Why Take a Retreat?
Exploring a personal passion can be the source of great joy. Some of us have experienced moments of tremendous bliss while playing music. Others have found spiritual connection through painting and drawing. Still others have tapped into deep awareness while practicing yoga and meditation. When we allow ourselves sufficient time and energy for passions like these, our joy in them can become expansive and even limitless. The practice becomes spiritual play in its purest form. Our true nature comes forth and we become richer, deeper, happier people.
But many of us may also struggle with a false dilemma - the belief that we have to choose between these passions and other goods in life. We may feel driven through social or personal expectations to excel in a profession, to study intensively for a diploma, to parent with all of our attention, or to dive deeply into some other important activity. We may give our tacit consent to stealing away more and more time as we strive to meet these other, worthwhile goals. But then we find that months or years have passed without practicing the passions that once brought so much joy. In striving to make a living, we’ve drifted away from the very things that make us feel truly alive.
Retreats offer us a way to hold and dedicate time to explore the good, the joyful, and the profoundly creative person we really are. When cultivating the practices that make us truly happy we can re-experience the infinite joy of being. For a time during the retreat, the outside world holds still while our inner practice takes center stage. We leave a retreat reawakened. We return home with fresh knowledge of what matters most.