Retreating from - and to - life

A week in the Tuscan countryside with poet David Whyte. When I got the invitation, I didn't need to think twice about signing up for this wonderful retreat. It offered a delightful combination of many of the things I love - hiking beautiful landscapes, Italian food and wine, a chance for meaningful conversation, poetry and reflection and most importantly, a temporary escape from my usual life.

Don't get me wrong. My life is great. It's not that I actually want to escape from my life. What I want is to have a chance to break my routine. So I look for opportunities to slow down, try something new, stretch myself and in the process rejuvenate.

If you ask people, "How's life?" many of them will answer "busy." Perhaps that's what you say when people ask you. You might say that you don't have a moment to breathe or a chance to collect your thoughts. And when that happens, life becomes routine. You begin to disconnect from yourself so that you can put your energy into your to-do list. It's easy then to lose the big picture, to stop thinking creatively or take time to recharge your batteries.

Discover more about yourself

The perfect solution might just be to plan your own little retreat - a change in your routine for a day or a weekend or even a week - that let's you discover more about you.

There are lots of reasons you can tell yourself to avoid planning a retreat:

* I'm too busy at work
* the kids will miss me
* my spouse won't understand
* it costs too much
* I don't know what to plan
* I don't have time
* fill in the blank

A different kind of reason

But for every reason you can think of, there's an equally if not better one in favour of making the commitment to a change of pace.

When you create a retreat, you give yourself permission to exhale, to participate in an activity that re-energizes you, to take the time for self reflection and self nurturing.

For me tromping around the Tuscan hills with a poet was a great retreat. Next time it might just be a day all to myself at home. The details of your retreat are less important than the commitment to do it. When you take the time to retreat from life, you'll find that you are actually retreating to another more connected life. It's a life where you take a vacation from deadlines and schedules and commitments and reaffirm the best parts of yourself. Then you get to bring that re-energized self back with you.

Once you return, life will seem much more like a treat.

Laurel Vespi, certified life coach and chief executive guru of stone circle coaching, ignites businesses & individuals to new levels of CHANGE. Laurel works with clients internationally, providing unconventional yet practical tips that make the seemingly impossible... possible!