AlwaysTake the Massage

Blog Post 2: My Journey as a Retreat Facilitator - From Tokyo to Team Building

RETREATS: THE FACILITATOR'S JOURNEY

I have run a number of retreats over the years and participated as a coach practitioner. Retreats for boards of directors and I've hired people to run retreats for boards of directors I was on. I've been on away days with the telecoms company I used to work for - they were more like teambuilds but they were also a retreat from a day of work - a driving retreat where you had to take on varying driving challenges with other team members. It was a great experience and gave us something to talk about and laugh about together. Also eating together is a key part of a retreat, although that should also be optional. At the Urban Retreat we shared delicious local bento boxes around low tables in the yoga studio.

I ran a yoga, coaching and Gyrotonic Urban Retreat with two wonderful friends back in September 2019. Friendships were forged, and business services exchanged. And of course we worked our minds and bodies with the combination of coaching and body work. It was a one-dayer for busy people in a suburb of Tokyo. I loved it. It was cosy and calm and filled with love. We had planned a series of such retreats but COVID had different plans for 2020 and we all moved onto new projects in the ensuing 5 years.

I ran a retreat in the most beautiful Japanese inn in the countryside north of Tokyo, with an artist and together we brought art and coaching to life for the weekend. That was transformative and everything was covered. We visited a winery and sat together drinking rosé and sparkling wine, and sketching the vineyard's slopes. We drew ourselves and talked about the experience in a coaching setting. We shared a Japanese meal and smoked cigarettes in the garden of the inn. Someone wanted to leave their husband but didn't until 7 years later. Someone wanted to do more art and became an artist. Yet another person was cynical about it all until major changes entered their life just a short time later. We got together and communed and drew and got coached. It was quite something. Clever Rebels.

The first Saunter and Frolic Retreat was transformative. The marketing was chaos and it sold out in a week. It was born out of our wish for a place and space to gather and retreat in a way that served our businesses, bodies and our people. Not everyone wants an earnest spiritual retreat or to be put through a schedule of activities. It was spacious, languid and boasted zero healing. We had dreamed of old paintings of women lying around in robes, round bodies draped over beds and grass and floating on water. We will continue to develop and serve the people who want to hang out and retreat.

It's pretty clear really if this will be the space for you. We are profoundly professional in that we do what we say we're going to do, but we are not regimented and we believe each person has the choice to do whatever they want. We don't have answers for everything. This can be frustrating, but we don't. We'd much rather let our minds wander and work things out unless of course, it's a physical question with a straightforward answer. And do you know what an aversion many people have to unstructured time and free restfulness, creativity and lounging. Good lord. To witness busy, professional women slowing down, calming down and lying down both in solitude and together, in this productivity obsessed world is an absolute delight. Truly a dream come true.

We dreamed it all up, visioned it and dreamed up ways to use coaching in an ethereal way that had no philosophy or teaching attached, only allowing things to reveal themselves. We learned that more movement practice should be incorporated, in addition to the swimming, that you really do need to guide conversation or else it can move into either set-pieces (kids and weight anyone?) or topics specific to a certain group or person. Formalised resting time in solitude is a bloody brilliant idea and that again, women lying around together, are truly beautiful and I understand why painters were inspired to paint them in their languid beauty. Our vision boards were filled with indulgent island parties, women in water, flowing robes and renaissance paintings. And man playing a home made flute in the Amazon.

Blog Post 3: Retreat Wisdom - What to Expect and How to Choose

RETREATS: WISDOM & WARNINGS

I have been on many retreats since my first experience. In Kamakura, Bali and one thing I can report is I regret having directed so much attention on me. If faced with the option of either some kind of magical thinking past life coaching or a massage always take the massage. If I am tossing up between anything and a massage and feel obliged toward the other thing. ALWAYS ALWAYS take the massage. Beware essential oils - they are wonderful as part of the yoga practice but they may try and recruit you in their MLM.

Yoga is nice. Especially Yin Yoga. Never join in anything where you are tired, overstimulated or bad nervous. Silent breakfast can be wonderful - silent awakenings can be wonderful something I have incorporated into retreats I have run. Rest like a beast. Soak it all up.

A retreat is a special place. A capsule of magical liminal time where one can lie back and allow space to open and play, rest and explore in whatever way they want. Allow time to move at a different pace and maybe take back some thoughts, ideas, connections and even something more transformative. You might try something new, experience other ways to be. It's not like being on holiday with friends where you have to divide the labour, calculate everything (including how much to drink), decide where to eat, what to do, what to talk about and decide when to join on or not and if you opt out - oooh that could get that friend's back up and - it's delicate. On retreat everything is covered. The retreat leaders are in charge of logistics, the food, schedule, the activity and you are a paying guest and as such you can do what you want. You are also a grown ass woman who can do whatever she wants.

Retreats are not a fix for anything and they certainly aren't a substitute for local community activity, friendships, loose ties, networks, neighbours and daily habits of rest, restoration, recovery and relaxation, eating well, health and physical maintenance. These can and should be incorporated into a life with regularity and ritual. That is a lovely topic of conversation to have on retreat. What to bring home from retreat. But even if retreat is a standalone experience - why not!

Don't do anything stupid like be encouraged to stay in a sauna for an uncomfortable amount of time or hand over wads of cash to get your mind read or your past life channelled or something. Or sign up to buy loads of product from someone who will make you rich if you just sell it to all your friends. Or push yourself into muscle spasming shapes to try and prove yourself to a movement teacher. Especially if the teacher is shouting something at you about being weak minded if you don't. And by shouting I mean a calm spiritual voice implying you're not trying hard enough. Not here friends. Not here. We will also not bullshit you.

Do, if you want to, participate in tried and true bathing rituals in a well-established place and follow instructions. Push yourself as far as you want to - that means with physical activity or coaching activity - you can disclose as much or as little as you want. If you are at a retreat where you are being encouraged to tell secrets or forced into disclosure that feels uncomfortable - run for the hills, especially in a large group. Shouty aggressive coaching has its place in sports, especially fighting sports - that's part of the deal you enter; but not on retreat. And not in front of people.

Retreats can be a capsule of lovely time that restores you until the next time. A holiday with perks. They can also be catalysts or idea generators, slowing you down enough to find your way into something new. For some they are truly transformative, creating a shift, or kick-starting a journey in one's body, mind or spirit, toward strength and health. They are luxurious activities, to support you and explore with no expectations or work on your part.

What has your experience of retreats been?