Camino seminar

Camino Walking Seminar
in Spain
at the Via de la Plata

Would you like to make changes in your job, your finances, your attitude or your relationships?

Take advantage of a Camino Walk to connect body, mind, spirit and environment - as a necessary basis for success and happiness.

For things to change, you have to change.
For things to get better, you have to get better.

The easiest place to make those changes is in a completely new environment, close to nature where you think differently, act differently and have the chance to change what you are not satisfied with in your life.

If you’ve never had the experience of complete solitude whilst in motion, it can have a strange and powerful effect on your mind, your body and your spirit.

How can you attract success into your life, for example in marriage, your career, in relationships with other people, your finances, health and more? How can psychological blockages dissolve themselves by walking long distances? The answers are right in front of you.

The four key areas where changes occur are: Awareness, Responsibility, Choices and Action.

I can show you the fastest way to make those changes and the time to start is NOW!

Join me for two weeks:
In spring 2011
On the Via de la Plata in Spain
Walking the 300 kilometers from Sevilla to Salamanca and over-nighting in hostels.

Lifestyles and Prejudices

Camino long distance walking is an effective way to become conscious of your own life and prejudices - in all aspects of your private life - and to do something about those of them that feel inappropriate. That means professionally and / or physically. Long distance walking is a great framework that makes it relatively easy to get deep into yourself and to work with attitudes and beliefs.

Trauma
Of course you can walk the Camino alone, but if underlying issues pop up from the sub-conscious mind and they prove to be threatening or traumatic, it can be hard to deal with them alone.

With a professional, certified psychotherapist within the group, things can be grounded so they aren’t harmful and no-one gets hurt. In this way there will be no re-visiting the trauma of old experiences.

ARCA Model

Changes in life go through the following four steps (ARCA)
Awareness (seeing what’s really happening)
Responsibility (being aware that you are part of the problem and also part of the solution)
Choices (identifying new possibilities) and
Action (doing something about it).

To live through these four steps with a qualified coach or psychotherapist is also called ‘accelerated learning’.

The best way to learn is to see the relationship between choices and their consequences – and the fastest way to learn is to shorten the distance / time between decisions (choices) and their consequences. If the distance / period between decision and action is too long it can make it difficult to later find meaning in the experiences that you perceive as negative and bad, but they are a consequence of previous decisions.

During this two-week seminar you will enhance your personal development, and use an external, interesting journey to make a deep inner journey in order to get to the essence of your being, thereby gaining a clearer perspective on everything that’s important to you.

Preparatory Course

In preparation there will be lectures by a physical therapist, a reflexologist, a nutritionist and a nurse, and I will tell you about my own practical experiences and the psycho-therapeutic aspects.

When you attend the course you’ll find some things will be considerably easier than they would have been if you had to figure out everything on your own. For example:

- How to pack your backpack so there’s just enough/not too much to carry.
- Map reading
- What to do if the route maps haven’t been updated so there are errors, and some new roads and road markings are not right
- When it’s good to stay in a particularly beautiful piece of nature
- When it would be a good idea to move quickly through an area.
- How to set yourself some good goals
- How to reach these goals
- How to cope with pain and other challenges
- How to deal with confrontation and conflict
- How to go to the toilet in the wild
- What happens if you don’t have enough water
- How you know if you’ve drunk enough water
- How you get a good night's sleep

To qualify for the course and to be on the waiting list if there is no vacant spaces, you have to have participated in the above preparatory.

The preparatory seminar alone (without the walking seminar and post seminar) costs DKK 970 (EUR 127). It consists of a series of telephone conferences, so it doesn’t matter where in the world you live.

The Seminar Itself

I am the person conducting the seminar and I am neither wiser nor smarter than the participants. It’s just that I’m a certified psychotherapist and I’ve already walked the route and therefore been in this situation before, and I’m sharing my experiences with you.

For long distance walking we use our bodies and not our heads to ‘see’ what our patterns are in daily life. If the load we carry is too heavy it shows in our bodies very quickly. We always tend to do the same things as usual, and it will be very clearly seen here on the seminar.

For example, in our daily life we don’t usually notice if we’re overweight because we’re used to carrying it. In long distance walking you’re out of your daily routine, and the body is able to feel the extra weight. And thus you can work with this challenge through your body.

There may be other harmful or undesirable things in your everyday life which become evident on the seminar. Pain can be so familiar that you get used to it and don’t notice it on a daily basis. At this seminar it will be clear to you what is going on in your life!

Goals

On this course you’ll learn to divide your life into appropriate chunks. That means breaking your big goals into smaller goals and setting targets - like being able to walk to the tree in the distance or the next road curve.

After a week you will feel the physical experience of walking as being like a bath i.e. sometimes you might be sweaty and dirty and need a bath, but here you will also get the feeling of being clean and freshly washed inside too.

You’ll get the chance to look at some beliefs and convictions and consider whether they are still serving you or not. You’ll be encouraged to review your habits, keep the ones you like and skip those you don’t like. You’ll adjust some of your convictions, get alignment in your life, get your course in life adjusted and have your mind and your emotions cleansed.

The deeper the outer journey (three weeks intense walking), the deeper the inner journey.

The Mirror

There are as many different ways to walk as there are people, such as:

* Different speeds and distances.
* Differences in how we each walk.
* Differences in how much pain we can and will endure (both physical and psychological pain).

In a strange way the experiences of the trip reflect the rest of our lives.
We are confronted with situations all the time, and when we can see it we can choose to do something about it, or not.

As the person conducting the seminar and a psychotherapist, it’s my job to help you see your patterns so you can do something about them – and thereby get a better and happier life for yourself.

You will in many ways live your life at the seminar in the same way you’ve always lived your daily life. But the difference will be that in this seminar you have the chance to see it and to choose to do something different from usual. That’s the way it is with all choices in life. Blown up to huge proportions every day at the seminar so it is easy to see.

Each student decides how much therapy and coaching they want - and I will structure the day so I am able to speak to students when they have the need.

After the seminar there’s a follow-up seminar to deal with the ‘After Camino Blues’. This is included in the price.

Follow-up Seminar

For some people it may be difficult to return from immersion and presence into the everyday hustle and bustle. Some see this as the ‘After Camino Blues’, a depression and melancholy because a whole new world has been built which is closer to one's essence of your being and life values. Then when you come back from the journey, you may feel artificial and not be sure if you are authentical or not. Therefore, three follow-up seminars are arranged, one week after returning, two weeks after and one month later.

What we do during the day at the actual seminar

Each day, if it’s what you want, we will walk individually. In the afternoon / evenings there’s individual psychotherapy, group therapy, coaching and mentoring, as well as cosy togetherness.

You receive therapy at the rate you want it, with the speed and strength you want. It’s individually tailored to what each participant wants.
When you’ve been walking a few days, life becomes much more simple and straightforward. Some things in everyday life are suddenly very important (laundry, dry clothing, shade and shelter). Other things become less important. For example, the time, emails, decisions and television programs.

It varies from person to person how you change. On the seminar you get “out of shape" i.e. out of the ordinary shape and pattern that you have developed in your life - and thus have a good chance to change some habbits and beliefs.
After a week many of the ego parades are lowered, and after two weeks you will feel like a new person, much more comfortable.

Time

You have the opportunity to discover how relative time is. It becomes clear to each and everyone how we use our resources in everyday life: time-wise, financially, emotionally, intellectually, physically, plus all the other resources.

We are all individuals with different assumptions and attitudes. One thing we have in common is time! But the experience of it is relative. When you’re having fun, 4 hours feels like a very short time. If I ask you to hold your breath, two minutes feels a very long time. It’s how we spend our time that matters, and we choose this ourselves.

Equipment

If you don’t have any walking equipment then you can expect to spend approximately EUR 1,400, for a backpack, sleeping bag, boots, sandals, bags and the like. A backpack can also be borrowed, but be sure that what you borrow will suit you and fit comfortably.

I can highly recommend quality equipment. I bought my equipment three years ago and everything works fine except for sandals which I have worn out. My first backpack had a design error and was changed to another by the shop were I bought it. The boots I use also as my winter boots.
At www.YouTube.com/mikaelscamino you can see my videos about long-distance walking.

Requirements for Joining

1. Six months in advance to have participated in preparatory meetings (conference calls).

2. To have undertaken some personal development through therapy with a trained psychotherapist. It’s important to have already been working with challenges in order to be able to mentally and emotionally succeed with the walking.

3. To have participated in a nutrition program in order to be physically able to cope with the trip. This implies, amongst others things, that you have taken necessary nutritional supplements so that the psyche and the body are ready to handle the extra load. Vitamin tablets from the supermarket or pharmacy are not enough because they are artificial and difficult for the body to absorb. They are not regarded as sufficiently good supplements.

My experience of three years long distance walkings, is that all the participants who have completed the whole trip have taken highly effective dietary supplements before and during the trip. All who had not taken care of their body before the trip were unable to finish the journey to the end point. Therefore, one of the requirements for participation is taking nutritional supplements before and during the seminar.

DKK 9,700 (1,297) excl. cost of accommodation (approximately DKK 1,500, EUR 200), food (approximately DKK 1,500, EUR 200) and transportation to and from Spain (varied.)

2. During the three week seminar there will be individual and group therapy/coaching

3. After the seminar there will be ‘After Camino Blues’ sessions (if you feel doubtful and not sure if you are authentical or not when you come back to your everyday life and there is melancholy to be handled).

Mikael Hoffmann is Certified Psychotherapist and Coach. He has been self-employed for the past 16 years and since 2006 has twice walked the Camino in Spain at Via de la Plata, and three times the Hærvejen - from Viborg in Denmark to the German border.