In today’s busy world, people have forgotten their ability to live an enlight­ened life.

     Theresa O’Connor hopes to change that during the weeklong retreat she will lead at Prairiewoods. The “Your Life, Your Light: Enlightenment” retreat of­fered, July 4 to July 10 at Prairiewoods, will guide people to the experience of enlight­enment.  

    “These programs are always very different, but they teach people that enlightenment is a lot like the infinity symbol. We have one foot in the material world and the other on the other side. At any one time, we have the ability to be in either world. Enlightenment, in my under­standing, is consciously understanding the essence of the light that is in us always, but we’re too distracted to be aware of it,” says O’Connor from her office in Philadel­phia .

    O’Connor has spent a career that spans three decades in the fields of transpersonal and energy psychology, as well as mind-body and vibrational medicine. When she graduated from Yale University in 1981, physician Bernie Siegel was breaking new ground in the field of healing. O’Connor was involved in the initial group that worked with Siegel and cancer patients using visualization techniques.

     “The work they were doing was cutting edge 30 years ago,” she says. “It’s taken all that time to get it into the main­stream.”

    O’Connor says as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, we are being told by experts in many fields that we are moving from the informa­tion age into the age of intuition, where information and higher knowing are ac­cessed.

    “I see more interest in intuitive thinking, particularly at the coaching level where I’ll meet with someone on a once-a-week or monthly basis,’’ she explains. “It’s not so much teaching intuition. It’s allowing people to come to the experi­ence of what is shifting in themselves, giving them pointers or sharing my own experiences that this is how I understand the place you’re in.”

     O’Connor has found work within the business world with executives and entrepreneurs who want to integrate their own spirituality and values into their businesses and decisions to make an impact on the world.

     “Dynamic, determined leaders are learning new ways of decision making, in balanced living and in giving back,” she says. “The development of inner intuition and insight, with an integration of mind, body and spirit is now sought in conscious workplaces.”

     Her retreats on enlightenment began at the Franciscan Spirituality Center , the Christine Center in Willard , Wisconsin . They’ve grown from a “basics” course on enlightenment to offering more advanced work. The Prairiewoods retreat will offer some silence, as well as being “experiential.”

     “I expect by the time people leave there will be a dif­ference in them. We know from research that we can forget knowledge quickly. Unless there has been a cellular experiential  spiritual shift...it isn’t transformative. My goal (for this retreat) is for it to be transformative. I want people to leave remembering the light that is in their essence and that, in many ways, we’ve forgot­ten.”