Love and Presence in Relationships  

Friday 4 - Sunday 6 July 2025 with Andy Portman and Helen English  

Come solo or with a partner.  Join us for a transformational weekend workshop. Precious space for diving deep into love, connection and conscious relating. WIth The Enneagram and Taoism as guide. 

Book Your Place

Use the 'Buy Tickets' button top right to pay the full amount of £260.  If you'd prefer to pay a deposit of £80 in the first instance, to reserve your place, please use this link

About the Workshop 

Join us for a transformational weekend workshop. Precious space for diving deep into love, connection and conscious relating. With The Enneagram and Taoism as guide.

This workshop is for anyone wanting more vitality and presence, authenticity and ‘joie de vivre’ in their relationships. We’ll make a profound shared inquiry into the nature of relationship: the science, the mystery and the power of conscious practice.

Time for a wake-up call? Sometimes we realise we’re sleep-walking through life. Lost in humdrum everyday routines, it’s all too easy to switch off and tune out: from ourselves and those around us. It happens so gradually we barely notice – until it really matters and something needs to change!

Come solo or with a partner. Take time with us to:

• Make space: within you and around you, for more love, compassion and better connection
• Wake up more fully: to yourself, your patterns, your gifts, your essence, your core being and the true qualities of those close to you
• Open potential: bring awareness and consciousness, opening to new ways of being and relating
• Get practical: explore what it takes – practical resources - to bring love and healing into everyday interactions

By fully immersing yourself, you’ll leave better able to:

• Build a relationship that genuinely lifts your experience of life
• See, hear and appreciate one another, beyond assumption and projections
• Notice and navigate repeated patterns, so you’ve more freedom and choice
• Relate from your core presence, enjoying both independence and intimacy

Approach:

We’ll be a small group able to relax into the rich natural environment of Avalon Permaculture Gardens. We’ll explore where you are on your personal life/soul journey and your experience of relationships; past, present and future. What do you long for and aspire to?

Blending theory with circle-work, conversation and practical activity, meditation and movement. A powerful Enneagram mat offers the chance to embody the symbol’s creative movements and connections. There’s scope for participation, reflection, conversation, rest and some fun, along the way.

Andy and Helen led a very beautiful and healing weekend. The Enneagram, combined with Taoist principles, has helped me to understand more about myself and how I show up in relationships. I have come away with new insights, clarity, enthusiasm to learn more, and a refreshed soul! (Gillian, 2024)

About Helen and Andy

Helen English has over 20 years’ experience of Enneagram work and co-founded Enneagram Alive in 2014 as a community enterprise. Her work centres now – as always - on helping people live well and thrive, building better relationships with those around them and with their environment. She brings a Taoist orientation to the Enneagram, always returning to the symbol as a story of One-ness: a dynamic energy map of movement, relationship, interconnection. Visit www.positivespace.co.uk for more information.

Andy Portman is one of the UK’s most experienced experts in relationship. He brings a lifetime’s experience – 40 years and counting – as a relationship coach, counsellor and workshop leader with an approach grounded in Taoism. Visit www.livingtao.co.uk for information on Andy, his ongoing work and the beautiful ‘Avalon Permaculture Gardens’ healing centre he originally created with his late wife Ella.

Helen says: ‘Andy and I met in early 2020, both widowed and single after long-term relationships. This February marked our 5^h anniversary. In this time we’ve shared the pandemic roller-coaster, cliff-path walks, kayaking and music, alongside so many rich conversations; often, a creative fusion of Andy’s deep understanding of relationship patterns lit up by Enneagram-borne insights. We’ve also dipped a toe into the world of each other’s work. This workshop comes as a natural progression, the fruit of creative relationship, inquiry and conversation.

A word on The Enneagram

The Enneagram is best known as a powerful system for understanding yourself and others, including true motivations and greatest strengths. This is ‘The Enneagram of Personality’ offering nine points, also named types or bases. Nine different ways of seeing, thinking, being and experiencing the world. Nine spiritual and essence qualities that shape our deep longing, our survival strategies, patterns, and growth path. We each have ONE that is our number – our Enneagram Point – functioning much as a default operating system, meaning we have a particular way of responding to life.

In relationship this is an extraordinary resource. It helps us understand and empathise. By recognising our own and others’ position on The Enneagram symbol we realise why and how things can look and feel so different. We’ve more appreciation, empathy and compassion for ourselves, for others, and the situations that get co-created.

You’re welcome as a newcomer or if you’re already familiar with The Enneagram. But you’ll get more from the workshop if you arrive knowing your Enneagram Point. And even if you know it well, it’s often valuable to re-visit and check out assumptions.

To discover or re-confirm your Enneagram Point we’re offering 3 options:

• Enneagram Discovery Session: a coaching session to help you determine your Enneagram Point (with or without using an online questionnaire)
• Enneagram Compass Questionnaire and Report (stand-alone): we offer the best Enneagram psychometrics available, along with a comprehensive report.
• Enneagram Compass Questionnaire, Report and Feedback Session to help you evaluate and assimilate Enneagram findings. If you’d like to take a questionnaire, this approach is recommended.

Contact Helen to book an Enneagram Discovery Session or Questionnaire & Report. Ideally, well in advance, so we’ve time for you to reflect on the findings and begin to reach your own conclusions before the workshop.