Retreat Encourages Self-Discovery

Retreat

The annual THP retreat is a time for residents to self-reflect, connect with nature, and build bonds with other program participants.

Each year, the Transitional Housing Program (THP) at the Catherine McAuley Center hosts a retreat away from the Center’s main facility for program residents and THP alumni with the goal of providing a setting in which the women can contemplate their own lives without having to worry about the stressors of everyday life.  For the past four years, the retreat has been centered around a curriculum that focuses on creating this safe environment for self-discovery through artistic, musical, and interpersonal activities.

Pink figureHousing staff explained that because every person learns differently, these creative activities allow the women to use many techniques to explore their inner-selves. These techniques include writing in a journal throughout their time on the retreat, listening to music and then describing how the lyrics apply to their own lives, spending quiet time in meditation and reflection on nature, creating a “stress box” that contains coping mechanisms for handling stress, and creating their own “inner-goddesses”, which are physical models representing the positive characteristics each resident sees in herself.

One resident crafted a bright and lively pink figure, and explained how it was representative of herself by saying “I may seem dark on the outside, but on the inside, I’m tall and bright pink.” Another skillfully crafted a female Samurai warrior that represents strength, honor, and tradition. She explained that the figure was a “wise woman” with many different layers. She keeps the model in her room where she sees it each day as a reminder to not give up hope and noted that this is a particularly hard exercise to do because it requires you to “dig into yourself to find your inner being.”

CraftsAn agreed-upon highlight of the retreat occurred during an activity led by alumni who have graduated from the Transitional Housing Program and are now leading self-sufficient lives. Alumni asked each woman to write a poem about herself then read it aloud to the group. Though staff were present, it was the current and former residents who controlled the direction of the conversation and provided the overwhelming sense of openness and encouragement that resulted. This activity that is easily described as the most powerful experience of the retreat demonstrated the strength of current residents and the transformation that program alumni have experienced.

“The retreat is something that helps you redefine how you see yourself. Through activities that you are involved in you can just take a closer look at things that help you improve yourself,” noted one resident. The Catherine McAuley Center believes in dignity and empowerment, and that each person has the potential to create and live a purposeful and fulfilling life. We are overjoyed to see the women in our program beginning to believe those things about themselves.