My Lone Survivor Foundation Retreat Experience
- erin scanlon
- Jan 30, 2020
- 7 min read
i wanted to write this post detailing my experience as an attendee at a Lone Survivor Foundation retreat because of their upcoming fundraising WOD event at Crossfit Intrinsic this weekend, which I'll be at!! and because I've been meaning to talk about my experience ever since I attended, over a year ago... Oops. well better late than never!!
so let's get into it!!
the Lone Survivor Foundation is founded by retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who was the lone survivor of his team during a 2005 mission as shown in the book and movie.
the foundation's Mission (as pulled from their website lonesurvivorfoundation.org) is: Lone Survivor Foundation restores, empowers, and renews hope for wounded service members, veterans and their families through health, wellness, and therapeutic support.
their Vision and Goals are: 1. Build 3 – 4 nationally recognized therapeutic program facilities to allow us to better fulfill our mission and serve our growing waiting list of service members, veterans and families in need.
2. Stabilize and enhance family structures and relationships through education, counseling, support, and inspiration using short-term and referral programs.
3. Inspire and motivate Americans to recognize and offer support, mentorship, and care for our wounded service members, veterans and their families.
right now there is one retreat facility in Texas and one opening up soon in North Carolina!! i was fortunate enough to go to a retreat over a year ago at the Texas facility... so let me tell you about my experience!!
first of all, in my opinion, since its inception the foundation has done INCREDIBLE things for service-members/veterans and their families!!!!!!!! the foundation's retreats are a long weekend that is COMPLETELY COST-FREE to the veteran/service-member. each retreat is gender specific, and I went for my military sexual traumas/ PTSD/ depression struggles, just two months after the court martial for my case. so I got to spend an entire long weekend, paid for, on a therapeutic retreat, where I met a handful of other female veterans who also had the same MST struggles as I did. oh and because I was still on active duty when I went, and i was comfortable telling my command where I was going, they were able to work with the foundation put me on a no-cost PTDY so i didn't have to use any leave. (if you're on AD and don't want to tell your command, you can just take leave). the application process was super easy, you just fill out a form from the website, and don't even have to get a provider's letter, you just need to let them know what you struggle with whether its PTSD, TBIs, or MST, etc. the foundation organizes your entire travel itinerary and someone picks up all the retreat attendees at the airport. the retreat facility is amazing. it's so clean, filled with everything you could possibly need, and is like a big cool house that you're going to be sharing with your newest future BFFs. the house has a big kitchen and all meals are provided!!! plus a cool hang-out/living room where you can start to socialize with the other attendees. oh and the Texas facility is on the beach!!! and because it's all military, there's of course a big nice garage gym so you can lift during your free time! the first night is pretty chill, just everyone getting to know each other and the counselors, yoga teacher, team leaders, etc (all the staff who make this retreat work).
thennn my favorite part.... every morning started off with an optional sunrise yoga class but the on-staff yoga teacher!!! and this is not like crazy Twister pretzel yoga, unless you really want it to be. the yoga you practice all weekend is extremely accessible to EVERYONE!! no matter if you're a yogi master, don't even know what yoga is (& maybe don't want to know lol) or have any sort of physical limitations. yayyyy
then each day goes something like this... (from my memory of over a year ago...)
breakfast
group information/ knowledge classes (for example: TBIs, nutrition, healthy relationships, etc. )
group yoga/ meditation or group equine therapy
individual ART sessions (i'll get into this later)
rest/free period ( I definitely spent this time napping lol)
dinner
maybe another group activity/ class? (I can't remember exactly)
anddd YOGA NIDRA!! (the greatest thing ever and i'll get into this again too)
because the retreat is a long weekend, you get three full days of this schedule!!! it was awesome, and in my opinion, just the perfect balance of classes/active therapy, rest, and socializing with the other attendees (because that's the other great part about this! you get to meet all these other awesome service-members/veterans you have so much in common with!!)
(each retreat has a maximum of 10 participants)
so where did i get the most benefit from???? the ART and the Yoga
Soooo ART stands for Accelerated Resolution Therapy. and anyone who has been to professional counseling or is a counselor themselves (i've probably been enough for all of us! lol), knows that there are many different types or programs of TRADITIONAL (not yoga/ equine therapy/ art/ etc) counseling for trauma. such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy), PE (Prolonged Exposure Therapy), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and this newer one called ART.
NOW, I AM NOT a licensed therapist, or really licensed in anything? but i have done every one of these different types of therapy and i know how they affected me and i know the opinions of my providers and other mental health providers on each one of these. what i learned during my extensive years in therapy lol.... (AGAIN, MY OPINION, influenced by my providers or what I thought they said.)
-Prolonged exposure therapy.... the worst and most difficult thing you could put a victim of trauma through
-CBT/CPT... makes sense but boringgggggg. had to fill out a lot of worksheets and do a lot of "homework assignment worksheets" which were terrible and emotional to do, so i just stopped doing them..... also this is one of the only (or was the only) treatment for trauma that military installations offer and i think the VA for a long time. less than 50% of veterans who started CBT finished the program because it was so tough, digging up the trauma over weeks of sessions
-EMDR... a sort of cool new therapy for trauma, activates both sides of your brain during the weird waving your hand back and forth, to desensitize you to the trauma. makes sense because of the activation of both halves of your brain. (this is why you do so much great thinking on long walks when both sides of your body are being activated and working). VAs only just now starting offering this. can use EMDR to "process" anything or any thoughts you have. a lot of people i know like EMDR.
-ART... like EMDR but even another step further. i'd never even heard of ART until i was at the Lone Survivor Foundation retreat. i don't think the VA or installations provide ART to anyone! ART takes the activation of both halves of your brain with the hand waving technique, and then adds to it. During an ART processing session, you follow a certain structure. first you go through the trauma in your head like a movie, while processing it (the hand-waving), then you go through again highlighting the very triggering parts of the trauma, and replacing them with something happy/ not-scary/ funny/ un-emotional/ etc (basically replacing the bad memory with a not-bad one). then you go through your trauma-movie one more time and make sure that all the new, not-bad memory are sticking in place of the triggering memories! for example, if a trigger was a certain smell, as soon as you begin to smell that smell in the memory, your brain instantly goes to the new not-bad memory (or smell or image) that you've replaced the bad smell with. and you do it until the "re-do" happens almost instantly when you get triggered, and the memory or scene isn't upsetting any more!!!! also, during this process, any time a strong emotion or sensation (crying, shaking, tingling, etc) comes up, you pause and "process" that emotion or sensation until it goes away too. the thought behind this is that as soon as a strong enough emotion/sensation comes up, such as crying, your brain begins to shut down and isn't going to work at replacing those bad trigger memories with new ones!
at the retreat, i spent HOURS alone with the ART therapist, processing the trauma, and i don't think i have had a strong or bad emotional response to a trauma-related trigger since then!!!! my new not-bad movie has stuck in my head, and it allows me to talk about the trauma without getting upset! (you can also practice enforcing your new memories/movie every time you think about the trauma, practicing instantly pushing away the old trigger and replacing it with the new scene.
in short, Accelerated Resolution Therapy was AMAZING TO ME and helped me sooooo much!!!!!
my other favorite part of the retreat was deepening my yoga practice (don't i sound so yogi hippie-ish?? lol)
anyways, i got to work one-on-one with our yoga teacher for a while during my break, because she knew this was my favorite part.
and this is when i first became introduced to Yoga Nidra or Yogic Sleep.
Yoga nidra is AMAZINGGGGG!!!
it is a type of guided mediation that can be geared toward trauma victims for maximum benefit.
basically you lie down on your mat with pillows and blankets and anything else you need to keep you comfy, and you listen to the yoga teacher's voice for the 30 min (or however long practice). the goal is to follow along with her voice, focusing on what she tells you to focus on, but a lot of times people just fall asleep!!! it's basically like adult nap-time, with a lot of benefits for your brain health. for example, 45 minutes of practicing yoga nidra is equivalent to 3 hours of REM sleep in terms of rehabilitation and recovery/rest of your brain!! it's awesome!!! and during the retreat, yoga nidra was offered every night!
the last best part of the weekend for me was getting to network with all the awesome ladies at my retreat. we all became such good friends, sharing advice and stories, that we made ourselves a private Facebook group to stay in touch. i still talk to them and occasionally reach out for related advice.
another great thing about the Lone Survivor retreats is that they not only teach you a lot of different tools for healing, but they also share lots of resources with you at the end to continue practicing what you learned at the retreat. this was so important to me and is what caused me to get a scholarship through the Veterans Yoga Project (www.veteransyogaproject.org) to take the Mindful Resiliency Training class and get to learn more about guided mediation and its effects on your brain. (another blog post!)
in short, i'm so impressed with what the Lone Survivor Foundation has done so far (and all through donations!! no grants or government money!) so if you know someone who could benefit from a retreat or are looking for a great organization to donate to, be sure to check out their website at lonesurvivorfoundation.org !!!
****This post is in no way sponsored by the Lone Survivor Foundation, I just loved their retreats so much I wanted to share!!!******
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