We the pastoral year Fathers (Frs. Shojin, Bibin and Christy) had a wonderful opportunity to attend a counseling course, which lasted for one month (CTP: Councilors Training Programme)
It was held at ‘Anugraha,’ a counseling centre run by Capuchins at Dindigal Tamilnadu. With much hesitation we reached ‘Anugraha.’ But as we reached there the whole idea about the counseling course has been changed. There were 108 participants, from all walks of life – priests, nuns, young people, college students, Christians, Hindus, Muslims etc. And there were people from, Africa, Sri Lanka and Burma. So it was a nice opportunity to mingle with various people from different cultures.
The contents of the course were very rich. Even though the time was short, the course gave us the basics of counseling. It was indeed, an eye opener for us, because it helped us to know about ourselves, especially our inner selves. So we got an awareness of ‘who we are.’
One of the insights we got from this course is that ‘we are Healed healers’ only if we are healed of some of our difficulties we can help others. They introduced to us some of the techniques of counseling like Swish, VKD etc… One of the important aspects of this course was it’s practical knowledge. We got ample opportunity to practice these therapies. Each day there were two theory sessions and two practical sessions. So we could really practice what we studied in the class. Other than this, they gave much importance to community building. We hope this one month experience will be very useful in our personal life as well as our pastoral life as Redemptorists.
Fr. Christy C
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