I spent four days this month in the mountains of Massachusetts at the beautiful Kripalu Center. I was there for a continuing education seminar and this is what I learned:

We must actively work at not letting ourselves get emotionally/spiritually/physically depleted.

Kripalu came in the nick of time for me. One of my colleagues had just the week before told me how burned out she was, and I was teetering on the edge. It’s easy to do: America is a fast-paced, in-your-face, go out and conquer the world kind of place. Many of us have work and family to balance plus a social calendar, church, kids’ activities, volunteer work, and at the same time, aging or sick parents to care for. There’s a lot going on in life!

At Kripalu I was reminded how important it is to stop the world and get off every once in a while. Recharge. Refuel. Drink in fresh, unhurried air, eat healthy food that someone else prepares for you, and walk in the woods. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “In the woods we return to reason and faith.” And it’s true.

When is the last time you took a personal respite? Not one with your children or partner – though those are important, too – but just you? An unhurried, unplugged, quiet, return to reason and faith respite?

At Kripalu, there are no televisions and no radios. The staff suggest you turn off your cell phone and Blackberry, and forget about your emails for a few days, too. They nourish guests with healthy, organic, incredibly delicious food, offer yoga classes, good books to read, and the great outdoors to embrace. It is a very quiet, peaceful space that invites you to recharge. I invite you to do the same. It’s time. It’s your turn.

It’s interesting to me the synchronicity of my doing this spiritual refueling the same month as Easter. I love to learn from all the great religions – believing that God is too big for one religion – and I particularly love the Christian Easter story. Here I want to look at it strictly metaphorically and not debate the truth/non-truth of it. I honor those who believe the Gospels as absolute truth as well as those who don’t believe them at all. For me, whether or not they are true seems unimportant: there are lessons nonetheless. There are four accounts of the Easter story in the Bible, one in each of the four Gospels. If you read them one after the other, you will find that the details vary. One says there was an earthquake, the next doesn’t mention that. One says there were guards, the next doesn’t mention that. Two mention angels at the tomb, the other two don’t mention that. What is consistent is this: Jesus died, went into a cave (some say tomb), and then appeared to people after that and people didn’t recognize him.

After my four days at Kripalu, these are the comments I heard:
“You look different. Your face is glowing.”
“You look younger.”
“You exude this peacefulness. Your look different somehow.”
“You seem really calm today – and happy.”

Not exactly the Easter story. I’m certainly not suggesting any God-like parallel. Yet there is a lesson there for us. When we are burned out, emotionally “dead,” depleted, and we go into a cave – a sacred space by ourselves – we are somehow restored, changed, feel alive again. I am convinced it is essential that we make time and space for this kind of recharging in order to be our best selves. That we all, on this human earthly plane, need to be “raised from the dead” so to speak on occasion.

Namaste,
Patti