U.K. PARURESIS TRUST: Re: Feedback from the Manchester Follow Up Workshop, November 2016

Like Chris, I attended the September Manchester workshop and I had already mentally committed to going on the immediate follow-up workshop before even stepping foot in the beginners. I left the beginners workshop feeling like a massive weight was off my shoulders and I was finally able open up about my parusesis to a few close people (with the key bit of advice from the workshop being 'tell people who you trust and need to know', making this loads easier) but found it difficult to put what I had learned into practice. I still found myself making a beeline for the cubicles and had not committed to any real desensing practice by the time the follow-on rolled around - I'd made such great leaps forward in the beginners workshop but probably jumped in a bit too deep after coming back and very quickly couldn't put one foot in front of the other to head in the right direction. I decided not to get worked up about it , since I knew this is often a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing - simply being able to accept my AP was more than enough of an improvement from pre-beginners, so the follow-on for me was all about desensing and understanding more about how I can tackle this on my own (as well as going there being a real kick up the arse to myself). Thankfully these were the two things we focussed on! We were all raring to go and desense so got lots of practice in over the weekend, with time in between to freshen up on any topics we hadn't remembered quite so well - think group discussions, rather than seminars this time.

As the other guys have said, we were a small group and gelled really quickly; as per the beginners we were all of varying ages, with different interests and so forth but found common ground for both AP and non-AP base conversation - I can say I genuinely enjoyed our time as a group together, irrelevant of how useful the workshop was! Note: If you haven't picked up yet, it was very useful.

Since coming back I have made an effort to use urinals where I can, with some success - the key difference to before being that I'm much more likely to try a urinal first (and if I don't, I always wish I did - there's no way to know if I'll succeed if I don't give myself the chance to!). I still have a long way to go in terms of my self motivation but the follow-on workshop has definitely given me the tools to help support myself.

If you're thinking about going to a follow-up workshop, I recommend you just commit to it. Honestly even the social aspect of being with people who understand AP and being able to talk freely/find humour in it is worth it in my eyes, let alone all of the primary benefits...