Retreats are Your Birth Right

by Tracey Clark

I am back from crafting, with Marianne Elliott, Tracey Clark and 64 amazing women, a miracle of a retreat.

I’m a bit loathe to tell you how wonderful it was because I don’t want you to feel left out or that you missed something.  I hate when people host an event and make it sound all beatific afterward. It can too easily become “If I could only have been there then…” Bull!

Here’s the truth my love,

nourishing retreats

by which I mean::

time to soften and open the doors of your heart

time to connect, unguarded, with life

time to belong to yourself

time to hear your own wisdom

time to create simply for the sake of creating

is a human birthright.

by Tracey Clark

You don’t need me or anything fancy to claim that birthright.

You do need::

self-permission to value your own being,

Courage to lay claim to what you need to flourish,

Tenacity to encounter yourself just as you are, without any desire to change or fix or hide from yourself.

by Tracey Clark


That is what always always blows me away about women at my retreats – they are willing to embrace the truth:: wherever you go there, there you are.

Retreats are joyous gritty work. We did a check-in everyday where each woman reported on the grit and the pearl, what was grinding away at them (to hopefully turn into a pearl soon!) and what was presently luminously beautiful. Just that truth tells you so much about retreats, why they are different than vacations or conferences. You let the archetype, the silence, the practices, the relationships, open you.

Because you can’t walk through the doors into life until you open the doors of your heart. Vulnerability and softening leads to genuine joy.

Love,

Jen

Back of Jen’s neck by Tracey Clark

 

  • kelly barton

    working retreats and also having so many i would love to attend, but life gets in the way – it is so true. and ps. “gritty” love that word. gritty. right on.

    much peace.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jalene-Case/100000195447533 Jalene Case

    Yes! We need to claim our right to change, grow and flourish!

  • Lswaudi

    I so agree, and I try to build some sort of renewal into my life each year. This year it is joining you, Jen, in Taos again after so many years. I am so looking forward to it. Have started (later than I planned) to really think about what I want to have happen. I think mostly I want to just be open to whatever happens and to breathe in the Taos air.

  • http://twitter.com/MagnoliasWest Sue Kearney

    Oh, yes, this need to retreat is bubbling up strong in me… Seems like this year it may be a solitary one.

    Praying daily for the chutzpah to give myself this gift. Because I can’t walk through the doors into life until I open the doors of my heart. Vulnerability and softening leads to genuine joy.

    Well said, Jen, and it’s thrumming in my heart…

    Love and light,
    Sue

  • kathleen

    So relate to that…’if only I had been there perhaps I would have achieved that same miraculous shift into a new way of being that would forever make my life easier, more joyous, more meaningful…but I wasn’t so I didn’t and I can’t'  !

    Thanks for this reminder that Self Permission, Courage and Tenacity are available to us in every moment, in every breath, no matter where or who we are.  And retreating can be a daily practice without the need for a time, place, group and facilitator!
    Love & Light
    ps. still would love to have been there ;-)

  • Roberta

    Thank you Jen. Thanks for saving me before I fell. For reminding me before I got all mean on my own butt, and for still showing us just one more way to open our hearts.
    This post was truly a treasure to discover.
    Many Thanks again.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/mindfulmimi1 Mindful Mimi

    Here are 57 reasons to go on a retreat (just in case you need convincing):
    http://www.createandconnect.org/2011/09/57-reasons-to-go-on-a-retreat/