2011 One Month Retreat Noosa, Australia

October 15 – November 13

This is the 10th consecutive year of the One Month Body Harmony® Retreat. The dates have changed slightly, we are running from mid October to mid November this year. Recent developments in the practice of Body Harmony® from our international event in New Orleans produced some wonderful outcomes. ‘Ease, Efficiency & Enjoyment’ – these qualities applied to our bodywork practices lead to easier ways of achieving better results. This is a unique opportunity – 150 years of bodywork experience shared between Don, Linda, Duncan & Gina – a wealth of support to assist your learning and realization.

The 2011 program is an opportunity that we think appeals equally in merit to the practitioner (or would be practitioner) and to the individual seeking growth and personal realization. As in past years, our program is available in smaller segments and these options can be viewed in the e-brochure. If you would to benefit from participation in some or all of this event, email Duncan duncan@healthinperspective.org to express your interest. To download the pdf brochure for this event, – follow this link to our downloads page.

Some helpful suggestions – from Gina Carruthers

Getting to know your physical self is subtle but really very simple and one of the greatest things to focus on to bring ease, health and joy. Here are a few suggestions and their benefits:

1) Quiet yourself Down – Get on the ground, in constructive rest, and just be quiet. The benefits include: calming the nervous system, aligning with gravity, synchronizing internal harmony, and releasing your core to something greater than itself – the earth beneath you. Emptying yourself allows for new thoughts and behaviors to take hold.

>2) Centering your Pelvis – Sit, Stand and Sleep with a centered pelvis. The benefits include: calming the nervous system, aligning with gravity, eliminating muscular compensations, and being more aware of what takes you away from ease in your life.

3) Hydrate your Spine – Keep your spine hydrated through micro movements in every direction including curling, arching, and lateral fish movements. The benefits include: efficient nervous system, supportive bones, eliminating tension, and a juicy experience of yourself and life.

4) Support your body with adequate water and minerals. The benefits include having muscles that CAN relax, and reducing the amount of time your body has to revert to a ‘survival response’ leading to physical compensations that reduce your overall efficiency.

Your Basal What?

Have you heard about your ‘basal ganglia’? Most likely not. It happens to be the name for the place in your brain where embedded behaviors are organised, – these are behaviors you don’t have to think about to engage in. Examples include writing perhaps, or walking, or typing, or driving – and also things like how you approach a problem, a relationship, a new possibility.

Imagine, all those things learned and embodied, – your behavioral repertoire ready to engage given the right stimulus. Sometimes that automated response is perfectly matched to the circumstances, and sometimes it is not. At times a behavioral tendency can itself become a burden, a form of self-sabotage, – an unwelcome input. Here is one area where Body Harmony® can be very useful to you.

This is our area of expertise. Body Harmony® is a set of transformational tools to help you make the corrections when a behavior no longer matches your intentions. Body Harmony® is a form of body processing that helps to make a possibility more probable by making the process of becoming aware much easier. The hands-on element of the work brings fluidity to the rigidity of over-used behaviors, that take the form of your physical grievances. Body Harmony helps you to make a self directed change, – the change of your choosing. A life supportive change. Sometimes you have to change your Body to change your Mind.

Finding Realization In The Body…

A newly released book we came across, ‘Touching Enlightenment, Finding Realization in The Body‘ by Reginald Ray, suggests that ‘to abandon discursive thinking – disembodiment – as our primary way of orienting ourselves…. and more than that, that a wave of alternatives to engage where we are living out of the full, unique embodiment that is possible for us all are now becoming more compelling to counter our dissociation.’ We tend to agree. In his 1967 book, ‘Betrayal of the Body‘ Alexander Lowan MD writes that, “To know who one is, an individual must be aware of what he feels. He should know the expression on his face, how he holds himself, and the way he moves. Without this awareness of bodily feeling and attitude, a person becomes split into a disembodied spirit and a disenchanted body.” Becoming acquainted with your first order experience provides you with direct and very useful information. All of the principles expressed through our work aim at realigning your mind and consciousness within bodily sensation and immediate experience. This can be very useful indeed.

And finally a few updates

We would like to thank Sydney based photographer Andre Martin for his assistance in photographing our retreat/B&B.

Check out ‘Your Brain at Work’ by David Rock. Available as an audio download from Audible.com.

For those of you who don’t know our son Kim is continuing to expand his education in all aspects of natural health and healing (check out Kimmana.com for info). As of September 2012 we intend to add cleansing and detox programs to what we offer at Alaya Verde. Also, Alaya Verde is on Facebook. We would be pleased if you ‘Like’ our page…

The next Body Harmony International Conference is anticipated to be held in June of 2012. Granada, Spain is shaping up as the destination and we are currently deciding on venues to host the event. Many thanks to Andrea and Esperanza for helping with the research.

Congratulations to Robyn Barraclough for producing an excellent website for the Canberra Body Harmony School. Click the link to see the site.

Also, Body Harmony® is on Facebook. Click this link and get the updates by choosing to ‘Like’ the Body Harmony® page.

Private Sessions – an exploration into the healing potential of your body.

Every bodywork treatment is designed around you. The art is to find your way towards a more easy and efficient way of functioning. Nothing is imposed upon you. The aim is to work with you rather than on you.

Each treatment offers a different input for your body, so areas under strain – or areas under-used – will get the benefit of ‘fitting in’ to a bigger picture once again. There is a good chance that you will become more aware of what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what you could do differently.

Not all treatments are a revelation, but quite a few of them are. Why is this so? Because people adapt and forget. This is a way of remembering what it is like to feel good. Alignment = feeling good. Fundamentally, there is good science at work!

Treatments are taken clothed, and take about 60 – 90 minutes. (more…)

An exploratory seminar for those aligned on inspiration and evolution.  April 9 – 15, 2010.

With Don & Linda McFarland, Duncan & Gina Carruthers-Hogg.

While we were in Venice we came across an Aussie guy in a kebab takeaway, traveling around Italy. The conversation quickly went to ‘so what would you recommend to see of Italy?’ This that and the other but the place you have got to go is Matera! A day or so later we drove into Matera, by this time it was dark. We followed our noses to ‘i Sassi’. It took only moments to realise the resounding truth of the traveler in the kebab store. This was, indeed, a lesson in history like no other.

Matera is like a large outdoor museum, made from a perfect integration of human activity and the cycle of nature. Considered one of the oldest towns in the world, Matera exemplifies the different phases of human evolution through continuous habitation. Simply moving from the old part to the new part of the town, you can go through the different epochs which have characterised this evocative location. Nowadays Matera is a remarkable town in southern Italy. The world is becoming increasingly conscious of it’s cultural, historical and naturalistic potential.  The heritage of the town includes: human settlements of the Neolithic age, rock-hewn churches and villages, with their Byzantine and Benedictine frescoes, and the Sassi, Matera’s old district made of Tufa, which have captured the interest of many writers and is today World Heritage listed since 1993. An unending tangle of houses’ grottoes, stairs and narrow ally ways make up the most original of all urban settlements throughout the world.

A remarkable experience.

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Hello and welcome. You are invited to take advantage of these FREE opportunities to enjoy the benefits of Body Harmony® this April, May & June.

These events are open to you and your friends, family, spouse or clients. You can read more about Body Harmony® on this website.

To make it easier to have a first up experience, you can also book your first 30 minute treatment at no cost to you. It’s a great way to find out more and understand better what we actually offer you. See our contact details below. (more…)

Body Harmony® International Conferences like this upcoming event in Samoa 2009 are the perfect opportunity to learn, relax and enjoy. People come from all over the world to take advantage of the remarkable benefits afforded by the practices of Body Harmony®. And you can too. It’s a conference open to anyone with an interest.

This time we are beach-side in the South Pacific at the Aggie Grey’s Lagoon, Beach Resort & Spa on the island of Upolu, Samoa. So come on in, – we think you will enjoy what is on offer! Download the FULL BROCHURE

Every 18 months or so members of the wider Body Harmony® community gather together to hold an exceptional International Conference. This event moves around our planet from Australasia to the continent of America and then on to Europe by rotation every eighteen months.

These conferences have occurred in Bali (twice), mainland Mexico and Baja (three times), in Tenerife – Spain, Lake Bled – Slovenia and Palm Cove – Australia.

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Dear Friend and Colleague: The following may be of benefit during those times you are explaining what it is that you do. The following Question will probably come up…. Dr Don McFarland…..

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