You can’t really know what’s going to change you.
I put myself in the way of change by going to Judy Goldberg’s retreat, “Wake Up and WonderShift,” in Olhão, Portugal, but I couldn’t know if it was going to do the trick.
I left knowing I needed some time to ease into being the person I had been working to become.
How’s that for a vague objective?
I knew the place was breathtaking, and being in the sun after a long winter has generally jumpstarted me.
But I didn’t know if the program would move me, if I would like the people, or what the groove would be.
I knew I did not want to get the wends — a new phrase I had just learned from John Koenig’s genius book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. “The wends is the frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should … as if your heart had been inadvertently demagnetized by a surge of expectations.”
In his notes, Koenig explains: From wend, to wander unpredictably along a predetermined path, compare to the bends, which occurs when a diver ascends too quickly, and gas bubbles begin to form in their tissues, a condition that can be debilitating or fatal.
I DID NOT want to get the wends.
So, I did my best to let go of expectations, and lean into wonder-ing. (The name of the retreat Wakeup and WonderShift did capture my curiosity, and general obsession with wondering…).
The place and the sun were, in fact, divine. The swimming pool, a first stop upon arrival, held a salty surprise.
The programming of the retreat was also a daily surprise. I found out each morning via an envelope slid under my door what was on tap for the day. I was gently, ever so gently, being nudged to let go. To relinquish control, to loosen my grip on being responsible for anything other than experiencing my day. All was being taken care of. As delicious example, the chef who prepared our meals had considered a complex mix of food restrictions to create single shared meals and never once failed to delight. There was loads of play time, and session time that was scattered through the day from morning til bedtime. I have rarely laughed as hard or as often as I did over those days, and the laughter was almost always mixed with someone’s tears. Often mine. Isaac Dinsen said, “The cure for anything is saltwater — sweat, tears, the sea.” Judy made room for all of it.
Judy is a gifted listener and deeply curious. “I do have questions” became a joyful refrain as we gathered together for meals, snacks, or a, sometimes smutty, game of Bananagrams. Her questions would circle us back to an earlier conversation or deepen a query made by another. Her curiosity is joyful and contagious.
The work resulted in surprises about things I thought had shown all their surprise, like looking again at my values. Judy’s way of having us look, woven into the way of the day, resulted in startlingly fresh perspectives. For instance, kindness is at the center of my personal value system. It gives guidance to being honest, and adds patience to the collaborations at the heart of my work. The exercises that had us look at our own networks were also full of forehead-slapping “oh’s!” I took inspiration from a fellow Shiftie (our self-ascribed nickname for the WonderShift retreatants) and added the need for building a play network (my inspiration has a humor network, how great is that?)
The team Judy surrounded herself with was such an integral part of the magic that it was hard to pinpoint where one picked up and the other left off. One of my favorite aspects of the experience was that everyone participated in everything. There was never a moment of being observed. We were all equally vulnerable, so there was an equality to the experience even though there was undeniable leadership. The work and the planning were so well conceived and executed that it felt like a magic trick. As though no one was ever working, we were all being. Together.
Laughing and crying together created a unique kind of bond, a foundation for poking at the edges of the change I would like to make — and perhaps most profoundly — a foundation for allowing others to poke at the edges of the change I would like to make. In this shared, amorphous search party, I focused more on others than on myself, but then I was the focus of their attention, creating an alchemical exchange that amounted to a kind of self-consideration that was so far beyond navel-gazing, so much bigger than time to “focus on me.” It is truer to say that we changed each other.
Late one night toward the retreat’s end, we pulled from a variety of oracle cards. I pulled three goddess cards. They were so spot on to what I had been talking about with the group that they elicited a sort of hushed quiet, a unified whisper of affirmation. I got goosebumps. In a session the next day, it occurred to me that the three cards could serve me well as a method for my next phase of exploration. The cards held these messages:
Reclaim pieces of myself.
Isis, the healing goddess, now offers me spiritual restoration and deep soul healing through the art of soul retrieval, reclaiming pieces of me lost through trauma, old and new.
Soon, I will enjoy greater wellness, energy, and power, so I am willing to go through the healing process, knowing that any emotional clearing taking place is leading me to wholeness.
Expect a miracle. Enter the chamber of healing
A spiritual gift of healing is coming to me now. Be open, without expectation or preconceived notions, and allow the healing energy to help me find the best solution for any situation that does not appear to be as it should be. Expect a miracle.
Believe. Spirit of Isis
Beloved initiate, there are times to surrender and let go, but there are never times to give up! Persist with my bold faith and inspired action until the impossible happens, Isis has the spirit of triumph and will never fall in her quest, no matter how bold or impossible it seems. Let her inspire me. Believe.
I have synthesized this into my method for the next while:
Expect a miracle.
Persist with bold faith and inspired action until the impossible happens.
Believe.
Be open, without expectation or preconceived notions, allowing the best solution to appear as it should.
Reclaim pieces of me lost through trauma.
I am inspired by this, emboldened. I am in the process of selling a book about bringing hope, play, and creativity to moving through trauma. It’s called Buried Treasure: A Field Guide to the Life-Changing Magic of Revealing Yourself. It is part memoir and a lot of neuroscience translated into action. Writing and selling a book takes a lot of persistence, belief in yourself, and probably a miracle or two.
You can’t know what is going to change you. You can, though, put yourself in the way of change, and then hope.
I put myself in the way of Judy Goldberg and her retreat Wake Up and WonderShift.
I am changed. I am both softer and stronger. And I am a Shifty, forever.
It is a marvelous combination for the adventure ahead.
____
“Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.”
— Seamus Heaney
I’d love to hear about your good worth working for, your wonder-ing. I’m infinitely curious about what sparks wonder in people. Tell me all about it in the comments. Claps are nice, too.
