New Age, New Rage . . . Next Stage.

Trying to get people to attend Personal Growth Seminars & Workshops in London is like pulling teeth – I wonder why? Maybe it’s the product? It’s image? My view about NEW AGE is well versed – even though my path has been well etched with it : "Winging with Angels" is worthy but it’s not going to get the ironing done : footwork not visualisation puts creases in shirts. 

 

Ask people in the office what they think about therapy hug-ins, and personal growth workshop organisers lose 90% of the market as we speak. 

NEW AGE needs a revamp. 

 

How many trainings have I done as the only gay in the village, hugged by an older bi-guy with a greying ponytail, who " understands my differences", while they hide in a loveless marriage. Where are the out hip gay clubbers searching for a new high? How many trainings have I been to where the " long-term partnership" is the ultimate goal, the World Cup of Relationship Therapy, instead of focussing on apropriate temporary fuck buddies to play with and enjoy? No where to be seen or heard. Even A Course in Miracles states " everything is temporary " why aim that high when it’s all happening on the ground? 

How many times have I witnessed Trainers with mystical names at seminars that bear no relation to real life. Plenty and I never went back. Many ask why I call myself SWARMITE ANANDA in that case. ANSWER : It’s a brand persona to take the piss out of myself and the guru trainers. I avoid setting myself up as a Guru - the only guru you need are the results in your life.

 

I am the Master of the Marmite Jar, reminding all not to take ourselves and projected experts too seriously, but it does not mean that my message core is a joke. Recovery is serious business. So we go back to the question as to why the average Joe won’t go near a workshop that says " please bring a musical instrument and food to share ". Understandable really when most of the week they are caning it and trying to remember their pin number let alone deep search of childhood. I was blessed by attracting The Loving Relationship Training into my life in 1988 that trained me, as it turned out to be the sanest, most businesslike vehicle connected to Breathwork at that time. Thank you Sondra Ray. At least some attempt was made to address urban issues and hold Seminars in Hotels not Healing Centres miles away from nowhere. You can heal your Life, right now if you put your mind to it, you don’t need incense or the right clothes. Bring willingness and your arse to any table of hope and it begins. Add all the frippery for focus if you like but it’s not gonna mean a monkey’s unless you do the exercises as aftercare . . . and work it!

So this Blog is not about attacking New Age, it’s value has served me well, but most of it ends up preaching to the converted rather than addressing 90% of the population that could use some soul searching and holding the stick rather than holding the can. Presentation is a key to success, marketing has it’s moments but somehow the Self Help Brigade has missed the fact that most urban people who could use a good talking to, use the net, use expletives and use drugs. Hallo.

 

The NEW RAGE is that no one is listening and still churning out what the Self Help market wants ( which is usually another book title, another Audio CD to merchandise), this is odd to me when the purpose of said market is CHANGE, but very little of it seems to be happening in the floating, flirty-flirty fantasy world of esoteric activity and I have to say – Breathwork Trainings. It’s not 1976 anymore. The NEXT STAGE to New Age is to rebrand to niche markets. Getting a businessman to a " Feelings Seminar " is as difficult as getting a fat man to a gym, so the industry needs to see that keeping the flaky, airy-fairy stuff is right for one market and hopeless for another. Niche Marketing is how we will survive recession and catch those people falling with job cuts, marital woes and raised alcohol consumption in order to cope. A rainbow just ain’t gonna do it.

 

Years ago a flyer in a Health Food Store would bring bums on seats to workshops in droves, now people order on the net. Practitioners used to pin up business cards now those practitioners are out of business. I am always busy and never slack with clientele because I work in a business-like way and wont give concessions until Tesco’s adopt the principle. This allows me to give work for free should I choose to. Too many New Agers are operating Spiritual principles without backup which is why many are still sitting on the scarcity survival pot waiting for God to do the errand for them. My experience is that when you use Karma Yoga ( work/action ) as Babaji said, you develop and materialise inner wealth and outward abundance. This is the divine right that each of us have but rarely gift to ourselves. If no one is buying you flowers – go to the Florist yourself – and witness the change in energy, change in thinking and change in RESULTS. Work the room and re-work your life.

 

http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-swarmiterehab-blog/coda-rehab-6-week-winter-evening-course-tuesday-november-2-9-16-23-30-december-7/415520148644  No best behaviour. Expletives welcomed, judgement is not.