Relationships and Work Retreat

Finding myself at Hinchinbrook Island and Mt Bartle Frere

I found Terry and Find Yourself in Nature by way of a business advisor, who highly recommended Terry to aid me not only in business improvement but also by way of attending to my own personal beliefs, attitudes and stress levels that he felt were holding me back. At that time I was 48 years old and running my own domestic construction company.

Finding myself in Nature has been one of the most freeing and enlighten tools I have ever come across in my life (and I have been to a lot of seminars and read a lot of books). Why? The fact that I could physical and mentally feel the changes accruing as I applied the methods I learnt while being out in nature. This ability to experience change for the better, was (and still is) the most powerful way in which I could get out of my head, relax and allow the process of life to carry on without the pain and stress with which I was living.

Hinchinbrook Island

Hinchinbrook Island


In 2006 Iwas in a double-blind and desperately looking to be free of the way life appeared for me at the time. I was too much in my intellectual mind and found it very hard to get out. This situation came to a head when my wife and children took me for a holiday to Dunk Island resort to try and relax. My mental state was totally confused, stressed and depressing.

The first afternoon I was sitting at a dining table looking out across the lawn to a pool in which my children were swimming. They were having such a great time and a beautiful sunset was splashing amazing colour across the ocean and the rainforest on the mountains of the mainland. Anyone else at the time would have felt as if they were in paradise, but as much as I was aware of this fact, I was in total hell in mind and body with an enormous feeling of having no way out.

Suicide wasn’t on my mind but I can now certainly understand why people would do this and many other harmful acts, not only to themselves but loved ones around them.

I can only say something beyond me drew me in this direction to get help. I knew I had to do something and going to a shrink was not for me.

The first visit to see Terry was so freeing, I had to have more of this work until I was back in a state of control. What Terry showed me, by way of a simple and natural process was what was going on inside myself. So strangely the journey out of this hell was via an inward process. A place I believe many dare not go for fear of their own hidden truths.


How would I rate my life at the time? To answer that while sitting here now typing this I understand the power of it even more. It’s sort of hurts to even recall and it’s hard to put in words . A few people had mentioned, including Terry, that had I not made that first visit I would have been dead or at least had a heart attack within two years. So out of 10 with 10 being the worst case I reckon I could mark myself down as 11!

But who can measure one’s personal pain and what creates it? No one but themselves!

Physically I was ok except for a few pains. But one of the most surprising things I enjoyed from Terry was this ability to aid recovery holistically via three main areas.

  1. Mentally: practical to aidmyself anywhere any time and bring my mind and anxiety under control.
  2. Physically: By doing blood and urine tests, checking out my general health parameters and going about correcting my gut and liver which are said to be the seat of our health.
  3. Energetically: I was pretty much full up trying to solve the dilemma in my head about my wife and children living in our home up in north Queensland while I commuted to Brisbane for sometimes weeks on end , for the almighty dollar and the bank manager. I missed them terribly and could not see a way to do that and keep a successful business going here in Brisbane at the same time.

I also had commitments to a big staff, a growing company and newly introduced technology, which promised to free me up from the coalface of the business process and allow me to work in a more autonomous sense up north and be with my family. Hence that left me feeling sad, lonely and lost, just to support the one and only thing I loved, my family.

When I started work with Terry I discovered “Space” and just wanted more and more of it and still do today. Free space inside my head was new to me and addictive. It was a welcome relief from the congested, jam packed full and frazzled feeling that I had experienced for years.


When the time was right, Terry invited me on a Find Yourself in Nature retreat which turned out to be more of an adventure to Hinchinbrook Island and the world Heritage Thorsborne Trail. There is a place there called Zoe Bay that I had been at anchor for a few days in my yacht some 18 years previously.

It was a place etched deeply in my memory as deeply relaxing, stunningly beautiful and having an energy that really resonated with me and made me feel at home. We decided to go there but with the yacht undergoing renovations, backpacking seemed a good alternative.


We had a really good time and for the first time in years I got out of my mind and came to my senses. I learned to simply allow life to flow along without pushing and pulling and believing that life is a struggle, and not feeling like I was going to miss the bus of the next business opportunity.

One big thing was a feeling of treading more quietly through life and trusting the flow and eventually the future instead of worrying about it all the time. I dropped a lot of mental baggage and material things that I didn’t really need and started finishing things one at a time in order to structure my return to the family.

My life now is more in the NOW as nature is, and I have a sense of deep internal joy. This is a still a developing thing and the more ‘I get it’ the morrrrre I get it. I also now know that life has a flip side to the coin, and I can choose to focus on the positive or the negative without going backwards or losing my mental calm. There are so many experiences……. A feeling of alignment is another, as would be a new sense of self and who I really am, but the thing I enjoy most is that my confidence has returned.

Without a doubt I would recommend the Find Yourself in Nature program. The journey to know thy self can be a hard one but the rewards are priceless and it gets better, and the better it gets, the better it gets.


We went out into nature again two years ago, this time to climb the highest peak in Queensland, Mt Bartle Frere and spend a few days camping and working at the top. It was a vastly healthier and happier me that went on this trip, more as a celebration of what we had achieved but also to chart and plan my future.

Again, we had a ball and the revelations and clarity came thick and fast, and even though I thought I was relatively “fixed”, I gained valuable insights into the deeper aspects of my personality and how they operated in my relationships and at work.


I found it valuable to continue regular coaching with Terry to guide me not only in my personal life but to check that my business decisions are in alignment with my true purpose.

With gratitude,

Don Kraushaar

Owner/Director, DKC Construction.

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