The Restory Retreat Centre

“Vertel vir my ‘n storie” is ouer as honger, dwingender as koud.                                                                               Cecile Cilliers Ek het dit al tevore genoem – dat daar op ‘n spesifieke tyd in my lewe temas en onderwerpe aanmeld waaroor ek nie doelbewus beheer het nie. Dis nie asof ek daarna gaan soek of daaroor uitvra nie. As ek maar weer sien staan hulle voor my deur. Sulke tye weet ek dat ek iets moet hoor en ag moet slaan. Die afgelope paar weke was dit weer so. Eers het ek en Matilda ‘n gesprek gehad met iemand wat baie jare onderwys gegee het. Veral tale, op die ou einde byna uitsluitlik Engels, tweede taal. Sy vertel hoe sy aan die begin van een skooljaar die voorgeskrewe boek, Lord of the Flies van William Golding uitgedeel het en toe sy net mooi deur die klas is steek een van die seuns wat eerste gekry het sy hand op en vra: “Miss, must we really read this book? I’ve gone through the summary on the back so I know what it’s ab

We've looked at the basics of the True and False Self in a previous post (See: True and False is true ). An article* by Elyse Santilli in The Huffington Post provides valuable insight into the more practical and day to day matters where these two concepts are concerned:  When your ego [False Self]  is in charge: You're often caught in circling thoughts (thinking about the same things over and over). You're often consumed by your emotions (especially hurt, disappointment and anger). Your inner dialogue is heavily focused on anxieties, fears, doubts and self-criticism (I'm not good enough, I'm not beautiful, I can't do this, I totally stuffed up, I am bad at this, my life is meaningless). Your worth is dependent on external things (whether you've got a partner, a mortgage, a great job, a beautiful wardrobe, a huge circle of friends). You desperately need validation from other people to feel good about yourself. You're easily bru

The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.                                                                                                                  Carl Jung Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you.                                                                                                                St Augustine If Matilda and I were to be asked which is one of the concepts that helped us most on our spiritual journey up to now we would say it has been that of the True and the False Self. Originating to a large degree in the writings of Thomas Merton and expanded upon by later authors and teachers, it forms the backbone of our own inner work and helps us immensely in our relationshi

I am currently reading the autobiography Walking Tall by Simon Weston. Weston was a British soldier who got badly injured during the Falklands War in 1982. The ship he was on at the time, the Sir Galahad , was struck by a 2000 pound Argentinian bomb and he received terrible burns on forty six percent of his body. What followed were years of rehabilitation, countless operations and many adjustments. Simon at a parade shortly after the Falklands War Although the bomb exploded about 20 feet from where he was and his face was burnt beyond recognition, there was astonishingly enough no scarring of his eyeballs. As a military surgeon told him before one of the operations to his eyelids: “The blink reflex is a remarkable thing and it can usually outpace any foreign body flying towards the eye, or any flash, so it is very rare that the front surface of the eye is directly burned.” Since reading that line I’ve been blinking a lot, once again reminded of and fascinated by the h