The Gifted Reset – l'avant-garde

The Gifted Reset is an intense four-day international retreat designed for bright adults and youngsters. We provide intense transformative practices that expose and alter your limiting narratives and conditionings, empowering you to embrace a new beginning. Welcome to a journey of self-insight and growth.

To fully surrender, to lose yourself in laughter, to ride the waves of your intellectual brilliance, letting your sharp thoughts cut through the noise, to be engulfed by intense sadness or exuberant joy—what’s holding you back? Perhaps you haven’t allowed yourself to experience life with such intensity. Your most vital energies might be kept hidden, locked away.

Growing up with a keen mind, you learn to adapt to an environment that often fails to meet your needs. You develop strategies to survive and sometimes find refuge in your thoughts. However, as you transition into adulthood, these very strategies may hinder your ability to lead a fulfilling life that aligns with who you truly are.

Perhaps some of these descriptions resonate with you:

Throughout your upbringing, you’ve frequently adapted to others in your quest for connection and belonging. Now, you desire something different, but along the way, you’ve lost touch with yourself and feel unsure of where to begin.
You tend to dwell in your thoughts, constantly anticipating potential long-term risks, which often leaves you feeling paralyzed.
You hold yourself to high standards and are often overly critical of your own actions and abilities.
You harbor a sense of disappointment and frustration, believing that the world could—and should—be better than it is.
Your perceptiveness and sensitivity leave you feeling overwhelmed by the busyness and chaos of the world, always yearning for moments of peace and quiet.
Despite having many friends and acquaintances, you often experience feelings of isolation and loneliness.
You struggle to accept certain aspects of your nature that you perceive as more primal or instinctual, such as your sexuality or aggression.
While you possess numerous talents, you find it challenging to prioritize and develop them fully, leading to indecision and uncertainty.
Despite outward appearances of success, your intuition tells you that something is amiss in your life.
You feel disconnected from your physical body, existing at a distance from its sensations and needs.

Through this reset, you’ll discover how to disrupt old patterns, converting anger into agency, sadness into deeper connections with yourself and those around you, and fear into valuable insights and understanding.

THE RESET

“The Reset” offers a pluralistic approach to personal transformation, encompassing three key areas. Firstly, the practice of authentic presence encourages intimacy with oneself and others, facilitating genuine connections. Secondly, embodied introspection involves resetting physical and cognitive filters that distort perception, allowing for a clearer view of reality. Thirdly, through meditation, participants cultivate an understanding of the mind’s essence, transcending erroneous identifications with thoughts and self-images. Combining Western critical thinking with Eastern self-understanding, the program promotes transformation through daring to think critically and knowing oneself deeply, fostering freedom from limiting narratives and conditionings.

TESTIMONIALS

What past participants say:

By asking questions, the facilitators assist you in gaining a clear understanding of your desires and identifying any obstacles. Through visualization, you gain insight into patterns and determine your course of action. When unsure or lacking direction, facilitators suggest possibilities until they resonate with you. Ultimately, you retain control over the process.

It’s incredibly empowering to confront thoughts or ideas that have held me back for so long. Visualizing them allows me to directly address them, whether by fighting, talking, or screaming at them, or simply releasing them. Surprisingly, I found myself completely immersed in the process, able to disregard the presence of other participants and fully surrender. It feels as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. While I recognize that this is a symbolic method of dealing with issues, the subsequent feeling is so tangible that I am optimistic it will translate into my everyday life. DV

FACILITATION

Dr. Stijn Smeets specializes in the social and emotional development of intellectually able adolescents and adults, including those who are exceptionally and profoundly gifted. Following his PhD at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, where he focused on the study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), he continued his work at the University of Leuven (Expertisecel Begaafdheid, Project Talent) and the University of Nijmegen (Centrum voor begaafdheidsonderzoek).

Moreover, Dr. Smeets has been initiated into meditative traditions such as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (Mahamudra and Dzogchen under the guidance of root Lama Daniel Brown), Tantric Shaivism (mentored by Eric Baret and Christopher Wallis), and mystical Christianity (associated with the Fraternité de Tibériade, a Franciscan-inspired monastic community). Currently, he serves as a monk at the House of the Beloved, a center for pluralistic personal development.

He will be supported by assistants and co-facilitators.

PRACTICAL

The first reset is a four-day retreat for adults (+18y), starting on Wednesday May 29th at 2pm, ending Saturday June 1^rst at 5pm. The language will be English. We advice you to not plan anything on Sunday, so you have time to integrate.

You pay €1250

Early bird price until March 10 is €1111

Location: Koningsteen, Oxdonkstraat 168, 1880 Kapelle-op-den-Bos, Belgium