What happened at the Theatrical Growth retreat?

“How to create healthy relationships”, the Theatrical Growth retreat with Nuri Zubiri has been a meeting of courageous women. It was a mature, honest, and very intense and intimate experience. 

Guided by Nuri, we have worked on work, family, friendship and couple conflicts. We made first contact with our essence. We became aware of how we judge “the other” of what happens to us.

We looked into each other’s eyes. We forgot about our mobile phones. We touched each other. We have felt the other person and we have connected from our vulnerability. We have dared to enter into very deep places that we normally keep sealed.

It has been a weekend of digging in and pulling out. We have shaken out of our bodies everything that we have too much of. We have mobilised, vibrated and whipped the air. Each one of us in our inner journey, we have untied our knots. We took responsibility for our emotions and concentrated on listening to what our partner proposed to us. We developed strategies to achieve our goals.

We have deepened and worked on specific conflicts from our recent lives that affect our relationships. We have dismantled the stories we tell ourselves and opened up our armour. What lies behind it has been exposed. Our childhood wounds. Our inner child. The little girl we were. What conditions us. We have reached what hurts us and we have put words and body to it. It is so easy to blame the other.

Laughter. Hugs. Tears. Sobs even. Fears. Tenderness. Rediscovering ourselves. Accepting ourselves. Loving and connecting. Emotion. Feelings bursting at the seams.

Throughout the whole process, we have suspended judgement. We also silenced, if only for a while, our Jiminy Cricket. We created a safe environment for all of us. Guided by Nuri, a wise voice that tucks you in.  It felt like a collective embrace that we were able to reciprocate at the end of the workshop.

It has been a weekend of conviviality. A sharing without masks. Eating together and undertaking self-management in a generous and effective way. Thinking of others.

Spanish omelette. Soup. Paella. Stew. Homemade desserts. Mother’s food cooked with love.

We have also shared a room, a cabin, a bathroom and walks in the mountains of the country property.

We live in a world of increasing de-corporealisation. A large part of our lives are interactions with screens. We see each other less and less. We touch less. We hug less. We talk less. We laugh less. We listen to each other less.

And yet our being is asking us to do just the opposite. To resist. To rebel. To be body and soul, available to each other.

Against apathy, I care about you. Against individualism, the group. Against productivism of results, love and enjoy the process. Against technological acceleration, the slowness of life. Against the loss of attention, being present.

“There is a deep link between truth, beauty and goodness” says Pablo D’Ors.

The truth that arises from being in the moment with your whole being, in the here and now. What is preventing us from starting a deep journey into ourselves? Probably only the lack of safe spaces in which to rehearse life. Theatre helps because it is alive, it is experience, it is sensation, it is connection.  It goes through your body. And as Nuri says, it is a mirror that brings to light our shortcomings but also our full potential. With respect. Without judgement.

What has happened this weekend is a training to keep our humanity intact, whatever comes. A space of intimate solidarity in which our whole being has a place, without restrictions.

A weekend of pausing, of paying attention to our own physiology, of drawing, of reconnecting. A weekend of living more. Accepting our imperfection, sharing our vulnerability and reaffirming that, whatever happens, we are enough. Always.

A weekend of reconnecting with a glorious nature. The small miracle of drinking spring water. Feeling our symbiosis with nature, from which we appear to have become disconnected. From human times that are not in pursuit of productivity.

A mirror weekend, which has at least allowed us to glimpse what we are really made of.

Rebelling against autopilot. It has provided us with authenticity, the resilience of genuine human moments. Loving ourselves more because as Thich Nhat Hanh said:

“No one is more worthy of your kindness and compassion than you.”