Monday, December 27, 2010

In T.D.'s Own Words..."Why They Teach Us Life Lessons & Skills." Our Instructors teach us life lessons and share insights they know so we can also learn how to relate these to our lives here and outside. This gives us another viewpoint, actually, another way of seeing things. I am learning how to step back and identify reasons why I do things and think about the repercussions of my actions. These are skills I am learning at Expedition Therapy. An example is planning our food for a week expedition menu is just like grocery shopping."

Cobra Arch Expedition by A.G. "Looking at the West Clark Bench map, I planned our expedition near Cobra Arch. We had hoped to drive to the trail head, however, the road was washed out. We hiked there instead and dropped down toward Cobra Arch. We set up camp an hour before dusk. Next, we checked out some cool slot canyons right beyond our camp site. Everyone was excited to be so close to a wide variety of unusual geologic formations, many of which we had only seen in photographs. While we didn't find Cobra Arch, we did hike through sandstone formations then scrambled to the top and looked down into a 50 foot slot. We tried to climb down and still couldn't pass through. We had a go at it one last time and darkness was upon us. We cooked a delicious meal of quesadillos and spicy noodles with vegetables. We got to sleep by 9 pm. We felt accomplished and we all felt sufficiently tired!"






Thursday, December 23, 2010

In Student T.D.'s Own Words: Awareness

This experience is not about change, rather self-awareness. While overall change is the result, it's not what they do. The Instructors and Therapists do not try and change you, and they do encourage you to become more aware of what is already there. They allow you to see the reasoning behind why you do things, and why you feel the way you do.
For me, I was able to become aware of my negative coping which is to stuff things down and suppress emotions till it built up and I exploded. I became aware of this with the help of my Expedition Team. I used their resources to shift my behavior and resolve my emotional conflicts as they arise. While this hurts now and I really do not want to have pain, it's significantly better to resolve them now an improve the quality of my life. Another awareness I am learning about  is Choice Theory as well as flawed logic. That's what I'll tell you more about on my next Expedition Therapy blog entry. "Peace out." by T.D.