Hello all. There is a great set of retreats coming up that I am very excited about called
Awakening and
Growth. They are in
St. Louis and are sponsered by the
Washington University Catholic Student Center. However, it doesn't matter if you are religious or not, the retreats are open to everyone and are not attempts at conversion or anything like that. So this the weekend after next both Anna (my fiance) and I will be traveling into the countryside outside of Saint Louis to attend: she on Awakening and me on Growth. The purpose of the retreat is to learn to accept love into your life. Not just from those close to you, but from all sources that surround you. Learning to let love in can be a hard lesson to learn and so several super concentrated days are spent delving into oneself, one's
Faith as it is/or isn't, and one's heart to try to learn how to accept love into one's life. It is a wonderful experience ( I went through it last year).
If you are ever move to or are living in the St. Louis area I highly recommend that you consider going on a retreat like this if not this very one. Just get in touch with me and I will hook you up! Talk to me! It is designed for 18-30 year olds (as is the second retreat, Growth). Now, I will be going on Growth. This retreat is linked loosley to the Awakening
retreat. Where Awakening is based upon learning to be loved and to let love into one's life, Growth is about learning to become love and to express it in all aspects of one's life. It is really a completely different journey and is a journey that calls for much self examination and concentration on self, faith if present and important to you, and one's heart and its use. Growth uses the Awakening retreat as a pool of people to begin to learn to love and serve as the lessons are expanded upon to encomass all people around us everywhere in society and the world. I don't know to many other details because I have never been on the retreat, but service and love are the main themes as far as I can tell.
It really looks to be a very intense but wonderful weekend for us both. I may not particularly like sleeping on the floor (having
EDS makes things like that rather uncomfortable, but with my meds and
determination I will try to let go of the physical limitations, discomforts, and distractions and concentrate as much as possible on my introverted discoveries and studies and extroverted loving expressions). When I went on Awakenings the communal living did not bother me but with EDS I do need enough sleep and that is in short supply on the retreats and the furnishings are very sparse and it is cold this time of year so the painful moments tend to be more pronounced with excess cold and hardness of floors,chairs, etc. plus there will be long times spent on our feet, not to mention time spent kneeling (not so much here!) and sitting on floors. All in all it is not the most physically desirable environment for me with EDS but it is something that I know I will be able to deal with if I really work on distracting myself from my physical pain and also in accepting the assistance that others offer me (putting aside my pride and actually accepting the assistance is something that I have had to work on...and continue to work on - I like doing things myself unless I absolutely can't do it! Can you relate?
I will, as ususal, temporarily lose those parts of my body that I use the most and will have to recover for several days after all the excertions, but I think the learning of self and others, and overall growth will not only benifit my mind, but will also help me to cope better with my EDS by having a stronger connection between my mind, heart, and spirit. In my case the strengthening of my faith will also be a big plus for my dealing with EDS and its many effects in my life. The new coping options of distraction, service to others, and relying on faith and active and applied love in life with help me to have the other options besides the often present depression, anger, and other negative emotions that come with my dealing with EDS.
The point of sharing all of this with all of you is because by building strength in my mind and spirit I have been able to better cope with EDS. Instead of useless frustration or anger I have been able learn to better direct my feelings to the support and service and even love of other people. It is a good way to feel good about yourself and also the effort involved and the strength gained can help to distract you from your situation, your pain, whatever it is that is ailing you at that particular time. I know sometimes the list of ailments is quite long, but with work I have found that I can, for at least short periods of time at this point in my life and growth, distract myself from the frustration and pain and put my energy into more positive activities. I hope this gives you all some kind of ideas about things you can do, I realize this is mostly in the abstract, but I hope it can help alleviate your negative emotions, thoughts, and even physical pain by diverting yourself into the love and acceptance of self, the love and service of others, and ultimately in the love and service to yourself.
Thanks for listening, and, as always, I look forward to hearing back from all of you with ideas, feedback, stories, ... everything! Take care, peace and love to you all, ><>
Stephen Jacob
