Last week we talked about the key components of a retreat and today we're going to talk about the benefits. Retreats are one of the many ways that I feed my soul and reconnect with my heart. They take us out of our habitual thinking, doing, pursuing, perceiving and place us in a whole new context completely geard towards peace, intention, healing and insight. They have the ability to get us unstuck from tough places by shifting our environment and routine, and surrounding us with symbols, sounds, movements and people that represent a pure and supportive energy.

Many of us have heard about or participated in a mindfulness or meditation retreat. Retreats vary in length, cost and content and it can be overwhelming to deciding which one, if any, would benefit us. I do believe that retreats are verty beneficial but I don't beleive they have to be organized or costly in order to be so. Some of my most beneficial retreats have been those that I have done for free on my own in nature. Today we'll talk about the key components of a retreat and next week, we'll talk more about the benefits.

Last week, we began answering the question that I often get when teaching Mindfulness which is "Does this get easier?" We started by examining how it can make life easier, and said "Yes, it absolutely does". And today we're going to talk about how the practice of Mindfulness itself, gets easier.

In my classes and sessions I often get the question "Does this get easier?" I find that people are asking this about two different topics. One is about life - "Does mindfulness make life easier?" and two - "Does practicing mindfulness and being mindfully present, get easier?" The Answe to bor is yes, with explaination of course. We'll talk about the first topic today.

We all have certain activities, places and people that make our heart sing and that feed our soul. Part of being mindful, is recognizing what these things are and intentionally engaging with them. It can be easy to forget in our busy lives when we get caught up doing all the day to day essentials and then we may start wondering why we're not enthused about life. Why we have a harder time smiling and laughing, and its then that we need to ask ourselves, have I been feeding my soul lately?

We all tell stories of how ourselves, others or the world should or should not be. When we look at the energy behind these shoulds, we find a lot of judgment. These shoulds compare an ideal image or perception to what reality is and we often perceive the actual reality as being less desired.

Life will always contain ups and downs. I often think about it like a trail through the mountains. You can't always be on a mountain top. You have to come back down and spend some time in the valley before you can go back up again.

Comparing is a natural way that we place ourselves within this complex system of life and figure out our unique identity within it.

Mindfulness focuses on the present, which offers us the very freeing possibility of renewal and beginning anew at any time.

Asking "are you sure" keeps us humble and open to new insights.