22 July – 28 July 2025 in Sweden, organised by Fabricius Resurs AB
Overview of the training
The training was run based on the concept of pilgrimage that allows to get in contact with the deepest source within oneself and explore how profound changes can subtly and naturally emerge from within, without trying to force any change to come. Change is considered a natural process pointing both towards a richer and more awake everyday life and towards daring to take the next step in the development process of one private and professional life. It’s not a quick fix, it’s part of the long-term, maybe lifelong process it is to grow as a person and a professional.
The training provided tools, methods and insights that can help on the way towards a sustainable direction.
Meditation and the embodied awareness practice Social Presencing Theater (SPT) were the main practice. The two methods are intertwined into a very powerful awareness training.
The training explored and dived into the inner capacities and life skills that one can acquire from practicing embodiment and presence. It refined the capacity of getting and staying in touch with ourselves, others, and nature.
The 6 days training allowed to investigate the practice more deeply, to deepen it and to broaden it.
With routines of practices over the 6 days our sense of being present was strengthened in the surrounding nature, in the social field of participants and facilitators, in our own bodies.
To sense deeper into the balance of doing and non-doing in the middle of the event there were 2 days excursions into remote natural environments on a mountain and by the water, thus diving into the yang qualities of taking initiative, stepping forward, persevering in going ahead, and the yin qualities of letting go, persevering in following, letting things happen, not doing.
Before the training there was a process of questions and instructions, so that the journey became an integral part of the process, the journey to the retreat was not just a transport route, but an important part of the retreat/pilgrimage process (that was the form for the event).
The training was offering an intense and expanded experience of a safe space, where vulnerability, subtility, and complexity could unfold.
The overall structure of the retreat followed the five phases of a change process, as described in the awareness based learning and leadership method Theory U. Theory U also served as one of our main theoretical frameworks to navigate the process.
There was time in the group as well as solo time; time for both reflection, dialogue, feedback, and silence.
Competences acquired
As result of the participation in this training experience, Paola Bortini gained the following competences:
- ability to integrate insights and assets from the experience into everyday life, an upgraded new normal that becomes the starting point for the next deepening process.
- ability to recognise the starting point and allowing every participant to work from where they are in their own process and life, right now.
- deepening and developing individual skills of tolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty and resting in the unknown.
- deepening SPT practices.
- deepening understanding and application of Theory U.
- understanding the correlation between nature, individual and people and how to overcome the gaps in a sustainable way.
- use of the yang qualities of taking initiative, stepping forward, persevering in going ahead.
- use of the yin qualities of letting go, persevering in following, letting things happen, not doing.