“Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling.” ~Deborah Day
Imagine setting aside a day for you to reconnect, rejuvenate, and renew. On this day you intentionally choose calm over rushing, nurturing yourself over attending to everyone else first, and prioritizing your needs instead of squeezing yourself into the edges of your life. By the end of the day, you feel peaceful, grounded, replenished, and joyful in a way that feels hopeful and true.
And by choosing to give yourself permission to honor, love and nurture yourself, you not only feel different but recognize how differently you are able to show up in your life. You leave the experience knowing what thriving feels like in your body, mind, and spirit, and inspired with the possibility that survival is not your only option. That is the healing power of attending a retreat. It is like quenching your thirst and refilling your water bottle all at the same time!
For years I have dreamed of leading my own self-nurturing retreats. I have regularly facilitated workshops at women’s retreats over the years, been the keynote speaker at many, and enjoyed the benefits of attending retreats personally. I always feel more connected to myself, more grounded in what is important to me, filled up being in nature, and love experiencing a healing space with a community of women.
Healing in all forms inspires me, and I find the healing power of retreats unique, powerful, and transformative. Retreats offer women sacred space to reconnect with themselves, nourish their bodies and nervous systems, release what no longer serves them, and nurture themselves deeply while recommitting to practices that will help them thrive in their lives.
How often have you experienced defined intentional space and time to prioritize you?
If you find yourself saying not often, you are not alone. As women we care for everyone and everything in our lives leaving little time and space for ourselves. We tend to prioritize everyone else’s needs over our own and feel guilty taking time for ourselves. We are often the holders of overwhelming responsibilities and unrealistic expectations of pleasing everyone. We either end up at the bottom of our “to do” lists or not on them at all.
This pattern of over giving leads many women to feeling burned out, unappreciated, and lacking meaning in their lives. Living from this place of self-neglect does not feel good and is unsustainable. The physical and mental health consequences are serious and impact all the areas of our lives. We don’t need time and space to escape from life, but rather a nurturing place to return to who we are as we cultivate more peace and joy.
The healing power of a retreat is space where you can do just that with the intention of recharging, replenishing, and renewing. Retreats offer you much needed space to breathe, reflect, and simply be. They create real uninterrupted time to honor yourself and tune back into what is important to you. There is an unhurried aspect of time during a retreat that allows you to notice how you feel, connect to your body, calm your nervous system, remember what is important to you, and reconnect to the joy and glimmers available to you in each moment. If it is held in an outdoor location, you also have the healing power of nature to support your nurturing experience.
Being the leader in so many areas of your life, there is an added gift of a nurturing day designed just for you – you don’t have to plan, organize, prove anything to anyone, or earn your rest and relaxation. You only need to receive. That was my invitation to those who attended my first Art of Self-Nurturing Retreat – receive. And I can tell you it was not easy for some of the participants.
What I noticed through this experience is that strengthening your receiving muscles is another benefit of attending a retreat. For those who are so used to giving, receiving can feel uncomfortable at first. You could feel unsettled or even unworthy receiving. Learning to receive is part of the healing power of a retreat, both in recognizing the lesson in yourself and in witnessing other women choose to receive during the retreat. Learning to receive is transformational because receiving is where renewal begins.
And as Brene Brown wrote, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.”
There is something powerful about receiving a day for yourself. Not an hour or a rushed morning routine, but the spaciousness of an actual day. I heard that consistently from the women who attended my retreat. The act of setting aside a day for themselves was revolutionary and transformative. It inspired them to recommit to themselves and their own importance in their lives. They also recommitted to their self-nurturing practice and engaged in new practices like cultivating a glimmer practice. They reported feeling more grounded, open, connected, empowered, and nurtured as a result.
What was amazing is that we had women in every age and stage of life at our retreat, the youngest was a new mom in her twenties and the oldest was a great grandmother in her seventies. The overarching theme articulated was the need of each woman to nurture herself and the challenge of doing so consistently. It was deeply inspiring seeing the exponential growth that took place at the retreat with women sharing their challenges, break throughs, and abundant wisdom while consistently supporting each other.
It was empowering witnessing women share their intentions for being at the retreat, read the encouraging love notes they wrote to each other, practice yoga under the trees, mediate with the birds chirping in support, reflect on what being on retreat meant to them, ground with nurturing rituals, and close the day with a dance party.
I loved leading the self-nurturing retreat and am inspired to offer them each season to provide time and space for this deeper work. It was a total joy to watch women fall in love with themselves again and to experience the laughter, connection, and creativity that comes from being our authentic selves. Life is not a dress rehearsal and finding ways to return home to ourselves is essential to living life fully.
I love this wisdom from Marie Beynon Ray, “Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We only have this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.”
May you be inspired by the healing power of retreats to nurture more peace, compassion and hope in the world from the inside out.
Sending you so much peace, love and gratitude, Kelley
