“WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH THE TOUGH GET GOING-TO SEWALL HOUSE YOGA RETREAT MAINE FOR HEALING”
When Yalada* arrived at the house, she was a bit rushed but ready. She had signed up for one of Sewall House’s many healing weekends. This one, Therapeutic Self-Care, gave her a day to dive into resources and tools she would need to go back to her family, her job as a school counselor, and during the second day of her retreat, much needed time away in nature.
Jaleen, a school principal from Michigan, white and devoted to the cause of black and brown lives of children in schools where she served, was butting heads with the mostly all-male, all white heads of the board of education. Things had to change-she knew it. So when the school educators and principals wanted to get together-she took a week-long yoga retreat. Time for me, she declared. Time for Deep Self Care WITH SARA LEVITE. After a much needed six nights, 10 yoga classes, 2 hikes and delicious vegan/vegetarian meals, she was revived, happy, glowing in fact!
Taz, a special education coordinator, speech pathologist and loving mother of two-now living at home because of the “rona”, were giving her more stress then she could bear. It’s not that she didn’t love her children, her husband or her job-she loved it all – but her wellness, well-care was lacking. An established yoga practitioner of 20 years, she needed the re-boot. She connected with another guest and the 2 of them found a deep bond that we often see at Sewall House.
It’s the atmosphere, no, it’s the yoga twice a day, it’s the varieties of yoga, it’s Lindsay’s amazing and nourishing evening meals-presented on a plate good enough to photograph! Taz said it was all of it, the smiles, the way we all listened and took care of one another and that I hiked too fast for her! But she was free enough to even say what didn’t work-that is Sewall House-the honesty, the true communication, the ability to get real in an unreal world. To live authentically and true.
That is yoga, we are here to live as witness-not to identify with the “I” living inside of us, that’s what can make us so crazy and spin. I remember my first time at Sewell House, here to lead a healing weekend for teachers, I wound up fallin’ in love with the place. I found myself listening to the voices inside as truth and having to work very diligently to extricate myself from the fact that those thoughts were not me. I have thoughts, but I am not them, I have a body, but I am not my body, my mind-I am the ever changing essence of stillness behind which this world is at play.
My teacher says, it’s like swimming, you get into the pool, and you want to go deeper, sink in, it’s easy, that’s how Deep Self Care is at Sewall House; it’s easy and it’s lived each and every day while you are on retreat. So take a day, or a week and we’ll see you on the porch!
*All names have been changed but the stories remain the same….
BIO
Ajeet is at Sewall House until August 14th. She’s offered a Women’s Mental Health weekend in years past, and is committed to helping moms get their yoga practice in order. She teaches 3 Therapeutic Yoga classes online each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, through Lotus Light Center, www.lotuslightcenter.org. She is part of the East Tennessee Wellness Directory, Ajeet Khalsa, where she offers sessions & longer programs in Deep Self Care and Svaroopa Yoga.