Brandywine Center Women's Retreat

Discovering the Gift of Your Self

The Sixth Annual
Sowing, Growing and Nurturing:
A Women’s Retreat

was held Saturday April 3, 2004 at the Christiana Hilton in Newark, Delaware.  Here are some of the highlights of the retreat.

By all accounts, this year’s Women’s Retreat “Discovering the Gift of Your Self” was “by far, the best”! With our highest number yet of 128 participants and a wonderful new venue, The Christiana Hilton, we all enjoyed a day of reflection, connection and renewal. Mark your calendars now for next year’s 7th Annual Women’s Retreat – Saturday April 9, 2005!

As in past years, the day began with a continental breakfast and the opening of exhibits, including books from Borders, hand-crafted jewelry by Becky Taccone (Kneaded Expressions), the sale of Lucinda and Wild Women pins to benefit WomanSpace and an exhibit table with information about the April 25th March for Women’s Rights.

We are pleased to let you know that through the sale of the Lucinda pins, we were able to donate $350.00 to WomanSpace, a house providing permanent shelter to women who have been homeless and are recovering from addiction. Additionally, through the generous contributions of many retreat participants we were able to provide scholarships to the Retreat to 10 women who otherwise would not have been able to attend. We thank you all for your support, kindness and generosity.

Opening the Day

Robin Sesan’s opening “Discovering our Gifts” set the tone for a day of self-discovery by helping participants look for happiness within through the discovery of our inner gifts, inner beauty and inner strengths. To that end she presented us with a quilt exhibit “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” adapted from the exhibit at the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, DC. The exhibit is a living history and testament to the African American women living in Gee’s Bend, a small isolated community in southwestern Alabama. The quilts of Gee’s Bend reflect women’s wisdom, trust in themselves, women’s visions to know what is right for them and women’s ability to create beauty with what they have or have been given. After viewing several of the quilts and listening to the words of the quilters as they described “sitting down, getting yourself a mind of your own and putting it together my way”, women’s retreat participants were asked to create their own sample quilts with paper, scissors and glue sticks provided. We asked the women to place trust in their gifts and create beauty with what they had.

What an amazing vision! Immediately women began working to create beauty from within. Some women knew exactly what and how to do it. Others struggled with not knowing what to do, feelings of inadequacy and fear of not being okay. Others used women at their table to help them create a quilt. But in the end, the art that was created was truly astonishing and very touching. Some women shared their quilt and the story behind it, often reflecting challenge, the overcoming of adversity and a brighter day. There were many hearts represented in the quilts highlighting the importance of connection and love in women’s lives. And the colors were brilliant! We left the opening energized for a day of continued self-discovery.

Anger is Not a Four Letter Word: Releasing the Energy of Your Anger.

For the first time, the Women’s Retreat offered a day long workshop. The topic for this day long intensive was dealing with conflict and anger. Forty women registered for a day of exploring anger, conflict, communications and relationships. The first half of the day was devoted to identifying the origins of anger, its’ useful purposes and individual conflict styles. The second half of the day was spent in learning new, healthy and productive ways of communication when upset and angry. All left with the new understanding that conflict is a normal and potentially health and intimacy producing dynamic.

Morning Workshops

Money: Friend or Foe

The idea for this workshop grew out of some personal financial challenges, and from the work I’ve been doing with women in this area. In the beginning women were not signing up, and I was puzzled. Why did women lack interest in such an important topic? When we finally met, the answer became clear.

Money is a taboo subject for women, and the feeling of shame helps to keep it under wraps. This became painfully clear as women in the workshop revealed their secrets about money—whether they had gone through bankruptcy, spent beyond their means, lost a ton on the stock market, or didn’t know how to balance a checkbook, they felt a need to hide the truth. It was healing to discover that others were struggling similarly, and empowering to share their secrets out loud, and to set goals about making positive change.

Single Women by Choice or Circumstance? Making the Most of Your Life

This workshop was attended by an engaging group of women whose ages ranged from mid 20's to 75 with varying life histories (or should we say "herstories"). Some had been divorced, others widowed, and others never married. There was a wide range of feelings about being single -- some hoped to get married or find a partner in the future, while others were quite content with their single status. Activities were designed to encourage women to identify both the difficult and positive aspects of being single as well as to explore how they currently feel about being single. The final exercise asked the participants to consider what they would do with their lives if they could be certain that for the next two years they would remain single. This begged the question, how can I live my most fulfilling life instead of waiting for life to start. Together the group shared their fears, struggles and successes which made for a lively and supportive discussion.

Minding Our Eating

Have you ever eaten an orange mindfully? Focusing your attention on every sensation that goes into peeling the orange, smelling it, feeling it, tasting it and following that taste slowly as your chew the orange, suck its juice, salivate and then swallow the piece of orange? Well, that’s how we opened this workshop to introduce the concept of mindful eating as a remedy for healing women’s relationship with food and their body.

This was really a skills based workshop as we learned to be more mindful in general, focusing on increasing our moment to moment awareness of “what is” in the present without judgment and with a spirit of kindness and acceptance of life as it is. We explored mindless eating and the culturally sanctioned cycle of restriction vs. overindulgence which leads to disordered eating.

Women in the workshop were in awe of the experience of eating mindfully. Some said that they realized that they had never really tasted food before. Others became aware of the ways in which they use distraction to avoid focusing on eating. Still others were touched by compassion for themselves, their body battles and battles with food and made commitments to be kindler and gentler with themselves. We ended with mindfully eating a Hershey kiss. You might want to try this one. Slowly eat a Hershey kiss so that it takes at least a minute. Notice how satisfied you feel. Maybe, just maybe, you won't want another . . . right away that is!


Afternoon Workshops

Embracing Life on Life’s Terms

In this workshop we gathered to find meaning, peace, and joy even in the presence of disappointment, frustration, and suffering. We first invited participants to identify their expectations for life -- that is, what they want, hope for, believe should happen. Then we asked participants to identify what they do not want in their life -- those life experiences or feelings they do not want and resist or push away.

Next we talked about the stress and energy that gets tied up in resisting and trying to push away the unwanted aspects of our lives. And we contrasted this with the peace and relief that comes with acknowledging life as it is and moving through life experiences as they are presented to us.

Two meditations were used to practice this idea (of acknowledging and moving through). The first meditation focused on awareness, being still, tuning in, and resting in one's breath. The second meditation focused on facing and making peace with a current difficulty in one's life. We ended the workshop with a brief discussion of other tools for practicing embracing life, such as reading, connecting with others, prayer, music, and psychotherapy.

Discovering the Goddess Within: A Doll-Making Workshop

In this creative arts workshop, we began with a brief imagery exercise to help the participants connect with their inner goddess. We asked them what they needed from her right now and what symbols would represent that for them. After we oriented them to the wonderful assortment of materials, each participant chose a doll form and went to work. For the next hour, everyone was engaged in the creative process, the results of which were fabulous. The goddesses were as unique as the individuals who created them. When everyone was finished, each participant introduced their goddess to the group and explained what she symbolized for them. Amidst tears and celebration we welcomed goddesses into our lives that represented strength, courage, love, compassion, joy and fun, etc…

Aging Deeply: Listening to Mid-life's Possibilities for Renewal and Wholeness

This workshop drew from the writings of Christiane Northrup and Mark Gerzon and focused on cultivating the unique wisdom and vital engagement in life that is possible in mid-life. We considered the psychological and organic changes that occur which give woman a sharper eye for injustice and offer an opportunity for women to become more fully grounded in their needs and values. We also discussed the potential for an inner revolution in mid-life that can motivate us to change self-destructive patterns and to find deep personal healing as well as deeper connections to others. Strengthening exercises, stretching exercises and stillness exercises (daily prayer or meditation) are a few of the strategies discussed to promote health and well-being in mid-life.

Mark Gerzon, Listening to Midlife: Turning your Crisis Into a Quest. Shambhala Publications, 1996
Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change. Bantam Books, 2003.

Closing

Returning Home: Unwrapping the Gift of Your Self

The end of our retreat day came quickly. After making quilts, dealing with anger, midlife, being single, money, becoming mindful about food, connecting with inner goddesses, and living life on life’s terms, it was time to reflect and say goodbye to this wonderful experience.

Journaling was a quiet way to integrate the various experiences of the day. Each woman wrote about her individual strengths, and imagined a world where women’s strengths were encouraged and accepted. An opportunity to speak was provided, and a number of women talked about this topic—how painful it is to not know one’s strengths, what it means to live life authentically, and to express our truths in full voice. This was a moving experience, and the women connected with each other through similarity and differences.

Priscilla and Nan ended the day with inspirational poetry that conveyed the important themes of this year’s retreat, “Discovering the Gift of Your Self.”

We look forward to seeing you next year, Saturday, April 9, 2005!

You can review the details of previous Annual Retreats from 2001 to the most recent:

2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007