What is Presence Scotland??

Presence Scotland is the name for my business working with the Hakomi Method. Hakomi is a therapeutic approach which is based on this basic awareness that permeates all experience, which may also be called 'presence', as it is right here, right now, always present.

When as human beings we suffer and feel stuck in patterns we often seek to know how to change and feel better. With Hakomi we know that the wholeness that we seek is already present, and that all we need is to know how to see this, invite it to unfold and to feel safe enough to allow that.

Emotional healing, psychological healing, whatever you want to call it, these are basically acts of faith in our own resources, our innate wholeness and awakeness. Healing can be thought of as a shift towards wholeness which happens spontaneously when conditions allow it.

Hakomi is a way that one person skillfully supports another to recognise and access their innate wholeness. Through another person's faith in you and in the healing process, you can come to have more faith in yourself.

So using this method we pay attention to present experience with curiosity, compassion, humour and love. We support what is happening spontaneously in body, mind and emotion and get curious about what 'wants to happen'. We are bringing the unconscious material that organises our perception, our feelings, our life into clear awareness. We are learning about ourselves through direct experience. It is a journey of self discovery on which old pains arise and are given the attention and nourishment to allow them to resolve. What was buried finds the warmth and kind attention that it was waiting for and life flows through us more freely.

More detail about the INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP

I recently had an enquiry from a potential workshop participant asking if I could give more detail about the content of these workshops and if it is aimed at lay or professional people. Here's what I replied....

Happy to give you a bit more information. The workshop is really for anybody curious about self exploration and supporting others. Previous workshops have attracted therapists and lay people alike and people who are interested in studying therapeutic practices.

The content of the workshop will be a combination of experiential exercises and discussion. We try out things with an experimental attitude and then talk about what we discovered. Exercises are usually in pairs or small groups as Hakomi is about learning to support other people and to be supported in a loving way. It differs from meditation in that we are exploring how we are organised habitually in relation to other people in the moment.

Our first task is to create an open and spacious state of mind with which to meet the other so it is useful to uncover what habits we have when attending to other people. So an example of a common exercise is to have a group of three and one person talks and the others listen and use mindfulness to notice what automatically happens when they listen to another. What assumptions do you have? What role do you take? Where does your attention go? What are you drawn to do? So the intention in this exercise is to notice any habits and then let them go - don't act on them, and then see what happens. People always have a wide range of experiences in this exercise. Some feel a great relief that they don't have to do anything but sit and notice. Others can find it very difficult not to act on their habits. This doesn't matter, the point is just to learn what your habits are so that they can become choices.

The exercises are all quite different and there is quite a large and ever evolving menu of Hakomi exercises. The style is very open and playful and experimental. It is always inspiring to have others be willing to study their automatic habits and unconscious patterns inour presence. There is usually some nervousness as we will often be strangers but the spacious and gentle style of the work creates a lot of safety and these feelings are held with compassionate awareness as part of the process of self study.

Hakomi is a therapeutic method which takes several years to train in and many years to master. These intro workshops aren't really geared to teach you the method but just to give a taste. I like the metaphor of Hakomi as a very nourishing stream and this workshop is a playful splash around and taste of the waters, which if people want to follow can lead into the wider river which may be skillfully navigated. The intention is for people to have a nourishing experience more than to learn something theoretical about the method although that usually happens too.

I hope this gives you a bit more of an idea of the sort of thing involved. Please ask more if you feel the need.

All the best,

Diarmid.

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Hakomi Workshop July 2011

‘Deep Nourishment Through Mindfulness.’

INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP IN THE HAKOMI METHOD

July 30th and 31st 2011

At 'Gathering Essence.' School of Daoist Yoga and Qigong Meditation.

14a Broughton St Lane.

Edinburgh.

Take some space and time to slow down and open your awareness to yourself, to others and to all moves between us. Get a taste of this method for accessing our innate ability to relate to each other with compassion. Hakomi is about 'less is more'. Learn some unique skills to untangle emotional pain and be truly present for others in distress. Hakom is a therapeutic method and way of life that is reflected in the principles of Mindfulness, Loving Presence, Non-Violence, Unity, Organicity and Mind-Body Holism.

Two days of:

- Developing our capacity for mindfulness.

- Discovering liberating new possibilites.

- Supporting each other to study our embodied experience.

- Increasing awareness and compassion for self and others.

- Learning to create nourishing experiences.



The workshop gives an experiential taste of Hakomi and introduces some basic techniques. We will use simple experiments done in mindfulness to help each other bring direct awareness to limiting patterns as they are lived in the present moment, thus opening us more to needed nourishment.

The Hakomi Method integrates scientific understanding and spiritual wisdom, drawing upon Buddhism and Taoism, along with modern influences such as systems theory, neuroscience and body psychotherapies.



Facilitator: Diarmid Baillie, Certified Hakomi practitioner.

Cost: £100/75 low waged or student.

For enquiries contact Diarmid on : 07854 083131.

Or email: diarmidbaillie@gmail.com

Introduction to Hakomi. 26th-27th June 2010. Glasgow Buddhist Centre.

I am leading a 2 day introductory workshop in the Hakomi Method at Glasgow Buddhist Centre on 26th and 27th June.

Come and enjoy a taste of this powerful method of self discovery and take home skills and insights you can use in your life and work. This workshop is open to all who have an interest in the method whether you are looking for a new approach to personal growth, a therapist interested in new techniques or are considering doing the full training.

The workshop will introduce excercises from the training, allowing us to begin to use the method to reveal how we are organised around core beliefs. Hakomi invites the emergence of new possibilities for nourishment and new depths of connection with self, other and world.

Cost £90/£75 low waged.

For enquiries & booking contact:

Diarmid Baillie 07854 083131 diarmidbaillie@gmail.com

To book send a deposit of £25 and your name and contact details to:

Diarmid Baillie Flat 1/7, 25 E Mingarry Street
Glasgow G12 8NS

For more on Hakomi have a look at my website http://www.presencescotland.co.uk/hakomi.html
also: http://hakomiway.ca/whatishakomi.htm

Some Upcoming Workshops and Events

Dates: 24^th to 30^th April: Earth Rituals with Larry & Ratnadevi (www.dhanakosa.com)

16^th May: Work that Reconnects at the Tramway in Glasgow (2 hour introductory workshop)

23^rd May & 20^th June Creative Conflict Resolution with Claralynn

30^th May: Singing & Chanting our Ecological Selves with Ratnadevi (venue tbc Glasgow)

25^th & 26^th July: The Big Tent Festival in Fawklands, Fife

(for more details go to www.bodhi-eco-project.org.uk and download our latest newsletter)

Waking Up Our Ecological Selves: Workshop 28th March '09

Waking-up Our Ecological Selves


A workshop to hold the pain that we feel for the world, awaken us to interconnection and inspire us to action.

Saturday 28th March 11am to 5pm
Phoenix Centre: 201 St. James Road, Cowcaddens, Glasgow

‘What we are capable of loving from moral duty is limited, but when we widen and deepen our sense of self....then our protection of nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves’ Arne Naess (who coined the phrase deep ecology).

We will offer a sequence of experiential exercises based on the Work that Re-connects pioneered by Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net/html/work.html

This work reveals our interconnectedness with the web of life and can powerfully move us to take action on its behalf. This work is one of the foundations of the Transition Town Movement.



Facilitators

Diarmid Baillie is a massage therapist, psychotherapist and Hakomi practitioner, he has worked for Bodhi both as a director and researcher. Call Diarmid if you need more details on: 07854083131.

Larry Butler is a writer, tai-chi teacher & drama therapist; he is one of the founding directors of Bodhi, and has done a facilitator training in the Work that Reconnects.



To book a place, please email: info@bodhi-eco-project.org.uk and send a donation to help cover the cost of the room and refreshments to:



Bodhi, 2/1, 14 Garrioch Drive, Glasgow G20 8RS



Suggested Donation: £10

Professional History and Credentials (with hyperlinks)

After gaining an MA honours in Philosophy at University of Glasgow, I lived in USA from ‘98 to ‘02, studying a Masters in Counselling Psychology at CIIS, San Francisco. This included a 2 year placement at the Centre for Somatic Psychotherapy. I first experienced Hakomi on this degree; inspiring me to take the full, four year training upon my return to the UK. I’m now fully trained by the International Hakomi Education Network.

In San Francisco I trained in Swedish Massage at the SF School of Massage, which met the standards for the Scottish Massage Therapists Organisation. I have since worked in Harvest Clinic, Shiatsu Natural and Recharge in Glasgow, and for 2 ½ years as a stress therapist for an organisation in South Lanarkshire. Since then I’ve been building my private practise and am now working at ‘The Practise’.

I’ve been through more than 3 years of personal therapy, which helped me to grow and understand myself more deeply. Hakomi is learned by trainees working directly with each other, this has given me a lot of deep therapeutic experience, essential for being able to help others and understand the nature of a healing process.

I bring authenticity and a sense of humour to my work, as I feel these are essential in any healthy human relationship. My style is creative, experimental, playful and informal whilst needless to say maintaining essential professional boundaries.

I am a member of and adhere to the professional codes of ethics of:
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
The Scottish Massage Therapists Organisation.