Wondering if you should go on a retreat? Read this first.

It happens to all of us, at a certain point of our life we don’t really know what is going on, we just feel like something is missing. We may simply feel tired everyday, empty, exhausted, overwhelmed, irritated or unhappy. 

Many types of circumstances could trigger this feeling. It could be something that has been going on at work or at home, the way we feel towards ourselves or simply an overall feeling. Even if we know some healthy coping mechanisms that could help us (exercising, eating healthy, meditating for example), our mind does not stop racing and looking for solutions, but this monkey mind of ours ends up creating even more confusion. 

At this point, we know that something needs to change in our life but change is scary and it’s not easy to know which step we should take first.

First of all, going on a retreat is not running away or hiding from anything. It’s giving us enough time and space to regroup in order to realign our mind, body and soul. 

At the end of 2018, after a couple of shifts in my life (my business was sold, my corporate job did not go as planned, my partner was working days and nights on a new project), I decided that it was the perfect opportunity for me to leave on my first retreat.

Looking for a retreat is like going shopping for a white shirt; you have all range of sizes, fabrics, shapes and prices. I was feeling a bit discouraged by the number of yoga factories or luxury yoga places that are on the market. I just wanted something simple, real and authentic, where I could quiet my mind and learn to be more present.

When I found AyurYoga EcoAshram, I knew it was the one. All the teachers are Indian (which is a good point if you are looking for authenticity) and the ashram is located an hour south from Mysore surrounded by an organic farm. Bingo! I booked my first trip to India and left in May for a month of yoga, meditation, mindfulness and simplicity.

Going on a retreat is one of the best gifts you could do to yourself, however, it’s important to know that going to a secluded place in Asia or India is not coming without a few challenges.

Here are a couple of points that you need to consider before booking your first retreat:

1. Isolating yourself from the outside world and cutting off access to technology could be stressful at first but if you want to enjoy your retreat, you will have to disconnect c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y.

Nowadays, technology plays a big role in our lives. Our phone is always near us, and we are constantly distracted by notifications. Every single time we have a break, we grab our phones and scroll down our Instagram, check our emails, watch a video or reply to a message.

It’s a sad reality: we are addicted to our phones. 

Going to a retreat means disconnecting from our life back home. It means going to a secluded place to feel more peaceful, quiet our minds and technology does not play a role in that context.

We don’t always realise it when we are living it but doing a retreat is an enormous gift we are doing to ourselves, we are allowing our body and mind to rest completely and our soul to wander and experience something new. The one single thing we have to do is to live it fully.

Plus, when we don’t use our screens our level of awareness is higher, we start feeling happier and our anxiety decreases. It has been scientifically proven. (yes, tech addiction is real!)

This added to daily meditation, yoga practice and healthy eating is the recipe for a mindful couple of days or weeks. So why wasting this precious time with our phones, tablets or laptops and getting upset every single time the wifi was down (which happens often in these countries)?

2. It will make you proud of yourself - and this is a huge confidence boost.

That’s an important point. When we are proud of ourselves, we feel like we can move mountains. We feel happy, light, serene. In one word, we feel awesome. How good is this feeling?!

Depending of the retreat you chose, it will be more or less challenging physically and mentally. Nonetheless, leaving home and going for one or two weeks or even a month to a secluded place is already a challenge. 

For me the feeling of pride came from the fact that I was a bit scared to go to India by myself. I pushed my own boundaries and overcame my fear.

Staying in an ashram for a month was accepting that I had no control over my own agenda, over the food I was eating, the activities I was doing and my precious ‘me-time’.

Waking up everyday at 5.30 AM to meditate was not easy everyday. Somedays I was asking myself why I was doing it. It was tough to follow this rhythm everyday. But as soon as my feet touched the floor and I was heading to the meditation hall, I knew why I was here and I felt proud of myself for following this rhythm.

The other boundary I pushed was the physical one. In between 3 to 4 hours of yoga per day is not easy, especially when the weather is boiling hot. On the last day, we ended up doing 108 sun salutations. The fascinating feeling of overcoming everything you thought was not possible or easy is so incredibly satisfying.

Coming back home with the feelings of pride and awesomeness help to have the courage to make better choices in life and tackles new challenges with a calm and strong mind. Being proud of ourselves is an important part of our happiness and the way we feel towards ourselves.

It helps to develop a positive attitude and a strong mind which could be applied to any area of our life. It’s good to remember that overcoming what scares us makes us stronger.

3. It will bring you new life skills.

When you practice mindfulness in a secluded place, you learn to create space in between yourself and the flow of your emotions. And by taking a step back without having to manage the expectations of your direct surrounding (e.g. work, family, friends) you can really focus on your very own wellbeing (mental and physical).

Meditation and yoga bring clarity, energy and inner peace. Breathing exercises help to create a powerful flow of energy from head to toes. We feel calmer, more grounded, we can also manage better our automatic reaction to stress. And obviously in our personal or professional life, this is very important. 

By learning to pause, taking a deep breath and reflecting on how you feel you can respond with calmness to any event rather than lashing out in anger, worry or annoyance. 

Being mindful is about knowing what is going on in our heads and in our bodies and listen to it. It’s about having more clarity about ourselves, our feelings and emotions, who we are, what are our talents and what we want to pursue in life. This is a powerful tool that helps to grow as a person. 

My only advice would be to live this journey fully and avoid measuring spiritual progress. Our mind, as our body, only change with regular practice. So don’t set your expectations too high at first and just enjoy the journey. It will take you to a beautiful place.

4. It will reset and detoxify your body.

Most of the retreats I have heard of are quite strict when it comes to alcohol, drug or tobacco consumption, but also coffee and food. At AyurYoga EcoAshram, the rule was quite simple; whoever is caught with alcohol, drug or tobacco at the ashram will have to leave. (I think tobacco was only allowed outside of the ashram though). 

Everyday we were served delicious plant-based meals made according to the Ayurvedic diet. That’s an important point actually, do not forget to check carefully the reviews of the ashram or the place you want to go to. Very often the food is not very good and spending a month eating food you just hate is not easy.

Going vegetarian for a month, not drinking a single sip of alcohol and not having any coffee in my diet made me feel absolutely awesome. I digested way more easily, had more energy through the day, felt lighter after the meals.

On top of that, an Ayurvedic doctor (there is an ayurvedic center in the ashram) gave me a type of syrup to drink in order to detox my blood. I felt like I was cleansing and restarting my body, literally. I also chose not to wear any make-up or cream of some sorts for a month as I wanted my body to reset completely, which gave a good rest to my skin.

What also felt really good is that no one was judging us over there. Not the teachers and not the fellow yogis. I can’t stress enough the power of a non-judgmental mind towards ourselves and others. Letting our body and mind completely rest without the fear or being judged or criticised is the best way to detox completely.

5. Coming back to your regular life is not easy. Be prepared.

After a month in the nature, waking up with birds singing, going to bed early, eating healthy, being surrounded by positive energy, how hard is it to come back to a city life? I would say, it’s HARD. 

During the retreat, and if you properly disconnect *see point one*, our mind is quiet, you have made space for better and healthier habits, you are more present, happier, full of gratitude and love (towards yourself and others). 

The thing is, when we leave a retreat, we want to hold on to that feeling and we can end up creating a shield around ourselves.

There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just being protective of our own peace and our own space. It takes time to adjust and it’s important to do it at our own rhythm. Having a supportive partner, family, friends and manager/colleagues is quite important at this stage. People need to understand that we need time to do the transition.

It really helped me to continue to do what makes me balanced and happy - like meditation, yoga, waking up early, adjusting back my food slowly. There is nothing more beautiful than living in this bubble of happiness and it’s normal to have a hard time to readjust to our life.

6. Don’t fool yourself, this is not easy.

If you have liked what I wrote above and you are still considering to go on a retreat, you may be quite excited at this stage and really wanting to book one.

However, going to a secluded place comes with certain challenges.

First of all, you need to adapt to the weather, often quite hot and humid if you go to Asia and India. When I did my retreat in May, it was something like 40 degrees every single day and probably around 30 degrees at night, and obviously, no aircon to help coping with the heat.

The diet is very different. In the ashram I went to, the food was clean, fresh, tasty. It’s not the case everywhere, so make sure to check the reviews of the retreat you aim to go to before booking. But even if the food was delicious, you need to be ok with eating spicer than usual, eating curries for breakfast and note that half of the food in India is quite mushy, a bit like baby food. No coffee, no alcohol, no animal proteins, no overnight soaked porridge or avocado toast for breakfast. Think about this for 30 days.

Secluded place also means nature. Where I stayed we were everyday encountering frogs, snakes, big snails, moths, mosquitoes and even saw a crocodile. Insects don’t hesitate to attack you at night if you are carrying a light, and they particularly love finding ways to enter your room and buzz around all night long. In Australia we have huge spiders, snakes, cockroaches and plenty other terrifying (and deadly) animals, so I felt that I was used to it but it was not the case for everyone.

As I said earlier, access to technology is quite restricted. And you have to be ok with that too. If you can’t live without your phone and have a panic attack every time you reply to a message an hour after and don’t know what is happening on the Instagram of your favourite influencer, this is obviously not for you.

Forget about having your comfort and getting what you want whenever you want it. This is a retreat and it has to make you feel uncomfortable in some aspects in order to remove all the superficial layers you are carrying and unveil your true self.

Conclusion 

Taking a month off work and family is not easy but if you really think about it, what keeps you away from it? The answer is simple: your own fears and maybe the one from your direct surroundings (think about your partner’s or parent’s fears for example that they project on you).

You are afraid to do not have enough money, to look stupid, to be laughed at, to ask your boss for some time off, to do not be strong, flexible or experienced enough and so on and so forth. These are only excuses.

A month of retreat is life changing, mind-altering and transformative. You will come back wiser, stronger and more in tune with your own soul, body and mind.

You will have more to offer to yourself and others by being more present and by knowing what is good for you and what is not.

What sum up this experience for me the best is: Whatever you expect to find on a retreat, you will not find what you are looking for, you will find what you need.

(Thank you R. for sharing that quote with me)