LIVING IN ALIGNMENT WITH THE BETTER YOU
The Journey of the Sacred Paradox
Author, Counselor, and Teacher, Tom Monte
— Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning
Recall for a moment the last time you were under stress and lost your temper. Perhaps you yelled, or cursed, or attacked someone you care about with ugly names and accusations. Perhaps you have engaged in this same kind of behavior many times before. Each time, you realize that you’ve hurt your loved ones and yourself very badly. And after each terrible episode, you promise yourself and those you love that you will change. But you don’t change.
The temptation to accuse and yell overpowers your resolve. You want to be understood, but your actions cause more hurt than understanding.
Or maybe you’re not the one who yells. Maybe, when you’re under stress, you retreat into a shell and cannot be reached by the person who loves you. Perhaps you’re aloof or superior, or just plain distant, leaving the person who loves you feeling inadequate, rejected, and simply lost.
Afterwards, you promise the person you will change, that you’ll learn to share your heart more fully. But the temptation to retreat into your silent bunker, to abandon the one you love is too great; there are too many rewards for stepping back and flying away.
I dare say that most of us want to change. And the more we love someone, or the more we love the work we do, or the life we have, the greater is our desire to grow.
But how? How do we grasp hold of what Victor Frankl correctly identifies as that “space” between stimulus and response and actually experience our freedom?
The truth is, the vast majority of people are not free. They’re not free to think differently, to experience different emotions, to interpret reality in new ways, or to engage behaviors that are new, creative, and powerful.
Why? Because we are trapped within a small image of self — an identity that is committed to its own survival and will resort to anger, fear, withdrawal of love, rage, and even violence to protect its stranglehold on our consciousness. It wants us to believe that we are nothing more than the automatic behaviors that seem to imprison us.
WE ARE GUIDED BY A GREATER KNOWING
Life has a way of awakening us to a greater reality than the one our image of self allows us to perceive. Something inside of us knows — without any doubt — that we are more than our current identity. We are more than our beliefs, more than our current limitations, more than our anger and fear.
Each of us is called to experience that “more.”
There is a gentle way to uncouple from what is going on around you — however stressful that might be — and experience something new and truly transformative within you. A Deeper Knowing wants you to drop your habitual reaction to events — even for just a moment — and experience the gap between stimulus and response.
In the womb of that gap lies the mingling of Divine Intelligence and a living energy that is the better-you.
The better-you exists as an energetic blueprint that Divine Intelligence wants you to perceive, embrace, to feel, and give life force to. It wants you to allow that better-you to transform your behaviors, restore your health, arrange the next phase of your life, and lead you to fulfillment.
The better-you already exists within you as a potential state of consciousness. It is brought to life by a set of clearly defined behaviors.
Once you begin to perceive that better-you, and begin practicing certain life-changing behaviors, you start to feel what the better-you feels; you do what the better-you does; you experience the life the better-you creates.
That learning is the substance of Tom Monte’s new program, Living in Alignment with the Better-You.
EIGHT MONTHS THAT TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE
The program unfolds in eight weekend modules; each module takes place once a month, beginning on the weekend of September 21 and ending in April 2019. (See dates below.)
Over the course of those months, you will learn to identify and experience the better-you. You will learn the behaviors that bring forth the better-you and allow it to displace your existing image of self. As you live by these behaviors, the better-you gradually and inevitably transforms all the important areas of your life, including:
- Your experience of who you are.
- Your experience of anger, fear, disappointment, and rage.
- Your physical body, health, and healing.
- Your intimate partnership and family relationships.
- Your work life, goals, and ambitions.
- Your purpose for living.
- Your experience of, and relationship with, a Deeper Knowing that flows within you.
- Your past, including experiences that you judge as failures, disappointments, and sources of guilt and shame.
THE WORK IS DONE IN AN ATMOSPHERE OF LOVE
Our work is done in a compassionate, loving, respectful, and healing environment, with the intention of enhancing every member’s dignity and self-love.
Among the primary goals of this program is to help you develop a more compassionate and loving relationship with yourself. In such an atmosphere, you can confront and explore your pain, and expose it to the very healing forces that it longs for — the healing power of a Greater Love, a Deeper Knowing that lies within you.
The material is derived from Tom Monte’s unique approach to healing, and his more than three decades of experience as a group facilitator, counselor, teacher, and writer specializing in the healing arts. For more information about Tom, please click here.
(See testimonials below from those who have studied with Tom.)
Program Information
The program consists of eight weekend modules that occur once-a-month for eight months, starting in September and continuing monthly through April. It takes place at the Everyday Mindfulness Center in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Each module begins on Friday evenings and runs from 6 to 9 p.m.; the program continues all day Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The dates are as follows:
Module #1 September 21, 22, 23, 2018
Module #2 October 12, 13, 14, 2018
Module #3 November 16, 17, 18, 2018
Module #4 December 14, 15, 16, 2018
Module #5 January 11, 12, 13, 2019
Module #6 February 8, 9, 10, 2019
Module #7 March 22, 23, 24, 2019
Module #8 April 5, 6, and 7, 2019
CHARMING NORTHAMPTON, MA
Northampton, Massachusetts, is a small, immensely charming city, with an abundance of natural foods restaurants, interesting shops, and lots of choices for hotel accommodations, airbnbs, and beds and breakfasts. Northampton is a three-hour drive from New York City and less than an hour drive from Bradley International Airport, just outside of Hartford, Connecticut.
COST OF THE PROGRAM
The price of the program, including all eight modules, is $4,997.00. Payment can be made by check or credit card. We provide interest-free payment plans.
The group is small and everyone in the program receives lots of individual support from Tom.
The cost of the program includes more than 20 hours of instruction and personal attention per weekend; a text, handouts, and snacks are also provided.
DISCOUNTS ARE AVAILABLE
Bring a friend and the price for your friend is half the cost of the program. (Friends include couples and people new to the program.)
Contact Toby at tobymonte@aol.com to discuss how we can help to make this program possible for you.
HOW TO REGISTER
To register, please send a $600 non-refundable deposit. Registration deposits can be made by mail or with a credit or debit card via Paypal. Contact Toby to arrange registration payments and any payment plans.
If you have any questions about anything at all, please contact Toby at tobymonte@aol.com. We look forward to seeing you in September.
SOME TESTIMONIALS FROM THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN TOM’S PROGRAMS
“A session with Tom Monte is one of the most potent, revelatory, healing and loving experiences I’ve ever had. I felt met and received in ways that were so profound. Deep and lasting change and healing happened as a result of my work with Tom. He is one of the finest healers, teachers and human souls I have ever met. I am beyond grateful for his heart, his integrity, his presence and the sincere generosity of all that he shares and teaches.”
Karen, NYC
“Tom Monte defies a simple definition. He is for certain an extraordinary healer and teacher. He is a scholar, and author of many wellness books. He is a wise man who is a gift to us all during a time of such difficulty and confusion. He was a gift to me. I was a successful person until a deluge of life crises for over a decade had me on my knees. I became an integrative nutrition coach and a health counselor prior to my studies with him. The transformational work I have accomplished during my studies with Tom are nearly incredulous. I have written a book. I have become a teacher, public speaker and a leader in the New Self Health Movement. My counseling work has evolved beyond recognition and I am mentoring others. Most important to me is that I have healed years of suffering and torment and forged deeply healthy loving relationships with my husband and children. Wherever you are in your life, after you have worked with Tom you will be in your next best place.”
Dorothy, NY
“Working With Tom has transformed my life. I have had the honor of learning from Tom for the last 5 years both as a three time student in the healer’s course as well as private and couples counseling. I am inspired by so many things about Tom, but the ones that come to mind are his focus, patience, unyielding compassion, stamina and of course love. There are few people in any professional be it therapy, bodywork or medical doctors that are capable of holding you in your deepest, ugliest pain and both honoring that place while simultaneously seeing your best and brightest self and always leading you towards that. Tom helped me through serious illness and many surgeries, going above and beyond every step of the way. I trust him with all aspects of myself and through this work I have found a loving partner, a new career path that brings me excitement and joy and an evolving spirituality that guides my life. I am and will be forever grateful to have Tom in my life.”
“In the years that I have worked with Tom I have been continually astounded by the ever-evolving depth of his wisdom, generosity, integrity and compassion. He is a healer unlike any other I have encountered, helping those of us fortunate enough to be under his care to not just get better or feel better, but to transform beyond what we had ever imagined possible. He manages to offer tremendous insight and intuitive guidance, while simultaneously assisting us to take responsibility for our own growth, so that we leave with a sense of being both tenderly held and set entirely free.”
Erika, Connecticut
“I know mystical aspects are harder to talk about or share, perhaps people have to discover them, but so much of what goes on in a healing with Tom occurs in invisible and powerful layers that I feel that, more than anyone I have ever met, he has the finesse and communication skills to explore these subjects in conversation and to share his explorations with others. There’s something about the combination between conversation and the respectful approaching or invoking of the mysterious, even the miraculous, that is very very particular to Tom ways of teaching and counseling. A session with Tom is a concentrated dose of wisdom and light, there’s not a chance that you will be the same after you talk to him, via phone or in person. He’s a life changing experience, even if you only see him once.”
Angela, New York and Bogotá, Columbia.
“It is difficult to describe the incredible and transformative experience I have had through my relationship with Tom Monte. He is a rare person with a healing gift to guide anybody through the process of confronting past wounds, gaining clarity and truth in alignment with the heart and creating the life one wants and is meant to have. I first met and began work with Tom over 4 years ago. At the time, I was disconnected from my heart in a way that I was not true to myself or others and I was making choices that took me to a very dark place. Tom’s one-on-one work with me and group sessions offered through his programs helped me to change all of that. I am in a much better place in my life as a result of my work Tom and his teachings. I continue to work with Tom on a regular basis and he has been nothing short of a loving and divine teacher to me. Tom helps me face and over come challenges and he has helped me solve problems that arise from my inner thoughts and feelings, family matters and as a business executive. Most importantly, my entire family has benefited from my work with Tom and his involvement with each member to varying degrees. Tom’s guiding support has profoundly improved my presence and accountability as a husband, father, friend and business partner. I feel happy to know that somebody reading this may choose to seek his light-filled guidance.”
Paul, MA