Comments
from Retreat
Workshop
Participants.

The Retreat marked a turning point where I began to experience myself, my family commitments and my career from a previously unknown vantage point. What’s different about the Retreat is the experience of allowing yourself to examine your life from the perspective of what really matters. For me, I needed the four days [now a three-day intensive] to separate myself from the challenges and distractions of everyday life.

Director of Sales, CA

As successfully driven as we may be in our daily responsibilities, we rarely make time to think, to plan substantively or to consider who we might become for the balance of our short lives, not to mention the emotional cost of our shortsightedness. But this is all profoundly addressed in the Retreat. Inspiration comes from unexpected sources. This Retreat sets the perfect context from which to reevaluate our lives and our possibilities. The class’s cognitive distance offers a powerful view of the very real daily demands and opportunities of family, culture, and economy. This better understanding of who we are delivers an unexpectedly robust emotional stability that carries forward into the rest of our lives.

In the rush of daily demands we often forget who we want to be, and after a few years find ourselves in places we don’t like. There is enormous relief in returning to a self-governed path that doesn’t compromise the poetic promise which our lives once seemed to offer.

Executive Vice President, NJ

I used to use language as a weapon. I sliced through people, careful to be funny, careless about the pain I caused. I remember in the Retreat wondering who I’d be if I managed to drop this out, worrying there’d be no one left. Changes came in ways I hadn’t imagined. People become safe in my company. My intent reversed itself, righted itself. I still looked for things to say, wanting to be poignant. But I looked for helpful things, relevant things. I discovered my own kindness.

I became, in a sense, a gentleman.

Freelance Writer, NH

This coursework has proved to be a lifeline for me. When I began it I lived a life of public success and private pain. I was succeeding in realizing my career ambitions and loved the admiration of peers and the applause of the crowd. But in my personal life, I found myself ill-equipped to be at peace with myself or to be intimate with others. Through the study and practice of autonomy I have, through great effort and resilience, made significant progress in cultivating the internal fortitude to address this imbalance. Increasingly, my behavior is mine to drive, my perspective is mine to author, and my life is mine to lead.

Executive Director, Public Policy Expert, VA

The Retreat and the Advanced Class sustained the completion of a PhD Program in International Relations and Government. The perspectives, principles and practices of Autonomy nurtured incandescent thinking to create beyond tradition and to articulate bold alternatives beyond convention. Autonomy’s discipline initiated the substantive nerve to challenge academic authority with a steadfast defense of doctoral dissertation research. I now stand on earned experience of personal and professional self-authorship. I voice a sovereign calm in the maelstrom of pandemic upheaval. A future with stability is present.

Autonomy is rich in context and originative vocabulary. It dispels metaphysical identity. It spells out the connection of all humans to personhood’s advance toward an ideal human existence. In our lifetime, to recognize that we matter in a grand self-design of unbeknownst subjectivity is reason enough to participate in the Retreat with Arnold Siegel.

PhD., CA

I am the creative force behind my life. The Retreat is an opportunity to create space, to re-calibrate and reorient yourself to what’s most important – to identify and create a plan for steering toward true north.

Vice President, Strategic Communications, MA

The class made me much more able to determine what I really want (and don’t) and gave me new skills to acquire those things to the point that I’m living a life of great satisfaction and fulfillment (nearly) every single moment. I see vast opportunity, feel a great sense of belonging and love for humanity and my place in it. I’ve acquired so much more courage, heart, nerve, and resourcefulness and am much more able to lead, nurture and give comfort to others.

Freelance Writer, CA

The Retreat is always such a wonderful and effective way to free yourself from what was hitherto running you. I feel great almost all day, everyday – despite my company’s reorganization leaving me with twice as much work! Understanding our place in the human history of transcendence has freed me from the culturally enforced emotional highs and lows and has infused my life with profound meaning, inspiration, and contribution. I recommend the Retreat because it is the first step in acquiring the experience I’ve described above.

Psychologist, PhD., CA

My participation in the Retreat has given me a tremendous advantage in the workplace. I have become more pragmatic, more persuasive, more competitive and in every way more valuable to my employer. Being at the Retreat gives you the opportunity to be in a beautiful environment, away from your demanding life. You will spend four days [now a three-day intensive] doing something meaningful and significant for yourself, the result of which not only benefits you but also everyone else you know. Amazing really!!

Manager, Employee Relations, CA

I would tell my family and friends if you want a real vacation- a vacation from the inner reflexive voice and the outer tumultuous world, do the Retreat.

Retired Teacher, RI

I have acquired an understanding of who we humans are that has extraordinary practical relevance to living a personally rewarding, full and contributory life. This understanding is based not in the conventions of acquiring wealth and status, but in an ability to evaluate our situations, and to think and act freely to create a productive and artful life.

Corporate Investment Banker, NY

The reason I would recommend the Retreat to someone: It is the very practical and the very profound opportunity to live life creatively, with the courage and the boldness to match our unique dreams with our real-world circumstances.

President, Court Reporting, Video and Litigation Services, CA

The Retreat revealed a vocabulary, a perspective and a discipline that were missing from my formal, religious, and familial education. These “missing pieces” have become the resources with which I discovered what it means to think for myself. And in the process I’ve come to (author) know the (experience) meaning of freedom, substance, and self-possession.

Vice President, Creative Director, Children’s Publishing Division, NY

I have a greatly improved ability to think critically and creatively and have come to rely on this activity for managing my life. Immediate feelings, thoughts, moods and attitudes that wash over me in a given moment have much less influence over my life. And I have developed a very strong affinity towards others and become a source of stability for many relationships I am involved in.

Master Engineer, MA

Insights and strategies gained by participating in the Retreat have been life-altering both professionally and personally. My improved self-understanding has resulted in greater focus and effectiveness at work. I work fewer hours, with less stress and find myself more productive.

Financial Advisor, Branch Manager, NY

The value of my participation in the class has been enormous and tangible because the subject matter,
what it means to be human and what changes have to
be made to be fully human, has been a preoccupation
of mine my entire adult life. My experience daily in my personhood is calmer and happier than most people I encounter.

Judge, NY

I have gone from school teacher to Wall Streeter and business owner. The perspective and the practical skills I learned have enabled me to take such leaps, overcoming inner fear and the well-intentioned “naysayers” to forge ahead and be successful.

Chartered Financial Analyst, Wealth Management Advisor, CT

Participation in the Retreat created an opening for thinking about my existence from the perspective of discipline and self-control.

Mental Health Clinician, CA

I have acquired a substance that did not exist before and it has changed for the better my perspective and experience. Confidence, belonging, meaning and purpose are no longer fickle feelings dependent upon others or circumstances, but accessible resources as a result of my own initiative.

Executive Vice-President Sales and Marketing, CA

I am interested in being and promoting a unified, stable and responsible citizenry, able to bend in the wind and stand straight and strong in the sun. Here is the real grass-roots opportunity of our time. How many of us will come to see the great existential opportunity facing all of humanity at the present time? The chance to change ourselves through self-initiated intervention cultivates both impulses and reactions consistent with our enlightened aims for love, connection, stability and prosperity.

Parent, NH

In The Retreat, Arnold Siegel taught me what it means to be a free person. Now I make much more purposeful choices. My feelings are richer; my thinking is sharper and more creative, and my action ever more focused and decisive. I give myself to my social and family roles with greater competence and affinity. And my planning, which had always been problematic, is a challenge I approach with discipline, patience and joy.

Technical Writer, NJ

When I first met Arnold I was highly suspicious that anything could alter my life. My prior work in the self-development world had left me disillusioned. I had resigned myself to living out my life as best I could with the cards I had been dealt. Today, those dog days are long gone. I am fulfilled and satisfied with a completely different experience of my own personhood. My practical life far exceeds those ideals I used to have for what it would mean to lead a successful life. And I am looking forward to the exciting adventure that life has become.

Ph.D., CA

In gaining sovereignty, stability and soul, I have gained the foundation that was missing for dealing with life. My security and equanimity are now practically unshakeable, even in the face of the current onslaught of bad news.

Attorney, CA

I now know, trust, and have extraordinary confidence in that I have the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional strength and authority to manage anything life throws
at me.

Speech-language Pathologist, KY

To put it simply and succinctly I do not suffer anymore. Gone is the perennial disturbance, anxiety and discontent. Can you put a price on that! If I recognize myself getting all riled up I have the means, the technology, now to manage even master, myself. What is present is the level of tension that accompanies living creatively, this pushing oneself to go beyond oneself, to achieve a bigger life, a bigger heart, to contribute to others. The demand for courage never goes away but it gets easier to do. I experience the complexity of life now that I am more informed and knowledgeable, and I experience the rigors and responsibilities of an awakened mind and heart. Our family life is marked by stability now, and I don’t think one can put a price on the value of stability to family life and children.

Homemaker and Mother, IL

The Retreat was the single most profound experience of my life. After years of looking at many different ways to address discontent and always coming away with having not learned enough to really experience life, on any ongoing basis, as meaningful or substantial – I found the Retreat not only deeply moving but pointedly relevant and comprehensive. Nothing is left out; the complexities of being human are thoroughly addressed.

Landscape Designer, NJ

The Retreat was a gift; I was able to see beyond my daily hectic schedule and given a chance to deepen my connection to life. No longer chained down by impulsive emotions, the Retreat has given me the freedom to create the person I want to be. Working with Arnold has given me the discipline and insight to work harder, accomplish more and love deeper.

Assistant Sales Trader, NJ

This is the education on life and living that we all require and never got. It’s foundational, substantive, profound, invaluably practical and meaningful.

Owner, Design Company, NY

The Retreat provides a profound appreciation for life moment by moment, discounting the complacency and sheer boredom that might otherwise result from a patterned and habituated behavioral adaptation. Participation involves a unique blend of innovation, creativity and substance, as we lead humanity in a new direction.

Litigation Attorney, CA

My participation in this class has enabled me to create a profitable business that continues to be personally rewarding, clients that appreciate my services enough to refer me to others (I don’t advertise) and vital in a time of significant economic uncertainty.

President, Technology Services, MA

I now have the tools to carve out my life. I am not at the mercy of my feelings, laziness, thoughts, fears, or
others’ demands and wishes, or the culture’s demands and wishes.

Choreographer, Performer, NJ

When I think back to my experience of living before I started working with Arnold Siegel, I barely recognize the person I was then. My life is fulfilling and I rarely suffer. I feel empathy for others rather than just having good social skills. No longer looking for solace in overeating or responding with rivalrous antagonism, my close relationships are far more loving and less punitive or judgmental. My business has prospered and my planning is more directed towards the contribution I have to make rather than “making a killing.”

In spite of things not always going my way, I have the strength of Autonomy to handle what comes my way, reaching for my inner resourcefulness rather than being paralyzed with fear or becoming aggressively rivalrous. The anxieties that show up are short-lived because I have learned through the discipline of Autonomy how to transcend them in a very short period of time. Although it is a continuing process, the intelligence I gained from my first retreat was the beginning of understanding what it means to be human and experiencing a life of joy and fulfillment regardless of the circumstances. As a result, I love and celebrate my life no matter what is going on and I look forward to and feel grateful for every single day.

Founder, Wealth Consulting Company, NJ

I went to my first retreat full of skepticism thinking that my twenty-five years of studying philosophy and psychology was going to be hard to augment. Yet, even in my earliest retreat I came away with virtually every part of my life placed into a perspective where my values became sharp and distinct to a degree I never imagined. As a result, life itself became simpler and more profound. I lost a sense of fear and antagonism that I never knew I even had. I enjoyed work more and was promoted several times.

Continuing to participate in these classes also helped me to become more straightforward and heartful in communication, less self-protective, more open, and to gain a new sense of adventure in life. My marriage is more joyful and I finally feel like I am the architect of my life and not merely controlled by life’s many demands. Too often classes make promises that are “too good to be true.” If anything, these classes realize far more than anyone could expect!

Ph.D., Director of University Planning and Emeritus Professor, CA

The Retreat provided a long sought after relief from life as a never fully satisfying competitive struggle, and began an exciting, profoundly interesting exploration, an experimental and artful approach to life. Feelings, the whole catalogue of them, stopped being experiences that got in the way of realizing my goals, and rather just some of the useful content of my existence.

Teacher, RI

In the very busy, demanding, long working day of a Family Practitioner, it is a challenge not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number and complexity of my patients’ lives. The discipline of autonomy is an oasis that impacts the degree of compassion and empathy brought forth, increased tolerance for the ever-changing bureaucracy, and the recapturing of my original motive to be a competent and contributing healer.

As a result of the daily thinking integral to this discipline I have a life that experiences greater equanimity and satisfaction.

M.D., CA

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