Get Set for 2024: New Year Retreats at TRC

• Do you need time to refocus and reconnect?
• Are you yearning to change direction or deepen your current work?
• Do you wish for a gentle start to 2024?
• How would it feel to start the year simply?

This offering extends the Weaving Intentions retreat for a 4-night stay, or includes the Speak with Clarity, Listen with Compassion Retreat for a 9-night deep dive.

For the Weaving Intentions, you will be invited to explore how to meet each moment of your life with clarity and care, not just at the start of the year, but each and every day. I will guide you through practices of mindfulness meditation, gentle yoga and expressive movement to awaken the senses and witness what is yearning to emerge. We will use embodiment practices to become receptive and open, to attune and align, and from this grounded place, to touch into the qualities we wish to cultivate in the year ahead. During the week, we will continue to practice together, with more time for walks and journalling, imagining and planning.

If you can stay for the second weekend, we will learn how to use our words skillfully, to put these intentions into action. The Speak with Clarity, Listen with Compassion retreat explores the principles and practices of mindfulness and non-violent communication (NVC), to foster connection and minimize the suffering of outmoded ways of engaging. We will practice both intra-personal and inter-personal mindfulness in order to cultivate skills of empathy, compassion and a better understanding of self and other. Contemplative dyads are a way to promote social connectedness, something that we are often lacking in daily life where our time is dominated by digital devices. Together, these practices will help us communicate more consciously so that we learn to be aware of our feelings and needs, make requests to meet these needs and stay open to the feelings and needs of others.

You are warmly invited for 4 or 9 nights of nourishing practice.

Lucy Draper-Clarke

I am a retreat facilitator, mindfulness mentor and researcher-practitioner in the fields of awareness, compassion, and social engagement and recently authored The  Compassionate Activist. After obtaining a doctorate in mindfulness and teacher education, I am now an Associate Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. With a focus on compassionate activism and somatic meditation, I work with those engaged in social transformation and healing, to alleviate stress, increase resilience and cultivate wise, compassionate action. Nothing gives me more joy than supporting others to develop their own, life-enhancing, contemplative practices.

Options

The 4 night retreats run from 2nd - 6th February or from 7th - 11th February. The 9-night options runs from 2nd - 11th February, including both weekend retreats.

The cost includes accommodation, all meals, tea and snacks, facilitated sessions and materials. The food is ovo-lacto vegetarian, with vegan/gluten free options available on request. Cost is dependent on your choice of accommodation.

While the deposit is not refundable, it is transferable to other retreats at the Tara Rokpa Centre.