This workshop uses a sequence of fun and stimulating acting, improvisation and theatre games, along with art and music and be here/now exercises  to considerably enhance your ability to be completely present in the moment with yourself,  what you are doing, and the people with whom you're interacting. 

The end result of this is your ability to establish deeper connections with yourself and others will increase considerably.  Through this process of fine-tuning your ability to connect, you will find a significant increase in your intuitive abilities.

These exercises have been modified, adapted and/or created from years of experience (beginning 1969) in the arts (including healing and performance) to help you strengthen your muscles of preparation, observation and choice.  This helps you to be more responsive to, and intuitive with, the person (or people) with whom you are connecting.  Working with words, art, sound and music exercise your Left and Right brain (thinking/feeling) abilities.

This retreat is limited to twelve participants at a time.  It is intense, yet paced so that there's plenty of  time for everyone  to connect with each other and also to enjoy the bounty of activities that are available on the island of Maui, where I live and work. 

As a cerified paramedic, when my bag of tricks became full with drugs and therapies, it was oh so convenient to hide behind the things I could do, and neglect the simple, and powerful, medicine of just "being with."  I lost sight of not only the human being in front of me, but the human being that I was. I knew that I was losing something very important, not only for my patients, but for myself. Further explorations of that can be found in my book Moments in the death of a Flesh Mechanic...a healer's rebirth.

The concept and practice of connection through being completely present in the moment, is very much put on the back-burner in the teaching of most healing modalities, whether they be allopathic or alternative. The heART of the Healer is designed to provide a practical experience that "drills" participants in the accessing and letting-go of heart-consciousness, through fun "games" that, in a sense, short-circuit our natural proclivity to control each moment. By establishing a sacred space of safety, practitioners of the healing arts can explore the territory of connection, and how, by using it as a tool, they can supercharge their intuition and abilities of discernment -- regardless of the modalities that are practiced.

HoH uses a heart-centered approach. This involves getting a practical and experiential understanding of how we can shift our consciousness to our hearts--at will, and what that means. For millenia, our poets and mystics have been telling us that our hearts have a consciousness of their own. Western medicine has all but bred it out of its system.  The HeART of the Healer re-introduces us to this ability, reinforces it ,and exercises it.

Each year more and more scientific evidence comes in that supports the concepts we work with.  During the retreat, I present information distilled from work by Joseph Chilton Pearce (the neurophysiology of the heart) and Bruce Lipton (the influence of filters on our perception).

As an example, attending in an earlier course were a Licensed Family and Child Counselor with fifteen years of experience, a couple of energy workers, a couple of body workers, an M.D. working in V.A. clinics for twenty years, an Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine Practitioner, a woman who talks to animals and one woman with no healthcare related experience. I could not have asked for a better "mix" of orientations. I was very happy to find that the work stands up to the test of being applicable to each individual; it reaches each person where they're at and sends them home with tools that work for them. A major side-benefit, for me, was watching as practitioners of a wide range of disciplines, came together and explored the commonalities that run through all acts and modalities of healing. I look forward to experiencing more of this. 

...And here's something I've found very interesting: While the workshop really helps most people learn how to "open themselves up" to experiencing the moment with others , it also teaches the empath how to more effectively filter out the energy of others.

Right now, I'm accepting applications for a workshop/retreat, limited to twelve people.

I'm planning to schedule for mid-November, 2010, on Maui.  That's when the humpback whales start to visit. I am looking at a menu of options to find the most comfortable and cost-effective (and good eatin' too!) venue for the work to take place. 

Anticipate the fee for the full workshop to be (again, depending) in the vicinity of $1,200.  I will accept deposits ($100, non-refundable) as soon as I have the venue locked in.

Please write me through my CONTACT page and tell me a bit about yourself, your focus in life, what you hope to get out of the workshop 

Mahalo!

"The experiential nature of the workshop really made the information accessible and 'permanent'...the exercises were a lot of fun and very useful to really help us learn and feel the lessons in an intensely personal way...Finally, your attitude, genuine concern, life experiences, enthusiasm, joy, openness, preparation and LOVE were what made it such a joyful and rewarding experience for me." ~ Regina Zwilling

"The teacher's effectiveness in staying on course of subject was great, also, in conveying it, his personal examples spoke of authenticity and gave me a sense that he has had many deep experiences and travelled a long road of seeking the heart of healing, both for others and himself. His coaching skills are very good, in fact, quite superb. I appreciate his unpretentiousness which helped me to accept his guidance." ~ Connie Stillwater

"The focus on metaphors. I had a number of powerfully metaphoric dreams at night during the weekend that made much more real-world sense than they ordinarily do. I think my own metaphor-perceptibility has been heightened in the work ... Yea! I like, in particular, the exercise of coming up with and acting out our own personal metaphor...How we have to interpret our particular healing modality through our personal framework of metaphors. This is an extraordinary concept that has great potential to empower people. We've all got it inside us. You believe that so deeply that I cannot imagine someone coming to this course and not recieving that crucial insight on some level of themselves. You know that the only answer comes from within. Many have said that to me in my life, few have I seen live it." ~Scott Yaeger

"Healing is, in essence, a journey into the self. We place ourselves in environments or draw situations and people to help facilitate our healing. Coming always from the heart, I beleive, can greatly alter my perseptions and allow me to become more authentic and clear, and my Life then can become easier and more effortless! Thank you Russ...I have been striving to live here for a long time with a hit and miss success. These tools will help it become a way of being." ~  Morgine Jurdn

"Russ, you stayed on target of the open heart, coming from the place of heart you showed a focus and excitement and appreciation for the work and the participants." ~ Donee Krause