More Information
Q: What is Return to Excellence™?
A: The purpose of life is joy. Joy is also a natural result of submitting to the process which yields it. This process is love. Return to Excellence™ assists parents in deepening their understanding and capacity to love deeply and experience joy more fully. As we are relational beings, participants are supported in applying this understanding not only in personal growth, but in intimate relationships, and in parent-child relationships. It is a developmental and progressive process for actually learning how to do love.
Q: How is Return to Excellence™ delivered?
A: The Return to Excellence curriculum and accompanying process can be shared with individuals, couples, or groups of either. The process will take you through eight principles. Each principle will challenge you to do something that will enable you to live in a more powerful and loving way. You will feel better, due to the fact that you will understand how to do the principle very clearly. You will be challenged and stretched every week. Paradoxically, you will feel safe and well, though you will be moving out of your comfort zone every session.
Q: So if we are learning about ideas, do we just talk and think about these ideas, and that helps?
A: We are learning ideas. The best way to learn an idea is to do the idea. Therefore, we talk just enough for everyone to understand how to do the principle. Then, specific to each principle, there are two very clear and simple tools or processes that are taught to assist the participants in successfully doing each principle.
Q: How will we work with the principles?
A: A given principle will be introduced, discussed and defined the first week. Then, that principle will be applied to you as an individual person. You will be taught specific skills, tools or process, and have homework to experientially learn the principle at the individual level.
In week two on a given principle, we will first discuss how the homework went for you, address challenges and share successes. Then, for the second half of week two’s session, we will apply the principle to your marriage or significant adult relationship. You will again be taught a similar but different tool, and have homework to experientially learn the principle at the marital/significant relational level.
In week three on a given principle, we will first discuss how the homework went for you applying the principle to your marriage or adult relationship, address challenges and share successes. Then again, in the second half of week three’s session, we will apply the principle to your parenting. You will again learn another aspect of the previously taught skill or tool, and have homework to experientially learn the principle at the parenting level.
The first six principles will be worked with in the above manner. The last two follow the same basic process but individual, marital, and parental levels are handled in two weeks.
Q: How often do we meet?
A: Each group will meet once each week for 80-90 minutes. There are 22 sessions, and each group decides when their break weeks will be. Typically, there are 3-4 weeks of breaks added along the way. So, we meet over a 25-26 week period.
Q: Why does it take 25 weeks?
A: There are no extra principles in the process, and there are eight of them. Each principle will be worked with for three weeks, except for the last two, which get two weeks each. Each principle is applied to three levels. Principles are first applied at the personal level, then to adult-to-adult relationships, and finally to parent-child relationships.
Q: How do we meet?
A: Groups will meet each week using a telephone conference bridge. Each group will be provided a conference call phone number and access code. Our calls are able to be recorded for participants to review, or to access if a participant was unable to attend the call at the appointed time.
Q: Phone conversations seem less personal, how is this addressed in Return to Excellence™?
A: The question has a two-part answer. First, the way the groups are facilitated, each participant shares his or her own experience topic by topic or moment by moment, and other participants are facilitated to give input regarding what was shared. The conversation is rich and no one is left to passively sit in the background and just listen.
A: Second, it is true that face-to-face experience is very personal and we are frequently asked, "There is so much to communication that is non-verbal and you don’t have access to that via phone; how do you address this?" Quite simply, we have found that face-to-face interaction, as desirable and beneficial as it may be, is not the critical issue of actual growth, healing, and change for a majority of our participants. What matters most is taking on the challenge of testing the ideas in one’s life, in the other 166 hours in the week. The groups are facilitated in such a way that applying the information in one’s life is very natural. Participants are held to a high standard of accountability regarding their efforts related to homework.
Q: How many people are in each group?
A: There will be 6 participants or less in each group.
Q: Will I be able to multitask while I do this group?
A: No. You will be expected to use a landline phone, be in a quiet place, and only doing the group. Cell phones are acceptable in the case of a major schedule conflict.
Q: What if I don’t like the other people I’m in group with?
A: Your facilitator is responsible for the group being a good working team. If there are issues, they will address them and make changes if needed.
Q: Who will run the groups?
A: A Ph.D. or Masters-level therapist will be running each group. S/he will be responsible for supporting and guiding the group. Doug Ratelle will supervise each group through listening in during sessions (if his attending is acceptable to the group) or to recorded sessions, by reading group notes, and in discussions with each group facilitator privately.
Q: What is the cost for this program?
A: The cost is $75 per session per person. The sessions are for 80-90 minutes. There are 22 sessions, so the total cost for the program is $1,650 per person.
Q: Where did Return to Excellence™ come from?
A: The principles occur naturally in life, and unfold beautifully concept by concept. You will experience this for yourself as a participant.
Doug Ratelle organized the principles together, based on his observations and understandings of how a person starting in the most basic place can realistically progress step-by-step to being actually able to effectively do love.
Loving is simple and occurs all the time, and yet is the most rigorous action in life to maintain, or do, when conditions aren’t so optimal. The goal is to assist people in having their loving be robust and durable through life’s challenges.
