"Awake and Alive"
Mindful Living with Cancer
Erica Rayner-Horn and Elana Rosenbaum
April 4—7, 2013
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This life-affirming, empowering retreat offers anyone with a cancer diagnosis the opportunity to explore what it means to live fully awake and alive– even while facing serious illness. Gentle and insightful mindfulness practices provide a way to investigate the inner world of our experience of illness and help us navigate its emotional, psychological, and spiritual challenges. In a safe and nurturing environment, where everyone shares the same diagnosis, we will take time to listen deeply to ourselves and to one another and to encourage and support inner exploration, discovery and growth. Respecting each person's unique way of approaching cancer, we might reflect on how it may be possible to embrace life with zest, courage and vitality-no matter what!
It can be a lonely and challenging experience to grapple with the fear, anxiety and uncertainty that such a significant illness often brings. But in this deeply nurturing retreat you will find a community of fellow cancer survivors where everyone present in the circle has had a cancer diagnosis - including the two retreat facilitators. From the perspective that “healing” is different from “cure” and that true healing involves not only the physical body but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions we consider that healing is always possible, regardless of our physical condition. Consequently our retreat is designed to support deep healing and transformation at every aspect of being.
In a balanced program of activities we will cultivate mindfulness- based stress reduction practices of meditation, mindful movement and body awareness that provide the foundation for living fully in the midst of change and uncertainty. Cultivating kindness and warmth towards ourselves and our experience helps us to release tension and anxiety, and opens us up to appreciating the preciousness of life in each moment. Sharing circles of interactive dialogue, poetry, stories and creative expression will be balanced with time alone for rest, self- reflection and journaling. We will be nourished by both the tranquility and peace of this secluded land with its acres of protected wooded trails and by the delicious, gourmet, whole food meals.
We warmly invite you to join us for this unique opportunity for deep reflection, release and rejuvenation. You will leave with practical tools and a living mindfulness practice for you to take home to integrate into your “one wild and precious” life!
Who Will Benefit from this Retreat?
Awake and Alive: Mindful Living with Cancer Retreat is for adults with any type of cancer at any stage in the cancer journey-including remission. So whether you were diagnosed in the last few months, or decades ago, you are equally welcome to participate. From our viewpoint living well with cancer is a life-long endeavor, and we recognize that regardless of whether you are newly diagnosed, have had multiple recurrences, or have remained healthy and well, there are concerns and challenges that those with cancer have in common.
A unique aspect of this program is that the two facilitators, Elana and Erica, are both cancer survivors. They have designed this retreat especially for people with a cancer diagnosis in order to create the most nurturing and safe community of people who are going through a similar experience-- and know the territory from the inside! Erica and Elana both know that facing life-threatening illness has a far greater impact than solely the physical dimension of health, and they are motivated to offer this program to those who are interested in exploring their personal experience with cancer more deeply.
As instructors of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, they are keenly aware of the power and effectiveness of mindfulness and how helpful it can be in finding a new way to relate to life and its challenges. As mindfulness practitioners, both are deeply grateful for their personal mindfulness practice and the support it has offered them through difficult times, and they look forward to sharing these practices with the participants.
We warmly invite you to gift yourself with this unique opportunity for deep reflection, healing and transformation. You will leave with practical tools and a living practice for you to take home with you to integrate mindfulness and loving-kindness practices into your everyday life. It is our hope that this retreat will rejuvenate, inspire and support you in living your “one wild and precious life” - fully awake and fully alive!
****PLEASE NOTE: Due to the rural environment of Whidbey Institute and our distance from the nearest hospital or medical center the retreat is best suited to those who are fairly fit and able to get around the grounds and retreat center with reasonable mobility. Unfortunately we do not have wheelchair access. It is not a suitable program for those who are significantly immune-compromised or require medical support, and is not a substitute for appropriate medical treatment.
About the Presenters
Erica Rayner-Horn M.A., L.M.H.C.A., is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle, and specializes in mindfulness as it relates to health and wellbeing. She trained at the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts as an instructor of the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, and leads workshops on mindfulness, stress reduction and related topics throughout the Northwest. She has taught at cancer support groups for CancerLifeline, local hospitals including Evergreen, Northwest, and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance; as well as presenting at the University of Washington. Recent activities include: instructing an 8-week Mindful Eating program as part of a research study for the V.A. Hospital, an interview on the subject of mindful parenting by Seattle Child Magazine and an appearance on the About Happiness Show on Alternative Talk Radio.
Erica is passionate about teaching mindfulness as an effective way to find an inner refuge of stillness and sanity in our increasingly stressful lives. From personal experience as a cancer patient she knows how transformative mindfulness practices are in not only surviving, but also thriving through serious illness. Drawing on more than 30 years of meditation training and practice, Erica is the author of the CD “Finding Tranquility-Guided Mindfulness Meditations for Stressful Times,” and an upcoming book on cancer and mindfulness.
Website: www.mindful-therapy.net
Mindfulness Matters Newsletter www.ericarayner-horn.com/mailinglist.html
Elana Rosenbaum, M.S., M.S.W., B.C.D., is a psychotherapist, cancer survivor and long-time teacher of mindfulness-based practices. She has worked directly with Jon Kabat-Zinn and is a pioneering teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction that has helped thousands of people world wide cope with physical and emotional difficulties.
In 1995 she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and subsequently underwent stem-cell transplantation. Her ability to thrive and embody mindfulness in the face of adversity led to the development of a mindfulness-based intervention for bone marrow transplant patients at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Emery University and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Her personal experience and professional expertise has inspired many to live well regardless of the circumstances of their lives. She is an internationally known speaker, consultant and workshop leader as well as author of Here for Now: Living Well with Cancer through Mindfulness (2005) and Being Well (even when sick): Mindfulness Practices for People Living With Cancer and Other Serious Illness. (2012)
Website: http://www.mindfuliving.com/about.html
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"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
