You're going to be so tired

Reflections on creating and holding retreat spaces

Today I returned home after 10 days of facilitating two retreats with a dear friend and colleague. And as our time was winding down, I couldn’t help but remember the phrases that people have been saying to me for months, the phrases they spoke after hearing that we were leading not one, but two retreats—things like,

• You’re going to be so tired!

• Are you going to be ok?! [cue a concerned and shocked face that assumes we made a huge mistake]

• How much time do you have in between? [insert a reactionary shaming tone to indicate no matter how much time we had planned in between, it won’t suffice as the amount that we should had scheduled in between according to their perspective]

And now, on the other side of those retreats that were all about connecting with and tending toward the parts of us that make up the whole of us, some parts of me have some thoughts to sort out. Thoughts like,

• What if I’m not so tired?

• What if I’m more than ok, and actually refreshed?

• What if the time we had in between was a beautifully perfect amount that allowed for the space I needed to reset, including a knowing in my body I had what I needed?

And really, what these thoughts get to is this: What if we are wired differently, and that’s ok? What if, rather than assuming our own perspective onto another person’s experience, we got curious — curious about how they are wired and what gives them life, curious about how they experience life in their own way, and curious about how we can celebrate and support them given the specific ways that they are wired, rather than basing our assumptions and responses on the ways we ourselves are wired?

For me, these questions stir around something I’ve been chewing on for a while. And while parts of me would like to nerd out within categories of hermeneutics and neurodiversity, I think there’s a simpler way to say what I want to say, or perhaps more accurately, to ask what I’d like to ask... Get ready for a lot of a bold and italicized text…

What might happen if we played with slowing down to create some breathing room, some space to really *be with* people — both the people we are in ourselves, and the people we are in relationship with? What might it be like if we tuned in with the ways we assume our perspectives and biases on others — curiously noticing who other people actually are, not through the lens of how we are wired, but through the lens of being present enough with what’s happening inside for us and attuning with what’s happening inside for them, so that we can sort out the difference, creating space to really *be with* them. How might we play with finding and knowing ourselves and others so authentically that we cultivate a symphony rather than trying to force a synchrony that shames and silences when we aren’t the same? And if we can create this kind of reciprocally spacious attunement, how might it open us to support, celebrate, grieve, and connect in deeper and sweeter ways?—to *be with* in deeper and sweeter ways?

And if my stream of consciousness writing seems especially jumbled tonight (these thoughts are pretty raw—this is genuinely the first time I’m trying to get words around them…), maybe I can slice it even thinner… What if many of our relational mis-attunements with each other happen not primarily because we don’t see the other, but because we first don’t see ourselves. Said differently, what if our disconnects from our own selves might be the very things that mix up how we view others?

Like a colored tint or thickness of a lens, there are factors that shape how we see things. We all see the world through certain lenses, through the people that we are. If we are disconnected from the people that we are, we’re likely to be unaware of how our assumptions and biases shape our view of others. If we’re unaware of the ways that our perspective shapes our view of other people, we’re likely to leave others feeling mis-attunened with, and vice versa, completely unaware of what’s shaping the back-and-forth in our interactions—spaces where we might long for connection, but instead feel stuck, frustrated, or hurting in disconnection.

Landing curiosity here… what if connecting with how we’re wired—and getting curious about how others are wired—might create space for us to *be with* each other in more attuned ways, the ways that we most long for? What if to truly see another, we must see ourselves, holding space to notice where we end and they begin, holding the both-ands of the people both of us are as we move through life, together?

As I’m becoming more and more comfortable with, no answers here, just curiosities.

And to fully land the plane here, if you’d like to know more about how those two retreats went, if I could summarize them into a couple sentences, I’d say this: They were both uniquely sacred spaces where I laughed, cried, witnessed and was witnessed in raw and moving ways, spaces that I was overjoyed to co-create, both shaping and being shaped by them. I can’t imagine a better fit than co-leading with the incredible friend and colleague I dreamed with and walked these days alongside, and we’re thrilled to return next year for another retreat — not tired, more than ok, and continuing to embrace who we are, and all that’s in between.

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View from a walk on the grounds of the retreat property we were grateful to stay at! How can your soul not be refreshed when surrounded with beauty like this?!