Mommy you have to go to Kristen’s retreat…

 “Mommy you have to go to Kristen’s retreat…

because when you do the work, we all get better!”

This is what my client and friend, Adri Warrick heard from her younger son last fall when she was considering attending my retreat. How perceptive of him!

Considering my Dive Deep retreat, May 5-7?!?!

Read here as I share why the whole family benefits from you doing your inner work:

When you get a group of women together, the experience is truly powerful. It creates a space for women to feel safe, open up, and dig into their old stories and patterns. Being away from the routine of home is one of the best things about the retreat, and it’s one of the most important things people can do in any self-care practice. Before you can feed anyone else, you have to feed yourself. It’s hard work, but that’s what retreats are all about.

This program is not a fluffy, sugary experience. It’s difficult, but it’s rewarding. It would be so much easier to briefly escape life’s challenges with a spa weekend or a few days camping in the woods. Although I appreciate both of those experiences, this weekend was about deep inner work and being actively involved in ones own transformation.

Rewriting Your Story

During the program, I share a few cornerstone concepts that I’ve developed to help participants identify the subconscious beliefs and patterns that work against them. Most of these patterns are rote – we do what we’ve always done – and involve feeling stuck and small. Because if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll also get what you’ve always gotten. If you don’t release old patterns, it’s very difficult to change behaviors.

In this program, we learn to show ourselves compassion, to realize that these ways of being are just stories we’ve told ourselves, nothing more. We explore specific strategies and techniques to help us alter those patterns and create new stories for ourselves. Only five percent of your thoughts, actions and beliefs come from your conscious mind; often, willpower isn’t enough to create real change. You have to access your subconscious mind and change from within. We do this through meditation, breath work and other techniques. Many strategies we use are based in neuroscience and drawn from my own 13-year journey of inner growth.

The Science of Meaningful Change

Many years ago, I experienced some extreme health issues. Despite much exploration, Western medicine didn’t offer the help I needed. I then tried integrative medicine. I improved a bit, but ultimately remained sick. It wasn’t until I realized that our thought patterns have an intense effect on our health that I started to experience the healing I’d been seeking. I researched the neuroscience that supported the benefits of meditation, explored various spiritual practices and landed on a combination of approaches that worked for me and my clients.

In our early years, our subconscious mind is open to everything. Because we absorb everything as truth, we believe the stories we hear about ourselves. Instead of embracing our infinite potential, we live by these stories well into adulthood. We subscribe to our prescribed roles and believe that those roles make up our identity, but our identity goes beyond that. We are infinite beings of possibility and light. By doing this deep level of inner work, we discover what that looks like as well as what it feels like. Being your true self is learning to show up without that programming and, instead, showing up as the love and light you were created to be.

Finding Peace Through Perseverance

One participant of my retreat noted that she thought she was attending for one specific reason but that the real reason revealed itself once she was there. This is not unusual. Through the process of my program, people very naturally find their way to the root causes of their unhappiness. It’s an intense and amazing experience. We instinctually identify what we need to change in order to move our lives forward.

Before developing the framework I teach in this program, I was in a place of despair, living out all of my limiting beliefs. During my journey, I learned to release my negative patterns and beliefs and shift my life. Now, I embrace life’s challenges because I have the tools to move through them. I love my life. I feel peaceful and relaxed and in a state of calm and abundance the majority of the time. I’ve rewritten my experience, and I strive to help others in this program do the same.

At a certain point in my own healing journey, it became clear that I was meant to share this work with others. I’ve streamlined the process to the point that what happened for me over a period of years can happen for others in days or weeks. The feeling I get watching people go from inner turmoil and outer chaos to being completely empowered is amazing. It’s what I’m here to do.

Blog initially shared on the Art of Living Retreat Center website, Dec. 29, 2016
See it and comment here: https://artoflivingretreatcenter.org/kristen-oliver-take-the-leap/#comment-4166

The whole family benefits because you have made such significant changes in YOU. The parents’ mindset is one of the biggest influences on family dynamics because the adults really create the environment of the home. Change yourself and your spouse and kiddos follow. Why? Because the environment is now one of change!

Register here to receive $100 off and reserve your spot at the May 5 – 7 Dive Deep Women’s retreat.

I hope to see you there!

Please share this blog and offer to anyone you feel may benefit from this retreat.

Thank you!