Getting Free
Join Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin for A Year of Untangling®
“Inside a Tangle, no road leads to freedom. There are dead ends everywhere. Resolution is literally impossible at that level. Everything you try just keeps you even more stuck.”
– Barbara McGavin
Do you feel like the life you know you should be living is frustratingly out of reach?
It’s not uncommon to feel like there’s an unbridgeable gap between how you want your life to be and how it is now. Despite your determination and all the hard work you’ve put in to change your life, there are places where you’re still impossibly stuck.
Perhaps you’ve tried everything you can think of to get free. Being logical. Getting help. Working really hard. Even just giving up and settling for how things are. But none of that works. You feel as “up against it” and hopeless as ever. And you probably also feel inadequate, defective, and worthless… at least some of the time.
But there’s hope…
You might be surprised to hear that there isn’t anything wrong with you. You aren’t defective or inadequate. Something is keeping you stuck.
You have a Tangle.
Oddly, your Tangle actually makes sense. It’s created by the life-saving attempts by different Parts of you to deal with an impossible situation. Unfortunately, their efforts are mutually self-defeating.
No wonder you have confusing inner conflicts (such as feeling both “I want to and I don’t want to…” at the same time) and undermining beliefs (such as “I’m not the kind of person who can…”).
Everything your Parts have tried to get free from your Tangle have probably just made it worse.
When you’re inside a Tangle, all your thoughts and ideas, all your actions come from Parts. Parts can’t get us free from Tangles. They create and maintain Tangles! All the strategies of Parts just dig us in deeper.
No wonder this all feels so impossible!
We get it and we're here to help you.
We (Barbara and Ann) developed the Untangling® method over more than 25 years of research into what really does work.
We created Untangling® when we were facing impossibly tough life issues that were holding us back and resisted all attempts at change. We both desperately needed something that would get us free.
What we learned from our experience, first with ourselves and then with our clients, made us rethink everything we knew about trauma and change… and Focusing. Combined with our deep study of Gendlin’s ground-breaking Philosophy of the Implicit, the result was Untangling® – a powerful set of processes to untangle any Tangle.
We’d like to give you our guidance through the impossibly tough issues you’re facing so you can live the life you long to live.
What is Getting Free: A Year of Untangling® all about?
Getting Free is our first program to support you through a whole year of Untangling®.
Tangles are tough. Untangling® needs time. Time for learning new powers, trying them out in your life, and getting help with your questions and challenges as you practice your new skills. It’s really important to have steady, ongoing support so that these new ways of living can take root.
In this program, you’ll be with the two of us AND with a community of other Untanglers for inspiration and encouragement. We’ve carefully designed it that way. You’ll learn our whole method (and our cutting-edge theory), but most importantly, you’ll have personalized support for your ongoing journey with your Tangles.
What’s amazing: when your Tangle shifts, everything shifts.
Your life opens up in surprising ways. Delightful. Unpredictable. Easeful. Satisfying. Ways that were impossible to imagine from inside your Tangle.
You feel more at ease being yourself. You free your abilities and gifts so that you are effortlessly more authentic, creative, emotionally available, playful, loving, compassionate…
Best of all, you have what you need to meet new Tangles as you encounter them. More fully and freely yourself and confident in your ability to meet new Tangles. What could be better than that?
“I used to feel lost, frustrated, and hopeless at times because it was hard for me to be in touch with my inner life to the degree and with the quality I wanted. I now have hope and confidence that I can find resolutions – ones I never could’ve imagined – to the issues in my life and how I hold them.”
– Annie F.
3 Steps to Getting Free
This is advanced training: You’ll need four Levels of Focusing (now taught under the name Path to Lasting Change, Parts One and Two), or a 6-day Treasure Maps retreat, in order to join us.
“Being healthy isn’t having no problems, it’s having new problems.”
– Gene Gendlin
Seasons of Change
Base Camp
Tangles are tough. They tie you up in knots. They are mystifying, frustrating and confusing. No wonder you end up feeling desperate and discouraged. To engage with your Tangle at the level that brings real change, you need to radically strengthen your Powers of Presence. By the end of Base Camp, you will be well equipped to move to the next level of Untangling®.
March 16 – Taking up the Challenge
March 23 – Showing Up as Your Biggest Self
April 6 – As Big as Montana
April 20 – Deeply Listening
May 4 -Deeply Understanding
May 18 – Deeply Loving
Into the Maze
In a Tangle, things are not what they seem. Tangles can fool you. Being entangled is like being lost in a maze. You think you’ve finally found the way out and then realize you’re actually going around in circles. There are dead ends everywhere. During this season, you learn the keys to unlocking the secrets of the maze. You gain the clarity and spaciousness to be able to spend time with the deep places that really need attention. You discover that every dead end is actually a doorway to transformation.
June 1 – Lost in the Maze
June 15 – “Did I just do that?”
June 29 – “Who’s pulling my strings?”
July 13 – “Who’s that hiding in the bushes?”
July 27 – “This is never going to work!”
August 10 – Widening the Horizon of Possibility
Diving Beneath the Surface
For a Tangle to untangle, you need to dive deep, to the heart of the Tangle. At these depths, you find wounded and struggling parts of you clustered around a frozen core. You become the compassionate healing environment that these wounded parts need. You’re able to bear what has been unbearable. As you sense the frozen core of the Tangle directly, it melts, and the life within is released. Profound change follows spontaneously.
August 31 – Diving Deep
September 14 – Desperately Evading the Abyss
September 28 – True Love
October 12 – Touching the Frozen Core
October 26 – Dancing with the Dragon of Despair
November 9 – Life Emerging
Into the World
As your Tangles untangle, every area of your life starts to open in unexpected ways. Whether it’s in your work, or your relationships or your creative endeavors, you are freer and you encounter new challenges. You can embrace your new challenges as precious opportunities for even more growth. Living with greater freedom and greater scope, you feel strong and confident in your powers, able to go out into the world — and deep into yourself — to meet what life will bring.
November 30 – Easier – and Harder
December 14 – It Takes Two to Tangle
January 11 – Dancing with the Mystery
January 25 – Life Beyond Tangles?
February 8 – Bring It On, World!
February 22– Getting Free
“In every tough situation I can be curious. Even in the hardest times, I know I’m OK.”
– Ann Weiser Cornell
Are You Ready to Get Free?
You Can Start by Registering Here
Save $250: Early Registration Price $2250 until February 23rd!
Choose to pay in full or pay in installments.
Installments vary based on early and late registration prices. Option to pay in installments displays on last page during checkout.
Getting Free: A Year of Untangling
$2,500.00 $2,250.00
Dates: March 16, 2021 to February 22, 2022
Time: 24 Tuesdays; 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM Pacific
Taught by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin
Payment and additional details
Cost: $2250 through end of day February 23, $2500 after
Don’t Miss Out: The last day to register is March 9
Installment Plans: You may choose to pay in 6 or 12 equal monthly payments. Payment options display during checkout and include a $225 processing fee for 6 pay option or $390 processing fee for 12 pay option. Installments are processed every 30 days. PayPal is not available for this payment option.
This is advanced training: You’ll need Your Path to Lasting Change, Part Two, Focusing Level Four, or a 6-day Treasure Maps retreat, in order to join us.
Want to know more? Listen to our free webinar recording…
Want to find out more about how Getting Free can help you step into your calm, confident, courageous life? Just click here to email to schedule a chat with Ann Weiser Cornell, or you may want to watch a recording of our free webinar…
More about our free 90-minute Open House Webinar:
You will learn:
- Why some areas of our lives resist change and stay stuck no matter what we try
- How to create an environment of change instead of trying to change
- A view of stages and layers: Why working with deeply entrenched Tangles takes time
We will also talk about the Getting Free: A Year of Untangling™ program and answer your questions about whether it is right for you.
What People Are Saying…
The testimonials below are about our Untangling work, which we offer in six-day retreats and in the Getting Free course.
- Terri Thayer Micene
"My life has changed since Treasure Maps. I no longer spend several hours a day playing games on my phone. What was once an irresistible siren call was shut off just like a water tap. My eating habits (my main tangle) are no longer a problem. My stomach is behaving as it should and I don’t fight off cravings or the desire to eat foods that don’t agree with me. Eating has become an easeful process for me, for the first time in my life." - Sandy Prashama
"I came into this course desperate for help to be able to move forward. I was physically getting sicker and sicker, had left my job, and could barely function. I ended up in bed sleeping or playing games into the wee hours trying to cope. Parts of me had totally taken over, a battle was raging inside that left me non-functional except basics. The worse it got, the worse I felt. At the Treasure Maps retreat, I got support being Self-in-Presence (a kind of gentle self-accepting state) and I noticed that I'd become deeply identified with some of my parts. Ann and Barbara gave me amazingly clear and 'count-on-able' tools that helped me have many deeply healing and often spiritual experiences. Now, I'm much more functional. When parts come up (which they have), I recognize them and use the skills I learned so I can be with them. I recommend this course to anyone dealing with something inside that feels confusing and beyond reach or if they're in a situation that makes it feel hard to move forward. It really works. The tools are simple, yet powerful. And they're easy to use on your own so you can keep experiencing changes after the course too." - Bie D.
"Before Treasure Maps, I was always trying to understand and change my relationship with the world in order to find a better place for me "out there." Now, I often spend more time with myself. It's easier to be alone. I'm more in the here and now, so I enjoy life more." - Paul Fitzgerald, DMin
"I'd done a great deal of work before taking Treasure Maps. I knew how my tangle limited me...cutting me off from deep feelings, needing to be so overly-responsible and taking everything so seriously. Knowing and analyzing these details was informative, but not transformative. The Treasure Maps experience was like a dissolving of an old way of seeing life and having new eyes to engage life with more freedom. I'd highly encourage anyone interested in deepening their Focusing to take this course. The information offered by Ann and Barbara, their real-live and vulnerable demonstrations, their very perceptive and empathic support of participants created a rich learning environment. The structure of the Focusing/Companioning sessions was invaluable as well as the connections to continue Focusing with participants after the class ended." - Georgia Simone
"I came to Treasure Maps hoping to untangle a life-long, debilitating self-doubt and fear of public speaking. No one (as in not one single person) has been able to support me in overcoming the intense nervous energy I sometimes experience when speaking in public or sharing in groups. This left me feeling confused and like there was something wrong with me. Treasure Maps handed me the keys to not only begin to untangle this nervous knot but also to gain great insight into what has prevented me from fulfilling my potential. After Treasure Maps, I feel different in ways that are difficult to articulate - as if the very foundation that has been holding this whole tangle together has been weakened beyond repair. I've spoken twice in public since the retreat and both times felt so different. There was some nervous energy, but unlike other times, it did not take over. I was able to stay in presence without being consumed by it, and I was able to speak from my heart authentically and powerfully. This is huge! Furthermore, I simply feel more confident - in a natural and quiet kind of way, like I don't need to prove or defend myself. I feel more myself. And it feels good. Really good."
About the Teachers
Ann Weiser Cornell
Ann Weiser Cornell struggled with painful addiction, anxiety in social situations, and an inability to do the thing she most wanted to do – write.
Ann created Inner Relationship Focusing with her long-time colleague, Barbara McGavin, to help alleviate the thinking and feeling cycles that kept her stuck in hard places. It changed her life, and it became her mission to help others create quiet miracles in their lives too.
For over 35 years now, Ann’s been teaching this practical, revolutionary process to people all over the world.
Barbara McGavin
Barbara McGavin’s greatest joy is exploring the frontiers of the Focusing process – what it is and how it can be applied in daily life.
Since 1991, she has been developing Inner Relationship Focusing with Ann Weiser Cornell. Since 1994, the two of them have been exploring Focusing in some of the most difficult areas of life. Untangling™ has grown out of this and is the core of Barbara’s own Focusing practice.
Barbara’s other great interest is in how Focusing can be used in the creative arts. She has developed a process called From Spark to Beacon to help people develop and release their creative capacities.
How Online Courses Work
We use Zoom, an online video conference platform, to connect you to other students and the teacher. Before the class starts you will receive a Zoom link to use each time the class meets. You can join us via your camera-equipped computer, tablet, or smart phone. Prefer not to be on video? You can turn off your camera. Don’t want to call via computer? You can call in by phone. Zoom is free and easy to use. You will be able to sign on in advance to make sure you can access it, but we’ve had very few problems with it. Students also receive access to a private webpage where course materials can be found.
We use Ruzuku, an online course content platform, to provide your course materials, recordings, and a discussion forum. During the checkout process, you’ll be invited to create a Ruzuku account (if you don’t already have one) or add the course to your existing Ruzuku account. Please be sure to watch for this step and contact our Customer Happiness Manager right away if you don’t see it.
Prerequisite
This is advanced training: You’ll need four Levels of Focusing (now taught under the name Path to Lasting Change, Parts One and Two), or a 6-day Treasure Maps retreat, in order to join us.
Continuing Education Credit & Course Completion Certificate
Course meets the qualifications for 48 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Focusing Resources, CAMFT Approved CE Provider #62524.
Focusing Resources is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs. Focusing Resources maintains responsibility for this course and its content.
There is a $25 administrative fee for CE units. Course completion certificates are awarded at the end of the course upon completion of all requirements and the course evaluation. (If you don’t want CE units but would like a completion certificate, the $25 fee does still apply.)
Eligibility for CE units requires at least 80% live attendance. Missed classes must be made up.
Cancellations, Changes & Refunds
Until end of day March 31, 2020: We will refund your course fee less the $200 non-refundable portion of your initial payment.
From April 1, 2020 onward: 100% of course fees are non-refundable.
When Something Doesn't Go As You'd Hoped...
We are always open to discussing experiences with our courses that didn’t work for you or didn’t go the way you expected. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to email your course instructor, the staff member in charge of your course, or Ann Weiser Cornell. Email addresses for all these people will be supplied on registration. We will work with you to find a way to meet your needs.
Got Questions? We’ve Got Your Answers…
Do I have to be present for every class? What about recordings?
This is a participatory partnership class and your presence at most of the classes is important, but there is no precise number of classes you need to attend — unless you want CEUs, in which case you need to attend 80% of the classes and make up any missed classes. Every class will be recorded and the recordings will be available to every registered participant.
Can I take this course remotely, by listening to recordings?
Yes, that would be possible. You would not be able to receive CEUs but you could participate in class discussions using the online forum, and you would be able to be in partnerships.
How does this compare to the Untangling™ course which was five weeks long?
Whenever we taught that 5-week Untangling™ course (or 10 weeks with Untangling™ 2 added), we wished we had the time and the structure to offer real support over time to the inner journey of the participants. Getting Free is not only longer. It also offers more support and more depth. Because it is an advanced course, requiring either four levels of Focusing training or the 6-day retreat, we are able to work at an advanced level from the start.
How does this compare to the retreats, the 6-day regular retreat, and the 6-day advanced retreat?
There is nothing like meeting in person! We love doing retreats because of the power of an in-person group in a beautiful place in the world. That said, the down-side of a retreat is that you go home in a week… and except for Focusing partnerships and emails, you are basically on your own. We’ve been longing for a way to support people over time to make the Untangling™ process a deep and enduring part of their lives.
