Helping Bermuda heal
For anyone who is hurting, Saturday brings a chance for healing. It’s an opportunity open to all of Bermuda. Organisers Clare Dominguez and Melanie Dupres offered it believing that, like them, many residents felt “unsettled not only due to ongoing uncertainty with global events, but by our internal struggles to get along with each other peacefully”.
Called “Agents of Change”, the retreat is in keeping with the bigger mission of Explore In, a company Ms Dominguez created to “help people feel more whole and empower harmonious connections with self, others and our planet”.
Through it, she runs a wellbeing programme at Rosewood Bermuda and teaches cave yoga classes at Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa. At the company’s new hub, on Somers Wharf in St George, she offers classes in movement.
Explore In has opened an operations hub in the Town of St George.
The waterfront studio on Somers Wharf was previously occupied by the nail salon, Lacquered Lounge.
It has since been transformed to offer yoga, vinyasa, yin, body weight strength and conditioning and other classes taught by Explore In.
The group is known for its wellbeing programme at Rosewood Bermuda and cave yoga classes at Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa.
“We’re getting to know the local community and figuring out what works for them in terms of scheduling the things that will most benefit them at this time,” said Clare Dominguez, a yoga teacher and ayurvedic health coach who has a background in exercise physiology.
A “soft opening” has paved the way for roughly 15 classes a week and two activities scheduled every Saturday and Sunday.
“At the moment people are away for summer and people are still finding out about us so the sign ups are low, we have a lot of those classes without anyone in them, but we're registering where the interest is.”
A survey sent around when the hub opened on June 21 gave feedback as did many people on Explore In’s mailing list.
The idea was to learn the kinds of services people were looking for and the physical, mental and spiritual health problems they needed solving. The hope is to create a proper schedule and expand the studio’s offerings next month.
“It's a beautiful space. The sound of the water in the back of the building is absolutely lovely. We're in the hottest months of the year right now and still, if there's a breeze in existence anywhere in this region, it's going to come through the back door,” Ms Dominguez said. “Just being able to have that direct contact with nature within the sanctuary of a studio is a lovely container to step into for that hour or so of self-inquiry.”
For more information visit explorein.net
Saturday is a daylong event intentionally designed for a small group. People who sign up are promised to benefit from practices such as slow flow yoga, guided self-reflection, cold water immersion.
A four-hour sailboat cruise with sound healing is also included.
“It's become quite clear that there are a lot of people in Bermuda who are struggling to live in peace with themselves and also with each other. And so it's, in a way, a response to some quite shocking recent events,” said Ms Dominguez, a yoga teacher and ayurvedic health coach who has a background in exercise physiology.
“[Generally] we have such a blessed life here [but] there are world events that kind of make you wonder about the human condition.
“We're a little removed from them but we have had some recent reminders of how alive that sort of conflict is within [Bermuda].”
It’s with that in mind that the ice bath is part of Saturday’s list of events. Stress in a controlled environment was something that Ms Dominguez felt would be useful in helping people understand themselves better.
“It makes us think about what we have inside of us when we go to these places, and then what we do with that,” she said.
“When I'm in a hurry and I get stuck behind a line of landscaping trucks on a curvy road, my default in that situation is that I imagine that the trucks are my convoy and they're taking me to where I want to go; they're clearing my path for me,” she said.
“But, I have to do these mental gymnastics to be able to find peace within myself and not do the thing that I might want to do, which is to overtake not knowing what's coming around that blind corner.”
As she considered the retreat Ms Dominguez reached out to Ms Dupres, “a natural space holder who has been contributing to our growth over the last two years and brings together many years of study and experience in the fields of homeopathy, yoga and nutrition”.
Ms Dupres instantly said yes.
“I think it's such an impactful topic right now and I think it is important to talk about it, because we're working on a lot of assumptions,” Ms Dupres explained.
“The incidents that have been happening are around violence and young people losing their lives without even having a moment to understand what their life is about.”
In past times, Bermuda would only hear about such occurrences happening elsewhere, Ms Dupres said.
“Now it's definitely on everybody's doorstep, in everybody's awareness, and it's too much.
“So it's these specific things ― the road accidents, the violence and the loss of life ― that have to be addressed by everyone.
“This retreat offers the opportunity to look at that within ourselves; how can we change? Because it's only through us changing that the situation outside of ourselves changes. And I don't know how many people understand that.”
There are only 15 spaces available on the retreat. After the yoga, the guided breath work and an open group discussion, participants will move onto a 44ft sailboat where there will be a chance to swim before the sound healing takes place, sometime around sunset.
“[It is] a form of vibrational medicine that, regardless of your beliefs in spirituality or not, just the fact that we have this physical form that is mostly water, when sound is produced it has an impact on the configuration of those crystals of water that are inside of us,” Ms Dominguez said. “And so it is innately healing of its own nature.”
The pair have reached out to various stakeholders for support.
Their hope is that psychologists and similar health professionals might help in their efforts to build a network that they can share with participants on the retreat.
It’s all in keeping with her reason for having the retreat.
“It's possible for us to feel peace, inside of us and to relate to each other and the planet in a peaceful way.
“It's definitely a journey and it starts in the heart of each one of us. It can be difficult to create that space for people to be vulnerable and to be able to let go and to witness their own judgments and their own assumptions and to be in a community that is oriented around a safe place for self-expression,” Ms Dominguez said.
“You have to carve that time out to do that. It's very difficult to do that while you're driving to work, doing the shopping, thinking about [your day to day].”
• The Agents of Change retreat takes place on Saturday starting at 11am. To reserve a space, visit explorein.net
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