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