Exorcising the Demon Should

A Seven Day Residential Workshop
Within each of us there lives a ‘Demon’ – our own personal critic – whose greatest joy comes from criticising, denigrating and destroying every experience that we have, assuring us that – however hard we try – we are never good enough. During this week we will seek to ‘exorcise’ this Demon who forever commands us to be what we are not in order to satisfy someone who can never be satisfied.
What if you actually tried to be everything you think you ‘should’ be? We will build up this image and act it out as fully as we can – making the monumental task easier by confronting it with laughter. Contrasting this experience with the experience of our spontaneous selves we will explore the possibilities of moving between the two, and, in this way, open up our options to the full range of our own authentic being.


In this week-long process, participants will have the chance to explore the images behind their ‘shoulds’ and to recognise the stranglehold of both the ideal images of ourselves that we try to emulate and of the unpleasant aspects of ourselves that we want to cast out How do we face what we want to hide? Why not take the risk of looking inside ourselves and finding the completeness of who we actually are? Why limit ourselves with our notions of who we ‘should’ be and who we hope we are not? Writing about this workshop Paul Rebillot said “I am convinced that when we find out the truth about ourselves, our natural response is to want and to work for the best that we can be”.
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Banner Image: Original artwork by Sheila Kelleher