Thank You Free Spirit!

The program itself was super fun, I learned how to weld, hiked the Eilat mountains, sorted goldfish (which makes for an excellent conversation starter), and got to sing in a showcase for the entire kibbutz!! There are also weekends off where you get to live with a host family and they take care to pair you with a good match. My host family was absolutely lovely and we had a blast playing board games together, attending birthday parties, and exploring Tel Aviv.
Of course, the real highlights of the free spirit experience come from the personal growth and community you can achieve there. Free spirit helped me find who I wanted to live as and grow into my own skin more comfortably. It was at free spirit that I really felt like I started to develop a sense of who I am and stability in that. One of my good friends in the program said that I seem like someone who spent a lot of time trying to find the right box to fit into before realizing that I couldn’t fit into any and therefore just had to be me. I think that sense of self he was referring to was one of the greatest things free spirit gave me. While free spirit was a program, it felt more like a family and a community in many ways. Having been in several different programs, I know that that is special. There’s a personal element in that the counselors and the participants are friends and there to help each other as opposed to all on their own individual regimen that counselors are there to enforce. We work together and we also enjoy each other’s company and do fun things with each other. That said, it wasn’t all perfect and easygoing. I often butted heads with people in the program but the staff handled these conflicts with such diligence and compassion that I am grateful for the conflicts and the ways I was able to grow from them. The person who was the hardest for me to get along with is now one of my best friends in the whole world and has taught me to show compassion before judgement
I will forever be grateful to free spirit and everything I got from this program and the incredible people there.