About Spice Yorkshire

Below you will find some fun feedback from a few of our existing members. This is direct from the horses mouth, unedited (apart from the odd spelling mistake) and shows you just what a fun place to be Spice is !

Personal Development 1 & 2

If you thought you couldn't talk about personal subjects to strangers, hated to be touched or hugged and only on pain of death would cry in public, you may need to think again. Under the expert guidance of Roy Martin a group of 23 apparently normal Spicers bared their souls to each other, used up several boxes of Kleenex and generally tried to work out the reasons why we are the people we are. It is difficult to say exactly what you might get out of a PD1 workshop. Everyone's experience was different but read on for what happened to me.

I attended PD1 at a low point in my life. I'd recently split from my partner and two months later my father had died. I was within millimetres of the bottom of my black hole, angry, bitter, emotionally fraught and scared. I knew I needed to do something to get some balance back into my life and find the strength to get on with things that mattered to me and would make me happy. My expectations of what PD1 might do for me were very high!

Two days later I'd worked through numerous mentally and emotionally stimulating exercises. I'd shed bucket loads of tears (one or two of us could have ended the drought in Africa by ourselves) as I talked about and listened to people sharing intensely personal experiences. I'd laughed and joked as we prepared lists of things that made us feel good ("strawberries" to the initiated) and tied ourselves in human knots. The course finished and I returned home. I was utterly exhausted and felt as if someone had removed my brain, mashed it up with a rubber mallet and thrown it back inside my head. I knew something about me had changed but I wasn't sure what. There was no flash of light and cry of eureka, just a sense of something having moved very subtly but in a very big way. Funnily enough as I tentatively peered over the top of my duvet on Monday morning the world, much to my surprise, still looked the same - but was I.

I Was then faced with yet another decision:- did I want to find out more about myself? Was I brave enough to sign up for PD2? Could I really face another incredibly intensive weekend like PD1 and risk pushing my personal boundaries even further? Well, those thought lasted about as long as it took me to get onto my computer on Monday morning and book PD2!

A couple of months later I was sitting in a room with some familiar faces and some I'd never met before - all survivors of PD1 and all somewhat excited and yet at the same time anxious about what PD2 might have in store for us. My starting point for PD2 was totally different. I'd already decided I was going to move overseas and was in the throes of negotiating a termination settlement with my employers. I was feeling tremendously upbeat and that I had lots to look forward to.

For me PD2 was a completely different experience. Apart from anything else I only needed one, well maybe two tissues, instead of a box full! The exercises were pitched at different parts of our minds and some of them had me virtually bouncing off the walls with pure pleasure. From producing dark and sombre pictures on PD1 suddenly I was drawing bright multicoloured suns and butterflies on PD2. There were also very serious moments. Whilst talking one of the other ladies through what for her had been a particularly long, dark and immensely painful experience, I was as nervous as I could be. I was terrified that I'd say the wrong thing; that what I'd say would sound trite in the face of what had happened to her; that what she was telling me and reliving was beyond anything I had ever come near to experiencing and how was I, an untrained "ordinary" person supposed to help her though this. But we came through. The satisfaction was immense and the joy I felt in having been able to get someone through a crisis opened up my eyes to yet another facet of my nature I had either buried or been unaware of.

My conclusion about the two courses is that they are amazing. At worst you may not find anything new about yourself nor overcome whatever demons have haunted you but at least you will go away feeling a much better person than you had thought you were. You will also know you have the ability to make changes to your life that will make it the better place you deserve it to be. As for me, I finalised my termination package and leave my current job on 24th Dec. I shall emigrate to Spain in Jan 2004 and live in the house I bought whilst on holiday in May. I am planning a completely different lifestyle, hopefully under a bright sun and surrounded by beautiful butterflies. Finally I have to thank Roy and Lisa for giving me the opportunity to attend such amazing workshops, and especially to Roy for the conversation over breakfast which may have changed my life for ever.