How can you balance the service and sacrifice you give day after day with sustainable self-care and happiness?

On Monday September 23 and Tuesday September 24, at Resort Tava’e on Aitutaki, thanks to a grant from the Social Impact Fund, Solutions Cook Islands is offering a Virtues Retreat focused on the needs of those on the front lines of caring for the community, whether as pastors, educators, probation officers, JPs, medical team, and leaders in general. How can you balance the service and sacrifice you give day after day with sustainable self-care and happiness?  

Virtues based strategies will be presented by two outstanding facilitators from New Zealand, using a cultural approach. The conference qualifies for professional development credits. Details will be announced soon.

One of the retreat topics is healing multi-generational trauma, which affects most of us. How do we call on our traditional values and beliefs to help us move from violence to virtues, from shame to nobility? How do we open to the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)? If we plant only three of these fruits –love, joy, and peace, we can transform our lives at work and at home.

The existence of trauma across generations is a fact of life. Every one of us, except a privileged few (though I have never met one) received abuse somewhere along the violence continuum, from verbal to physical to spiritual. Hurt people hurt people. If the ones who raised us were violent with us, it becomes normalised, and we come to believe that unless we take a firm hand with our children, they will be spoiled.

True! Firmness is essential, but there are far more effective ways to correct and guide a child than name calling and physical punishment. If the ones raising a child constantly give them a hiding, it becomes meaningless – to be avoided at all costs, often leading them to lie for fear of harsh punishment. It is easy to lash out in anger. When we were on the receiving end of violence as children, we felt helpless. Now our children can evoke that sense of helplessness when they don’t obey us. Thus, the cycle continues.

What we really want is for our children to grow the fruits of their spirit in teachable moments, using our authority in service of the child’s learning. What if those who perpetrate domestic violence practiced just two of the virtues – gentleness in the way they treat their spouses, and self-control avoiding excessive alcohol?  

And what of the caregivers of the community, who often slide into compassion, fatigue or burnout? We already have the fruit of generosity fully developed. What if we added love to create self-care and self-control to practice moderation. Virtues strategies such as setting clear boundaries for ourselves, to protect our health and wellbeing, go a long way to becoming too blessed to be stressed.

For more retreat info, contact me at virtuesdiva@gmail.com