Approach
We know we want to transform our personal difficulties, and get to a better place in life, but what does this process look like?
How can the meditation retreat help us in concrete terms? Anyone who contemplates embarking on a healing retreat will understandably seek some answers to these questions.
As we embark on this type of healing work, it is important to keep in mind a basic framework and time-line: there is preparation prior to the retreat, there is the healing retreat itself, and then there is the time-period after, where processing and integration work occurs. Each of these phases has its own function and importance.
Pre-retreat
In the pre-retreat phase, we begin by exploring whether this type of healing modality is the right fit for us. This involves research, the setting aside of time and space, and some soul-searching. If the potential participant determines the interest is really there, then, in parallel, the retreat facilitators will check in with the person to learn more about their situation and healing intentions, and to make sure this transformative work is the right fit for them. In other words, there must be a good match between the participant, the healing modality under consideration and the facilitators who are leading the retreats.
Once it is determined by the participant and retreat facilitator that the healing work is a good fit, the person will then begin a preparation phase. This phase is principally about setting up a contemplative space to clarify healing intentions, and about making some alterations to our diet and psychological space, so that we enter the retreat in a clear physical and mental state.
On the physical front, about one week before the retreat, participants will be asked to follow a simplified diet, to cleanse the body prior to the retreat. On the psychological and spiritual fronts, about ten days prior to the retreat, it is important to start spending some quality time contemplating your primary intentions around transformation and healing. It can be helpful to journal a little bit, or to simply write down 3-4 main intentions for the retreat (with an understanding that things may also emerge during the journey that are not necessarily related to your primary intentions).
During the diet days prior to the retreat, as much as is possible for you, try to be in a more quiet and contemplative space. It’s helpful to do our best to avoid/postpone potentially stressful conversations with people, all media and entertainment, and anything that might be potentially disruptive or stressful to you. We are trying to quiet our lives and focus our energies on the upcoming retreat, and our intentions for healing and transformation.
At the Retreat
On the day of the retreat, while the meditation will have certain similar traits for everyone (inherent to this process), the experience is also unique for each participant. Nonetheless, as participants we may experience some of the following, common experiences: a deeper view into ourselves (our pasts, our minds, our hearts, our relations), the unearthing of unconscious aspects of our personality, powerful insights, tuning into some of our psychic wounds that may need attention, the softening and opening up of the heart or feeling realm, direct psychological or spiritual healings, deeper or larger views into Nature and Reality.
As a participant in such retreats, you should expect that you may be opening up areas of personal difficulty and experiencing some emotional vulnerability (in the sense that more feelings are accessed), all of which is generally a necessary part of our healing journeys.
During the retreat, the meditation is always an ally and a helping force, which seeks to gently guide us towards more understanding of our difficulties and greater healing. And of course, the healer is also always there as an assistant and guide, should the participant want additional care or help.
Post-retreat Integration
Retreats often unearth profound matters related to our lives, in the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual realms. Generally there is often a need for processing and integration work after retreats. In many ways, the work of retreat also begins when you leave the space and go back to your “regular” life. This is the post-retreat phase wherein we often need to implement certain changes and practices into our lives, to anchor and make real the insights and healings we may have received during ceremony.
While we may experience deeper views into self, powerful insights, and even direct healings, it is important to realise that the meditation does not solve all our life “problems.” Even though truly astonishing, healing and helpful things can occur during retreats - all of which are very welcome - the meditation is nonetheless not a panacea or cure-all. The retreats can help tremendously, sometimes to such a degree that they can match years of psychotherapy in terms of transformative insights and healings. However, as powerful as these retreats can be, if we do not work on ourselves, in our regular lives, and walk an on-going path of transformation and healing, we may lose touch with the insights over time.
Therefore, if we seek lasting transformations and healing in our lives, it is important to combine the healing powers of retreats with on-going inner work in our daily lives (whether that is doing meditation, counselling, spiritual practices etc.). When these two aspects are cultivated, and integrated, then indeed people are able to transform and to heal from all sorts of difficulties that previously might have seemed unsolvable, whether it is anxiety, depression, addictions, grief, traumas, relational issues, PTSD.
To learn more about our approach, please explore our Services and to obtain a copy of our Code of Ethics please e-mail us.
“Plants have spirit and that spirit is the strongest medicine. Spirit can heal the deepest reaches of the heart and soul.”
- Elliot Cowan