By Jody Eagen

It always amazes me how lessons present themselves. I believe the following story will clarify what I mean.

In November, we ran our most regularly scheduled retreat, a program called The Wall. One of its main objectives is to identify and ‘get off’ positions that do not move us forward. Many of our positions are unconscious and therefore they control us rather than us managing them.

The Wall is designed for participants to identify ‘positions’ that they take in life, determine which ones support their movement forward and which ones do not. Then they learn how to ‘get off’ the latter ones and take positions that do move them forward.

Several months before our Wall program scheduled for November, we changed the location where this particular retreat was to be held. One participant was already booked and had received a complete package with a map to the old retreat location. Even during phone conversations a few days beforehand, the location wasn’t referred to by name. ‘Yes I have the map’ did not ensure that accurate directions were given in this case.

En route, the participant was excited about attending the retreat. They knew the reason they were going to the program, what they wanted to learn and how they wanted to change their life for the better.

Then came the news they were at the wrong retreat. And that they would have to drive 3 hours across Ontario, in the snow and arrive very late into the first day of the program. Guess what could have popped up? Positions. Positions of all kinds as to why they should just turn around and go home. Positions like ‘it shouldn’t be this hard’, ‘maybe it wasn’t meant to be’, ‘why would I want to attend a retreat with these people if they can’t even get me the right map’, ‘ I deserve better’ or ‘I will never catch up with the class’.

A minute prior to this, the participant was clear about what was important to them – attending the retreat and the lessons they were going to learn. And now? Who knows what they were about to make more important – being right? Getting even? Letting themselves off the hook? Playing safe and going back home?

What would you have done? What positions would have popped up for you?

In this case, the participant ‘got off’ their positions. They decided to make their original goal more important. They drove 3 hours and joined the retreat and got full value from doing so. And they learned how to ‘get off’ their positions in a much different way than we had intended and the course was designed.

This is not something we plan to add to all our retreats even though it worked. But it was an interesting way for this participant and other people in the retreat to understand the concept of ‘getting off positions’.