An Unexpected Retreat Takeaway

55 Years in the Making

When people ask me, “How was your retreat last week?” I honestly don’t know where to begin. I usually start by saying, I have a deeper sense of what presence feels like. I have a deeper gratitude for life (my relationships, the stranger I pass by, the clerk at the grocery store) and an awareness and clarity I didn’t know was possible. Additionally, I feel love more intimately and connection as an integral part of my life.

You see, I was recently at the Omega Institute with Russ Hudson and Jessica Dibb — meeting them in real life after spending over a year with them virtually. And I never imagined that four and a half days of work could be so life-altering.

I have a running list of takeaways that keeps growing daily. One of the voices in my head reminds me: ‘Oh yeah, there was that too,’ ‘Oh and this” and ‘Remember that?’ But on day two, what started as an answer to a repeating question turned into a profoundly shifting perspective on something I’ve loved for over 55 years.

Three months ago, while teaching a choreographed dance fitness class on a Sunday morning to a group of enthusiastic dance lovers, I played an old song we all knew. I leaned over to one of the attendees and said, “I don’t look like I did when I was 40 doing this!”

We both laughed. We’ve been dancing together for years.
And then I tried to dance like I was 40.

And then I couldn’t dance.

At all.

I injured my knee so badly, I could barely walk. No amount of Advil, ice, or rest was fixing it fast enough. I was really worried. Was dancing over for me?

As the months went by and my knee wasn’t getting much better, the thought of dancing again began to fade. I kept asking myself, Do I even want to dance if I can’t dance the way I want to?

It felt like a huge chapter was closing — one that had brought me joy, laughter, and expression unlike anything else. Golf didn’t fill that cup. Painting didn’t either. This was something deeper. And it seemed I had no choice but to say goodbye.

And then I went on the retreat.

On Day Two, we sat in groups of four with the repeating question:
“Tell me a way you have been given something that you haven’t yet received.”

Take that in for a moment.

“Tell me a way you have been given something that you haven’t yet received.”

If you’ve never done a repeating question exercise, here’s how it works:
You’re asked the same question again and again. You answer. The asker simply says “thank you,” and asks again. It continues until the time is up.

Your answers go from deep to deeper to the deepest depths you can imagine, and many times even where you can’t imagine. These answers come from the deepest part of you - raw and unfiltered.

One of my last answers before time ran out was… maternal love.

I’ve been given maternal love but haven’t received it. Whoa.

The quartet stopped. I started crying. I sat quietly, letting it sink in.

My mom has been gone for 26 years. When she died, I had four young children. There wasn’t much space for grief.

I remember going to a heart doctor because my chest hurt so much, only to be told my heart looked like that of an athlete - perfectly healthy. The technician said, “Sometimes grief can do this.”

So I moved on. Raising my children. Missing my mom, but never really processing the missing.

On our second night at the retreat, the facilitators put on music and we danced. I had so much fun interacting with everyone, encouraging them to dance with me. I couldn’t get Russ or Jess on the floor, but my new friends and I still had a blast.

The next morning brought a Nia class - a beautiful hybrid of dance, tai chi, and other mindful movement. Our instructor, Ann, was amazing: deeply present, full of love, joy, and acceptance.

For the first time in my adult dance career, I felt all three of my centers — Body, Heart, and Head — fully present and alive. I wasn’t performing; I was listening. To the music. To my body. To my heart. To what the moment wanted to express through me.

Eyes closed, tears flowing, I let movement happen through me, not from me. When we ended lying on the floor, exploring movement in an unfamiliar way, I cried…….. hard. Ann hugged me gently. I whispered in her ear, “I miss my mom.”

It was as if my body remembered something my mind had long forgotten.

That afternoon, we had a Breathwork session, 45 minutes of conscious breathing. You inhale slightly deeper than normal, exhale without holding, one breath flowing into the next without interruption.

People can have profound experiences during these sessions, divine experiences including past life regression, visions of Jesus or Mary, encounters with loved ones long since past. For me, my body felt a little tingly and it was vibrating now and again but I wasn’t having what she was having, as I heard other people moaning, howling, and sobbing.

And then I felt it — a weighted presence on my body, as if I was being hugged. My knee began to burn and throb.

The facilitator came by and whispered, “Julie, what are you experiencing?”

I told her about the knee pain. She asked, “What is it trying to tell you?”

And I said, “It wants to release the burden.”

She replied softly, “You don’t have to know what that means right now.”

But I did know.

It meant that my mother had come to me.

The same mother who, 55 years ago, put her serious five-year-old daughter in dance class because she saw something that needed to be expressed, to have fun, to find grace.

She was reminding me: Keep dancing.

Dance had always been her gift to me, a gift of maternal love I had received but stopped truly taking in. Through this experience, she was unburdening me from the performative part of my dance life, the part that believed, I have to be really good for others to come to class. The part that expected a 60-year-old body to move like it did at 40.

She was showing me that the love behind dance had never left.

I went into this retreat with no expectations, just openness to whatever would unfold. I had no idea dance would be the thread that wove it all together.

This was the perfect embodiment of the Law of Three and when opposites can birth something entirely new.

On one side: Performative dance.
On the other side: No dance at all.

And then, the third force, Presence comes in and something different is birthed.

Not performative. Not nothing.

Simply dance - alive, unburdened, and free, coming from deep presence. The dance that started as fun and joyful to my five-year-old self has been returned to me. Without Ego. With Spirit flowing through my body. The gift that maternal love gave so long ago and continued to gives, will be with me for the rest of my life.