Reveille Ideals for Every Day

Every August I hold my women’s wellness retreat, Camp Reveille, in Naples, Maine. It’s a place for women to come and relax, recharge, and jump-start their fitness.

Each summer on opening night of Camp Reveille we hold a camp fire ceremony where women get to dance and let loose. During the ceremony, we have a few selected campers read the Reveille Arch Ideals. These are ideals that create a foundation for the weekend. They are values for campers to focus on while at camp and also, to take home after the weekend is over. Since these ideals are important for all women all year round I want to share them with all of you.

REJUVENATION

Take time to relax, play, and renew your spirit. Make the effort to join that tennis teams, or that softball league, take a power walk with a neightbor, take a nap, read a book, but by all means be sure to have lots of fun daily! It recharges you and keeps you young and healthy.

GRATITUDE

Appreiciate the wonderufl things in life. Simply by shifting your focus from what’s missing or what’s wrong, to that which is wonderful – we can shift our emotional state and our outlook on life.  Studies all concur that having a sense of gratitude and holding onto a positive outlook will help us to maintain good health and help to extend our lives.

HONESTY

We can experience a sense of freedom when we can be completely truthful, not only with others, but even more importantly, with ourselves. Freedom and happiness come to us when we are not hiding anything from anyone.

COURAGE

To own up to mistakes; to recognize that you are not perfect; to remember that you will make more mistakes; this is really courage. Courage is a thing of the heart, not the body, and it takes lots of practice. Life is your opportunity to get lots of experience.

FAITH

Faith is a belief, a conviction, a knowledge that something exists which is bigger, better, and stronger than us. We need faith in ourselves and we hold to those ideas that make ourselves and our families and our communities strong.

TOLERANCE

To have the strength of our own convictions is a mark of maturity. This maturity also means respect for the customs and ideas of others we can and should show a willingness to permit and endure the beliefs and actions of another person, even if we do not approve of them.

PERSERVERENCE

 We must believe in ourselves, our dreams, and our goals.  We gain strength, courage and confidence each time we face a challenge and see it through.

WELLNESS

Taking responsibility for our health, making healthy choices in eating and exercise, listening to our bodies, and having the necessary check-ups, is the foundation for a longer healthier active fun-filled life.  Know you family history, know your risk factors. The investment you make in yourself and your health today, will determine the quality of your life years from now.

KINDNESS

Kindness is powerful and contagious.  We should never underestimate the potential of a friendly smile, a gentle touch, or a supportive word. And our own rough edges can often become smooth as we help a friend smooth thier edges.

PASSION

We never know what we can do until we try.  And only those that risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

FORGIVENESS

You cannot take charge of the present if you are busy reliving the disappointments and setbacks of the past. Holding onto negative emotions not only gives us tense muscles and a headache but they can literally wear down our immune system and leave us physically vulnerable. By learning to forgive (both ourselves and others), and by thinking positive we can transform our lives.

INTEGRITY

Do away with cutting corners; wipe away the false smile; see things and situations as they really are, not as we would like to see them. The open, healthy appreciation of all that is around us, the inner driving force that makes us real people, not puppets to be pushed and pulled by others; this is integrity