The Importance of Retreat

Hey loves!

How often do you hold space and time dedicated to your wellbeing?

What does that mean to hold space?

How can we use this time most effectively?

Holding space means dedicating time and place to interacting with yourself in order to drop judgements and courageously allow truth to flow. It is not easy and can open up CHANGE. Which is scary! But if you are in a low state that doesn't make you feel good, this process is necessary and very powerful.

Step 1- PUT ALL DISTRACTIONS AWAY.

Put your phone away. Put your pets away. Put your to do list AWAY. Dedicating specific time frames with no distractions communicates to your essence that this is important. Once you make healing a priority in your world, it will happen swiftly and magically.

Step 2- Admit your truth.

Meditate, get grounded, drop all judgements and allow your truth to be revealed. Don't know how to get the feelings out? Journal! This is my number 1 way to get real with myself. Using journal prompts and simply asking yourself hard questions allows you to direct your journal flow. Try continuously writing without stopping for 5 minutes and see what comes out! Allow thoughts to flow rather than applying serious scrutiny to what you are saying. Read your entries and question the truth of what comes out. Do you carry judgements? resentment? What themes or feelings do you see repeat? Are your responses to reality or to your own assumptions?

You may find that writing something down, then reading it aloud gives you a more objective perspective of your own mind matter. If you don't like what you see, read or discover, then redirect it!

Step 3- Redirect!

Use affirmations to change the direction of your feelings! Create statements that begin with "I" and continue with declarations of positives states of being. I am content. I am strong. I am of service. I am enough. I am bountiful!

There is much to be said about affirmations and self talk that a whole blog post can be dedicated to just that topic. Explore this practice and be moved.

This past weekend, I went on retreat. This is to hold space for an extended period of time. Maybe a day or more. Anahata's Purpose is a weekend retreat festival that takes place at Camp Oak Hill in Nottingham, PA, organized by the great and beautiful lady bosses, Rachel Mitton and Grace Sacco. These two lovely, powerful Goddesses know what it is to do the work on themselves to transform their essence and emerge empowered. It is so inspiring to me that they dedicate much energy to holding space for other folks. This act of love and service is a perfect example of how to heal yourself through giving love to the world. Putting forth love and devotion creates an eternal ripple out to the Universe, which then make waves of renewed energy abound from the Universe within. When we hold space for healing, all receive!

My retreat experience involved offering my healing Craft via Bijou Blessings. In my vending tent, I set up a reiki table, with a crystal FIR mat. I brought many crystals, essential oils and a few sound healing tools to work with if I felt called to do so. I know that providing this much healing takes a toll on my personal reserve so I got a reiki massage before I went, set many intentions and cast much protection on myself. This is a great practice for any attendee since there is a great deal of energy flowing throughout the atmosphere at events like these. I was given a plot of land to set up my healing space and cast protection around this area as well. I wanted to make my space inviting, comfortable and beautiful. Rachel and Grace also hooked it up with electricity so a big thank you to them!

My tent was in line with a vendors row set up, luckily in the afternoon shade! There was definitely pure magick in the atmosphere because Saturday morning there was a cicada climbing out of his skin, shedding his crunchy layer and freeing his wings! It was a beautiful process that I saw with my neighbor vendors. In fact there were many more cicadas that clearly molted, but I only witnessed the one emerge. How incredible!?

I went into this experience with a vague idea of who would attend, under the impression I only knew a couple people. As things go, turns out I knew more folks than I saw coming! I was so happy to see familiar faces! On another token, the closeness that came with meeting my new friends was AWEsome and super yummy in my heart. I can't wait to see everyone again!

I had my journal with me, and attempted to give myself space to write, but I kept being swept away into conversation and connection. Journaling after the fact was great though! Perhaps next time I will make more of a commitment to myself to save space for that. On a festival type of retreat like this, even though you may want to absorb a workshop or even just a moment by yourself, there are still many people around in the energy field. The opportunity to flow is ever present.

I really enjoyed giving reiki to those that received it! Making my Craft available fills me with alignment and POWer! I got to give reiki to 7 people throughout the weekend, one whose birthday was that day!! How special is that!? She had also gotten a splinter out of my finger that had been killing me the night before, so talk about an energy exchange!

The day I went home, I felt very tired and also cried a lot, but the next day I felt great! I still feel light and empowered, and expect that this retreat revved up some fierce karmic love.

My favorite experiences from the weekend include (but are not limited to):

giving reiki and teaching yoga
opening cacao ceremony
connecting about essential oils and herbalism/plants
beautiful water drum
friends extracting a splinter from my finger.. thank you friends!
tarot reading by Eeden
amazing lady reiki circle that aligned perfectly with the Det Card Sid opening song and ended with a slammin YAM that rocked our hearts!
neighbor vendor life!
friends got me in the pool
endless tea!
learning new hoop tricks
shooting stars!
breaking the pattern of my daily life

I am home now feeling very grounded and fueled up! In life, the more I do, the more I know I can do. I'm not saying there were no difficult moments of my weekend, but it's where I went with those feelings that quantifies my evolution. Glad to say the peace within ultimately rules. Being a vendor and participant was most likely more work than simply participating, and I went into it with a "here to do work, not play" mindset, and was responsible for my business property. I felt fairly vulnerable and anxious that I had brought so many sacred items and it was hard for me to expose them to the elements and energy like that! I did lose a major player in my healing cabinet, but all things move forward. My weekend was filled with so much else that the moment of grief seems miniscule.

Retreat time allows you to hold space for these intensive sejourns dedicated to the healing vibe. Regardless of what you are doing with your time there, you are engulfed in a vortex of healing! When positive intentions are set, the Universe handles the rest.

Much love and gratitude to all the people that organized, volunteered, facilitated, served and shared. I recommend Anahata's Purpose for next year!

I would love to hear how you all hold space and if there are any other retreats you recommend!