Fresh from my retreat (home less than two hours ago), what did I take away from it.......?
(all of these are personal, of course, meaning that to you they may not mean a hill of beans :P)
Less doing and more being. I am currently 99% doing, and it's keeping me very unhappy. I can see why now. I'm going to be trying out a few things to help myself change that....I want 80% being and 20% doing. Being=dance, play, art (scrapbooking and other things), spending time with family/friends, music, nature, etc.
Shadow comforts: things you do because you think they make you feel better, but they really don't fill you up at all. Mine: TV, surfing the internet, food, time alone (sometimes). I'm glad to have a name to attach to this--and a "voice" to what I've been doing/feeling but hadn't really consciously thought about before.
There is no place to arrive to....I'm not going to get to a place emotionally, physically, financially where I'll just be done, perfect, and happy. I can stop striving for that end goal because it's a journey, not a destination.
I need to learn to embrace, love, roll around in imperfection. Imperfection is a beautiful thing, and the thought of it is very freeing to me. Which leads me to another brand new idea I came home with: we are surrounded by self-help in every direction, and I am all about it. Be smarter! Faster! Prettier! Thinner! More in touch with yourself! Meditate! Be more positive! Enlightened! Funnier! But none of those start with the most important thing...acceptance. Just accepting that this is who I am or this is how I feel or this is what I want and not in a judging way. If I'm feeling whiny or happy or fat or sad, that's fine. No big deal. This is me. This is it. This is life. That has been one of the most freeing things I learned this weekend. No forcing; no holding back. Wow--what would that be like?
I am a sum of many things....happy, sad, nice, mean, good, bad (?), etc. and that's okay. I don't need to extricate the icky parts; being an endlessly happy and always perfect person isn't attainable. Which is not to say that I'm not striving to be better, but I'm not going to get there overnight or in the disliking parts of myself method that I use right now. Tough to explain what I mean there. You'll just have to go to a retreat. :P
The desire to create, paint, dance, get messy, and make life art without expectation or criticism of myself. Just play.
I'm excited for me and because I feel like I know more about myself, what I want, and what can make me (and anyone, really) happy so I pass that on to the girls, too. I missed Michael and the girls terribly, but I'm so glad I went and that my family (here and abroad) was supportive of me going. It was great.
