CHAPTER FOUR Step One Personal Retreat
“IF THERE WERE NO CHANGE,
THERE WOULD BE NO BUTTERFLIES.”
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Time heals all wounds (it may also be true that, in the words of the old saying, “time wounds all heels”). It’s trite, but true, and healing a broken picker is no different from any other kind of healing. It takes time. Of course, being human, we all wish that the instant we realize our brokenness, our woundedness, we can heal instantly. But it doesn’t work that way. To heal a broken picker we need time, and sometimes we need to take a step back, not to isolate, but to protect ourselves and give ourselves a chance for healing to take place. Sometimes, in order to advance, we need to take a retreat. A personal retreat, that is.
WHAT IS A PERSONAL RETREAT?
A personal retreat is one in which you take time for yourself. You already know that in order to love another person you must first love yourself. But what does love really mean? What does it mean when you hear “He loves his car” or “She loves her garden” or “They love their family”? It usually means that they spend time with the object of that “love.” He spends time cleaning his car, she spends time tending her garden, they spend time with their family.
That’s what a personal retreat is about; it’s about time spent loving yourself. You are loving yourself when you give yourself time just for you. You are giving yourself time to do the activities in this book, time to heal and grow, and time to decide what you want from life. By taking a personal retreat, you are making a commitment to yourself and taking a very important step along the path of self-love.
A retreat can be defined as a period of withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction. But what are you withdrawing from? In the context of our present discussion, you are withdrawing from male attention. You will take a break from dating. You will stop dating men and start dating yourself. You are going to be taking the time to get to know yourself better.
WHY DO I NEED A PERSONAL RETREAT?
There are several reasons to participate in a personal retreat. Three of the biggest reasons are:
1. It’s harder to solve a problem when you are in the middle of it;
2. You need time for yourself; and
3. You need time to heal.
It is quite difficult to solve a problem when you are in the middle of it. The solution to any problem often becomes apparent only after you stop frantically searching for it. Our frenzied efforts to solve a problem can actually become a barrier to its solution, or may even add to the problem. The guidance we need becomes apparent once we stop focusing on our difficulty.
This can be illustrated by a simple example. Think back to a time when you were trying to remember something—maybe a person’s name or the name of a place. The more you focused on it, the more frustrated you became. But as soon as you let go and turned your attention somewhere else, the name popped into your head. The same principle applies to a personal retreat. We can’t expect to find an answer to our relationship problem while we are in the center of it. When we remove ourselves and focus on something else, the solution becomes evident.
You need to take this time and focus on you and become comfortable with yourself. This is one of life’s ironies: You will never be happy in a relationship until you are able to be happy without one.
In the past, when I felt lonely I would look to men as a source of comfort. I would look to them to make me feel good about myself. When I was getting attention from a man, I felt beautiful and wanted. But if I wasn’t getting attention I felt undesirable. My moods fluctuated, depending on how much attention I felt I needed and was getting. This was never an enjoyable place to be. I had trouble being comfortable with myself.
This feeling of being uncomfortable in my own skin made intimacy difficult. I would get into a relationship with a man and expect him to make me feel lovable. When he didn’t, I would try to get the attention that I felt I was lacking. Often, I would act out by trying to attract the attention of other men. This caused difficulties in my primary relationship. My partner justifiably felt uneasy about my commitment to him and questioned my ability to be faithful. My own insecurity and lack of self-worth caused him to be unsure and pull back. I was creating a vicious cycle that always ended in heartache.
One of the main reasons I felt so uncomfortable with myself was that I had never taken time to grieve and heal from past hurts. My past relationship patterns were to jump from one relationship to the next. I didn’t want to feel the ache of grieving, so in order to avoid the pain I’d focus on the excitement of a new relationship. Unfortunately, this created more unresolved pain that needed to be released. What I discovered was that my fear of the pain was much greater than the pain itself. By taking time for a personal retreat, and using that time to release that old unresolved pain, I was preparing myself for a much healthier relationship.
RETREAT!
While I was writing this book, my friend Lindsay called to tell me some big news.
“I’m moving out!” she said.
“What happened?”
As she told me of her dawning realization that her partner was not “the one,” I began to think she might be a prime candidate for a personal retreat. She could even serve as a research subject, if she would agree.
I explained about the book I was writing, told her about the twelve-step plan for healing her broken picker, and asked if she’d give it a try.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’d love that.”
“It has different activities designed to help you heal and figure out what you really want.”
“It sounds like exactly what I need, and I’ll have plenty of free time now that I am moving out.”
“I’ll send you a copy.”
“Okay, I’ll start right away.”
“The first thing you do is called a personal retreat.”
“Cool, sounds like fun. What is it?”
“It is where you take a break from dating to figure out what you want.”
“Do you mean I can’t date?”
“Well…yes.”
“Oh, you don’t understand. I’m thirty-six years old and I want to have children. I can’t afford to take time off from dating.”
“Wait, didn’t you just tell me you haven’t moved out yet?”
“Yes.”
“Are you planning to take any time off to heal and figure out what you want?”
“Oh, yes, but I am still going to date. In fact, I am already talking to someone.”
She was talking to this new potential lover while she was still living with someone else. In two years I will probably get exactly the same phone call from her—only then she will be two years older and feeling even more pressure. She doesn’t realize that anyone she meets right now will bring up the same issues. By jumping into another relationship, my friend is not solving her problem, because her thinking hasn’t changed. She is just delaying her healing. She doesn’t realize that the reason she is in a hurry to meet and mate with the right man is precisely the reason she needs to take the time to do the activities in the book. She is right in thinking she doesn’t have time to waste. But she needs to use the time she has in order to heal, to improve her self-esteem and change her self-talk, to figure out what she really wants in a relationship, and then to take the time to find it. Then, and only then, will she be ready to attract her heart’s desire. Unfortunately, she will probably find herself bewildered, always wondering why she can’t seem to find or attract the right guy. Little does she know that the right guy is already out there getting