A Native Lakota man, whose ancestral home is there, taught us that, in their tradition, spirituality means “the ability to feel connected.”  Because this area has served as an inspiration and renewal place for many people for many years, we will return there for this very special program.

This workshop is offered to men and women who are seeking greater connection–with themselves, loved ones, nature’s wonders, and/or whatever else is personally important.  No particular religion or spiritual practice will be promoted, although some Native American customs and philosophies will be introduced.  Because of the special nature of this program the number of participants will be limited to no more than seven participants.

Please note:  the typical experiential therapy group work done at Onsite will not be a part of this program. Each busy day will begin with a meditation exercise.  The rest of the day will involve a mix of travel, exercises, sharing, food and, hopefully, fun.  We will visit historically and spiritually important sites in the Hills.  At these sites, you will be offered the opportunity to take part in a number of activities designed to allow time to focus and connect more fully with themselves, others and their world.   Some moderate walking and hiking will be a part of this program.

The cost for this program is $1,900/person.   This includes mountain cabin lodging www.cabinsoftheblackhills.com , nestled in the middle of the Black Hills National Forest. (We will have exclusive use of the entire complex.  You may note that some of the rooms are more upscale than others.  We will fill those rooms on a first come, first served basis).  Each participant will have, at least, their own room.  This fee also includes all fees and supplies for the workshop.

Except transportation to and from Rapid City, South Dakota AND meals.

All cabins come equipped with apartment type kitchens, so we will be fixing our own breakfasts, packing our own lunches, and deciding as a group what to do about dinner.

This 4½ – day program is designed to help you:

-Meet and connect with other people looking to deepen their sense of connection to

themselves, others and the world around them

-Witness and use the gifts of the natural world to help provide

meaning to your life.

-Participate in activities designed to help increase your sense of connectedness.

For further information or to register contact Ted @ Ted@KlontzConsulting.com.  Please do not contact Onsite Workshops.

If someone would have asked me if I thought it would be a good idea to have two people try to improve the quality of a historically tumultuous, very public, relationship by filming a docudrama type TV program WHILE on a high pressured concert tour at the same time, I would have certainly, in all my infinite wisdom, said, “Are you out of your mind?”

In my mind, it would make as much sense as someone saying “Hey, let’s see if we can be better drivers by entering the Indianapolis 500!!!!!!” These two ladies had a public history of not doing so well with each other, whether it was working together, being in each other’s presence, or talking about the other.

Truth is, no one asked me if I thought it was a good idea or not. I was asked, long after the decision to move ahead with the project was made, if I would be willing to be there for them. I agreed to do that. That’s what I do. I try to help people, wherever they might be, and whatever they might be doing. I had no sense that I would even appear in the final editing of the series. That’s not what I was asked to do.

I began meeting with “The Girls” (my nickname for them) individually. Initially we talked about why they wanted to do this. Three goals emerged.

First, they wanted to forge a better relationship and thought this tour and TV show could provide them an opportunity to do so (I was still shaking my head at this idea).

Second, they wanted the public to have a chance to see how far they had come in the healing process of their once very publicly painful relationship.

And third, they wished that their story might provide hope for those viewers, who were struggling in their own relationships.

Next, we began to forge a set of agreements or a behavioral contract, if you will, as a way of trying to build a sense of safe “rules of engagement” between the two of them. They both had a lot of experience with each other over the years and it was relatively easy to come up with a list of what they needed from each other as well as what they didn’t want.

We met and The Girls shared their lists and, to the surprise of some, very easily came to a set of understandings, expectations and agreements. Included was an emergency plan which could be initiated by either one of them if they felt like the spirit of their agreement was not being honored.

They are both very strong women, and one day as I was driving home from an appointment with them, I realized that what we were about to do was the equivalent of trying to hitch up a team of two very high energy, high strung, headstrong, thoroughbred race horses. Typically, thoroughbred race horses don’t get along with each other very well. They have been known to try to knock their stall apart to try to get at and destroy the one next door. They certainly would resist being hooked together as a team, to pull a wagon (the tour) together. The Girls fit that definition perfectly. Once again I was left wondering, what were we thinking?

Then, I remembered from somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, that there was an animal that often accompanied race horses to calm them down. Eventually I learned that the animal was a goat.

Race horses become quite attached to their goat. So much so, that often when the horse is sold, the goat goes along with them. Sometimes one goat serves to calm down a number of horses. Suddenly, I understood my role perfectly: I was The Girls’ barn goat.

I agreed to visit them on tour twice a week. The idea was to check in and see how the agreement was going. To help figure out ways to deal with things that weren’t working and to help them remember to celebrate what was working.

I don’t have a lot of experience with TV, but I do have some. Early on, it became clear to me that TV is not about education. It is about entertainment. In my opinion, this is especially true in the Reality TV/Docudrama world. Exploitation, often bordering on abuse of people on such shows seems to be the norm. So I was suspicious and felt protective of The Girls, wondering how I might be able to help keep them safe from that energy.

The first time I met the TV people The Girls were rehearsing for the concert tour. I had been asked to come to the sound stage and watch what was going on. When I walked in there were cameras and sound engineers everywhere. One of the executive producers introduced themselves to me and we began talking. I let them know that I was really concerned for The Girls and that their way of being with each other would be exploited for pure entertainment purposes. If that happened I was worried that the relationship between the two of them which they had been painstakingly piecing together for the last half-dozen years would fall apart before our eyes. That would be a tragedy.

They told me that they would do everything possible to help The Girls use this opportunity to further heal their relationship. They went on to say that they hoped to use the vehicle to accomplish the same goals as The Girls. Additionally, they indicated they had the same concerns as I did about the potential that this could wreck the relationship The Girls had developed. Despite my doubts, in looking at the final product, they honored what they said they would do. Kudos to Gay Rosenthal and Bruce Thoms. Two of the most respectful people I know.

One thing I can say is that everything that ended up being screened happened exactly as it was shown. At times, the challenges that The Girls encountered during the tour seemed impossible to believe that they weren’t staged. A number of times I said “if anyone were to write a fictional script, that represented what is going on right here, right now, someone would say ‘there’s no way we can put that in, no one would ever believe it’“.

So, I went twice a week and was with The Girls for 15-20 hours twice a week. We would check in, we would talk about what needed tweaked in terms of the agreements, we would share appreciations.

Sometimes the cameras were there, sometimes they weren’t. For the most part they became a part of the background and we mostly forgot they were there.

As I watched the tour progress and the weeks go by, the most amazing transformation slowly took place. Someone or some power greater than me had known that the tour and the filming actually served as a crucible where The Girls were working on their relationship.

They were more focused, and worked harder and more consistently on that relationship than I had ever witnessed them doing before. My doubter self, that couldn’t imagine anything less than a disaster when I heard what they had planned on doing, turned into a believer as I would watch them interact with each other both on the stage and off. They were able to accomplish a greater degree of intimacy in those four weeks than I had witnessed the previous four years.

I was amazed, and pleased: so happy for and proud of them. The love that I knew they carried for each other, but were unable to express, hidden under decades of pain and misunderstanding, became obvious. If you saw the series, what I will tell you is that what you saw was genuine.

Once upon a time I told them that my hope for them was that one of their most famous songs might be used to help them heal their relationship. My wish was that they would direct the words towards each other. On the final day of the tour, I saw it happen. The song was “Love Can Build A Bridge, Between Your Heart And Mine”. As they sang it I saw them turn towards each other and gift the words to each other. I cried at the sight.

I ended up being more visible on the show than I had ever imagined. A few people wrote notes of congratulations. These were often prefaced by “are you the same guy who………”

A few others let me know in no uncertain terms that they had decided that I was the worst example of someone who claimed to be a helper that they had ever seen. One commented that at my advanced age, they couldn’t believe that I had spoiled my legacy by working so poorly with such reprobates as The Girls, who they diagnosed as being hopelessly mentally ill.

I wrote that person back and said that I hope my legacy would remember that “he was willing to be with people that others had written off as hopeless”

If that were to be said of me, I would simply be passing on what someone had done for me, the one who more than once, was written off as “hopeless”.

That moment was one of those sacred moments that I have since come to treasure.  All of my fellow therapy group members were crying, my therapist was crying, I was crying, we all were crying, or so I thought.  But when I looked up, the man who was seated across from me, the man I had chosen to play the role of my father, sat there looking at me with a totally stoic look and demeanor.  He then looked down at his watch as if to say, “Are you finished yet?”

I shook my head, and thought to myself, that is exactly what my dad would do if he were here.  With that recognition, I literally fell out of my chair and collapsed on to the floor.  I went into a level of grief that I had never visited before.  My body shook as convulsive sobs went through my body.  I wondered if anyone had ever cried to death, if not, I was sure I would be the first to do so.  I lay there for what seemed an eternity.  Later, as the group was giving me feedback, the man who had played my father asked me, “Did I do something wrong?”  I said, “You did nothing wrong, what you did may have been the best gift I you could have ever given, you gave me the truth about my dad”.  What I meant was that in that moment of being totally unaffected by my tenderness and longing and by coldly and detachedly looking at his watch, I had realized that though still alive, my parents could never show up for me in a way the I had always wanted, certainly deserved, and still longed for.  It had been an excruciating process, but I finally, through years of therapy, understood.  What I understood was that no matter what I did or said they could not parent any better than they ever had.  It became crystal clear that it was beyond their ability and more importantly, was nothing personal.  I was 38 years old.

My life changed with that realization and though it is difficult for me to determine exactly when my recovery started, I do know that in terms of my relationship with my parents, I became an adult for the first time that day.  In some kind of spiritual way, I was able to release my mom and dad from their role as my mom and dad.  At the time, I didn’t understand how this was supposed to help, but I was to find out.

Six months later I got a call from my mom that my dad was to go into the hospital to have his third hip replacement surgery.  Now, my father did not have three legs, but he had been among the first to ever have that surgery, and at the time the process often needed to be repeated.  My father and I had never expressed our love for each other in words, and for some reason, that call from my mom made me realize that.  A voice inside me said, “You need to tell him you love him before it is too late.”  By this time in my recovery I had begun to know and trust that voice.  I decided to drive the 300 miles to see him and tell him that I loved him.

For moral support I took my wife and two children with me.  We arrived at the hospital the day before the surgery was to take place.  My mom and sister and brother were in the room when we arrived.  Though I entered the room with great resolve, and I had told my kids and wife what I intended to do, when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t get the words out.  My family lived in great denial about most things and the possibility of my 68-year-old father dying as a result of this surgery was never considered.  After twenty minutes of small talk and repeated attempts to say those three little words with no success, I felt this overwhelming need to get out of the room.  So I said my “goodbyes” and “good-lucks”, and left the room with my father’s echoing words of “It was foolish of you to drag those kids all this way just to see me in the hospital”.  As I walked down the hospital corridor, I felt totally defeated.  Then I heard this voice say as loudly and clearly as if it had been delivered over the hospital intercom, “Just go tell him”.

I told my wife and kid’s “I’m just going to go tell him” (I didn’t tell them about the voice in my head that had commanded me to do that).  They said what seemed to be in unison “We’ll wait here”.

I walked into my dad’s room and said “Dad, the reason I came was to make sure you knew that I love you”.  He reared up in his hospital bed and began coughing.  For a moment I feared that I had given him a heart attack.  I hadn’t.  As I turned around and walked out the door I felt victorious, saying to myself, “Yeah, I did it”.  I had, for the first time in my life, said out loud, the words “I love you” to my dad.  It was the first time ever that those words had ever been spoken between us.  I look back at that moment as the first time in my life that I had ever acted as an adult with my father.

Six months later, on my next visit and as we were saying goodbye, I had the urge to give my dad a hug.  In my recovery, in the groups I had been part of I had experienced for the first time being hugged by a man.  The last time my father and I had touched in any way was some 33 years earlier was when on my 5^th birthday, he had carried me from the car where I had pretended to fall asleep, putting me into my bed.  I look back on that as my ‘pretending to fall asleep in the car trick’, I guess, as a way to be held and touched by my dad.

During all those ensuing years, through all of life’s adventures, both good and painful, we had never shaken hands, slapped each other on the back, or touched in any way.  On that fifth birthday, he said, “From now on if he falls asleep, he’ll just have to sleep in the car”.  So if I followed through on this urge to hug him it would represent a significant shift in how we did our relationship.

As I stepped up to him I said, for the second time in my life, “Dad I love you”, put my arms around him and gave him a hug.  He got very rigid and actually began trembling.  I think he was afraid that I had gone way over the edge.  When I stepped back from him, I felt this surge of pride in knowing that I had actually reached out and got part of what I had always wanted from my dad.

If my dad would have said, “I don’t ever want you to touch me again”, or  “ I don’t ever want you to say that you love me again” I would have honored that, but he didn’t.  A few months later when we parted I stepped up to hug him and his arms opened about four inches.  That time as we stepped back, I choked up realizing that I was teaching my father how to touch his son.  I realized at that moment, that those four inches of movement represented a gold nugget that my father was offering.

He became curious about my work, which had evolved into ownership of Onsite Workshops, a recovery workshop business created by codependency pioneers Sharon and Joe Cruse.  He ended up coming to four of our week long programs, beginning when he was 72 years old.  After he attended what was to be his last program, he called my son and I up to the front of the room beside him and said to the others who had attended the workshop with him, “I have come to believe that if Ted’s mom and I would have known what I have been able to learn doing these workshops, his and his children’s lives would have been very different”.  Wow, another huge nugget.

Shortly after that, my dad fell ill with brain cancer.  Through that battle there were many more, rich nugget experiences.  One time in particular stands out.  After his first surgery, I happened to be with him when it came time for him to go to physical therapy.  The nurse asked me if I would like to go with him and I said “Sure”.  As my dad and I were working at putting rings on posts and putting balls in baskets, we were laughing and joking, I was taken back to that one day we had played together.  Now there was a second day.  That night as I stood before the motel mirror brushing my teeth, I was overcome with tears stemming from a sense of gratitude and fullness.  It was confusing to me because I had just come from the nursing home with the clarity that my dad would never walk again.  Then the words “unconditional love” came to me, and I realized that was what I had experienced with my dad that day.  I had no expectations of him or him of me, we just were together.

The next few years with my father were filled with many, what I came to call, “gold nugget” moments.  I continued to listen to that ‘voice’ in my head that said, “Go see your dad”.  Each and every time, he and I would have a golden moment of connecting.   The final one was on the day of his last surgery. Just before he was taken to the operating room I had this overwhelming sense of being so proud of how he had lived his life.  He taught me by example that it is never too late to learn, it is never too late to start “recovery”, and even how to die with grace.  I blurted out “Dad you know I love you, and I am so proud of you.”  He turned towards me and said “I don’t think I have ever told you how proud I am of you, the kind of life you have made for yourself, and I know I didn’t tell you often enough of my love for you”.  I leaned over him and hugged him goodbye.  When we finished and pulled away, this time as I looked at him, through my tear-distorted eyes, I saw his rolling down his cheeks.

Those were the last words my father ever spoke.  He died several months later.  The gift that my recovery gave me was the ability to realize that my father did not have gold bars to give, but if I could let go of my idea of what my father’s love should look like, there was a king’s ransom of wealth in the form of little gold flakes and nuggets that I would have missed, if I had not given up my sense of what I deserved and how it should be served up.

When I was 22, I’d yet to conquer “needs versus wants” and was living beyond my means. My monthly credit card statement was often a source of anxiety and regret.

But young adults today don’t quite harbor the same emotions when it comes to debt. A new study suggests the more credit card debt and college loans a young person carries, the more proud and confident they feel. They actually believe they have more control over their lives.

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It’s easier to cling to old jalopy beliefs than change and start driving a Porsche.

I admire Roger Kerr, the giant-brained, pixie-faced policy wonk who’s been the Business Roundtable’s long-time executive director. Kerr not only has a formidable intellect, but also great personal courage.

Even wets who don’t share his devotion to the market must surely admire his unfaltering commitment year in and year out, like a mad Pink Floyd fan going to see The Wall every Sunday night.

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A while back, I got to interview Dr. Brad Klontz about H&R Block’s new Dollars & Sense program for teaching kids about money. While not everyone agreed with him, most readers did agree that we need to be doing something, whether it’s through the schools or at home, to educate our children about smart money practices. (See also: 6 Random Things I Have Taught My Kids About Money)

Beth Kobliner, author of “Get a Financial Life” and a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, is taking another tactic. She’s the brains behind Sesame Street’s latest efforts to help parents teach even their very young children basic financial principles. I got a chance to talk to her about the importance of financial education, how to start early, and what it was like working with Elmo.

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A new study finds that what you believe about money may hamper your wealth. Brad Klontz, financial psychologist and co-author of “Mind Over Money,” and three other researchers examined the “money scripts” of 422 people, and identified three categories of money beliefs that are associated with lower income and lower net worth. The study was published last month in the Journal of Financial Therapy. If you want to boost your net worth, banish these attitudes:

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Have you heard of money scripts? Before I go on to that, let’s first talk about things you’ve heard about money. I know this is cliché, but some of you might have heard that money is the root of all evil. Some of you might have been told that wealthy people rigged others hence, the rich’s material affluence. Some feel that all else will fall in its rightful place once a financial windfall moves to their direction.

Others feel extremely bad – to the point of depression – when they see friends travel around the world and they don’t; or when their friends sport the latest luxury items that they don’t have. I had a friend who views money as a status conferring necessity and would rant about things she couldn’t have because of lack of money. I tried to bear with her at one point, but it dragged on and on that every time we talk her depressing tirade was non-stop. Her speech involved lines like “I wish I could do this or do that; have this or have that only if I have the money.” I stopped talking to her.

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Most financial planners say it’s a good idea to talk to your kids regularly about money. But you can go too far. If you’re sharing too much information, or if you’re getting your kids directly involved your financial problems, you’re probably causing more harm than good.

“When children are inappropriately exposed to adult financial problems and conflicts, they are left feeling anxious and insecure,” says financial psychologist Brad Klontz, who wrote “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health.” “It can be very damaging.”

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By Allie Johnson

Turning your finances around is never easy — but mental money traps can keep you mired in money woes.

Whether you’re trying to get out of debt, improve your credit score or build your savings, experts highlight five common money mindsets that can hinder your progress.

Mental money trap No. 1 — All-or-nothing thinking

“All-or-nothing thinking is an absolute — either I do everything perfectly, or I’m just going to give up,” says Mary Gresham, an Atlanta-based psychologist who specializes in financial issues. All-or-nothing thinking is especially common when it comes to creating — and sticking to — a spending plan, according to Gresham. “People can get pretty perfectionistic about this,” Gresham says.

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