Bliss of the Familiar

Ladies and Gentlemen, as I type this I am wearing the pink, fluffy dressing gown and I'm drinking coffee. Yes, you read right, I'm home. For the first time in 8 days I am enjoying decent coffee and I am all blissed out. I slept in my own bed, listening to the night sounds of my home: the creaking of the stairs as the cat padded up and down, the occasional creaks as the house settles, the sigh of the central heating (I was cold last night).

I'm having difficulties formulating the right sentence to describe what it's like at the moment. My beliefs in myself and what I can achieve have been peeled back, not like a banana, but like an onion, chopped, fried in butter with loads of wonderful ingredients. Now, I'm sniffing this wonderful new dish in front of me, salivating a bit, wondering where to dip my fork into first.

It was such an amazing time. After we finished yesterday, we celebrated at the pub down the road and we were laughing and joking about the first day. Everyone was nervous, stiff as a board. Nine days later we were laughing, dancing and hugging each other. It amazed me the breadth of the people there: ages, occupations, nationalities and religions. Yes, there were the injured birds who desperately wanted to play Issue Top Trumps, but by in large, they were in the minority.

Breakfast was a multi-cultural affair. I would eat with a guy from Germany, another from Vienna, there was a gorgeous Chinese lady from Hong Kong and then there was me, born in Trinidad. People flew all round the world to study with Bandler, not only that, some of them had done the Practitioner's Certificate more than once. In the NLP parlance, each 'Prac' course is different. Apparently, they don't have a rigid structure to it. Because they know their subject back and forth, up, down and inside out, they just wing it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I had a great time. I'm not sure I'm prepared to give them my money like that just for the thrill.

At the end, Bandler said to us that the course is just the beginning. Our work started this morning. He started the process, now it's up to us to carry it through.

So, the question he taught us to ask ourselves: how much fun and pleasure can I have today?