“Our emotional hearts have a memory, woven from millions of moments, into a tapestry that tells the story of our lives.
‘Just One Heart’ Dr Jonathan Fisher, Heart Surgeon.
This is a spiritual wellness 3 night retreat to bring stillness to those spaces in our lives where we can hear the story of our hearts. We will be gently accessing our emotional hearts to take notice of how they are. It is a time for soothing, rest and care, with good food and being with nature at its best.
We will safely explore the emotional heart and how to integrate this with the mind, spirit and our bodies.
We will do this through reflections from different traditions, mindfulness practices, poetry, music, movement through nature, small amounts of input on the neuroscience of the brain and sharing our common humanity.
For those of all faiths and none.
Our hearts have never stopped beating from the day we were born. We can easily take them for granted and we owe them much gratitude. Traditionally they are seen as the source of love. While neuroscience identifies this source of love to be in the limbic system of the brain, the connection between the brain and the regulation of the heart is crucial to how we stay well in the world.
In nature most growth and change happen slowly, at a pace that is almost unnoticeable. So too with our psychological and spiritual growth, it is happening slowly and constantly. This retreat is an opportunity to tap into our emotional hearts, to notice, without judgement, what they are holding at this moment in time, to see what has shaped them, where the growth areas are and to acknowledge that there may be some scars from life. We will bring our attention to what pulls at the strings of our hearts. We will carry out an inventory of our hearts’ landscapes identifying metaphors that best suit how they are right now, whether they are heavy or light, open or closed, hurt or healed or something else. We will explore how to attune to whatever our individual hearts are feeling, giving them our attention, curiosity, understanding, to offer some tenderness, kindness, rest and gratitude.
This is not therapy or group therapy. This is an opportunity to build an awareness of what our bodies and minds hold at a particular moment in time through connecting with our hearts. It is an opportunity to be curious, access our inner soothing system and learn new skills for self- regulation and calming.
…………I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
Mary Oliver: excerpt from the poem Lead.
Hosted by: Michael Dillon.
Cost: €365
