Personal Transformation: A Free Online Course
Welcome to My Free Course on Personal Transformation
This free online course includes about an hour and ten minutes of video content oriented around five principles of personal transformation that I’ve found to be supportive in my own work as well as in my work with my clients. This content draws from a wide range of personal experience as well as many personal growth and self-awareness paradigms. I’ve listed some resources you may be interested in checking out at the bottom of this page if you’d like to learn more.
If my style resonates with you, and you’re interested in more tailored support with your personal growth, you may want to check out my private practice.
Please feel free to reach out at any time to ask questions or offer feedback at james.boutin@mailfence.com
If you benefit from this work, you may want to sign up for my newsletter. If you feel inspired to offer a financial contribution to support my work, you can do so via Venmo @boutin-james or via PayPal by going to paypal.me/jamesNboutin. I greatly appreciate all contributions, as they support me to continue making free courses like this one.
Introduction
What is this course about?
How do I come to this work?
Learn to Allow
What if personal transformation is about doing less?
Why it’s important to root ourself in the principle of allowing
Principle 1: Self-Observation and Self-Reflection
What is self-observation? How do we do it?
How can self-observation support self-reflection?
Learn to start from where you are
Principle 2: Create Space
What does it mean to create space in life?
Why is creating space important?
"Our collective rest will not be easy. All of culture is collaborating for us not to rest. I understand this deeply. We are sleep-deprived because the systems view us as machines, but bodies are not machines. Our bodies are a site of liberation."
~ Tricia Hersey
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace.”
~ Thomas Merton
Principle 3: Dig for Your Purpose
Why purpose, alignment, and meaning are important to follow.
Finding “your why” is not something you accomplish in a day, a week, or a month. It’s a life-long practice of deepening.
Some tips on developing that practice.
“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses [their] feelings through words.
This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
~ E.E. Cummings
Principle 4: Learn How to Suffer for What’s Important
Maybe the most nuanced principle
What I don’t mean
Developing a practice of directional discomfort
“Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.”
~ Audre Lorde
Principle 5: Let Your Dreams Serve as Guides
How night-time dreams and waking aspirations for your future can create a powerful sense of direction
How to use both these kinds of dreams
What's the Point?
What can happen if you implement these principles?
How can these principles change the source of energy we use to fuel our lives.
How these principles apply on different scales of social experience: personal, relational, communal, organizational, and societal
Thank you!
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn with me. If you liked this course, you may be interested in checking out my other free online course, Understanding the Essential Nature of Systems of Oppression or my private practice for individuals, relationships, and groups interested in growth work.
If you benefit from this work, you may want to sign up for my newsletter. If you feel inspired to offer a financial contribution to support my work, you can do so via Venmo @boutin-james or via PayPal by going to paypal.me/jamesNboutin. I greatly appreciate all contributions, as they support me to continue making free courses like this one.
Below, you can find a list of suggested resources to continue supporting you in your journey:
Resources
Barasch, M. (2000). Healing Dreams: Exploring the Dreams That Can Transform Your Life. Riverhead.
David Bedrick’s work on Unshaming
Brown, A. M. (2017). Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press.
Chia, M., & Wei, W. U. (2008). Living in the Tao, The Effortless Path of Self-Discovery. Destiny Books.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. (2002). How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life. Atria Books.
Fontana, D. (1997). Teach Yourself to Dream: A Practical Guide. Chronicle Books.
Feinstein, D., & Krippner, S. (2008). Personal Mythology: Using Ritual, Dreams, and Imagination to Discover Your Inner Story. Energy Psychology Press.
Ginwright, S. (2022). The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. North Atlantic Books.
Hanh, T.N. (2015). How to Love. Parallax Press.
Hanh. T.N. (1999). The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation. Beacon Press.
Hersey, T. (2022). Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. Little Brown Spark Publishing.
hooks, b. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press.
Huber, C. (2010). What You Practice Is What You Have: A Guide to Having the Life You Want. Keep It Simple Books.
Mindell, A. (1993). The Shaman’s Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and the Community. HarperCollins.
Mindell, A. (1990). Working on Yourself Alone: Inner Dreambody Work. Arkana.
Peck, M. S. (1978). The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth. Touchstone.
Processwork Institute and Experience Processwork Online
Taylor, S. R. (2018). The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radial Self-Love. Berrett-Kohler Publishers.
Tutu, D. & Tutu, M. (2014). The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World. HarperOne.
Wong, E. (1992). Cultivating Stillness: A Taoist Manual for Transforming Body and Mind. Shambala Publications.
© 2024 james boutin
