Coming Home to Oneself with Luke Bache

This retreat brings together my life’s learnings and my hope is that this is a deep participatory co-creation in which we come together collectively and share our wisdom so that these teachings can grow and metamorphosize.

We will focus on practices that help us remember our innate wholeness and our inter-being with nature and each other.

We will integrate breathing and meditative processes, yoga, nervous system resilience practices, sounding, mindful dialogue, stress management, psychological well- being modalities and traditional ways to reconnect to nature. As we turn the lens inward and practice these modalities, I have found that life moves from being led from habit, reaction and living in survival mode, to a life of wise choice, connection, purpose and attunement to life within us and all around us.

Exploration Themes During the Days:

* Understanding

We will take to explore the importance of the breath in psychological, physical and emotional well-being, the structure and reaction tendencies of the nervous system and how the brain works.

We then provide a clear map of how to train the brain and re-shape the nervous system and the breath to respond to life’s challenges in increasingly skilful and effective ways.

* Self-Awareness

We take this knowledge inwards into the personal realm. We start to sense and observe; our breathing habits, our nervous system reaction tendencies and our patterns of holding physical tension in the body.

We look and explore questions such as:

How does my breath change during certain activities?

What are my nervous system reaction tendencies under stress?

What do the different branches of the nervous system feel like? Do I tend to get stuck in one part?

How is my focus or adaptability under stress?

With Self Awareness the decision-making part of the brain comes online, and we can assess if these patterns are serving us. If they are not, then we can bring forth practice to help rewire and reshape those brain or nervous system tendencies to more beneficial and skilful ones.

* Somatic Intelligence

Our most fundamental response to all of life’s challenges start in the body. We therefore practice body-based practices such as breath, movement, yoga conscious relaxation, sounding, embodying the branches of the nervous system and the art of sensing in.  These practices allow us to manage and reshape the stress and survival response of the nervous system, help strengthen a felt sense of safety and build up the capability for the brain to stay online under adversity and stress.

When we are at home, rooted and connected to the signals of the body, life moves from reaction and avoidance to aware choice and experiencing its fullness.

*Sensing In

Interoception is the practice of feeling our inner experience. All the practices are built upon sensing the body’s signals to build up the part of the brain called the Insula.  This part of the brain helps guide signals from the body to the decision-making part. Therefore, Interoception is one of the most important skills to remain ‘online’ and centred in a stressful moment rather than ‘hijacked’. The greater the awareness of body-based feelings the greater control one has over their life.

* Self Attunement and Self Leadership

The internal family systems life model holds the belief that we all develop different layers of identity in response to life and yet beneath all these layers there is a deeper wisdom. Through the eyes of this model, we will learn about our different layers and identities and learn situations when they might take over and cause us to act on     auto-pilot. We will then map out our inner ‘parts’ and start to practice meditations that help to turn the lens in, learn about them and listen to them. Thus allowing us to relate to all the different sides of ourselves with wonder and kindness and live a Self-led life. I define a Self-Led life as one that is filled with presence, choice, compassion, creativity, and purpose when life is in flow and even when it’s at its most turbulent.

* Remembering We Are Nature – Eco Psychology

Eco psychology comes from Joanna Macy’s, ‘The work that reconnects.’ The methods are firmly related in Buddhism and Eco Psychology. I firmly believe that if the health of the planet is ill, we can not be healthy as societies or individuals. We will therefore go out into the magical forest surroundings at Shambala and go through practices that help connect with nature, ground in gratitude, and feel the grief of what is happening to the planet so we can go forth with new eyes and act out for the world.

* Mindful Communication

We will practice mindful listening, Non-violent communication and practices from, ‘The world café’ that help us communicate from our deeper wisdom as an individual and help us tap into the collective wisdom in group settings.