Retreats are a powerful way to identify and face your ego.  Effective ones are structured to get you out of your day to day grind and comfort zone, where true learning really occurs!  But instinctive egoic reactions are often an obstacle to making the time to attend such retreats.  Predictable excuses include, “I want to go BUT I simply do not have the time” or “I feel guilty spending so much time and money on ME.”  Our favorite excuse is “I do not need it. I have participated in similar workshops before.”  People indicate that they have taken the Myers-Briggs Tests, participated in Relationship workshops, enrolled in Leadership groups, done Personality Eneagrams, and the list goes on and on. 

The simple truth of the matter is that unlike the above mentioned techniques, deep immersion retreats are fundamentally different in several ways:

• The programs are designed to compel individuals to take an experiential and holistic path to develop one’s awareness (NOT an intellectual path)
• They deeply immerse the individual in a highly customized program of self reflection over a two week period aided by skilled practitioners with follow-up after the retreat
• They guide you through the gut wrenching process of returning to your heart and deep feelings which cannot be covered up by your ego. 

These retreats should not be confused with a 1 day or a two day, quick fix, one size fits all intellectually-oriented workshops that have become the fad in our world today.  Remember the intellect is the domain of our mind-made ego!

Having made many of these excuses at some point in our lives, we felt it was important to share our personal experiences with you.  The unavoidable truth is simple – investing two weeks is a small price to pay for finding the path to balance, peace and happiness in your life.  This point is even more poignant if we add up the many months and years one spends on urgent but unimportant activities that lead us towards stress and unhappiness.  Your partner, your boss or your family should understand and respect your decision to make such a commitment if YOU have the personal courage and conviction to do so.  Make no mistake: the only obstacle here is your own “know it all” ego, which wants to avoid a frontal confrontation at all costs so that it can continue to run your life in a manner it sees fit!

Anik attended a two week retreat at the Casa Betulla in Switzerland (www.casa-betulla.ch).  The retreat is located in Tegna, a small village in Ticino surrounded by shady birch trees.  The English translation for their name is the harbourage.  In the past harbourages were places where tired travelers could stop for a rest, recover and get fortified for the next part of their journey.  Today, Casa Betulla fulfills this ancient need in its own special way for a person’s life journey.  It offers individuals a secure competent place as well as integral care for the body, soul and spirit.  Here individuals can not only relax, but also calm down and regenerate from the strains of every possible life situation, while finding customized support for discovering their own inner path.  The Betulla’s idyllic garden invites you to rest and the river’s Maggia and Melleza are a wonderful place for peaceful walks.  The morning group meditation followed by a nourishing breakfast is the perfect way to prepare for the day’s inner work.   The day’s work is tailored to each person’s unique situation whether it is a relationship crisis, work predicament, marital separation, mid life transition, illness, or the death of a loved one.  This includes the appropriate individual tasks complemented by different integral body-work therapies aimed at supporting and developing the process of building awareness. 

The first step at the Betulla is to remove the incessant technology and media distractions to calm the mind of participants.   This is accomplished through an enforced “technology and media fast.”  No cell phones, no internet access, no television and no newspapers!  The purpose of the retreat is to turn one’s attention inwards, and the retreat staff well know that this is an impossible task without the “technology and media fast.”  Anik found this to be a powerful way to “unplug” from the daily distractions of the world that he had become accustomed to.

The mirror exercise is one of the tools utilized at the Betulla designed to help an individual connect with their inner wisdom.  The exercise involves sitting comfortably for 30-60 minutes at a time facing a mirror. The purpose is to look at your own reflection and begin to see beyond the physical façade, the perceived flaws, the face we show to the world and to begin to get a glimpse of your inner wisdom.  The process continues by engaging in a dialogue with your inner self by posing questions and then listening attentively to the answers.  Anik likens this exercise to having the opportunity to engage in a deep authentic dialogue with the wisest person in the world (without the interference of your own ego).  Try this with a difficult question or two that you are facing now. You will be amazed by the results.

For those who are interested we would highly recommend a retreat at the Casa-Betulla, the location is spectacular, the staff highly skilled and compassionate and the prices are reasonable.  The experience at the Betulla is well captured by a guest - “I have taken off my façade and found myself after a long journey.”

For more information please email to info@casa-betulla@ch.com

Lane attended a retreat with Learning as Leadership (LaL) held in Sausalito, California in 2001.  Originally founded by Claire Nauer from France, their programs have been running for over 30 years.  Designed to address every participant’s unique situation, the personal mastery program leads you through a process of self-discovery that is attuned to surfacing life-altering professional and personal development needs.  No matter which needs exist, the core of the program brings you face to face with your ego. The program has a strong foundation in experiential processes conducted individually and in groups.  Every retreat participant is assigned a personal coach that begins their work before you arrive and continues long after the retreat itself concludes.  You remain at the retreat 24 hours a day to help prevent the outside world from entering into your space.  You are removed from work and family and also removed from technology as a contractual condition for attending the retreat.  This was imperative for Lane because without this condition constant interruptions would have been a given. The staff filled every waking moment immersed in a progression toward discovering his inner workings.

The retreats are held in a beautiful bay or ocean-side setting away from city activity.  Water, nature, your candle lit bedroom, and walks play a crucial role in setting the environment. The seagulls become your non-judgmental friends.  The sail boats become soft reminders to continue to go forward with the hard personal work. The coaches show intensity, compassion, and respect in bringing the truth of you to you.  And they show adeptness at helping you chart and then act on a path forward.

As the retreat opened, Lane immediately began intellectualizing the roughly two weeks to unfold.  To his dismay, the staff refused to lay out a concise process, supported by the requisite volume of tools that would achieve the conclusion of personal mastery expected.  Lane’s spouse and also his CEO had suggested that he take this retreat to find out why he had been “playing it safe”.  What a confusing piece of feedback for Lane, especially given all the hard-fought, stressed-filled success achieved to that point.  The struggle to intellectualize the retreat continued for a couple of days.  The exercise that turned off the intellectual processing for Lane was constructed to bring him all the way back to early childhood. They used this exercise to begin the construction of Lane’s “egosystem”.  Coming to grips with three life events were heart wrenching and deep drivers of behaviors in Lane’s adult life: an alcoholic and violent father, an idolized big brother drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, and the death of a parent at age 10. There was no safety at home, no big brother to protect Lane, and then he became the “man of the house” at age 10 to protect his younger brother and mother.  Lane had no need for email or a phone of any kind by day three of the retreat!

Several exercises and coaching sessions that followed the realization of what had been driving Lane to “playing it safe” led him to also identify the shadow side of the “aloof” defense mechanisms that had been created along the way. The staff’s carefully customized experiences along with journaling revealed how his early childhood patterns and subsequent life events had developed ineffective survival techniques, unconscious beliefs, and behaviors.  It truly revealed a humbling and astounding picture of Lane’s ego!

For those interested in the highly valued Learning as Leadership personal mastery retreat held in the North San Francisco Bay Area in the USA, you can find more information at http://www.learnaslead.com. One attendee of the Learning as Leadership retreat summed up the value of this experience: “I went to Learning as Leadership for better self-understanding and now I am continually challenging myself. I have to ask ‘am I doing this to satisfy my personal ego, or to support my team and my company?’.”