Ottawa Counselling & Mediation Services

Ottawa Counselling & Mediation Services Ottawa based counselling, mediation, coaching and hypnotherapy centre operated by Richard M. Haney, Ph.D. (Counselling Therapy), since 1983.

Listening well is the most eloquent sign of caring The people who come to see me have often commented that I possess a quality which one of them aptly dubbed, "integrated intelligence". I have indeed had vast life experience and have become what some people call an "emotional genius". I often can get to the "root cause" of what is emotionally blocking an individual, couple or family. I am very gra

teful that I can share this gift. Please contact me to enhance your life and to make the most of each moment. I have two locations, both of which are very relaxed and healing environments. One is located in the Planet Botanix, at 301 Bank St., in Centretown, at Somerset St. It is aptly called "The Garden of Healing". There are several healing therapists at this location who provide a complete cross-section of all the healing modalities. My second location is in my west end home office, at Hunt Club and Greenbank Roads, in Nepean. I work out of the Centretown office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and out of the west end Nepean office on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. I provide official receipts for health insurance purposes. I have been practising a wide variety of healing modalities for over 40 years. I have travelled extensively all over the western world taking part in workshops and conferences and participating in experiential learning activities related to counselling, coaching, mediation, hypnotherapy and human growth and potential. This has helped me to "burn out" many of the cultural and parochial attitudes and biases that many mental health professionals invisibly carry with them when dealing with individuals, couples and families. I am what is called a multi-cultural, empowerment counsellor. Please check out my two extensive websites which contain many valuable articles, e-pamphlets, techniques, resources and tips on living a better and more fruitful life. They are:

www.ottawacounselling.com
www.ottawahypnosis.com

My favourite quote is, "Listening well is the most eloquent sign of caring."

04/12/2024

THE CREATION AND BIRTHING OF COMMUNITY

A good example of the creation and birthing of a community is Inglenook Community High School in Toronto, which is now celebrating its 50th year of community building and modelling. It is an art form and a very sensitive procedure to initially “spark plug” a good idea from the seedling stage. If the idea is to germinate and grow successfully, it must be carefully nurtured. By highlighting the start-up principles that were focused on at Inglenook CHS in 1974, this article identifies some of the necessary ingredients for the success of a sustainable and durable community of any type.

One of the biggest challenges for building strong communities is the prevalence of huge, organized forces that thwart creativity and diversity. One of the greatest components of smaller cohesive communities is that they can and do challenge on-going dominant paradigms. In communities like Inglenook, there is a balance of interests that are democratically collaborated on by administrators, teachers, students and parents.
This creates a strong feeling of inclusion and social connection.
This cohesiveness leads to a history of meaningful associations and a legacy of participants feeling part of a vibrant community.

At Inglenook we instituted several principles that can be adapted to suit any fledging community group that hopes to become a stable and embedded part of their local environment.
The following is a list of some of those principles used successfully at Inglenook:

…Size is crucial. At Inglenook the student/teacher ratio was 7/1.
…Unique programs/concepts. At Inglenook we instituted outreach and “shadowing” whereby each student would go out into the city and follow around workers in many different roles.
…A unique setting. Architecturally an inglenook is a safe, comfortable and warm space where emotional growth and learning can be maximized.
…Cost cutting. Maximizing use of community resources.
At Inglenook parents and students built room partitions with moveable 8X4 foot panels. Allowing flexible classroom designs.
…Real time management. Do the subject homework just after it is assigned. Finish the Ministry of Educations curricula before April and then be creative with subjects for the rest of the year.
…Linking more resourceful students with less resourceful students. Fostering emotional support between students.
…Recognizing leadership potential. Giving leaders significant roles so that they know that they are appreciated.
…Respect for authority while challenging authority. Learning this as a lifestyle rather than just a set of rules to apply sometimes.
…Born in creativity. Promoting and fostering individual creativity in teachers and students.

Written by: Richard M. Haney, Ph.D. (Counselling and Mediation)
Creator and Founder, Principal, Inglenook CHS, 1974
Apri 12, 2024

12/18/2023

CREATIVITY: WRESTLING WITH OUR DEMONS AND DAEMONS

For the Ancient Greeks it was important to take personal ownership of all the emotions, entities and Spiritual energies that we carry in our daily lives. That included the “dark forces” and destructive energies as well as the gentle and angelic entities and all the different archetypes in between those two poles.
All of these archetypes were called daemons by the Greeks. When the Christians came along 2,000 years ago, they attempted to cast out the dark side of individuals and proclaimed that it was an “outside demon entity” that drove folks into sin (the Devil). Thus, personal responsibility was down-played and redemption, guilt, confession and tithing flourished. The idea that “the Devil made me do it” was widespread. Basically, the Church disempowered its followers by offering to take care of their dark side ln return for an eternal pardon.

With clients and Partners-in-Healing who come to my practice,
I share that there are 4 ways of approaching an issue, situation or relationship that is challenging and/or perturbing:
Face it…Deny it…Hide from it…Run from it… The best approach is to face it. The worst is to run from it. Many people choose a combination of denying and hiding. Sometimes, of course, it is important to put the challenge on hold and then gradually resolve it. C.G. Jung has called this process of facing our demons and daemons “assimilating the dark side”. The early Greeks called it Khaos or Karos which basically meant staying very centered and present while juggling and balancing all of the various emotions, thoughts, actions and reactions.

When a person has become very adept at wrestling with all of these entities, they are then able to smoothly transition from their fate through to their destiny in a seamless way. They are able to maintain and navigate through a field of very creative life energy.

They become “emotionally available” for creative endeavours and very adept at manifesting their dreams, ideas and inspirations. They find it very easy to transcend their fears and their lethargy. At first the person feels like they are having “sparks of genius” or “flashes of inspiration” and only later does it become obvious that it is a new creative state of being.

C.G. Jung also wrote extensively on the concept of “instinctual truth”. He claimed that, although intuition is wrong as often as it is right, instinctual truth is virtually always right. Creative people seem to have “little people” inside of them that guide them in a direction that fits with exactly who they are. They are not fooled by tricksters or impersonators or bizarre fantasies. They stay true to their own dreams, wishes and inclinations.
They sense when a good entity, project, etc. comes along and they spontaneously jump right in. They engage with that energy with very strong faith and then follow through with conscious determination and perseverance. They practice “smart work”.

The ultimate state for the truly creative person is to be navigating continuously between fate and destiny in cadence with everything around them and maintaining an “ever-vigilant” path. This is called being a fully individuated person. It is not about applying a set of rules or striving for a set of goals. It is a state of being continuously and exactly oneself in each and every situation or event.

This article was written by:
Richard M. Haney, M.Ed., Ph.D. (Counselling and Mediation)
Richard has been practising Wholistic Counselling, Coaching, Hypnotherapy and Mediation for the past 25 years in Ottawa.
To contact Richard please call (613) 234-5678 or send an e-mail to: richard@ottawacounselling.com

Address

15 Aylmer Avenue
Ottawa, ON
K1S3X1

Telephone

+16132345678

Website

http://www.ottawahypnosis.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ottawa Counselling & Mediation Services posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category