Learning to live wisely and love well at Christus LiveWell Women's Conference

Women, and even a few men, from across Southeast Texas gathered at the Christus LiveWell Women’s Conference May 12 in Beaumont to learn about healthy living for the mind, body and soul with multiple workshops and health screenings.

Keynote speaker actress and children’s book author Jamie Lee Curtis gave a charismatic talk at the conference about “living wisely and loving well.”

She told the story of when she found out Princess Diana died, she read the preamble of a meditation book that stated at the end of one’s life, people need ask only one or two questions about their life: “Did I learn to live wisely? And did I love well?”

It was in that moment that Curtis decided to get sober after being addicted to opiates for 10 years.

She also spoke passionately about being the example for daughters.

“Moms, if you look in the mirror and say, ‘What a fat pig,’ do NOT be surprised when you’re 15-year-old daughter looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘What a fat pig,'” she said. “What is it really saying to our daughters? When we take a picture to put on social media and we apply all these filters, what is that saying? We’re telling our young daughters that the pictures they take of themselves aren’t good enough. That’s wrong because they are beautiful — but they don’t think they’re beautiful unless they throw a filter over their photo. I raised a daughter without social media and I don’t know how you’re going to do it.”

At the conference, the Diocese of Beaumont was represented by “The Women of Beth,” a branch off of the Encounter Catholic booth one may see at Mardi Gras each year. Attendees were given prayer bracelets and materials with powerful words by strong women, such as Martha, Blessed Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day.

The Women of Beth booth drew large crowds to the Prayer Tree where attendees could write down their burdens on a ribbon and tie the ribbon onto the tree branch as a way of leaving their struggles behind and letting them go. Many women, some with tears in their eyes, knotted their burdens to the tree branch and were given “Mary, the Undoer of Knots” prayer cards to pray that Mary would ask her son to undo the knots.