This year, we are so excited to offer two Retreat Yourself Adventure programs in the Gros Morne, NL area meaning double the YACCers will get to face literal and figurative mountains, forge deep connections, and process how cancer has impacted their lives.
Program director Karine Chalifour shared daily snapshots throughout the event. Take a look at how it went for the first group!
Day 1
Fourteen beautiful souls have arrived, gathered, connected, and opened up in a soft and honest way. The first day of Retreat Yourself Adventure paved the way for what I know will be a transformative road together. What a gift and a privilege it is to accompany and witness people connecting and to get to do this in this magical place — no words!
Now time for a short night of sleep before we head out to Woody Point to hike the Lookout Trail tomorrow! Grateful for everyone embarking on this adventure and to my amazing colleagues, Dani and Lesley, for all of who they are! Let’s go!
Day 2
Today we saw a little bit more of what this amazing group is made up of! Lots of perseverance, sense of humour, kindness, wisdom, awareness, and depth. They hiked the Lookout Trail and a few minutes in, the sky opened up and it started to piss rain! That didn’t stop them and they pushed through!
The check-out tonight was so beautiful. Lots of pride, self-compassion, reflection and support around the room. “Connected” was a word we heard a lot tonight. Everyone embracing and trusting the process, letting go of some shit and putting one foot in front of the other.
Tomorrow, we tackle Gros Morne Mountain and we are ready for however the day unfolds because we know that it will be for our highest good. Let’s aim for more than five hours of sleep and hit the pillow! Feeling grateful.
Day 3
Today was beautiful, hard, motivating, inspiring, hard, fun, challenging, hard. Some made it to the top of Gros Morne Mountain, some made the difficult but wise decision to stop at the base (myself included). At check out tonight, it was so great to hear everyone share parts of their day. The connections are strong, the pride is real, and the night will be salutary! Tomorrow will be much more relaxed with some zip lining and our closing circle. Time does fly when you are in great company!
Day 4
Ooh la la! We just had another beautiful day! We moved our little group from Rocky Harbour to Deer Lake, making time for some zip lining in Steady Brook!
Our closing circle was at the image of our group: kind, generous, simple, and heartfelt. This was followed by our own pizza party and some laughter and connection before bed.
Dani, Lesley, and I are so appreciative of those fucking amazing YACCers! How they chose to show up with each other and for themselves was the BEST. Friendships have been created, WhatsApp is on the go, and we are already looking forward to reconnecting.
Thank you to all of you for making this retreat so special. Thank you to Horizon Hotel, Fisherman’s Landing Inn, Ocean View, and Gros Morne Adventures for helping us deliver the event we wanted! Thank you to my two incredible colleagues, Dani and Lesley, you made everything about this event easy and fun! I love you both!
Now for some rest until we get to do it all over again with a bunch of new people in a couple of weeks!
Grateful, connected, and content! Bonus: sunset for our group picture!
