Everything Under The Sun: Changing Life Scripts

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Changing Life Scripts

Elle Morgan

Elle Morgan has lived quite a varied life, from working with adjudicated girls in a wilderness program to teaching at an art/career center in the inner city to newspaper reporter and feature writer. She has become interested in transition points, when people make changes in the trajectory of their lives.

She has come up with a program that utilizes nature as a setting, providing an immersion experience that utilizes the arts and teaches healthier living. She and her husband bought a piece of property which they turned into the retreat center at Halfmoon Hollow, where THE ELEMENTS OF NEW LIFE SCRIPTS is run. She is able to program activities with a wonderful staff and student interns and faculty from nearby Penn State University.

The program first became directed towards helping adjudicated girls change their life scripts, or the direction in which their lives have taken them up to the present. It operates within the concept of providing restorative justice, the eventual result being to expunge their juvenile record.

Girls who are in this program can stay overnight and receive the necessary supplies to undertake their life-changing adventure. The Life Scripts portion of the program leads to the path of self-discovery, setting the girls on the path to a new life. The program uses theater/drama to help the teens rewrite their lives by enacting new life pathways. It changes the way of failure and low self-esteem that led the girls to make the poor choices that led to crime. By seeing themselves in a different light, with a more positive view of themselves, they can change the way they make decisions.

The girls spend four weekends at the retreat and are provided with different aspects of the curriculum, based on the basic elements of earth, water, fire, and air. They learn new ways to handle the problems and issues they find in life, including changing their inner dialogue, meditation, bonding with nature, and rewriting the story of their lives.

There are also other programs at New Life, including specific programs for wellness and weight loss, arranging guided adventures and hikes at four different venues for a half day up to three days, and retreat programs for small groups. It's hard to imagine that this much has happened in just a few short years.

Participants in an Earth Retreat in the gazebo.

So, if you are looking for assistance with those transition points in life and dream of an experience like that offered by Life Scripts, check this group out. You can change yourself and change the world.