We have been developing a transformation retreat that people can do in their own space. Typically, when a person goes on a retreat—whether facilitated in person or self-guided—they transition into the next chapter of their lives. So it is important to know how we get attached to old ways of being and how to get free to be fully who we are now.

It’s About Lost Love
As I am sure you have found, when you unpack what is going on inside a person, you find resistances and triggers that he or she doesn’t like and wants to get rid of. If only we could remove what they hate, this would be so easy! Yet almost always these old resistances and triggers boomerang right back, as if permanently attached. The harder we try to remove them, the more irritating they become when they return.

We get attached to what we love. We miss what we once had. If you are working with someone who seems repeatedly stuck in a pattern they hate, change the conversation. Find some way to explore what they have loved. In a retreat, we can use processes such as a life walk and role play to surface the great loves of a person’s life and losses that are deeply impactful. You can surface these through conversation too. Sometimes it is blatant to both coach and client: the old resistances and triggers the person is trying to leave behind are connected to a loss that was too painful to process fully at the time.

Painful Ways of Loving
For example, I have a pattern of getting nervous whenever anything good happens; like waiting for the other shoe to drop. This used to hold me back from truly going after a big vision. I felt this fear, right in my bones, which I hated. In a retreat setting, I recognized this as my Dad’s energy. He was exactly like that at times, tense, even angry, in his effort to hold everything together for us all. Quite the buzzkill when we just wanted to have fun. I could literally feel this pattern of Dad’s energy in my body. No matter how much I hated it and fought it, the pattern stuck around. My love for my Dad, my need to stay connected somehow, was greater than the freedom I said I wanted.

You too, quite probably, are staying connected in a painful way with someone or something you have loved and lost.

A New Way Of Staying Connected
With some guidance from a friend, I realized that as a way of staying emotionally connected with Dad, my getting stuck in this pattern was incomplete and inadequate. First of all, it was his fear not mine, and it did really help to be able say “Hi Dad”, instead of getting down on myself for feeling this pattern.

What is truly transformational, however, is to take on a new way of loving. In my case, I got in touch with an inner strength, a stick-to-it-ness that shows up for what is going on no matter what. That was so much my Dad!

We have helped countless clients get free from stuck patterns in this way. It is not that the fear of dropping shoes has gone away. More that it brings along with it a deeper confidence. In my bones now I have this knowing that I can and do show up fully even when I feel nervous, and that when I show up fully good things happen. That has most certainly helped me transition to the next chapter in my life.

I would love to hear your experience of how painful dynamics often come from missing a lost love, and how you have helped people transform that same loss into an inspiration for the next phase of life.

Numina Transformation Retreat—all the materials and instructions you need for seven powerful retreat processes to do in your own space, with the support of a remote facilitator. Email me at david [at] numina [dot] team to learn more.