Can a Retreat Program Change Your Life?

29th March, 2010 - Posted by L. John Mason -

Have you ever participated in a retreat? Was it for spiritual growth or as an education experience? Perhaps it was a healing retreat to help find relief for a physical or emotional challenge. Was the retreat a weekend or week long experience? Did you spend the money to travel to this retreat and find that your life was changed and so the value was very high for you? Or, do you have a negative attitude about time and money spent on a retreat-like experience?

Many people have paid lots of money to go on vacation. Some vacations are “retreats” in practice, if not in name. A week on a cruise ship or a golf vacation are actually retreat-like but perhaps without the focus upon a specific challenge. Most people hold vacations in their memory for their entire lives and these are rewarding experiences that, in subtle ways, can change your life.

There are retreat centers that have recognizable names like Esalen on the Big Sur coast in Northern California. Since 1962, Esalen Institute has offered healing and “growth” retreats for professional development and for the general public. This is a model that has been duplicated, in principle, by many other organizations. Often a retreat is “lead” by a therapist, author, philosopher, artist, poet, healer or expert in some emotional or physical process. There are many styles and formulas that can be used to impart the necessary information. Often people who attend these retreats learn that the information they receive is secondary to the experience of the “process” that brings individuals and the group to their highest levels of “insight.” The “process” is what the retreat is really all about and this can not be gleaned from books, audios, videos, or conference calls. This process can include the physical and emotional experience of connection to the information and also the other people sharing in this process. The “connection” is important and theraputic and can make the experience a life changing event. By “connecting” you can change your self-awareness and in doing so change your life.

Not all retreats benefit every participant as deeply. Every participant brings to the retreat their own energy, history, and past experience. Not every leader of retreats are as skillful at reaching out the every participant and in some cases the “connections” are not made and so the retreat experience may have different levels of value. Some participants, who think that the retreat is a good idea that will change their lives, are ready to make the changes and resist the new insights or experience denial of the insight for their own reasons. (Often it is “scary” to change and people often resist the process of change.)

The process of insight from a retreat can have a long lasting effect. This change may happen rapidly and so be integrated into the participant’s life in dramatic ways or it may manifest more slowly over time and have a seemingly subtle effect. Rapid, sudden change is not always good or even long lasting.

If you are reading this article and have made it thus far, I want your input and feedback on past experiences you have had regarding retreats in which you have participated. Why did you go? What did you expect? What knowledge, information, or benefits did you receive from the process? How did the experience change your life? Did the connections you made with other people or with the process continue in your life? Would you recommend a specific retreat process and why was this retreat so life-changing for you? Thanks in advance for your input.

I have lead retreats for many years and I am building new retreat processes for the future. My dream has been to build a retreat process that helps to pair people with specific health or emotional challenges, like PTSD, anxiety, chronic pain, etc, with professional therapists and coaches who wish to be trained in assisting individuals or groups of people in the processes that can relieve these challenges. I have floated around the country offering programs in various venues but I would love to see a retreat facility that has been created to certain specific criteria so the very best retreat work can be accomplished. Any thoughts on this are also welcome.

I appreciate your time and attention. I hope to meet with you in a rewarding and productive retreat process in the future. Until then, please take good care of yourself. AND, keep open and growing along your way.

If you would like to explore the Retreat Process for yourself or for your organization contact the Stress Education Center through www.dstress.com.