What is SOAR to you?
Testimonials from participants of the 2016-2017 (2nd) SOAR session
Marianna
Age 28, Greece
SOAR was literally an initiation for me. An initiation to a new -more spacey- world, where the collective meets the individual, and where silence meets love. I feel super grateful for this experience and the big chance that was given to me to explore myself. Pleasant and nourishing moments were going together with more challenging ones, asking from you to be truly sincere with your inner life by just being aware. If I can put it in one word, SOAR is a "navigator" towards your true self. A "mirroring" community with kind smiles, warm hearts, delicious nutrition, big hugs and lots of wisdom, all surrounded by magnificent trees, birds' songs and the blue sky. Something unique!
Briar
Age 20, New Zealand
SOAR was a gift for me, one that I cherished. It was a deeply revealing process. Beautiful and intense. The learnings, sharing, circles and people touched me profoundly. It showed me a new path, another way of living and being. It was the beginning of a journey, of coming closer to who I am. Meeting the others I began to meet myself. I found my place, my people. Through this community, this school I slowly allowed myself to unlock. To really live and love. To become alive.
As I land in the soil
Roots begin to uncoil
Stretch and strengthen
Retract and lengthen
Sleeping around a forgotten seed
A child inside awakes
Reaching a hand out
My roots go deep
As we meet
I sway with the winds
I fall and I rise
The circle supporting
I am heard, I am held
I rise taller
As I blossom
My heart is expanding
Full of joy
I am loving
And living
Apolline
Age 19, Belgium
What SOAR has brought me is almost indescribable. It was one of the best experience I have ever had in my life. Now, every difficult moment, every challenging situation has become an opportunity to see how I am, how I deal with it.
Ritch
Age 28, Mexico
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SOAR has been an absolutely critical learning experience for me at this point in my life. It's being put back in contact with the poetry of my life, to be able to see signals in me and the magic of being alive. It's been a crucial point where I needed to take action to develop the human and affectionate side of me, the personal side. I've prepared and trained for professional purposes, and this time I took the time to prepare and learn from the heart.
It's important because it shifts helps to shift the focus back into the individual and their surroundings. It's helped me to understand and take decisions that will ensure me to grow and be emotionally resilient. It's getting a better grip of myself and learning while I'm living the experience at SOAR. While at the same time being encouraged to reflect and bounce back ideas as I go. |
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From what I experienced, SOAR is a place that empowers young individuals to live lives that encourage reflection, deep listening and understanding to oneself, ultimately making decisions that are aligned with the individual and collective good. It's a place where to understand relations better and to work on the relationship process each one has. A place where responsibility is key, for oneself, but also for others.
Charlotte
Age 22, Netherlands
For me SOAR is a place where I got to meet my best self, without even trying. I think it was just a natural consequence of my increasing awareness of the relations I have to others and nature. All of a sudden I noticed that what I am, is enough. Through workshops and projects, and through simply living together in Oikia Karapanou I have learned to see and be seen, to listen and be listened to, to understand and be understood. It has given me the confidence that also after SOAR I can meet others with trust and warmth.
Liz
Age 25, Canada
Six months. Six. Months. Six months? Poof, like the snap of your fingers. Barely a breath in a lifetime. But oh how precious those six months were. Seeing myself with gentler eyes, falling in love with a place and a family and a way of living. My six months were full of beautiful mistakes, of wonderous moments and of the precious gifts of the wisdom of others' lives. This experience was an invaluable time to stop rushing and working and doing and pushing and just having to do that one more thing. To step towards myself - taking responsibility for my feelings, care of my own body, learning to give myself permission to take space and time. Towards how I relate to others - honestly looking at my relations with my family and friends, learning to express what I need, to hear what others see in me, to name the things left unsaid. Towards the world around me. My words can't explain how deeply I have been touched - how this program has created a shift within me that has already started spreading through my life.
Slowly, slowly. A together-silence that truly became home.
Love.
Slowly, slowly. A together-silence that truly became home.
Love.
Zoe
Age 24, Greece
SOAR for me is a memory of being satisfied with myself,
it's a memory of an inner light that radiates to everyone and to everything,
its the realization that I have a choice in every moment..!
it's a memory of an inner light that radiates to everyone and to everything,
its the realization that I have a choice in every moment..!
Testimonials from participants of the 2015-2016 SOAR session
Jenna
Age 27, Finland
What can I say about Soar? My personal experience in Soar makes my tongue weak. The space, trust, tools and care I was given to look deeper into myself. All the workshops, Non Violence and communication, looking at my patterns and meeting my inner child. Daily meditation, yoga, community work, way of council, giving, sharing, love, magic, finding beauty all around me, in me, people around me and nature. Spending 30 days trekking in the end of my Soar journey. My tribe, the community, me being part of something greater, feeling of belonging, connection, and trust. After a year has passed I'm still struggling to find the right words. All I can say now is:
Thank you.
It can be difficult for an individual to find his place in today's rapidly changing World - especially when there is no time made for it by society. So take the only step you can, step into yourself, step to ground your roots deep in, and to find your way to be you and with you every day for the rest of your life.
This is Soar to me.
Lefteris
Age 25, Greece
Hello, I'm Lefteris and was granted a scholarship in 2015/2016 to attend School Of All Relations.
It's been two months since the begining of SOAR and what i experience everyday are transforming and unique.
Every week my connection to myself strengthens, so is my connetion to the community.
Every day i taste the art of living together, the community life, with strong emotions and important trainings.
I feel grateful each moment during the day and i feel so lucky to be part of this program which has become a family to me.
School of All Relations for me is an experience which cannot fit into words. Only if someone experiences it, will she/he be open to deeply understand his/her relationship to his/herself, others and the planet.
Now, I can't imagine myself being outside of a community. The School of All Relations gave me purpose and to me it's a role model for my future life.
It's been two months since the begining of SOAR and what i experience everyday are transforming and unique.
Every week my connection to myself strengthens, so is my connetion to the community.
Every day i taste the art of living together, the community life, with strong emotions and important trainings.
I feel grateful each moment during the day and i feel so lucky to be part of this program which has become a family to me.
School of All Relations for me is an experience which cannot fit into words. Only if someone experiences it, will she/he be open to deeply understand his/her relationship to his/herself, others and the planet.
Now, I can't imagine myself being outside of a community. The School of All Relations gave me purpose and to me it's a role model for my future life.
Sonja
Age 22 - Germany
Evolving out of my comfort zone
into me - getting to know me on
more realms - having the freedom to express all that there is
- creating this freedom together
& for myself within myself - for all
learning how to live together in
a peaceful way
- insh'allah
Yes, love wants
the learning of
listening
being
with myself
the other & the Planet's
learning!
actively loving
creating together
deciding together
being together
& how can I be me in this?
Age 22 - Germany
Evolving out of my comfort zone
into me - getting to know me on
more realms - having the freedom to express all that there is
- creating this freedom together
& for myself within myself - for all
learning how to live together in
a peaceful way
- insh'allah
Yes, love wants
the learning of
listening
being
with myself
the other & the Planet's
learning!
actively loving
creating together
deciding together
being together
& how can I be me in this?
Anna Nyskov Irgens-Møller
Age 25 - Denmark
Age 25 - Denmark
I remember when I wrote the application to SOAR, I wrote that I expected to learn a lot that I yet didn't know what it will be.
This is one expectation that really has been met.
I did not expect to learn so much so deeply about myself.
For me SOAR is really a space given and created to deepen our understanding of and relations to … everything.
It is a space open to each person to explore whatever we are curious or insecure about in ourselves, in our relations with others and in our environment.
It is the same program for everybody but with very different backgrounds and life experiences, it is very different what each individual get out of it.
For me the most important learning has been a deepening understanding of myself, practicing listening to what I need, what my body is telling me, which is bringing me (because I guess it is a never ending process) a greater respect for and trust in myself and thereby a more balanced and stable starting point from which I can engage in this world.
It is amazing to see how safe and respectful a space you can create when come together 20 people who don't know each other but all are so eager to learn and to listen, to open up and show themselves.
Very fast, I felt really safe here and since the first week, this feeling has just grown so much that I more than ever before dare
to challenge myself, to fall deep, to be exposed, to explore all my fears and insecurities.
The place in itself is magical with the beautiful house and the big garden.
The sea and the sky, and this environment somehow encourages a deeper listening to both what is in us and around us.
What I will take with me from SOAR is a general calmness and trust in myself and whatever the flow of this life will bring.
I believe it will be easier to not loose myself in difficult situations and decisions and I feel a lot more capable of handling whatever comes in the way that is best for me…
The most important parts of SOAR have for me been the daily and weekly practices such as yoga, meditation and way of council and just the task of working out as a community, how we want to be together.
Living together with 15-20 people, so open to and interested in finding the best way to live together is a really interesting and inspiring process.
I have rarely had that many difficult times in my relations to myself and I have never felt so good about it, so safe in it, so curious in learning from it.
SOAR is a rare kind of education that invites young people on an important inner journey which helps each person to meet both their strengths and their challenges, and not least to share these with each other and the world. Feeling safe and supported is crucial for such a journey. I have never felt so safe to meet whatever came and I have never learned so much about the power of a supportive and listening community. These two branches - finding my inner strength and feeling the power of a community - are crucial for finding my way to contribute to the world while having the whole of me in it!
- Words after endning Soar -
" Three months ago I was in the last chapter of SOAR, walking towards Delphi, with 17 other people, who had by then become my family, my herd. Now I am back in Denmark and time by time it is getting more evident what - and how much! - I have taken with me from my 6 months journey at SOAR. The most significant, something I notice every day, is some kind of peace within, an openness to whatever comes and an ability to look at challenging times with patience and gentleness towards myself and others. Moments that previously could pull me down or cause a lot of pain are now allowed to just be there without them taking the power over me.
What a relief!
What a power, I actually have of creating my own life - if I cooperate with the flow in it!
I think every young person with some kind of curiosity towards life would benefit greatly from being at SOAR.
One of my greatest benefits is this practice of finding my peace and strength within, and at SOAR I have seen the power of being surrounded by a community in such a process - a community with a touching amount of support, compassion and curiosity."
Iris Angel
Age 20 - Germany
Age 20 - Germany
I could try to write down all the precious experiences, moments and encounters that SOAR has brought me.
They will fill up a space in my heart and be like a sweet fragrance that reminds me of childhood but it would all anyways end in a failed attempt of putting into words what is indescribable.
It's like that hilarious situation which you share with a certain friend but you could never explain to another.
SOAR provided the right range of moments like that for me.
Moments of magic and laughter and going deep, of tears and songs and a feeling of family.
Of practicing to listen to myself and others.
In the essence of all this moments I guess lies a part of my soul that is colored by all the amazing others around.
As much as SOAR has been connected for me to traveling within, it has always been a learning curve in my relations to others.
To experience living together with a bunch of random people is a great gift that I will carry on into the future.
They will fill up a space in my heart and be like a sweet fragrance that reminds me of childhood but it would all anyways end in a failed attempt of putting into words what is indescribable.
It's like that hilarious situation which you share with a certain friend but you could never explain to another.
SOAR provided the right range of moments like that for me.
Moments of magic and laughter and going deep, of tears and songs and a feeling of family.
Of practicing to listen to myself and others.
In the essence of all this moments I guess lies a part of my soul that is colored by all the amazing others around.
As much as SOAR has been connected for me to traveling within, it has always been a learning curve in my relations to others.
To experience living together with a bunch of random people is a great gift that I will carry on into the future.
Carmen Ramon Miralles
Age 25 - Spain
Age 25 - Spain
SOAR for me has been a very big challenge since the beginning but at the same time it has been one of the best experiences
I ever had.
I remember the first days that I felt like I was at home.
I was feeling very comfortable and very happy to be here.
After the first week my feelings changed and I felt out of place but I was very happy when we sat in council and I heard
from all the others that they had similar feelings.
During these months in SOAR I realized that every time I was having a difficult moment I wasn't the only one.
Everybody had difficult situations and It helps a lot when you can share it.
The other don't have to do anything. If they are there just listening, it's enough.
That's one of the thing I learned in SOAR.
Council helped me a lot to open up, to share my feelings and to let the others know me.
I also learned to know the others, to see and realize how differently we can experience the same situation.
At the beginning I was scared every time that we had council but now I really enjoy being part of it and I am thinking of doing council at the teachers' meetings next year in the school where I'm going to work in Spain.
With each of the different workshops we had I also started to get to know and understand myself a little bit better.
One of the reasons I came to SOAR was to get to know myself.
I was afraid to listen to myself.
I was afraid that I wasn't going to like myself, so it was easier to not listen to myself and copy the others,
but since I came I started to get to know myself and I really enjoy it.
I love it.
It has been a very nice experience with a lot of joy.
It makes me feel stronger and it makes me realize how much I can offer to the world.
It also makes me feel more present.
SOAR taught me to take care of myself.
It was a very good experience but also sometimes it was a little bit difficult.
If you're thinking to come you have to know that sometimes it's hard, that you feel you have had enough,
that you maybe think of leaving.
But If you manage to stay and to live this difficult situation you will learn a lot about yourself.
Afterwards you become a stronger person and you gain confidence and self esteem.
For me SOAR has been the right thing to do at the right moment in my life.
I ever had.
I remember the first days that I felt like I was at home.
I was feeling very comfortable and very happy to be here.
After the first week my feelings changed and I felt out of place but I was very happy when we sat in council and I heard
from all the others that they had similar feelings.
During these months in SOAR I realized that every time I was having a difficult moment I wasn't the only one.
Everybody had difficult situations and It helps a lot when you can share it.
The other don't have to do anything. If they are there just listening, it's enough.
That's one of the thing I learned in SOAR.
Council helped me a lot to open up, to share my feelings and to let the others know me.
I also learned to know the others, to see and realize how differently we can experience the same situation.
At the beginning I was scared every time that we had council but now I really enjoy being part of it and I am thinking of doing council at the teachers' meetings next year in the school where I'm going to work in Spain.
With each of the different workshops we had I also started to get to know and understand myself a little bit better.
One of the reasons I came to SOAR was to get to know myself.
I was afraid to listen to myself.
I was afraid that I wasn't going to like myself, so it was easier to not listen to myself and copy the others,
but since I came I started to get to know myself and I really enjoy it.
I love it.
It has been a very nice experience with a lot of joy.
It makes me feel stronger and it makes me realize how much I can offer to the world.
It also makes me feel more present.
SOAR taught me to take care of myself.
It was a very good experience but also sometimes it was a little bit difficult.
If you're thinking to come you have to know that sometimes it's hard, that you feel you have had enough,
that you maybe think of leaving.
But If you manage to stay and to live this difficult situation you will learn a lot about yourself.
Afterwards you become a stronger person and you gain confidence and self esteem.
For me SOAR has been the right thing to do at the right moment in my life.
Hannes Constantin Faedler
Age 20 - Germany
Age 20 - Germany
SOAR is a place where you can just be.
Simply be yourself.
Without judging, comparing or explaining.
Yourself for who you are.
It's a small place surrounded by beautiful, green nature where people live together and try to live their life
in connection with themselves, the others and the nature.
It's a school where you learn to listen to your body and your needs, through stillness and through movement.
To learn from each other and feel the power of a group.
This learning doesn't necessarily come only from teachers, it naturally happens by living together in a community
and all the challenges that come with it.
A place where you create your own values.
A place where the biggest teacher is nature.
Simply be yourself.
Without judging, comparing or explaining.
Yourself for who you are.
It's a small place surrounded by beautiful, green nature where people live together and try to live their life
in connection with themselves, the others and the nature.
It's a school where you learn to listen to your body and your needs, through stillness and through movement.
To learn from each other and feel the power of a group.
This learning doesn't necessarily come only from teachers, it naturally happens by living together in a community
and all the challenges that come with it.
A place where you create your own values.
A place where the biggest teacher is nature.
