Activities at Atsitsa Bay, Greece

Choose Life at Any Risk, Free at Last with Ari Badaines

Sun 16 - Sat 29 Jun 2024

Week One - Choose Life at Any Risk: a group experience facilitated by Ari Badaines Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist

STUCK!  Overcoming stuckness, whether in intimate relationships, friendships, career choices etc. which contributes to low self-esteem and a stagnating life, eventually requires entering your ‘Danger Zones’ – the areas you normally avoid because they are perceived as too risky and experienced with anxiety.

This workshop focuses on what fears/anxieties, avoidances, procrastinations, painful memories, past failures etc. that hold you in your comfort zone – where life is safe, but unchallenging and boring, without deep satisfaction. In the group, you may choose to risk taking a small step or a giant leap into your danger zones – with probable outcome that life becomes more exciting and you feel more alive.

After building trust and safety in the group, Ari provides structures and techniques that serve to heighten awareness and challenge your stuckness. Specifically, using a range of techniques, some centered on action and doing, you may learn to:

1. Become more aware of how you prevent your own success and contentment. 

2. Do what you normally will not do, so that you experience a better outcome. (‘If you always do what you always do, you’ll always get what you always get’.)

3. Be a more honest and integrated self and thereby enjoy the benefit of a deeper connection to yourself and others in the group, and ultimately those who matter most to you.

4. Feel and express emotions (from grief to joy) that have been shut away so as to live fully in the moment, and know the joy of being fully alive and in touch with your own humanity.

Week Two - Free at Last: a group experience facilitated by Ari Badaines Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist

Ari was considering the nature of his work with groups and Martin Luther King’s famous ‘Free at Last' speech came to his mind.  Ari endeavours to help people free themselves from those thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that plague them throughout their lives and hold them back from living a life truer in meaning, satisfaction, and becoming more open to joyous experiences than what they normally allow.

You may be familiar with out-dated voices that tell you, ‘No, you can’t do that!’  ‘Who would want you?’ ‘That is too hard for you to do … you won’t succeed.’  The outcome is that they are ‘stoppers’ and we end up not risking doing what would bring deeper​ life satisfactions.​

How does attending this kind of group help?

1. ​You will have the opportunity to challenge these beliefs; it might come in the form of expressing those fears and discovering that other group members don’t perceive you in the same way that you have imagined

2. You may challenge yourself to do what you normally won’t do such as risking being more open to and with others, and experiencing the positive outcomes of such a change.  

3. You may decide to do some work on these issues where you examine the roots of your thoughts and self-perceptions, and with the support of others, discover a more refreshed and refreshing you and experiment with more effective and satisfying ways of being who you really are. 

4. You may find solutions through identifying with other people’s issues and their resolutions.  In truth, though, it is very hard to put words ​to what for many is a powerful experience which leads to significant change (internal and external). You have to be there to experience it to get the full flavor.

5. People are very practiced at imagining how others perceive us, but these conclusions are too often based on our fears and self-image rather than a more realistic appraisal.  An important element in this group is getting clearer feedback on how we actually are experienced by different people (each, of course may see different facets of you), and for you to give useful feedback to others. 

6. A powerful healing aspect happens when we see that our own negating, self-doubting anxieties are not shared by others and they, in contrast, often have a more enhanced view of us.​

What does Ari do?

Ari knows that no group will progress very far if there is not a core level of trust and safety, both in the therapist and other group members, and so in the beginning this is the early focus. 

As the group progresses, he listens and watches very carefully for ways to intervene that will help you to free yourself from some of the above-mentioned beliefs and distortions that hold you back. His interventions may come in the form of feedback, suggestions, and empowering you to face and challenge your vulnerable spots – to help to free you from that which holds and drags you back. 

The essence of the work, though, is to help you to first discover and then integrate through being and doing, a truer, more acceptable and loved self.  Can you believe that someone will love you so much that they will never leave you? Will you value yourself that much and risk loving a friend/family member/ intimate to the same level?

About Ari

Ari is a very experienced (probably has by now led over 1,000 groups in over 30 countries) group therapist who is encouraging, supportive, and caring, and also challenging when therapeutically beneficial.  He draws on a range of methods and tools to deepen emotional power and increase the effectiveness of your participation. It is also always your choice as to your level of participation and you are never pressured into anything that you clearly do not want to do. His core philosophy is that we can be different when we begin to perceive ourselves differently and integrate that new view into our way of being and living. 

What's included?

Ari's courses are held in Atsitsa Bay on Skyros island in Greece and is part of the wide range of courses and activities available. The holiday includes full board twin shared accommodation in an eco-hut. Single upgrades and twin shares in the house are available. Chat through the website, call +44 (0)1983 86 55 66 or email holidays@skyros.com to discuss your requirements. 

About Ari Badaines

Ari Badaines is a powerful group therapist with over 50 years (wow, that many!? – yep) who is supportive and caring and when necessary also confronting; he believes it is always your choice as to your level of participation but will encourage your risking to benefit from the group. 

If we go back, way back in history, you will find a young Ari as the Waterfront Director in an American summer camp; this entailed designing, supervising, and teaching swimming, and canoeing/kayaking/sailing as well as overall responsibility for waterfront safety. Over the years, he has helped many learn to swim and improve their swimming strokes.  He qualified as an Instructor in Lifesaving, Swimming, Water Safety and Canoeing/Kayaking, and in his early years served as a lifeguard in the USA at summer camps, swimming pools, and similar venues. He even was involved in a rescue on the Thames in London, but you'll have to come to Atsitsa to hear how that story ends!

What people say about Ari and his courses:

Ari’s course pushed me further than I’ve been in years of individual psychotherapy. The power of the group was transformational. Ari is a gifted therapist. He takes his work very seriously and has a wonderful ability to bring out the best in people.

Ari’s course was superb - extremely competent teacher and full of charm. I found the course extremely effective.

Ari is a caring, creative and fun teacher. the group was small and really dynamic and supportive.

See more about Ari here: http://abadaines.wixsite.com/psychologist-sydney​