Only she who listens can speak.
Dag Hammarskjöld
When I asked my friend Vivian why she would go on retreat, she mentioned several reasons, but one in particular stood out. “There are so many hats to wear and demands placed on women, we are thrust from this to that. I get overwhelmed. I always wish I could take time to make a transition, to get it clear in my head, to get used to the idea. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel like I was stuck waiting at the airport of life. You watch everyone else go by and get on their flights. You know you want to go somewhere, you’re just not sure where.”
In interview after interview, I heard women telling me stories of how they had gone away to be by themselves when they simply had no idea what to do next, when they had no energy, when they thought they had no options. Whether you are stuck on a creative project, calcified in a relationship, or drowning in a general life morass, creating a retreat that includes motion, breaking out, risk, acceptance of the past, and self-celebration may revitalize your life.
Of course, there are many degrees of being stuck. For some of us and at certain times of our lives, a retreat will offer some energy or solace, but it may only be the beginning of a long process of change and grieving. If you are fearful that one retreat won’t unstick you, go on retreat anyway. Not to start because it won’t all be resolved in a few hours or days is to lose hope.
Prepare
Timer.
Your journal and a pen.
A few medium-heavy objects that, if possible, are symbolic of your stuckness. Rocks will work, too.
Body mud, green clay from a health food store, or oatmeal, water, and honey.
Drawing materials.
Rattle, drum, or other percussive instrument.
Dance music and a way to play it.
Why Are You Stuck?
There are different kinds of stuckness. Some require lots of self-kindness. Some require forgiveness. Some require moving into greater stuckness and, in fact, becoming a total sloth. Some require change and risk. Sometimes being stuck is based on depression or illness that must be recognized if it is to be healed and learned from. Here are some exercises that will help you figure out why you are stuck.
See What Will You Do?: Ways to Choose What to Do.
I first started to feel stuck when…
To open up my flow of health, energy, and well-being, right now I need to…
Crack open my heart
Move my body
Have someone shake me
Have someone hug me
Run toward something or someone
Run away from something or someone Sob
Hide
Curl up
Cuddle
Be tender with myself
Accept my past choices
Make a plan
Tear up my plans
Talk to someone who hurt me
Write an enraged letter to someone who hurt me
Thank someone for loving or caring for me
Do everything completely differently for a while
Be out of my life for a while
Ask forgiveness from myself and others
Get outside help
Surrender
Do nothing
Eat and watch TV
Get sick
Get well
Sleep
Sing
Dance
Be in nature
Accepting Your Stuckness
Sometimes change cannot occur because you have not fully accepted where you are now. Locate a few heavy objects that, if possible, are symbolic of what you feel is clutching you around the throat, what is weighing you down, what is lodging in your heart or hanging over you. The item(s) must be light enough that you can comfortably place them on and around your body but heavy enough to feel their weight. (If you are disabled or injured, ask someone to help you set up, then leave you alone for ten or fifteen minutes.) One woman used an antique oak music box that her ex-husband had given her, placing it on her chest. Another used files from her tax audit, making an outline around her. Miranda used copies of her heavy thesis laid over her body. A writer friend used her old manual typewriter and dozens of copies of her out-of-print book. If you can’t think of or don’t have on hand the right items, gather a few medium-sized stones and write on each what burden it represents. Or use workout weights, cans of food, or bottles of water, and mentally name what each represents to you.
See Good Ways to Listen and Opening Ceremony for ways to create.
Lie down with your items close by. Take a few moments to get comfortable and to center yourself. Place the weight on and/or around you. No self-flagellation; you should feel the weight but, of course, it should not hurt. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Start by reviewing what you wrote about being stuck. Then move into feeling the weight on you. Breathe into the sensation of being pinned down, surrounded, or burdened. Or perhaps you feel reassured? Perhaps it feels familiar in a sad but safe way? Breathe into the feeling. Follow it. Stay with it until the moment feels complete, unless you become uncomfortable. Then by all means, shift around or remove the weight, but then close your eyes and stay with the feelings.
Nothing else to do. Just feel and accept.
Where Have I Been and Why Did I Need to Go There?
I want to fly from point A to point E, skipping the essential learning and suffering in between. I want to forget that I cannot reach E without passing through B, C, and D. And when being at E doesn’t seem so hot, it can be truly challenging to value the intermittent stops. When I get stuck, it helps me to go over past choices (notice I do not say mistakes) and remember why I made the decisions I made and what benefits, often unforeseen and sometimes slim, resulted. I can sometimes break free from my calcified position by refusing to beat myself up for past choices, by refusing to rewrite the past or to edit out the positive, or by refusing to pretend I had more information at the time than I actually did.
Divide a piece of paper into four columns. In the first, write down every choice in the past that you regret or that you question or that you wish you could have forgone. List missed opportunities, mistakes, injustices. Some of my (big) regrets: not writing in a disciplined way for eight years, buying our house at the worst financial time since the 1920s, not enjoying Lily as a baby more, not enjoying being young and without responsibility more. These regrets have kept me stuck more times than I care to admit.
In the second column, list what benefits have come from each choice and/or why you in that moment chose what you chose. Sometimes you have to search for benefits or even ask others for help in remembering that time in your life. For example, when I searched for the benefits of not being disciplined in my early writing career, I found a big one was my life falling apart. Squandering my time and early efforts was part of the spiral downward (a horrible two-year period) that led me on a very fruitful search for self-kindness and spiritual meaning, a search that continues today. If I hadn’t made that (and other) mistakes, I would not be writing this book today.
The third column is what you imagine you could have done if you had chosen differently. I fantasized that if I could have written exactly the right scripts and met exactly the right people and said exactly the right hip, cool things, I would be set for life.
In the fourth column, imagine how your life would be different if you had made that choice instead. I imagined I would be a better writer today. I would have written Thelma and Louise and would have won an Oscar. I would have lots of flowered linens lying perfectly pressed in a cupboard with lavender sachets layered between them.
When you are finished, read over the columns while asking yourself,
Disqualifying the positive
Making yourself into a different person
Overgeneralizing
Rewriting the past or mind-reading
Being overly critical
End by taking your choices and beliefs and doing the practice in Reviving Your Spiritual Direction: Melting, starting at the third paragraph.
Imagery to Transform an Issue
This imagery exercise is from Belleruth Naparstek, a clinical social worker. You can find it in her book Staying Well with Guided Imagery.
Let the issue or area of your life you wish to transform appear to you as a symbol. For instance, say you want to transform your inability to get your career going. Perhaps the symbol that occurs to you is a closed door. Or you are generally feeling stuck in your life. Perhaps a symbol of a blank book comes to you. Let it come; don’t refuse it, don’t analyze it. Your symbol may change during your imagery. This means your unconscious is working. Trust it to do “a wise and responsible job,” as Belleruth puts it. If no symbol occurs to you, use images of the actual people or things you wish to work with. Be sure you are focusing on something about you, something within your power to change. Don’t analyze the visualization as you do it or the symbols as they occur to you. You can do that afterward. Finally, don’t get discouraged. Repetition makes this exercise more powerful. Eventually, “this imagery takes off.”
Allow your body to be comfortable and fully supported. Arrange your head, neck, and spine so that they are as straight as possible.
Spend a few minutes becoming quiet and relaxed. Taking deep, cleansing breaths, inhale down deep into your belly. Exhale out any tension you find…. Send your breath to any areas of your body that are tense or sore. Exhale any tension or soreness out of your body, so more and more you feel loose and warm and soft and receptive. Stay with your breathing for a few minutes while focusing on letting go….
When you are relaxed, imagine yourself in a place that you love and feel utterly safe in. This can be a real or imaginary place. Spend a few minutes letting this place become real to you. Take this magic place in with your eyes. Notice details of color and shape. Take a deep breath and taste the air on your tongue. Feel the texture of what you are sitting or lying on. Listen to the sounds of the place. Smell its rich fragrances.
And as you become more attuned to the beauty of this place, let yourself feel thankful and happy to be here. You might feel a kind of tingling…a pleasing, energizing feeling in the air all around you. Perhaps a sense that something wonderful is just about to happen envelops you.
And as you look in front of you, you begin to discern a kind of transparent screen forming there. It becomes more and more opaque and solid as you look at it.
And as you watch the screen, you gradually become aware that a form is beginning to appear on it. As you watch, it becomes more and more defined, until the three-dimensional image of a symbol is quite clear. You can see that this is the symbol of whatever it is you want to work with or change. As you watch, it becomes more defined and crisp and clear. You might notice that you watch it with an alert but peaceful detachment, calm and curious. You may even want the image to turn, slowly and steadily, so you can see it from every angle.
And note anything you wish about your symbol, the colors it might be, the sounds associated with it. There might be a fragrance or smell to it. Or it might have a quality of hardness or softness…. It could be heavy or light…big or small…bitter or sweet or sour…. Just take a few moments to let yourself be curious and observe your symbol in a state of friendly, detached interest, with all of your senses…(pause for a few moments).
And now, if you are willing and want to, see if this image on the screen is willing to shift or change in any way. See if it wishes to move in any direction. No need to push or pull it. Just let it transform, if it wants to and if you want to. If it doesn’t, that’s all right, too. In fact, it’s good to know that it isn’t time for change. But if it does, and it might, just watch the shift occur. Observe the transformation, however subtle or bold, with all of your senses….
Understand that this transformation need not be complete. It need not be exciting. It need not even make any sense. Just seeing the shift with all of your senses, for however long it takes, that is all that matters (pause for a few moments).
And now, understanding that you can come back and work further with the screen and your images whenever you wish, taking your time, you can begin to let the image fade. Again you notice the screen, and gently that fades too.
You are coming back into your special place…relaxing there for a few moments…scanning your body…noticing if it feels any different, lighter or expanded…noticing if your sense of smell or taste or touch is more acute…breathing deeply as you slowly come back to your surroundings. Knowing in a deep place that something powerful has happened…and you are better for this….
And so you are….
Take a few minutes to write or draw notes about your experience.
Creating Energy
Sometimes being stuck is about entropy. Ruts. Sameness. You need to shake things up to start the process of change.
See Feeding the Artist: Be Outrageous.
What is emerging in my life right now is…
See Resources.
Stories
This is Cynthia’s story.
I was diagnosed as having prolactin-secreting tumors on my pituitary gland. These tumors had produced a dangerously elevated prolaction level of 190 (normal is 29 or less). A side effect of this condition was suppressed periods. I had not had a period in over three years.
I found a doctor willing to treat me with a medication instead of with surgery. This drug would reputedly shrink my tumors and reduce my prolactin levels.
Unfortunately, I experienced severe side effects, including nausea, dizziness, and constipation. I felt miserable much of the time. Plus, my business was extremely demanding. I was suffering not only physically, but also mentally and spiritually. I knew I needed to get away. But where, and how?
I thought of Mexico. I had begun to plan a trip when, magically, my friend called to say she was leading a women’s retreat in Baja. It would be a long weekend with a small group of women at an isolated private home along the coast. I said yes immediately.
The journey was a passage to another world. We arrived late at night with the stars blazing overhead. We slept in a two-story thatched palappa open to the cool, clear night air. It was exhilarating.
The retreat was largely unstructured. We ate fresh, organic food from the garden, plus homemade tortillas and goat cheese. There was no phone, no fax, no e-mail. Occasionally we joined for meditation, visualization, and movement exercises. All was relaxed and unhurried.
On the second day, I wandered by myself to the pristine beach, which stretched for forty miles with not a soul in sight. Instinctively, I lay down on the sand. I stayed there for what seemed like a long time. I felt I was sending a message to Mother Earth: Take me, heal me.
There was nothing to say, or be, but myself. My body relaxed and surrendered completely. When I finally got up, covered with sand, I walked back to the house as in a dream. My friend saw me and asked, “Where have you been?” I silently answered, “To the center of the earth.”
My period started the next day. I could hardly believe it and told no one. But inside I knew I was embracing a return to the feminine, divine principle within me—a homecoming long overdue.
For Long Retreats
Long retreats lend themselves to working through a stuck place. Combine the practices here with some of the exercises in the books listed in Resources, and try working with other people to increase your motivation.
For Mini-Retreats
Baby steps are a very, very important part of change. It cannot be overstated that taking many small steps will lead to great change. Many people find it much easier to keep their eyes on the task immediately at hand and away from the big picture. Take one practice and devote a mini-retreat to it. Perhaps do this once a week. Keep a journal to note any changes in your behavior or attitude or in how others perceive you.
For Retreats in the World
Risk can be an important part of getting unstuck. In addition to the practices here, you might want to take a retreat in the world to try something new or scary. You might try eating out alone, camping alone, attending a workshop to learn more about a possible career change, doing anything out among others that feels risky. Doing it within the container of the retreat frees you from having to interact with others—the point is to stay as self-contained as possible—and helps you feel safer. Be sure to reflect on what you learned and felt as part of your closing ceremony.
For Retreats with Others
Working on stuckness with others can be very powerful. Often when you are very stuck, you need someone else’s energy to help you get motivated. Gather a few friends alongside you, and devote a day or weekend to recharging one another. Start with an affirmation circle, and end each day with one as well. Use the circle to witness one another’s responses to the first practice, Why Are You Stuck, or simply have each woman talk for ten minutes about her barriers. Be clear before this retreat begins that no advice is to be offered except when asked for and still only within the confines of a deep listening circle.
See Retreating with Others: Affirmation Circle and Deep Listening Circle.