Seeking Spiritual Direction In Recovery With Andrea Bruner Of "The Retreat" In Wayzata Mn.
Step into the realm of spiritual guidance in recovery and learn to breathe again in a more joyful way! Fr. Jim Swarthout welcomes Andrea Bruner, coordinator of The Retreat in Wayzata, Minnesota, for an enlightening conversation on navigating recovery through spiritual insight. Andrea shares her profound experience from the inception of The Retreat in 1998, where her vision for a supportive space aligned perfectly with its founding. Reflecting on her personal journey through 12-step recovery and the pivotal role of spiritual direction, Andrea illuminates how The Retreat's women's program fosters transformative connections across generations. Discover the profound impact of spiritual principles and the power of community in guiding individuals towards healing and renewed purpose. Tune in to breathe anew as we explore the joyful essence of recovery at The Retreat.
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Seeking Spiritual Direction In Recovery With Andrea Bruner Of "The Retreat" In Wayzata Mn.
We're talking to Andrea Bruner, coordinator of The Retreat Center for Spiritual Direction. Andrea, thank you for being here. As we look outside, it's starting to snow. I don't know why, but it's starting to snow here, we're here at The Retreat Serenity Sit Down. Andrea, tell me a little bit about your experience with the retreat.
Experience With The Retreat
Good morning Jim. Thank you for inviting me to be part of this podcast. My experience with the retreat started actually within a day or two of its opening. Even before that, I was in 12-step recovery and practicing the steps, feeling that they were a little clumsy, a little unnatural, and feeling somewhat frustrated about my ability not to do them more perfectly. I'm the good little perfectionist that I was. I said to my sponsor, “You know what? They should just open a place where we can just go take a break from work, everything, and just go practice the steps.” She said, “I'm on the board of a place that's about to open. Where they're going to do exactly that.”
How many years ago was that?
That would have been in 1998. Sure enough, the retreat opened, I think, within two weeks of that. My phone rang, and a friend said, “My sister needs help. Do you know of any place that she could go? She needs help getting into recovery.” I thought of this place called The Retreat. I had the privilege of bringing her out to The Retreat as the first female guest who had the experience of being at The Retreat. It made a lifelong difference to her.
She stayed sober for the rest of her life after that. That was my first introduction and the more exposure I had to The Retreat, the more I was drawn to it. It was so warm. It was so real. I met the coolest people at The Retreat. There was this sense of welcome and love. I was allowed to volunteer. Of course that was an incredible privilege for me and it was the volunteering where I was able to talk to alcoholics.
The more exposure I had to The Retreat, the more I was drawn to it. It was so warm. It was so real.
I'd done the coffee thing and the chair set up and those are wonderful opportunities too but this was the first time that I was engaging directly with people who were in very early recovery. That was my beginning. Several years later, I had the opportunity to open the Women's Center at The Retreat with Diane Poole and John Curtiss.
That was in January of 2007. The program up to that point had been mixed, men and women in one program. The retreat decided that there were some advantages, and some benefits to gender-specific programming and wanted to open a women's center. To my delight, amazement, and thrill, I was placed in a position where I was part of that. I stayed in that position for fifteen years.
We built a whole new Women's Center. We have a beautiful facility for women here at the retreat. It is so gorgeous and the program that I came into that John and Diane and others had worked so hard to establish continues to this day.
How many beds do you have there?
We have 32 beds in the Women’s Center.
Age-wise, is there a certain age or a limit with women?
Well, there's no limit. We do serve adults only. It would be 18 and over. I haven't seen the statistics lately, Jim, but I know for years the average age for The Retreat guest was late 30s. 37 or 38, something like that. In my experience, there's a lot of diversity of age and surprisingly we have guests that come in in their 70s and 80s and do very well. The diversity of younger women, with older women, as much as the world has changed, recovery in some ways never changes. It's grounded on the spiritual principles which are unchanging. The connection that gets made through that between women of all ages is a beautiful thing to witness.
As much as the world has changed, recovery in some ways never changes. It's grounded on the spiritual principles which are unchanging.
Women’s Program
It's life-changing in many ways in the program. Not knowing the women's program as well as you do, what would you say is as unique a women's program that you may have heard about in other parts of the country or other treatment centers? What makes The Retreat’s Women’s program unique?
What makes The Retreat’s Women's program unique is the same thing that makes the retreat unique. Which is a reliance on the community of recovering people. Alcoholics and addicts in recovery, bring their passion, their experience, bringing their recovery to the guests at The Retreat. Because of that powerful spiritual principle of identification, where one person has had the same or similar experience as another, and has found a way out.
That has been life-saving and so compelling for so many who come through The Retreat. Even beyond the experience that these guests have in The Retreat, the community is waiting for guests after they leave. They've already established a connection to maybe the most critical feature of recovery, which is we are not alone. No, we're all in this together and together we can find a way.
We are not alone. We're all in this together, and together, we can find a way.
In some ways I often, if I may, call it, “The hole in the soul” that gets filled by another person in our program together.
Yes, the connection.
It gets filled with a sense of joy and happiness. During the curriculum that goes on here, could you explain a little bit about the curriculum that makes what we do or what you do here at The Retreat a little bit different than other places?
Core Curriculum
The core of the curriculum is the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is the opportunity for guests to be in a Big Book study six hours a week, two hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. These Big Book studies are led by volunteers who have had a life-changing experience as a result of the Big Book.
Who have embraced the suggestions made in the Big Book and can provide personal testimony as to the impact of that on them, who have trusted the text. In any way, they've done no discounting of the text based on the difference in historical context but bring the text to life. It lives and breathes like all sacred writings.
Thank you. Anything else about The Retreat and about your work as a director, coordinator, or doing retreats that would be important for our audience to know about?
What is so powerful is how organic the retreat programming is, even though it's the same program that runs one week after the next for our residential guests because we're talking about spiritual principles and spiritual experience. It is constantly going deeper. It is constantly enlarging. We're learning something more about our own higher power.
Every time we meet another alcoholic in recovery who can share their experience, strength, and hope. It becomes a living experience as opposed to a set of ideas that we're going to live from. There is something experiential that occurs at The Retreat and that is honored at The Retreat. Our guests are not asked to believe in one particular higher power. They are encouraged to make a connection to their own higher power and to share the quality of that connection and the experience of that connection with each other and with all of us.
There is something experiential that occurs at The Retreat and that is honored at The Retreat.
Breath And Spirit
We were at a meeting together this morning and a young lady spoke about that relationship, about the ability to breathe. I was sitting next to Mike and before she came out with the topic of breath, I spoke it in a way and he was like how do that but the word in if you're Judeo-Christian the word Ruah, means breath. I think that in our program we breathe in and out all day and I think it's about breathing in relationships could you expand on that a little bit?
I love that and if you think about the word, “Inspire,” in many ways, it is about breath and spirit. The power of breath and spirit. I also think the interesting thing about breathing is it continues without any conscious effort on our part. There is something life-giving about breathing. Also, breathing is done for us which is an expression of grace in my way of thinking.
This very thing that life requires is provided to me by grace without my conscious need to control it. Just to have it. The other thing about breath is, It's completely portable. Wherever I go, I can use my breath to get me back to the one place where I'm going to find the power, and that is here, and that is now. My breath, my breathing can only happen in the present moment.
I cannot draw from future breathing. I cannot stay alive on past breathing. My life depends on this breath. This moment and in this moment. Everything I need for my life is here. There is a fullness to every moment. Even though I don't always experience that fullness of every moment, I know that I can return to it. The most accessible way to do that, wherever I am, whether I am home in my meditation chair or standing in line in Costco, I can use my breath to get centered again, to get and to connect with the power again.
I can use my breath to get centered again, to get present again, and to connect with the power again.
Spiritual Principles
Thank you. Anything else? Could you just speak quickly about the principles? Is that possible?
Are you talking about the principles of the steps or the spiritual principles that I lean into?
The spiritual principles, if I may ask because I think that that's who you are and it's what we do here at the retreat. We breathe in and out of the principles all the time. Could you just share a little bit about the principles?
Sure, I'd love to. There's a beautiful principle that is expressed in different religions, in different ways. In the Christian tradition, it's expressed in the New Testament which says something like where two or more are gathered together for a common purpose, there you will find the kingdom of God. There is no more powerful leverage of that spiritual principle than Alcoholics Anonymous.
What it implies to me is, that I may feel alone, it may look for all the world like I am alone, but I am not alone. When my consciousness can connect with that and allow me to connect with others, I'm going to have an experience that I could have no other way. There will be new strength, there will be new freedom, there will be new life that I could not access by myself. That in no way is to minimize the importance of the power of stillness and that power of stillness is sometimes practiced alone. That matters too but both are important. Both are necessary.
I think the most essential principles that I lean into every day are simply honesty, openness, and willingness. I associate honesty with step one, getting real about what's going on in my relationship with alcohol or all the other stuff I'm powerless over, which is everything other than my attitude. Step two is openness and willingness to turn my will and my life over to something that I cannot see and cannot prove. Radical willingness.
Yes, that's beautifully put. Anything else that we could share about understanding the principles? This morning, a young lady spoke and she got up and she said her prayer every day. What was it?
Help me in the morning, thank you in the evening and mean it.
Mean it during the day.
Yes. We'll say one more word about principles since you mentioned that Jim. When I'm in a tough spot, which at some point every day and usually quite honestly more than one time each day, I'll get on some kind of a hook. I'll get some old idea that gains some power with me. I can feel myself moving toward the ditch. Not necessarily in terms of wanting to drink because the mental obsession has been removed from me.
In terms of indulging self-destructive thinking or other destructive thinking. Attack thoughts or that thing. The thing that pulls me out of that more effectively and more immediately than anything else is gratitude. The thing about it Jim, is in those moments I'm not feeling grateful. If I can remember that openness.
If I can open just a little bit to gratitude and use something that is very immediate and very real and often just material like, I'm so grateful for this can of sparkling water. I need to drink some sparkling water right now and just start to feel a little bit of that gratitude. Before I knew it, the energy changed for me. I am moving again in the direction of a solution as opposed to the problem that I like to call Andrea.
Andrea, anything else that you could offer because I enjoy Andrea very much. I think we've had some great conversations. It's been just a deep honor.
Thank you, Jim, for me as well. Thank you so much for the opportunity to have this conversation.
It's a delight. Again, this is Serenity Sit Down at our podcast here, presented by The Retreat in Wysetta, Minnesota. I'm your host, Father Jim, and if you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, there is hope and there is joy. The Retreat is here to help. For more information please visit our website www.TheRetreat.org or call 952-476-0566. Again, thank you for being with us Andrea, who is the coordinator for the Retreat Center for Spiritual Direction here at Serenity Sit Down, presented by The Retreat in Wysetta, Minnesota. Thank you very much. Have a great day, everyone.
Important Links:
Andrea Bruner - LinkedIn