“The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Nature, “We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
If you’ve ever spent time in Utah, you’ve spent time marveling at the never ending horizon which seems to be in most of the state’s open spaces. For first time visitors, the seemingly infinite natural space available to the eye is overwhelming. The eyes can barely adjust to what they see, because they can see forever. Every turn of the road, every mile of elevation climbed on a mountain trail, every change of the landscape, every new adventurous activity, the wealth of the world for a woman experiencing the wilderness increases. Just like the boundaries she is pushing in her internal world, the limits of her external world continue to expand. As she gains back her health from the trauma she’s survived, the addiction she has quit, or the mental illness she is learning to live in balance with, she finds that an expanding horizon is what she comes to demand of life.
Something within her has changed drastically. Her limitations have transformed into her liberation, from the depths of her suffering she has been set free. How she sees the horizon changes as well as changes her. Women who have lived through the effects of mental illness can be easily overwhelmed by the idea of too much and the intimidation of how to get through it all. Trying to control, analyze, and predict what will be out there in the world is exhausting. With time, therapy, and recovery, women become empowered by the idea of what lies ahead rather than fatigued by it. The vision of her future, much like the vision of the horizon, becomes a truth she can hold onto rather than a truth she feels she needs to avoid. As Emerson wrote, the demand of the horizon becomes the health of the eye- the demand of living life in recovery and building an ever-expanding world in recovery becomes the health of the woman who is recovering.
Women’s recovery programs created by women, run by women, made for women, are key to helping women navigate the many layers of their world both internally and externally. Created with the female experience especially in mind, the RedCliff Recovery program has been designed to help women believe in hope, live in joy, and find the freedom they deserve. For more information on women’s wilderness, call us today: 801.370.2274