I had a few lovely people writting me to know more about this thing of self-retreating yourself, so here goes my guide: (nothing professional though, simply a kind of self-retreat for people who like me are always busy in their minds and aren't exactly yoga teachers!)
*Things that might help with creating the right atmosphere or the right mood: light a candle, an insence, have some music that relaxes you (sounds of nature) put your phone on flight mode, have a mat and pillows that make you feel comfortable while sitting and laying down.*
- Have your schedule emptied for one or 2 days. - Have all your meals previously prepared (no one wants to spend a retreat cooking right? - Start your day with 2 glasses of water (can be 2 glasses of wine, it's your self-retreat afterall). - Go for a walk in the park or around the block - bring your face-mask if you prefer and then you can curse all you want no one will notice and it can really detox your heart). - Drink another 2 glasses of water (can be 2 glasses of wine, it's your self-retreat afterall). - Go for a swim, and try to go somewhere you know you don't have to meet too many people, it's not everyone you want sharing your retreat with or simply play your favorite dancing song and dance however you feel like at the moment but with a truly intention of freeing yourself. - Find some online yoga/pilates class you like, try to make it something tiring. - Drink another 2 glasses of water (if you did wine on previous times you might want to stick to water this time otherwise you might not remember my next step). - Make sure to have a couple of hours doing nothing, just to sit with yourself. I do this after exercising so that i'm tired enough to actually feel like sitting and resting, if you're at that point in which you are already chronically tired you can just skip all of the previous steps and jump into this one, or better, slide into this one: while you're sitting with yourself evoque moments of victory and achievement, maybe difficult times you could overcome and that somehow made you develop some tool or skill that otherwise you wouldn't have developed, and then think of what you want to achieve in the future, how could the previous tools you developed during hard times help you achieve what you want? Just thinking of this moments of victory, or just hard moments you had to overcome and in which by doing so you ended up developing some kind of helpful skill or characteristic that has proven to be useful.
In the end thank yourself for achieving all of this and for making this self-retreat for yourself.
- Daniela Pontes
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