To Retreat or Not to Retreat -- Adoptees Gather to Step into Life in a New Way
In his book Cured, Dr. Jeffrey Rediger says what he has noticed with people who recover from life-threatening illnesses is that, time and time again, when people heal from diseases that are supposedly going to kill them, it is because they became a different person. They quit their jobs, perhaps. They changed the food they ate. They left unloving relationships. They started new exercise regimes. They changed their habits, and in dramatic and small ways, they restructured their lives, and then after some time, what seemed like miracles happened. Tumors disappeared. Pain subsided. Inflammation calmed. Cancers diagnosis changed.
In so many ways I am not the same person who began to emerge from the fog less than ten years ago. The most dramatic step I took was to put everything I owned in storage and to travel across the country, promising to myself I would not return until I wrote the book I’d felt kicking to be born for decades. This action gave me voice and community, a deep sense of accomplishment and self-trust. I saw that I could follow through and finish things. I saw that I did have courage. I finally was the person I’d thought I was for so long but couldn’t seem to set her free: a writer.
I don’t have issues with food anymore. I weigh what I weighed in high school and I don’t have to think about food or my body in the same terrible way I did for years and years. After worrying for most of my life that I wouldn’t ever get enough to eat, now I eat when I’m hungry and sometimes when I’m bored or anxious. I eat a lot. I eat junk food. I eat vegetables. What’s gone is the terror that I’ll go crazy eating and not be able to stop. What’s gone is the shame I felt at being so very hungry. It’s such a relief. That worry took up a huge chunk of my thinking brain for most of my teenage and adult life.
I don’t date compulsively anymore. Gone are the days when as soon as someone broke up with me or I broke up with them, within hours sometimes I was with someone else. Actually, I don’t date at all. That frantic need to have someone lying on top of my, weighing me down, is gone. In its place I have several things. One is more time to focus on my creativity. Another is more time to do nothing—to lie in the hammock and look up at the trees. Another is a quiet sense of melancholy. I’m lonely sometimes, but the feelings don’t drag me around fearfully by the nose. They are more like a song that is so beautiful and sad I have to deepen my breath to endure my feelings.
When I started coming out of the fog, being adopted became a full-time job for me as the side-effects of mother and culture loss involve chaos in my mind and body which I have to work hard to manage. I do yoga. I spend a lot of time out in nature. I connect with other adopted people. I work to help other people so I’m not solely self-focused. Mostly I connect with other people who get me. This is where my friendship with Pam Cordano became one of the most powerful forces in my life. I was not only seen, but I was seen in ways that made me feel like anything was possible. Pam does this for others. I do, too.
In August and September, Pam Cordano and I are going to have two different retreats for adopted people. I’ll get on a plane in Boston, land in Sacramento, and spend two week-ends doing one of the things I love best in the world: creating space for adopted people in partnership with Pam at her beautiful house.
We create experiences you wouldn’t have anywhere else. Our goal is to have you leave after the four days feeling more like yourself than you ever had before and feeling like an essential part of a community of people who, in a very short time, became quite likely, life-time friends.
For so many people, a retreat just doesn’t fit into their lives or their budgets, and this is where it’s time to examine your priorities. Do you want to change or do you want to stay the same? How brave are you willing to be to feel the freedom and peace you so crave?
Dedicating resources to yourself is a way of showing the world and yourself that you’re serious about your life.
Come be with us. We can’t wait to see you.
Here’s more information about the retreat:
LIVE ADOPTEE RETREATS ARE BACK!
Find Healing, Joy and Inspira3on in a Community of Adoptees... Step into Your Life in a New Way
Where: Davis, California
When: August 25-28, 2022 or
September 1-4, 2022
Schedule: Thursday, 5-8 PM PT
Friday and Saturday, 9-12 and 2-5 PM PT
Sunday, 9-12 PM PT
What: You’ll arrive Thursday evening, and we’ll have a hearty appetizer spread for you to snack on while we get to know each other and begin to form a sense of community.
Friday and Saturday, with the strength of new friends at your side, we’ll find where each of you organically and naturally is compelled to go for your next step in your life. With a cohort of other adopted people, you’ll have deeper access to courage and agency while you head for an even more vibrant life!
We will provide a nutritious, satisfying lunch both days, and you can bring your bathing suits and go in the pool during lunch breaks.
In the evenings, we encourage you to go out as a group and share dinner at one of the many terrific restaurants Davis has to offer.
On Sunday, we will have breakfast and solidify what happened over the weekend and make plans for you to stay in contact as a group.
Cost: $1,500, lodging not included Limit: 10 people
About Pam Cordano and Anne Heffron: We met because of Haley Radke and her podcast Adoptees On. (For a taste of our voices, you can listen to Pam on episode 25 and Anne on episode 21.) Our friendship rapidly began to change our lives for the better. We saw each other in ways we’d never been seen by non-adopted friends and this mirroring helped us become even more ourselves, more creative, more courageous. We wanted to share with other adopted people the power of community, so we started in-person retreats. Four years later, we’ve now done retreats in Berkeley, Davis, and Jersey City.
Here’s a link to a blog post Anne wrote aaer a retreat we did in 2018: https://www.anneheffron.com/blog/2018/2/18/what-people-said-about-our-retreat-beyond- adoption-you.
When COVID made it impossible to meet in person, we had the idea to do a year-long Zoom class for adopted people called Flourish. The participants of the two classes still meet and independently created a book, The Flourish Experience, about their time in the group. We are over the moon that we can meet in person again. Zoom is helpful and powerful, but nothing beats being in a room of other adopted people in real life.
To register: email us at anneheffron@gmail.com and pcordano@comcast.net. A $500 deposit will reserve your place.
With hope and love, Anne and Pam
