Personal experience
We would like to share with you the diary written by Nina as a participant in a five-day transformative workshop at Veduna, in the spring of 2021.
Before the workshop
My life has been intertwined with Lili for 13 years. I have been with her when life taught me lessons of grace and patience. With her I have blossomed, grown and learned to accept the cycles of life. I trust her guidance and teaching completely because, as she has watched me, I have watched her stand more and more in her power. The biggest change happened when she came out of the first dearmouring training and we met for coffee in the Basilica on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. I immediately felt a profound shift in her towards her own truth. From that moment on, she has been showing me what dearmouring is all about, and although I have been to several sessions and one-day workshops with her that have transformed me on many levels, I never expected that a five-day disconnect would bring me back to my center so powerfully. Before the workshop I had a whole spectrum of feelings. I resisted going, made excuses and basically felt very strongly this duel between my mind telling me that I just couldn't afford it right now and my being whispering to me to go, that this was exactly what I needed at this moment.
(The photo was taken just before the workshop started.)
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Day 1
Arrival was quick. Basically, it started almost immediately. Registration, going to the room and invitation to the first part of the workshop - sharing round. The circle of sharing is a practice that guided us throughout the days, as a kind of meeting point for all of us, our processes, our feelings. In the first round, we introduced ourselves and told why we are here and what we want to touch. I came to the workshop by myself because I wanted to come back to myself, to feel my energy. For the past 4 years I have been dealing with pregnancy and the baby, being at one with my child, and with that role came many fears. That familiar feeling of a mother when you are simultaneously in a cocoon of love and paralyzed with fear. And the more my child began to explore the world around him, the more I was afraid that something terrible would happen to him. A perfectly natural feeling, but very unhelpful. I wanted to stand in my brave essence again and support the child, not hinder it. The whole period also brought quite a disconnection from my sensuality. With pregnancy and a long period of breastfeeding, my body changed quite a lot, and the fact that I created and nourished a child with it created in me the feeling that my body does not actually belong to me anymore. All the new obligations locked me into a constant feeling of productivity and fatigue. Full of thoughts and burdened by family patterns that I also wanted to overcome, I had a hard time picking out one intention, because there were actually quite a few, and the common denominator was definitely the thought that if I feel myself and take care of myself, everything else will fall to its place.
"Even before we started, my emotions opened up a lot. What will come out, who am I? I've been alienated from pure joy for some time and I don't know why."
This was followed by a powerful breathing practice with shamanic drums.
"It opened up my emotions a lot, but I didn't allow myself to let them go, because my brain constantly signals that I don't need to cry, that I can just let the tears flow, in silence. Just like I'm always alone with all my feelings in silence, even though I'm grinding on the outside non-stop and I don't shut up."
When we returned to reality, the nature around us was already very evening. Dinner and after dinner a walk in the forest awaited us. In the forest, we turned off the lights, supported each other and connected. In my mind, I thanked everyone for sharing this moment in time with me. We returned in total darkness.
"I like the people I'm with on this journey. A community was created immediately, which is crazy nice for me. And so we went into the forest together, opened up to feeling with respect for the creatures that live in it."
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Day 2
Nature really reflected my inner feelings all the time and the first morning was very cold and windy. We gathered by a natural pond, which supported some during the workshop, but rejected me from the first moment, even though I wanted to dive into it. We performed the raising of kundalini energy. Raising energy from chakra to chakra through various movements. We jumped, circled our hips, boxed and breathed. The higher chakras also brought more movement around.
"At times it's tiring, like all the things for me that I don't know when they will end. How long will I have to jump like this, why do I have to be a bird, I'm embarrassed. I would really be such a bird if I had wings. It seems I feel like I channeled one clumsy hen of the woods rather than something more graceful. Is this really the best manifestation I can manage?"
We left the pond and gathered in the main room for a new breathing practice. Powerful processes were taking place.
"I came into a strong conflict with my mind. The body immediately began to open up and release sadness. In the end, I was shaking from this body's desire to release something from the depths, but I couldn't. I thought to myself, come on, if you cry out loud now, you'll disrupt the process from someone else. It's not your turn yet, don't take this space. I'm so damn inexorable to myself. Lili came up to me and holding my space, encouraged me to let go. And I let go, in her safe arms. It was wild and intense and liberating. I felt chills all over my body after the process. I felt like my bones were being rescued by a bunch of demons who no longer had room for themselves, a kind of eviction of becoming and fear ."
We opened the afternoon with a sharing circle and for the first time also had intensive physical practice.
"I was shaking with emotion. I thought a storm of emotions was going to burst out of me. But in the end I was just floating in a kind of fine relaxation when Lili came and took my legs in her arms and touched my womb. At that moment she a trembling emotion came out of me very easily, through which I shed two tears and surrendered to absolute bliss."
In the afternoon, we had an exercise in feeling energies, patterns in our bodies, how to feel someone's limit, how to express our own. What it means to be rejected, what it feels like to be accepted, with all the demons dancing inside you. What it means to see and what it means to be seen. How to communicate when someone arouses processes or resistance in you. How to express your truth without worrying about what anyone will think of you. Lili led the workshop fantastically. She was changing from a mother to a sister, from a mischievous elf to a shaman. She is fearless. And he has a crazy beautiful team of people around her.
"The exercise confronted me with my fears at every step. I was sweating all the time, I wanted to run away a hundred times because it was difficult for me, I wondered if I would even be able to. How should I tell someone that I'm getting on my nerves, how should I showing my limits, is my desire even felt, my no, my yes? Indeed, it was an exercise that started to turn me on precisely because I was so very embarrassed and had to overcome it. And when I surpassed my fear tenfold in a row, my mind could no longer follow and I let myself go, started playing, feeling my body."
In the evening we lit a fire, performed the ritual of manifestation and sang.
"I surrendered to joy, strength, singing, tenderness. It supported me strongly."
Day 3
In the morning we went for two hours in the forest for a mindful walk, where we walked very slowly and connected with the elements. In the end, we stopped at an energetically strong point and explored nature with an open mind and heart, without preconceived expectations.
"The walk really grounded me, because we were invited to walk slowly and I connected very much with the earth through the soles of my feet. Otherwise, a process started for me in the meantime, when I left the main path and walked through the forest, my head started to spin thought: "You always have to be something special!" Remnants of some silly criticisms I listened to when I was a child and surrounded by uncool people, especially in the school system, where there was no room for creativity to be expressed. In the end, we stopped in an energetically very strong area. There was an earthen vulva in the floor, outlined with stones. If I could, I would have crawled all over it and fallen asleep there."
This was followed by an exploration of the elements.
"The elements summoned my spirit. A crazy session, a new in-depth knowledge of the forces that carry us around the world. Lili led us through the whole process really nicely. Nature worked with us like crazy. When we danced the fire, it was outside, on an otherwise cloudy day day, the sun was shining brightly. When we did the wind dance, it was blowing hard outside."
Followed by dearmouring through the sound of chakras.
"What followed for me was the strongest, most magical part of the workshop - chanting the chakras. During this exercise, I finally opened up, a strong connection with my spirit took place. I was grounded, in my body and at the same time connected to the world that is beyond reason. Pure intuition, love, presence and full body feeling. Crazy flow. With each chakra I felt like I was just opening the way to her with the sound assigned to her and then she let her sound and energy through me. It was like vomiting her sound coming out of herself. Crazy!"
In the evening we learned about feeling through the elements. The whole team held space for us, they were like a family of some elemental beings that exude pure joy.
"It was totally magical. A crazy mix of energies, feelings, give and take."
"The whole day completely turned me on. It was like waking up after a long time and coming back to my body."
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Day 4
We started the day very physically.
"Already in the morning, I completely surrendered to the practice, I sweated and shook. In the end, I didn't feel any emotion, but through the breathing that we practiced while working with the chakras, I released something from the depths, from the ovaries, from the womb. It was as if we were going little shriveled horrors of me that weren't mine at all. A remnant of something, something someone dumped into me."
We started the afternoon with a vigorous round of sharing. This is where Lili's leadership really came to the fore, as she very gently but firmly supported certain people to express and complete their processes. I won't go into that, because it is sacred on several levels and because by participating in the workshop you commit not to talk about other people's processes. Which is just one of the details that turn the whole experience into a truly safe space to express yourself, your truth, and your pain.
"It was crazy for me to observe my body. How to hold space for someone who has a strong process, let go of the emotion myself, but remain grounded."
During the afternoon session, we first explored what it's like to be a gift to someone and what it's like to take someone as a gift. A very simple and lovely exercise that still triggered processes in me. I was surprised how quickly I knew what I wanted to take from each person and it was interesting to observe what people took from me.
The afternoon was spent in dearmouring through poetry that is physically ethereal. You deal with physical pain, but through the expressiveness of poetry. Very nice.
"My pain spoke of letting go, of fluidity."
We had a party in the evening. It sounds nice, but it was one of the biggest confrontations for me. Probably also because, like all workshop practices, it was created for us. It was created with the aim of throwing us out of the head and analysis into the body and feeling.
"It's nice to be an adult and perceive the world again through curiosity and the desire for joy."
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Day 5
In the morning we fired up with a quick walk in the forest and exercises with the wind.
"Insanely beautiful, a lot was happening to me, because I was already throbbing and humming, spreading through the forest, but deep inside."
Immediately after the forest, we went to breathing practice, which was again with shamanic drums and some very special energy. She took me to the astrals.
"The breathing room completely grounded me, connected me to my own erotic energy and took me to the heights. In the end, I experienced a crunch from the depths, the pure joy of being in my body, feeling the prana, bathing in all the energies, my own and everyone else's. They were we are like an energetic mycelium, each of us a sponge, glowing in our own colors, but strongly connected to all the others. I had the feeling of floating underground."
The farewell happened with the last round of sharing, which was very emotional, intense and beautiful. I didn't even know where to start, how to express my gratitude to everyone. Everything I wanted happened, which still surprises me daily.
"Tribe. Love. Tolerance. Ignite. And goodbye. How could I stay another day in this wild nature, eating wonderful food and flashing with these brave people."
Going home.
"How beautiful when you can really focus on yourself and feel your body. When you learn the language of your own body, which is open and tells you where you are and what is happening around you. And this crazy connection with the spirit that guides you along your path."
After the workshop
After the workshop, there was a return to reality, which for me meant that I am a mother, that I have a job, that I have to stick to the schedule and time and agreements and be a responsible adult. My body throbbed intensely for a few more days, I felt complete peace, the flow of all my fluids. I got my period on the last day of the workshop, a week early, but very reasonable, after all that opening. The days were all the more intense because of this. Every morning I woke up at half past five, lay in bed, wrote and vibrated in this feeling, as if I was in the arms of my great mother, unconditional love, support and acceptance.
One of the uncensored bits of what happened to me:
"I stand in my power with a lit body that can communicate with the world around me and I feel a strong connection with my spirit that has been dancing to the rhythm of the universe for thousands of years. I allow a joyful human experience to happen to me. I allow myself to take the love that belongs to me . I allow myself to take the playfulness that belongs to me. Other people's shit has nothing to do with me."
The physical results are that the pain in my hip, which has been practically crippling for the last few years, has disappeared and that for the first time in 25 years I do not need any stimulant to wake up in the morning.
I'm mentally calm, otherwise in my processes, which at times just toss me around, but I really have a feeling of a deep return to myself, which is still going on. The most noticeable changes are precisely the calming of fear when I am with the child and the overall fluidity of the body, which is now much more open to pleasure. And the most crucial change, which is also the most intimate for me. For as long as I can remember, I have woken up in the morning with a certain feeling of sadness and despair that another day awaits me. It's something I don't really have control over and it's not tied to what's going on in my life. And now I wake up feeling grateful to be living this wild human experience.
What do I recommend?
I recommend that you follow the instructions that you receive before the workshop. A few weeks earlier, I supported my body with gentle detoxification and eliminated sugar, caffeine and alcohol. I also went to individual sessions with Lila and Janez, I think that this also contributed to the fact that some energy familiarity, perception of my condition, was already created and they supported me more easily in my process at the workshop.
I had my phone off for all 5 days. Otherwise, I relied on my lovely roommate who shared time with me, next time I will take a pocket or wrist watch with me, so that I can manage my time completely independently.
The food was divine. Vegan Ayurvedic food really supported me further in the process.
(The photo was taken right after the workshop.)