Connection is the key to well being. . .

I just returned from a Hazelden Women Healing Conference that was held in downtown Chicago.  I have referred to these women’s conferences in other blogs.  They are wonderful gatherings that are generally attended by two or three hundred women.  The first day of the conference is geared for the professionals who are working with women in some phase of the treatment setting.  The second day is a celebratory day for all women in recovery and the talks are educational as well as motivational and inspirational.  CEU credits are available on both days which is an added value, of course.

Women love the content, the sophistication of the presentations that are given and the opportunity to connect with other women who are working in the field. They also love the atmosphere of hope and joy that is ever-present.  I have been a part of these conferences for more than a dozen years and look forward to every one of them.

To date, we have done about 60 of them which means we have connected with tens of thousands of women in this last dozen years.  Every woman who has connected with us has carried a message of hope coupled with new information to her clients, her sponsees or her friends when she left.

I think that’s the underlying value of any program such as this one.  In fact, I think that’s the underlying value of any gathering of like-minded souls.  We need the connection we make with each other.  We need to know that we matter, that we are being witnessed to on our path, that we are not invisible; a feeling many of us might have had in our youth.  It was certainly a feeling that haunted me well into my thirties.  Simply coming to a gathering of any kind where women hold out hope and love for one another adds value to the world we all share.

On your path every day you are meeting the very people who have been “called” to encounter you.  I wasn’t always comfortable with this idea but now I find it comforting because it answers many questions and relieves many of the uncertainties of my past life.  And this, in turn, removes any doubt I may manufacture about what might lie ahead.  What ever does lie ahead is the connection I have been readied for.  What a peaceful idea this is to me.  I am ready for whatever comes.  And you are too.