“If we are going to see real development in the world, then our best investment is in women.” -Desmond Tutu
Ten women in a circle with journals in hand; they’re looking at me, anxious. It’s not surprising. After all, it is only day two of the retreat. We have just finished a nourishing breakfast, and I’m explaining to a group of lifelong, fast-moving high achievers that we will be spending the next three hours in sacred silence – no cell phones, no talking, just being quiet with ourselves. The process can feel agonizingly slow – especially if solving problems, extending more patience and perseverance to others than you ever have yourself, and chronic doing is your drug of choice.
Although the retreat is going well and each woman has chosen to participate for her own reasons, no one cares about stunning breakthroughs, whether the soul exists, or the weight of an overflowing list of to-dos they’d like to shed. They just want me to take my fancy idea of “sacred silence” and give them something to do right now. They want to know the point, the goal before they step into an abyss of anxiety – a gap in their life-time that they have already anticipated will be dreadful.
I remind everyone that a predefined goal, a frame, is not something I can offer them. The purpose of a conscious stillness practice is something that will be revealed to each person through the process – still, silent, doing no-thing, being with one’s Self.
The retreat is based on a philosophy that emerged over the previous two years as I traveled the trail of my own autoimmune health crisis, research, education, and practice: that our relationship to stillness is an exact microcosm of our relationship to life itself. That we are all walking, talking expressions of our deepest convictions; everything we believe about love, fear, right, wrong, good, bad, transformation, and God is revealed in how we “do” with what we have been given – life. That, when we get still enough, long enough, we can get past the monkey mind (our thoughts, expectations, and judgments), and our soul speaks truth to us once the body is in position for it to be heard.
Graciously each woman accepted the invitation to be and not do. What came next was transformational.
Each woman shared in her own words how she reconnected to a part of herself she’d lost sight of, curious to find out more about what she actually believes about her Self, not what she thinks, not what she has to say, not what she’s been conditioned to do up to this point but rather what her soul is convinced is the bottom-line truth for her own life.
We still had another full day to go, but in reality, we need go no further than stillness. The divine presence of kindness came through the expression of each woman’s personal experience. And, while I realize that in many cases, this sacred silence ritual may not lead to revelation in all cases, for some reason, it did during this retreat.
These original ten women, the shared experience, and the personal stories of healing each have shared with me since is why I am choosing to stay in the working world, an entrepreneur of the soul, whose purpose is healing.
The body is the portal, and whether the focus is healing a body, a community, a company, or a nation, kindness is the key that unlocks everything. This journey, designed to be kind, is empowering each woman to become her own healer, embody healthiness, and find rich living on her own terms.
Today I am soul excited to share with you the most powerful thing I’ve ever done – integrating my conscious desires, my education and three decades of professional experience to create emergewell and company (emergewell + co) – a welcoming space for women of all walks of life to engage wholly, nourish healing, and emerge her highest expression, her “soul self”.
Good things come to those who heal!
Please join us for the journey at emergewellco.com, on instagram @emergewellco or facebook.
In gratitude + best care,
SJ
