The method behind the tools and techniques of our courses is a unique synthesis of contemporary psychology and traditional spiritual teaching. Brad Brown, co-founder, once described the core of these practices in the following terms:

“When we are stuck in the way we habitually see things, we don’t think of much more than surviving, getting by, or doing our duty to someone or something. We go after anything that makes us feel better for a while, anything that sells itself to us, so we feel better. We don’t recognize that life itself is here for us: we can’t see it, we don’t know it. We’re too busy surviving it, too busy getting through it, too busy fighting it. We fight to keep our heads above water, so that what life is really offering is not perceived and is not available to us.

“But when I stop and choose to take a stand on what is really going on, something unique starts to happen to my creativity. I start to act out of who I really am, rather than who I am afraid of being or becoming. I am really sure about this human being that I am, and whom life has been calling forth since the day I first drew breath. In that way, life is creating us all anew every day, and you will create yourself anew, as soon as you start to connect with reality itself, just the way it is being given to you.”

As a young seminary student, Brad used to pencil the letters “YBH” in the margins of books as he was reading and studying. “Forgive others.” Yes, but how? “Love others as yourself!” Yes, but how?

The goal of the tools and practices he worked on throughout his professional life is that they offer people practical “hows” to live out their own highest values.

A central insight is that when we learn to separate what is really happening around us from the interpretations we make up in our minds, we also change our way of seeing what is happening. We begin to shape a response to life as it really is, not the way we think it ought to be.

We are able to step free from the grip of our emotional reaction to the apparent meaning of things, as interpreted through the filter of early childhood decisions. We start responding to life and learning from our experience, instead of struggling to control ourselves and other people.

A second insight gives the classic psychological ‘stimulus-response’ a new kind of significance. It’s not just that certain things occasionally trigger the defensive strategies we developed during childhood; the fact is that almost anything that happens can provide a stimulus that sets off our old reactive behavior.

It is known that, as soon as we are aware of our reaction to what is happening to us, we start to experience things differently from how they look when we are under stress or driving ourselves to get results. This drivenness is more common than you might think: EEG measurements of brain patterns show we are in a driven state for much of our waking day.

A key skill you will learn in the More To Life Weekend is an ability to notice your own reactivity and become aware of what is driving you to act.

This drivenness is revealed as an artificial state generated by unconscious fear, while creativity can be seen as a natural force that is supported by our connection with life.

As we wake up to our reactive patterns, we free ourselves more and more to act in ways that are appropriate to what is happening, whether this involves a heart-felt response to another’s experience or a clear analysis of a particular challenge.

We become more aligned with, and guided by what’s real. We learn to transform habitual patterns of behavior into creative responses, furthering our lives in ways that are immeasurably more satisfying and measurably more productive.

The difference between being creative and being reactive in daily life is very simple, but it has a huge impact on everything around us. Below is a diagram which illustrates the differences in the results we create in our lives.

Basically, something will happen in our lives – it could be large or small. At this point, we, as human beings, either consciously respond to it or automatically react. Each way of being creates very different results from the other.

Brad Brown’s work was influenced by many prominent thinkers with whom he worked and studied, as well as by his connections with Eastern and Western spiritual teachers. One such person whose work illuminates a theme at the heart of the program was Brad’s supervisor in his doctoral dissertation, the existential therapist Viktor Frankl.

Techniques from many different schools of therapy, from Gestalt to Cognitive, also contributed to the practices Brad developed as part of a unique synthesis of psychological and spiritual approaches to personal and social transformation.