The Art of Sacred Living
Home Retreat Program
with Daniel Whiteside, Carol Van der Meulen and Melinda Rothouse, Ph.D.
May
1
2021
The Art of Sacred Living
Registration Now Open
Step back from your day-to-day demands and bring sacred living into your life.
Upgrade your mental operating system with meditation (Flow), Self-Inquiry, and Spontaneous Creativity.
Details
A retreat is an opportunity to step back from our day-to-day demands and activities for an extended period of concentrated discussion, dialogue, and strategic thinking. With that in mind I have designed this virtual retreat to bring together a community to hunker down for a day and focus on a few important areas of growth. The three pillars of sacred living that can completely transform our ordinary experience are:
- Wisdom – acting skillfully at every moment; with training, the mind is capable of transforming ordinary experience into a sacred reality. Making new connections, discover underlying patterns, and learn how to make your mind your biggest ally.
- Equanimity – letting our lives unfold naturally; when we let experience happen without resistance we tap into a deep source of peace, insight, and spontaneous creativity.
- Compassion – Understanding the underlying interconnection among all life; out of compassion arises the spontaneous desire to give and serve consciously.
This retreat will be an opportunity and container for bringing sacred living into your own life. This retreat will be co-created with the participants, so you have an influence on how this will turn out! If you’re not sure if this is for you you can set up a free Q&A call here.
The purpose of this retreat is to set up a situation for you that fosters massive growth in all three pillars of sacred living. I am absolutely certain that if you participate wholeheartedly in The Art of Sacred Living, it will be impossible not to grow into a better version of yourself.
The teachers and class sessions being offered in The Art of Sacred Living have been carefully selected for this purpose and there is nothing being offered here as fluff or time-filler – the entire day will be packed with valuable lessons, insights, and inspiration that have helped many high performing people just like you reduce ordinary suffering, live maximally meaningful lives, and reach their full creative potential.
In The Art of Sacred Living, you’ll learn “high leverage” skills to strengthen those three pillars – wisdom, equanimity, and compassion. High leverage skills are skills that can be applied across a variety of situations and contexts, like a tool that can serve multiple functions.
The Retreat Experience
So what will it be like if you attend, and how do you deliberately grow in wisdom, equanimity, and compassion? A retreat might seem a little daunting if you’ve never been to one but it’s actually a really cool opportunity to get done what might be called “deep work.” When you really dive into work involving your core growth principles, you can enter powerful flow states (periods of relaxed, alert focus) that activate your innate creative forces and the wisdom function.
Every person has an innate creative spirit capable of limitless possibilities. Each person also has a wisdom function which, when active, can allow the person deeper insight into their own lives and see the ways that they are stuck in cyclic, reactive suffering. When you set aside our daily routine and submerge yourself in a retreat setting, whether at home or some remote mountain hut, you can tap into our creative spirit and wisdom function without distraction. We can listen to our intuition, our gut, our instincts, which are rich sources of information about our own lives – this can lead to new business or creative ideas, increased productivity, enhanced emotional attunement, and deeper connections to the people we care most about.
This retreat is fully online and you can participate from the comfort of your own home (or anywhere else you like!), which I think takes away some of the fear around submitting oneself to a full day retreat. This retreat is designed intentionally to be flexible enough for anyone to feel comfortable while still having an immersive experience.
The Art of Sacred Living will include several different ways of interacting with the material and other participants, to make accessing this workshop as easy as possible. I want to make this available to anyone who feels they could benefit from this content. In addition to the live sessions, recordings will be available to all participants for download and keep forever. Scholarships are also available for those who cannot afford the full cost. You’ll also be able to register for the entire retreat, or just a single workshop, making it even more flexible to attend.
The Layout
The retreat will be structured around four live classes/workshops with three impactful teachers and growth leaders.
Session One – 8:30am-10:00am: Introduction – How to Home Retreat/Mindfulness Practice in Daily Life (Daniel, Melinda, Carol)
- Learn the three basic skills of mindfulness: concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity
- Learn how to implement mindfulness skills in daily life to upgrade your “mental operating system”
- Learn how to reduce stress and anxiety while increasing productivity and creativity using mindful awareness
Session Two – 10:10am-12:00pm: “The Work” with Carol Van Der Meulen
- Identify and clarify false and limiting beliefs that cause us suffering
- question thoughts, befriend your mind and free your of chronic despair and anger
- Learn a specific set of techniques, we just call “The Work” to see that these limiting beliefs are empty constructions of mind.
Lunch Break – 12:00-1:30pm
Open discussion/free time
Mindful eating
Session Three – 1:30-3:10pm: Mindfulness and Creativity Workshop with Melinda Rothouse, Ph.D
- Learn specific techniques backed by research to increase productivity and creativity at work and home
- Get over writers block, pressure from deadlines, and other creativity killers
- Learn how to generate income from your creative work
Session Four – 3:20-4:30pm Teacher Panel Discussion and Q&A
- How to integrate these teachings and use them in your daily life
- Ask specific questions about your own practice, creativity, or anything else covered in the retreat that hasn’t been answered
Should I Register for The Art of Sacred Living?
How do you know if you’ll be a good match for The Art of Sacred Living virtual retreat? If you’re reading this now and feel that you want to be part of a process deliberately designed for huge growth in the areas of wisdom, equanimity, and compassion, then this retreat is for you. If you’re ready to deeply question and let go of false beliefs that are holding you back from the next level of growth and creativity – this retreat is for you. If you’re not totally sure, you can book a free Q&A call here, no strings attached.
Registration
Registering for The Art of Sacred Living is through Eventbrite and it’s super easy. All you have to do is click the register link or button and you’ll be directed to the ticket vendor. Once you order your ticket and submit a payment, you’ll get a confirmation email and you’ll be on the list!
The Art of Sacred Living Retreat – $100
Individual Workshops – $30
Can’t pay or want to donate a different amount? No problem – email Daniel at maha-citta@protonmail.com.
Teachers About The Instructors
Melinda Rothouse, Ph.D.
Melinda is a professional creativity, leadership, and career coach, consultant, educator, and facilitator based in Austin, Texas. She is a long time meditation practitioner and mindfulness educator, and leads contemplative arts and photography workshops and retreats both in the US and internationally. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology with a Specialization in Creativity Studies from Saybrook University, as well as Master’s degrees in religious studies and performance studies.
Carol Van der Meulen
Carol is the Asisstant Director of Clarity Coaching Institute in Salt Lake City and facilitates “The Work” of Byron Katie to individual clients and groups. A note from Carol:
“My experience is simple yet profound; I was mesmerized by the destructive power of my own thoughts and as a result I was angry, depressed and insecure. Self-inquiry enabled me to question my thoughts, befriend my mind and free myself of the chronic despair and anger. Life has become one of increasing joy and peace. As a highly trained and accomplished coach and facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie, and long-term student of Vipassana meditation, I offer the practical tools that guided me through my own life-changing transformation.”
Daniel Whiteside
Daniel is a meditation teacher and devoted practitioner, mathematics educator, and small business owner in Austin, Texas. His teaching style is integral, combining the best contemplative practices available across traditions with influences from educational psychology, neuroscience and adult development. Daniel is a Level 2 Unified Mindfulness coach, has been to retreats in the Zen and Mahamudra styles of meditation, and completed training programs with several leading teachers in North America.
