We Cannot Heal Alone: My Latest Reflections After Leading a Retreat

**Anna McBride** (0:03)
Welcome back to SHE Asked Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host Anna McBride, and I'm glad you're here today. Today's episode is different. It's just me. I'm recording this a few days after returning from a retreat that I led up in the Catskills of New York. The Medicine of Spring, we called it, and I'm still integrating everything I gained from that experience. Whenever I host a retreat, I think I'm going there to teach. And every single time I leave, learning more than I think that I've imparted on others.
This weekend reminded me of the incredible healing that happens when women come together with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be seen. So today, I want to share a few reflections about teamwork, vulnerability, and the power of community.
And why I believe healing was never meant to happen alone. For so many women, independence becomes a badge of honor. I know, because I've worn it. You become the caretaker, the fixer, the strong one, the person everyone else relies on. And while there is beauty in being capable, there is also a cost. I think back to all the hard times in my life and how I really thought I had to do it on my own. I told myself the story that nobody was going to help me, that even if they wanted to help me, they wanted to do it their way, not my way. They weren't willing to listen. And everybody was so busy, why would they want to help me? These were several different narratives that I carried about my experience. And here's the thing about telling yourself that kind of story. All it does is keep you stuck in suffering.
It really doesn't help. What helps is asking for help. Really, really asking for help. And being willing to receive it when it's offered. Because that was also a difficult thing that I had, was that there were many people, many along the way that wanted to help me.
I just had told myself the story that receiving help was a sign of weakness.
Because these are the narratives I grew up with. You are the strong one, or you're the problem. You are the caretaker, or you are taking away from people who need help. You are the fixer, or you're weak. Yeah. When you're telling yourself those kinds of narratives, or carrying that, it is really a tough life.
So I'm grateful that I've learned to chip away from that armor so that I could let people in. I also noticed that the women that I coached that were like me, or are like me, show up exhausted. It is exhausting doing everything yourself, carrying the heavy load, not asking for help, thinking you have to figure it out on your own. It's exhausting.
So women show up generally waving that white flag because they're tired and they don't know what to do.
And I'm really grateful when they think of me because I wanted to be able to help women know that's not the way life's supposed to work. We're not supposed to heal on our own. We need to connect with others that can help us. And I know that receiving help can feel uncomfortable. And I know that asking for help can be more uncomfortable.
The beauty of going to a retreat is that it's really designed to create such a safe space that you can do both. You can receive help, you can get help. And the third part of it is that you can be restored. You can rest. And that is what we were really happy to provide for the people who showed up for our retreat.
One of the things I witnessed at the retreat is what happens when women finally put down their armor. I am always amazed when I see a version of myself show up at a retreat, the version of me that had it all together, that was all cleaned up, buttoned up, everything looked great on the outside. Yet knowing what they were carrying, they were barely holding it together on the inside.
And we had a few of those show up. And it was great to watch them to stop performing. It was great to watch them become more vulnerable, more open with the group, and let themself be seen as human.
Women among women. It was amazing. I tell my clients that healing begins, transformation begins, when we're willing to tell the truth. And not just the story we think everybody wants to hear, but the real truth, not the polished version, the real version. At the retreat, we heard stories from these women that they've carried for years and haven't told many or any body.