Her April 7th Breakthrough Retreat is titled Created to Shine, Unlock Your Hope, Peace & Purpose. The retreat is during April purposely because it is Sexual Assault Awareness month. But for Mary Lingelbach, who has been holding these retreats for over 10 years, returning to her hometown of Minot is important because “I am able to bring this retreat to them where women from all around, Velva, Sawyer, Max, (and of course the Minot Air Force Base) can attend” according to Mary.

And the retreat is not only about sexual abuse, “it deals with wounds from the past. Divorce, incest, abortion, miscarriage” continues Mary “by working with women to teach them to live intentionally free every day, to walk in their purpose. It’s not my purpose, it’s totally their purpose.”

Mary Lingelbach shares that many deal with these issues every day. “But when they try to find help they are sabotaged by fear and doubt and that causes them to stumble along the way as they struggle to find help.”

She explains that the very nature of a women is to care. “The find themselves caring for a family and kids while still maintaining a job. They are the first ones out there, on the front lines, and thus they turn themselves ragged and start to wear down. They often find themselves dealing with depression, stressed relationships, and health issues. We (women) kind of do it backwards. In an airplane they tell you that if the oxygen masks come down to help yourself first, and then help others. We find ourselves helping others and not have the time or the energy to help ourselves.”

Mary explains that she doesn’t want women who attend the retreat to think that they will hear from someone who thinks they have it all together “I don’t” she explains “All women deal with these things, and they don’t necessarily have the energy or the time to stop and take care of themselves.”

I believe that we need to “live life intentionally every day. We all have hurts, kind of like pricking you finger with a thorn. But you can’t dwell on that hurt forever. All those hurts don’t have to define you. Life is full of thorns, that doesn’t have to ruin your life. A lot of times in life we need to just rip off the scab and address the hurt. We can’t do that too soon, sometimes it takes time, but we need to take steps toward a life of hope and peace, and experience what that life may look like.”

According to Mary women who attend the retreat will be learning about themselves, “and learning that from the knowledge they gain, they can apply that knowledge and gain wisdom. Not one size fits all. They can answer the questions they have about their lives, and now they can define themselves. As a life coach I have worked with women who are millionaires. But having money doesn’t mean they have it all together.”

Mary hopes that women at the retreat learn about themselves, and then they can apply that knowledge to walk in the gifts they have and help others. “I’m really pretty black & white. I am there to help the women who attend. If what we find out hurts, it hurts. If it’s sad, it’s sad. I want to be able to encourage them to step out because there is so much more. Fear holds us back; My heart is for the women to be able to come, and not just take away knowledge, but take away a nugget of truth and be that person that they were created to be. They have been equipped and empowered to carry that through life. So often 2-5 years later they are dealing with the same things. I want to show them how to move on.”

Mary shares that “the #1 thing women do? They care for others. Once we have been abused then we (women) pull back and don’t want to care for others. We often hide behind the caring. There are those around us who are very caring, But we look into their life and it’s a train wreck.”

Mary also hopes to teach women “To be able to love like you’ve never been hurt. And yet we know that life is going to hurt us.”

No reservations needed for the April 7th retreat. It takes place at the Grand Hotel, 1505 North Broadway, from 4 to 6 PM in the Kevske room. “Created to Shine. Come expecting to receive what you need to be all that you can be.”