Category Archives: Weekly Reflections

Weekly Reflections

3 June – First Saturday Retreat

Leave a comment

Please join us for a quiet retreat in the Sans Pareil gardens at the start of the new month. From 2-5pm we’ll have times for input and sharing, as well as an open time for reflection in this beautiful outdoor space in the Hout Bay valley.

Date: 3 June 2017. These retreats take place on the first Saturday of most months.
Times: From 2 to 5 pm.
Address: Sans Pareil, 1 Welbevind Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town.
Cost: R100 per person, paid at the door. Discounts are available if needed. No booking is required.

Sign up to our newsletter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page for event news.

Weekly Reflections

22 May – Sans Pareil Session: 12 levels of relating

Leave a comment

We’ve been engaging with a series on getting to know others in ever deepening ways. Join us this Monday night.

Date: 22 May 2017. These Sessions take place on most Monday evenings.
Times: From 6 until 7 pm we’ll have a bring-and-share meal as a group in the Sans Pareil barn. From 7:15 for 7:30 pm until 9 pm Sergio will lead us in our core teaching, reflection, discussion and exercise times. Coffee and tea will be available afterwards.
Address: Sans Pareil, 1 Welbevind Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town.
Cost: R100 per person, paid at the door. Discounts are available if needed. No booking is required.
Extras: For the meal, please bring a plate for mains (not dessert) and a drink to share. Please bring a dish that doesn’t need to be heated.

Sign up to our newsletter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page for event news.

Weekly Reflections

26 May – A Winter’s Night – Game and Dance Evening

Leave a comment

The last Dating & Relating Evening went so well, we plan to do it again. Join us for an evening of dance and games in the heart of Cape Town’s winter. Sergio’s relationship teaching will be interwoven with the activities.

Date: 26 May 2017. These Evenings take place on last Friday of most months.
Times: 7 pm – 9 pm, with time for tea and coffee afterwards.
Address: Sans Pareil, 1 Welbevind Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town.
Cost: R60 per person, paid at the door. Discounts are available if needed. No booking is required.
Sign up to our newsletter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page for event news.

Weekly Reflections

8 May – Sans Pareil Session: Moving to Self-Acceptance

Leave a comment

When our dreams for ourselves get lost, we may well become hard on ourselves and on others who can’t live up to the images we carry. In our next Session we’ll explore the movement from disillusion to self-acceptance, and from self-loathing to self-loving.

Date: 8 May 2017. These Sessions take place on most Monday evenings.
Times: From 6 until 7 pm we’ll have a bring-and-share meal as a group in the Sans Pareil barn. From 7:15 for 7:30 pm until 9 pm Sergio will lead us in our core teaching, reflection, discussion and exercise times. Coffee and tea will be available afterwards.
Address: Sans Pareil, 1 Welbevind Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town.
Cost: R100 per person, paid at the door. Discounts are available if needed. No booking is required.
Extras: For the meal, please bring a plate for mains (not dessert) and a drink to share. Please bring a dish that doesn’t need to be heated.

Sign up to our newsletter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page for event news.

Weekly Reflections

6 May – First Saturday Retreat: God’s Dream for Us

Leave a comment

We were formed in the womb with God’s dream and desire. This blueprint can draw us through life to a fulfillment or get lost along the way. Join us at Sans Pareil as we explore these deeper longings in quiet reflection and times in the garden.

Date: 6 May 2017. These retreats take place on the first Saturday of most months.
Times: From 2 to 5 pm.
Address: Sans Pareil, 1 Welbevind Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town.
Cost: R100 per person, paid at the door. Discounts are available if needed. No booking is required.

Sign up to our newsletter or ‘Like’ our Facebook Page for event news.

Weekly Reflections

Finding Healing on the Path of Pain

Leave a comment

Much of our life movement has been around avoiding pain. To engage with conflict in a life-giving way we need to start working from a place of love.

For most of us conflict is just associated with pain. To cope, we’ve learnt to separate what we like and what we reject both in ourselves and in others. In this way we try to avoid fighting, to cover the tensions we feel or to defend ourselves against a perceived threat. We end up thinking some people are ‘wonderful’ while others we put down as ‘awful’. This is a common pattern in conflict, but is not a life-giving one.

Conflict will always be part of our human condition. So how can we find transformative, life-giving ways with it? Continue reading Finding Healing on the Path of Pain →

Conflict, Relating to Others, Weekly Reflections

Is conflict a friend or foe?

Leave a comment

Childhood perceptions of conflict affect us all our lives. Reflecting on them without judgement enables us to begin to see conflict as a friend.

All of us have a conflict history. The roots of our conflict come from our own experience of it. They started growing in utero when we sensed our mother’s heartbeat speed up as she faced things she struggled with. This continued into our childhood as we found ourselves wanting to be ‘this’ yet having to be ‘that’. Continue reading Is conflict a friend or foe? →

Conflict, Relating to Others, Weekly Reflections

The Quality of Our Connections

Leave a comment

All of us have been taught how to be skilled in our profession, yet for the most part we haven’t perfected the most important art – the one for which we were all created – that is how to really connect in love with others. In essence we are all creatures of relationship and we need to be and to assert our real selves with conviction. Continue reading The Quality of Our Connections →

Contemplation, Family of Origin, Self-worth, Weekly Reflections

Childhood Hurts – Blockage Or Bridge?

Leave a comment

From childhood we’ve all sensed imbalances of power. In most relationships, though often unspoken, we feel we are being continually measured, pegged at different levels. We all know who’s stronger than us – whether verbally, emotionally or physically – and we know who can punish or frighten us. We sense where we are placed in our social circles, whether at the centre as the ‘queen bee’, or further out towards the fringe.

Each of our early experiences are peopled with memories which touched us, both the good and the painful. The patterns we each developed to flourish and to survive then are the same as those we still use today. That particular person or event from our past is long gone, but our learnt patterns of relating remain. We continue to see ourselves and others (even God) through this lens. 
Continue reading Childhood Hurts – Blockage Or Bridge? →

Conflict, Self-worth, Weekly Reflections

Can we express our real selves to each other?

Leave a comment

Most of us have been brought up to please others, often at the expense of our real feelings. Within us all lies our deepest fear, that of rejection. We know all to well what our society sees as acceptable and what is deemed unacceptable. This can cause us to play a game to fit in at all costs.  Continue reading Can we express our real selves to each other? →