Need a moment to breathe?

Go ahead - take a deep breath. Didn’t that feel great?

Now imagine intentional space for you and your team to breathe. To connect. To learn. Doesn’t that sound like something you need?

Last year we hosted a Spiritual Listening Retreat with a church in our local community.

Guess what? One of the things we learned was how to breathe. We learned how breath can become prayer, how something as simple as a few deep breaths can be the difference between reacting out of our triggers or reacting out of love. We learned to invite God into tense conversations by inviting God into every breath.

Some participants were skeptical. They admitted they felt a little strange about sitting together and just… breathing. In the end, though, they found it really helpful.

The pastor of the church, Joel, described it as, "Re-calibrating,” - a moment to stop, take a deep breath, and reset. He described this retreat as, “an opportunity to release the ways we have been so conditioned in our culture to shout at each other and hold strong opinions,” and, “return to the wisdom of being "quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger" (James 1:19).”

It’s easy to think if you’re not in the middle of a huge conflict, you don’t need a Spiritual Listening Retreat. But Spiritual Listening is less about conflict management and more, as Pastor Joel described it, “a really helpful way to open people up and enable them to be more aware of the importance of listening to God and others.”

Doesn’t that sound like a breath of fresh air?

With gratitude,

Esther + Beth