Top Five Reasons To Go on a Retreat
By Cynthia Revesz
Spiritual Coach, Emma Spencer Living
Have you ever returned from a trip and felt like you needed a vacation? A boozy-party vacation, reminiscent of college kids on spring break, can leave you feeling worse than if you never went. In the same way, an overscheduled theme-park or sightseeing extravaganza can drain you both mentally and physically. Plus, as often happens when traveling, overindulging in heavy restaurant meals, local snacks, or unhealthy fast foods can easily throw your digestion out of whack. After trips like these, you often return home in need of detox and some restorative, healthy sleep. Maybe it’s time to make your next getaway a vacation for the soul—where you nourish the body, relax the mind, and connect to the soul.
Here are five reasons to go on a retreat:
1. Allow yourself to just be. Modern life can be so busy. Days are filled with doing, doing, and more doing. It’s vital to regain balance and allow ourselves some unstructured time to just be.
2. Get some perspective. When we’re enmeshed in any situation, we can benefit from gaining new awareness by stepping back to see from a larger perspective. When we step back from our everyday lives, we may see new possibilities and creative solutions to difficult situations. Taking a mountaintop perspective can also give us new insight into our life path of discovering who we are and embodying our potential.
3. Break from routine. Life has a tendency to become routine. We all develop unconscious habits that can become almost automatic. So, of course, we can benefit from shaking things up and regaining some spontaneity!
4. Nourish yourself. If we give away too much of our energy through working and being on the go, we’ll become depleted and even burn out. It’s important to take time to rejuvenate and restore ourselves on all levels –mind, body, and spirit—by eating nutritious natural food, moving the body, resting the mind, and restoring our soul connection.
5. Connect with your deepest self. The material world can, if we let it, distract us from the vital inner work of learning, growing, and staying true to our soul self. Taking a vacation retreat to connect deeply within is a wonderful way to honor your essential self and the soul’s path.
A peaceful, serene environment is ideal for a retreat destination. Choose an area where nature abounds, healthful eating options are easily accessible, and the pace is slower and more relaxed. Next time you plan a trip, consider a spa, beach, or rainforest setting to not only get away, but to get in touch with your inner self.