Packing Your Mind, and Your Suitcase for a Retreat
Everything you need and the things you can leave behind for your retreat.
I have been leading yoga retreats internationally since 2020 and have traveled to Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and I’m heading to Portugal this coming October. Yes, that’s right, I started taking groups of people across the globe during the pandemic. Every one of my group emails that gets sent before we depart begins, “Travel can be stressful…”
Interestingly, what seems to cause the most anxiety has little to do with the travel itself. Here are the top three questions I receive from people inquiring about attending one of my retreats:
Can I drink (insert alcoholic beverage)?
Am I good enough at yoga?
What do I need to pack?
To answer the first two questions, I offer you a resounding YES!
I do not plan my retreats to be dietary cleanses nor do I only offer vigorous power flow yoga classes. Although the programming for each of my retreats varies, there is a constant thread of connecting your yoga to your everyday life and discovering or deepening your yoga practice beyond the physical practice.
While I believe it should give you pause to inquire while a week without having a glass of wine is terrifying, I honestly don’t care if you have one glass or one bottle. If that wine gives you joy then cheers! But be open to inquiring if that wine is a way of numbing or escaping something you don’t want to deal with or the uncomfortableness of looking at yourself with radical honesty.
In regards to the offered daily yoga practices, not every class or every pose will be for everybody. Those who attend can pick and choose what they would like to attend. I offer a variety of yoga classes throughout the week because I practice a variety of styles and I truly believe each day is different, each day we are different and I hate the labels advanced and beginner. My goal is that when people leave the retreat they feel empowered and confident to create a practice that fits the needs of their body and their soul. Can we be open to the changing needs of our practice as the seasons of nature change and we move through different seasons of our life?
Our yoga practice goes beyond the asana. The retreat environment offers the ever elusive time and space to explore the seven other limbs of yoga while connecting to a community of people who are also doing the work of living better.
Retreating you see, it's a different mindset than vacationing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing taking a vacation. But, when we vacation we tend to escape. We overeat, over drink, and pack our time full of activities. And that can be super fun! Retreating, however, is also fun. We balance a schedule with space. In this space you choose if it needs to be filled, or experience the fulfillment of quietness, stillness, rest and perhaps you find you have had the time all along.
If there is a goal to retreating, it would be getting to know YOU all over again. You without the label of your role in other’s lives or the title of your job. You without the daily obligations. You just showing up for yourself.
Now that those questions are out of the way and you are ready to commit to this investment in your well-being, what do you pack? Subscribe to my newsletter and you will receive a FREE retreat packing list.