SHE GETS ONE TOO
Friday Nov. 30, 2018
We’ve all heard this: go on a retreat
Many of us have ‘retreated’.
Usually for ‘advancing’, so I wonder about the term retreat.
I think ‘escape’ or ‘transmogrification’ might be better descriptors.
If you chuckled, maybe you’ve been on retreat-weekends too. Seriously, a retreat can be a wonderful experience. Facilitators have a lot to do with success of these adventures. If you’ve experienced a great one, you love retreats. If you’ve experienced a terrible one you probably avoid retreats.
One of the best kinds I’ve found – self-retreat. Just me – I double roles, facilitator and retreatee. It’s great. I get to take breaks when I want, go long into the night or work through dinner if I like – in search of the elusive answers, the big-takeway of mission, vision and an action plan.
Whether retreating to fix your organization, your relationship or to fix yourself – a retreat can cross the spectrum from light breeze to category-5 hurricane – either way there is wind blowing.
I am in Banff today for a ‘self-retreat’ – armed with sticky notes, flip-chart paper and hiking boots. I’m staying at Banff Centre, no so much to rub shoulders with artsy types as I am for the seclusion. To be near the tourists but not among them, to visit Banff Avenue and Sulphur Mountain hot springs, but to then return to my retreat-lair to nurse along my planning, my musing and tweaking an idea or two.
Maybe I’ll take in a show. Gusta is at the kennel – she’s enjoying the ‘seniors section’ with heated floors; she’ll be pampered and groomed. When I take a trip or retreat, she gets one too.
Reader feedback:
PLANTING TIME
This is so good…that it might as well have been straight out of the good book!“ Those who sow with tears, will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”, PW, Calgary, AB
BALLOT BOX TRUTH
A good word, GD, Calgary, AB
