Tuesday June 6, 2023
Our minds are often spinning a million miles an hour at the best of times. So many thoughts about the state of health care, the environment, education, raising children, homelessness, caring for aging parents etc. It is a lot. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. When a person receives a cancer diagnosis, I can only imagine how the spinning thoughts increase and start to include thoughts about treatments, surgery, appointments, waiting rooms, medication, fear of the unknown, anger, and all kinds of concerns about family, friends, and work. The mind is like the wheel on the bicycle. It just keeps on spinning.
I am currently taking a course where we talk about the “still point” at the centre of the spinning. The “still point” sits at the centre of each one of us. Many of us don’t even think about the “still point” and in my experience I have found it takes some time and practice to access it. When we are sick or injured we tend to identify so much with our physical body and we often forget our quiet centre, the inner teacher, the secret beauty. Our true selves. The Abbey Retreat Centre {ARC] exists for people with cancer and their caregiver to contact, get to know and even rest into the “still point.” ARC does this through providing on-line and in person retreats that give the participants the chance to be in nature and beauty, to be nourished with really good food, to experience gentle bodywork and yoga and to do some really cool expressive arts activities .Participants connect to others and know that they are not alone. They get to rest and be looked after and slow down. They get to be loved.
ARC subsidizes people for 100% of the cost. Participants don’t have to organize or worry about anything. They are fully taken care of and what a gift that must be after spending months and maybe years paying attention to the spinning wheels. ARC accepts donations to run their programs. They also run a fundraising event that I am participating in this summer. In its 4th year, the Haliburton Highlands Challenge {HHC] asks teams and individuals to get active and move to support ARC and the participants. Every team or person makes up their own challenge and then seeks out donations. The team I am on is called “After Coffee or Tea”, and our idea is that after our morning ” cuppa” we will head out and be active. We all have different goals, and I will share more as we get closer to the starting date of July 1. ARC needs people to donate to these teams, or to join a team or create one. There are lots of ways to get involved. I have had so many friends who have had cancer in my lifetime. Breast, liver, prostate pancreatic, ovarian, colon, brain, foot, skin, lung and bone cancer. I have watched these friends spin and be in the “still spot”. We all benefit from being able to contact this quiet centre within us. Please check out www. https://abbeyretreatcentre.ca/haliburton-highlands-challenge/
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