Avril

To begin, I would like to share about my time before and about my decision to attend the Relationships 1 Course, as I feel these to be important aspects my whole experience. Before attending the course I was beginning to feel less and less connected to myself and my husband than I had in quite some time. We had been married for just over three months and I couldn't recall ever being so miserable in our relationship of six years. I had known before getting married that we would have many challenges and that it would be a lot of work. We had already been working on our relationship so I had thought it would just be more of the same. Well, it wasn't; the marriage took us to a much deeper level of commitment. This was a beautiful, yet daunting feeling. We had developed many patterns between us since the very early days of dating, and I saw the Relationships Course as an opportunity to help us learn how to shift out of these. I don't want to spend my life with this man going through the same issues year after year. I also wanted to attend to learn how to have a better relationship with myself. If I can't get along with, love, and accept myself, how can I co-operate with and fully love and accept the people I have relationships with?

I feel the course is amazing! I went there with an idea to work on what seemed a rather specific issue, as vast as the subject of relationships is. I had no idea how many layers and intricacies would come up. I was able to see and feel so much of my behaviour and experiences and learn a great deal about them. The concepts and exercises that Elizabeth Schnugh so masterfully and eloquently presented to us fit seamlessly into everything that the participants brought to the course. The course content with the sharing, questions, and laughter flowed with such precision one would think it was all planned out perfectly. Yet, how can you plan for what the participants bring up throughout the day? Elizabeth created time and space for everything without a blip. I learned so much just being in that flow.

Throughout the course I felt fear, sadness, anger, and joy. I connected with and felt a level of warmth which I don't believe I've felt before towards myself, my husband, and the other participants. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the Relationships I Course. The tools and skills I brought home with me are simple, yet extremely effective to assist me in co-operating more intelligently in all of my relationships, including the one with myself.

With Warmth in my Heart,
Avril Murrin
Vancouver, Canada

Caroline

I've been to other courses before and I've read many books, but I never had the experience of a course being so useful and having so much immediate impact on me. Now that I'm back home I'm still digesting what I learnt about myself and I am actually "working" with it.

The knowledge that was shared was very profound and yet very down to earth: no airy-fairy thinking, but things that actually apply to me and to the way I relate with the people around me. I gained a better understanding of the differences between males and females and of how these principles apply in my life. I was also taught tools that seem very workable to me and that I can use in my daily life.

Caroline Ingelbrecht
Belgium

Dylan

The Relationship 1 course I attended in Ireland touched me deeply. I found the mix between theory and practice expertly facilitated by Elizabeth, who has an awesome way of weaving the theoretical elements into the actual sharing of the participants. I had a basic understanding of most of the concepts before attending the course from reading the books. But the presentation of the theory with real life examples in a group environment helped me fill in gaps in my understanding I had not got from the books. The practical side, however, was the real clincher for me, where we got to not only listen to feelings but actually work with them in a practical way.

I learned that I can hear my inner female and that I am actually very good at listening to her. However, the problem was around trusting this inner guidance. Being able to voice my feelings during the practical exercises in the safe space of the group allowed me to gain this trust in myself and refine my skill in listening even more. Then once a feeling has been heard to actually work practically with this feeling and derive a practical strategy which can be acted on was of immense value to me. During this process I learned to swap between the relative male and female gender roles in order to work more intelligently in all my relationships.

The group on the course showed me how powerful group work is and how powerful the course is for groups who want to work together. I used to have the mindset that I can learn everything on my own. What I did not realize is that working in a group of people who are sincere about learning about themselves creates a much more intense focus and so makes the personal work easier than in the day-to-day of my existing life and so accelerated my learning immensely.

What is really important for me is what happens after a course like this. I was able to uncover a victim approach I had to life based on resentment that I held towards my mother. The resentment has always caused me to "rebel" with passive resistance against females in my life. I also felt huge guilt in my hidden rebellion, which I always tried to overcome with forcing, causing many painful patterns in my life. Finding this allowed me to simply drop the resentment. My daily interactions with the females in my life, including my mother, are improving in leaps and bounds.

We were reminded by Elizabeth to also include the positive in our work. I learned a lot about what I am already doing right and can give myself credit for how far I have already come.

I can without reservation recommend this course to any group, individual or couple who are sincere in their wish to learn more about how to relate more meaningfully to the world around them.

With love and respect,
Dylan Miles
Cape Town, South Africa

Garrett

Dear Friend,

I was deeply affected by all aspects of the Relationships One course; the facilitator and the material; the other participants and gatherings with them each day after the course; listening and sharing what we were uncovering about ourselves, along with much shared laughter.

I found Elizabeth Schnugh to be one of the most masterful artists I have ever had the privilege and pleasure of learning with. I say masterful artist because of the way she wove our personal experiences and hers into the material. This made the course very practical and experiential rather than an intellectual exercise. Her unwavering focus on supporting us and encouraging us to be all we are had a very positive effect on us. Not to mention the laughter and fun she wove into the mix. One could not help but want to open one's heart and share it with everyone in such an environment. In that sharing I touched off of something within me that I feel is the true me. The experience of the course showed me how to practically carry that forward into my daily life.

I found the course material to be deeply profound in its implications yet focused in a beautifully simplistic fashion. I am not saying the material was not challenging! On the contrary, the material touched off my previous life's experiences and in many cases confirmed for me the things I was getting right in my life but did not know how to repeat. This challenged my lack of belief in myself in a huge way! It also showed me through experience how to proceed in learning. There is something magical about the material, for when I attempt to think about it, it does not lend itself to much thinking, yet when I act it's somehow readily accessible, LOL!

The other participants were also an amazing experience for me! To be able to connect with people on that level makes my heart sing! To witness other people opening up and sharing more of who they are with us all is a priceless gift; I felt honoured and humbled by the experience. Each step taken by any one of us created a harmony, and the more we opened the stronger the harmony, and the stronger the harmony the more we opened. I also feel that because people truly shared themselves with me I carry something about them forward with me and it adds to my strength and resolve to live my life to the full.

I am in no way saying that I can now sit back and relax because I have it all sorted, LOL! No, I want to be a part of my Life more than ever, I want to embrace myself and all that my life offers me. My life is filled to the brim with challenges, but for many years I saw these as a burden of problems to be solved as quickly as possible or endured until I could finally be rid of them. This course provided a means for me to shift away from those beliefs and step into a new vitality. I touched off something within myself that has always been there and it felt true and real and I am willing to risk to live more of it. I can no longer hide out in my lack of belief in myself - and that is a gift delivered to me with such skill, love and support that I am in awe!

In humble gratitude,
Garrett Murrin
Vancouver, Canada

Mihail

Dear Friends,

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from a course on relationships and how it would help me on my path of personal growth. Initially I wanted to go there together with my wife, since if I wanted to learn about relationships it would made sense to do that with my life partner. In the end I went to the course on my own.

The feeling that I was having when flying to the course was that I am going there to learn something about myself, which will help me in my relationships in general. I wasn't sure how this could happen, but I decided to believe my intuition.

Elizabeth proved to be an excellent facilitator and experienced navigator who masterly led the group through the depths of our inner worlds toward that ultimate being living in each of us, who could only be called the REAL SELF. This inner re-connection caused openness of the heart that many of us could never reach before. The warmth, sincerity and trust, willingness to co-operate and to be in service to each other that was established amongst the group was amazing. It was the ultimate opportunity to learn to read the reflections of the mirrors that surround us, but also to openly serve as a mirror to others. The practical knowledge that we were given at the course will serve us all to build and maintain mutually uplifting relationships, based on real values and truth.

The answer to my question that I had in my mind on my way to the course is clear now: the only commitment that one can have in life is the commitment to the SELF. By making every effort to build that ultimate relationship with our REAL self we are learning to relate to the world and every person in our life directly from our heart and live our lives in inclusiveness and truth. I believe with all my heart that participating on this course is a wonderful way of giving the respect that we all deserve to that wonderful being living in each of us.

With Love,
Mihail Tsvetanov
Czech Republic

Patrick

Attending this course is the one of the most precious gifts that I have ever given to my-Self. I have been on a journey of Self dis-covery for a number of years now. I have read lots of books and attended many personality development courses. This course helped me to get in touch with my TRUE self by giving me practical ways of working to help me uplift my-Self and those around me.

The Relationship 1 course was presented by Elizabeth Schnugh in the gentlest way. It was an amazing course. Elizabeth encouraged us from the start to relate and connect with our-selves and with each other by co-operating intelligently and working together. Elizabeth explained how to work with our emotions in the most life supportive way. She pointed out the difference between emotions and feelings and how to use our emotions to get to our feelings.

Elizabeth shared with us how to become aware of and to work with, in a simple and practical way, the male and female aspects of our awareness. That men and women are equal but their approach to life is different. This was totally different to what I had previously been taught and when I began using the concepts, I could see how effective and life supportive they are. Elizabeth also explained how it is so important for all of us to materialise our potential. If I am in a man's body, I must unfold my masculine potential to be a true male. If I am in a woman's body, I must unfold my feminine potential to be a true female. There is no point in having all this potential if it is not materialised.

The mark of a good relationship is that it is mutually uplifting and strengthening, bringing out the best in us. From following Elizabeth's guidance it is plain to see how many relationships are competitive based. Instead of co-operating with each other intelligently to bring out the best in us, we defend our self image in every conflict and continue on our ego trip and learn nothing about our behaviour. The result of this is we keep going round and round in never ending circles repeating and re-acting our folly again and again. I am learning that it is okay to be defence-less and that it is only when I am defence-less that I can recognize my behaviour.

Elizabeth explained how life will reflect back to us what we need to learn about ourselves. That we cannot see our own behaviour but we will see it in others. We all need a person of the opposite sex who will mirror for us our own inner female or male side. This does not mean that we have to have a sexual relationship with them. It is by learning to get to know our own inner female/male that we develop WARMTH in our relationship with our-Self.

Overall, I have learned how important it is for each of us to find and to acknowledge our TRUE VALUE, that we are NOT our behaviour and that we can change our behaviour. When I gain new knowledge of my-Self, I must then learn to use and trust that knowledge. When I doubt my own knowledge and my feelings, I undermine my-Self and therefore I am not being true to my-Self.