, today.

One of the greater messages is about expanding your sphere of understanding and experience. "Transcending" is the word used, and it does say a lot, it's about transcending to a larger state of being by going outside of your comfort zone and conquering fear, going from a "human animal" (that lives much in fear and stays withing those boundaries) to a "human being", and a way to get there is through acceptance and happiness.

Talked about this way, it doesn't really sound that special. What's special about this seminar, though, is that a lot of the growth is done through practical experience. You get to discover acceptance, you get to experience going outside of your comfort zone.

I was a bit disapointed the last day, though... it was a part that was talking about the difference between men and women, talking about PMS and how that's incomprehensible to men, talking about men and women in terms of hunters and gatherers, and a few other things that got up my nose, probably more than it deserves... that whole part strongly contradicted my own experience, where the things that make men men and women women are really not clear at all, and it definitely isn't clear what comes from biology/genes and what comes from our upbringing. In this seminar, it seemed clear that the lecturer considered it to be a large part due to biology... and interestingly enough, this screams of inconsistency in my ears, as in another part of the seminar, we talked about how little we really know about how we work (and therefore, transcending to whatever we wanted is possible), and in some other part, we talked a lot about how we most often do with our kids what our parents did with us (unless we think about it and actively change it)... But then maybe this is something where the lecturer might transcend from a human animal to a human being some day ;-). If I didn't see this as a serious part, I might see it as a joke. Maybe I should, and laugh at the irony

Still, I enjoyed being there and getting that energy again. I met a bunch of nice people, found a couple of friends that I intend to keep in touch with, and gave/got a lot of hugs. Actually, come to think of it, one of the greater things with this seminar is probably the huge amount of hugs