Going on retreat to support healing and wellness - by Frances

I started going on retreat when I had Chronic Fatigue eight years ago and have received many benefits from my time on retreats all these years. I found that when I gifted myself a few days in natural surroundings, away from my daily life and took time to simply be still and meditate that healing experiences would arise.

Often this happened through the surfacing of lots of old emotions, that could sometimes lead to a feeling of a ‘crash’ for a couple of days, as they came up and out. Then I would be filled with energy and come back into my daily life revitalized and refreshed. I often found that after retreat I could build up walking capacity from half a mile to three miles in a week.

My first retreat was in Scotland, it was two years into being unwell and I now see it as the beginning of my healing journey. My boyfriend at the time had told me that when I went on retreat emotional stuff would come up, but that still felt quite alien to me, and I didn’t really get what he meant. I remember a particular moment very vividly that showed me the power of retreat.

I was sitting by a big, beautiful lake and it was a clear day. There wasn’t a sound, no one was around and it was slowly moving towards dusk. After about an hour of sitting there feeling peaceful, I suddenly felt a deep sadness welling up inside me and I began to cry as memory after memory arose about grief around an old relationship.  I could literally feel it moving through me, and afterwards I had a tangible sense of ease - a feeling of lightness in my body and mind. The beauty of my surroundings, and knowing that I was safely held, with the support of the teachers had allowed a layer of emotion to finally come up. I say a ‘layer’ because ten years later they are still coming up!

Retreat was especially helpful when I was in the middle of Spiritual Crisis – when everything felt like it was going terribly wrong – that too was happening, much too fast. Being in place of stillness, acceptance and compassion in the countryside was so nurturing and healing. It nurtures who I really was and helped me to recover a natural state of wellbeing.

I have another vivid memory, again of a lake. At the time I remember the fear of feeling like I was balancing on the edge of sanity. I was oscillating back and forth between fear of falling apart and ecstatic states of total peace. Threaded all through it was anxiety that I had gone too far with spiritual practice and was losing my mind. Then, by the lake, a deep sense of reassurance arose in me, a sense that it really IS all ok. Having all that space around me, both physically with the vast expanse of water and symbolically being away from the business of my daily life gave me a chance to come up for breath, and discover an equanimity is fundamentally always with me now.

Now I’m inspired to create a similar space for other people to experience – to be held in a way that encourages integration, healing , peace, stillness, grounding  and relaxation.

Recovering Wellbeing Retreat

29^th June-1^st July 2012

Barmoor House, Hutton le Hole, North Yorkshire.

More info available here: www.theintegraltherapist.co.uk
Email: sophiejanemortimer@yahoo.co.uk
Call: Frances on 07769962085. 

Why I love Women's Circles - by Sophie

Living from the Heart is faciliating a Women's Circle weekend retreat this July, and recently I was reminiscing about all the great women's circles that have inspired us to create this retreat. Here is my blog about why I just can't get enough of women's circles...

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

Ok, I confess, I’m a circle junkie. A circle floozy, if there’s a circle happening, I want to be in it. Opening circles, closing circles, sharing circles, volunteering circles, I’m even trying to muscle my way into my best friends Mum ‘n’ Baby circle… if I could just find a willing infant…

Looking back, it was at eleven and first went to ‘big school’ when my love of circles began. I had three best friends and we were inseparable. We’d ruled the roost together in primary school, we’d take on the boys at football matches and win all the handstand competitions and we knew every square inch of the school field like the back of our hands. But now we were little fish in a big pond, we weren’t anyway near as cool as we thought we were, and we needed to stick together.

We found a circle of four Hawthorn trees at the back of the field, safe from the snowball fights, the bullies, the lipstick wearing gangs of girls and the scary teachers. We each learnt to navigate through the thorns and found our own special perch, and that is where we would sit together every single break and every single lunchtime, laughing, telling stories, eating our packed lunches, hidden away from the evil big kids, safe in our little tree circle.

Maybe I’m just yearning for days gone by, but I don’t think so. I think there’s a magic in circles that draws us in. Especially circles of women. Since my tomboy days of yore I’ve been part of many amazing circles of women - eight women who spent a year celebrating the pagan festivals, a shakti group for yoginis exploring tantra, a Vagina Monologues group, a Buddhist women’s group and many ecstatic dance circles. I love it! I can’t get enough of the thing that happens when women get into a circle.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I began to ask myself what that magic was. I was at a talk with one of my feminine leadership heroines, Jean Shinoda Bolen (the author of the fabulous ‘Like a Tree’, which is an amazing read). I had asked a question about how to navigate the growing pains I feel in my body as the earth creaks and moans under the strains of our excess.

She answered by talking about circles. In her words,

“We’re all in this together. Circles. Every woman should be in one.”

She went on to talk about circles as a healing force, not just for the women in them, but for the whole world. That circles embrace the feminine values of relationship, nurturing and interdependency in a world that can tend to favour hierarchy, conflict, and exploitation of resources. Her belief in their power has birthed a vision to take the circle process into United Nations accredited organisations and has led to the creation of her organization ‘The Millionth Circle’ which aims to connect circles all over the world together, so that they can know themselves as part of a larger movement to shift consciousness in the world.

The millionth circle have created some guidelines for circles: creating a sacred space, speaking from the heart, listening with compassion, inviting silence, keeping all that happens in the circle confidential. As I read them, I see how women have been doing this instinctively for eons, that it is a totally natural experience.

Circles, with their very shape, connect us to the cycle of life, to the seasons, the sunrise and sunset, the moon and stars that make up the vast ball of the sky. They have more space than any other shape. In them, we can go on entire journeys, without ever leaving our seat. We are in the womb, encased in a rare safety, all equals, all connected and yet invited into our individual genius and deeply inside into intimacy with ourselves.

The suffragette movement was born amongst groups of women gathering covertly around a common ideal, as was the civil rights movement. In the recent (fabulous) film ‘The Help’, the African American maids only begin to rise up against the injustice done to them when they are invited to a meeting together, and sitting in a circle in a living room, one by one they share their tearful stories until the sun rises. The Chipko women of India, in the 1700’s gathered in circles around the trees in their village that to be cut down by the local maharaja. They walked together to the forests, held hands and wrapped themselves around the mighty trunks, holding on until many of them lost their lives. From Native American Grandmothers to 1950’s housewives’ Tupperware parties, we’ve been at it for as long as we’ve been around.

This account from a woman living in Kenya speaks beautifully for the power of circles. This is her description of being invited to a Masaii women’s fertility circle ceremony in the midst of the Loita Hills.

“We gathered for three days under the full moon. As the women arrived, they were welcomed by other women, through a singing call and response exchange. They were then walked to the ritual circle, where all of the women joined together in prayer, song, breath and healing.

As the night went by, the circle grew larger, stronger and more potent. The power of the circle was revealed, as woman after woman felt moved to express herself and release in whatever way she was moved to do so. They continued to midwife, chant, breathe and pray, as the power of the raw energies inside them found its expression and release.

As I witnessed the ceremony, I felt and recognized in my body a deep ancestral remembering of the experience of circling, one that I believe is held quietly in the core of each and every woman. From the cave paintings to the fire hearth, the power of the circle has been deeply imprinted in the cellular memory of our bodies and psyche.

I will be eternally grateful for this experience; for it reminded me of the ancestral inheritance we all carry within us, and just how transformative it can be to be witnessed and supported by a community of women.”

I join her in her final words…

“I have kept in my prayers all of the women across the planet who are in need of support. May they find a sister, a sacred space to be held, seen and celebrated…. Maybe even a circle!”

I'm so excited to seeing what will arise from our circle this summer, and I invite all of you to join in the fun - for more info about our circle see:
http://www.theintegraltherapist.co.uk/events/event/a-womans-circle/

With love,
Sophie