Monday, August 31, 2009

The Need for Spirit Journeys

By Howie Holben

Life is really full of stress for most of us right now. Financial worries and uncertainties fill our daily lifes. The media makes it worse with continuously depressing reporting.

It is normal for people to avoid pain and stress is painful. If something hurts or scares us, we immediately try to get away from it. We usually look for the quick fix; a pill or a cocktail. Sometimes we try to escape by taking a vacation.

Yes, a vacation... thats what I need; a chance to get away from lifes stresses; to escape. We think, That way I can come home refreshed and ready to deal with lifes stresses with renewed vigor. A typical vacation can be a big help in dealing with stress. We get a chance to leave the worries behind us for a week or two, but do we really?

The first couple days of the vacation we spend just arriving and settling into vacation mode. Then we get to spend a few days doing whatever we do on our vacations. Even during these days, our thoughts frequently return to the worries from which we are trying to escape. Then a couple days before we are to return home, we begin to move back into stressed out mode. We start thinking of all things waiting to be done when we get back home; we wonder if we will still have our job when we return; we wonder if these times of stress will ever get better.

When the vacation ends, we have go back to all the things that sent on a vacation in the first place. Nothing has changed at home and we probably didn't gain any tools on the vacation to help handle life's daily stresses. This is why Spirit Journeys is more important now than ever before.

A Spirit Journeys gay travel event can change a person's life. Learning new ways to think and learning practices can help to keep the stresses of life at bay. These are things that are not temporary or quick fixes. They can be used in people's everyday life.

Also, at a Spirit Journeys event we get to meet and connect with people at a level simply not possible on an ordinary gay vacation. We are given the chance to learn new things and hear new ideas from the others in the group. The connections made on a Spirit Journey add immensely to the enjoyment of our time away. To be able to sit and have a real conversation with someone; for us to be listened to with genuine interest; for us to listen to others with our heart; the importance of these things cannot be measured and bring a deep sense of fulfillment. Yes, there is effort involved. We can't just hide in our rooms. We will want to be "present"; we will want to be willing; we will want to be as open and honest as we can be.

But the effort we put out has unimaginable rewards. We know in our hearts that this kind of effort has the power to change us, and change us deeply. These kind of changes to our "way of being" in the world, can make everday feel like we're on a vacation.

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