Life Skills Men’s Classes in Door County begin at the Nelson Healing Center in September, with a free orientation and introduction on Tuesday, August 24 at 7 pm.
Dr. Melissa Nelson
After three years of working with Life Skills International for her own personal growth, Dr. Melissa Nelson decided to become a trained facilitator and bring their classes to the Nelson Healing Center in Sturgeon Bay. On Tuesday, August 24 at 7 pm she encourages individuals who are interested in learning more about men’s emotional healing and growth to find out more about the upcoming 26-week workshop at a free orientation meeting.
“I feel that it’s important to share what I discovered working with Paul Hegstrom and Life Skills,” says Dr. Nelson, “because of the profound effect it has had in healing my own personal and family relationships and because of how much it has helped me develop my own empowerment.”
Paul Hegstrom lived the first forty years of his life not understanding the driving force that caused him to self-destruct, again and again. He could not understand why his anger would never subside. He could not communicate or identify his feelings. His ongoing frustration and incapacity to seek out solutions was harming his family and nothing ever felt resolved. He knew something was wrong, but he lived his life in a state of denial. Over $20,000 was spent on counseling where he was given “labels” for his problem, but he never got down to the cause.
This only added to his anger and frustration. His 16-year marriage ended because he could not find meaningful answers that would help him untangle his troubled emotional status. Communication problems continued to affect his subsequent relationships until finally, after being a participant in a life-threatening situation that could have meant 15-20 years in prison, Paul Hegstrom asked for help. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do. As a result of asking for and receiving help from a pilot program, Paul found some answers for the causes of his behavior, but it still wasn’t enough. He began searching deeper.
Hegstrom went on to spend well more than 18,000 hours in research with the goal of learning by developing a curriculum, one that would offer hope and help to victims and abusers, as well as peripheral family members who get drawn in to domestic conflict or violence. A program he calls, “Learning to Live, Learning to Love” is the result of Paul’s years of research, field-tested in over 36,000 hours of facilitating groups of victims and perpetrators engaged in domestic strife.
The Nelson Healing Center in Sturgeon Bay intends to make these teachings available to men and women in Door County. On Tuesday, August 24 at 7 pm they will provide a free orientation and introduction to a 26-week men’s course that begins in September. If you have been struggling with male self-esteem issues, anger management, childhood abuse resulting in symptomatic battles with drug or alcohol self-medication then you should consider attending this free introduction. The course fees are priced on a sliding scale, based on annual income.
In 1983, Dr. Paul and Judy Hegstrom re-married. Now, they bring the ongoing healing and counseling that works within their own family to other individuals and families through an organization they founded, Life Skills International (formerly DVP, Domestic Violence Project), a non-profit center based in Aurora, Colorado.
As a testimony to the program’s effectiveness, the Hegstrom’s second marriage has been liberated from the previous struggles with emotional and physical abuse – for more than twenty years! All three children and their families are living examples. They are a part of the healing that is now provided to tens of thousands of people around the world through the Life Skills International program, an international organization with over 100 centers across the United States and around the world.
Class time at the Nelson Healing Center will include in-depth discussions of the course material and related videos as well as learning through exercises in a student workbook. Classes will usually meet for 3 hours each week for 26 weeks, totaling more than over 75 hours of intense study and education. Each person is treated with tremendous respect and dignity as the facilitators present the curriculum through oral presentation, workbook study, group discussion, videos, and other visual aids.
Paul Hegstrom, author of Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them , Beacon Hill Press, Spring 1999 and Broken Children, Grown Up Pain , Beacon Hill Press, Summer 2001. For more information, visit www.LifeSkillsIntl.org.
For further information call the clinic at 920.818.0045.
The Nelson Healing Center is located at 44 S. 2nd Avenue in Sturgeon Bay. You can find out about other services, classes and learning opportunities online at www.NelsonHealingCenter.com.
