Last week I switch my Scanlan power suits for my Camilla caftans. I packed my bags and headed off for a 7-day detox and resetting retreat at Living Valley on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in Qld.
This wasn’t the romanticised ‘daily massage with yoga and poolside cocktails’ kind of retreat. It was incredibly intense emotionally, physically and mentally with a few treatments and personal training sessions on the side!
And I couldn’t recommend it any more highly.
This retreat wasn’t without purpose. Along with the challenges that 2020 has brought, I needed to spend time recalibrating my mind and detoxing my body of excess hormones from a 5-year IVF journey.
We are our best assets and I knew I needed to spend some time on myself to make sure that I was my best self.
This trip consisted of:
- Reconnecting with nature on bush walks, beach trips and being out in nature.
- Detoxing my body with twice daily steams, fasting, naturopathic sessions and incredible food.
- Moving my body with daily exercise, PT sessions, stretch classes.
- Treating my mind with psychology sessions.
- Learning with health lectures, cooking classes and getting health and nutritional plan with a Naturopath.
- Treating myself with a salt scrub, mud wrap, rose quartz facial, hair mask and massage. Devine!
But what I learnt and observed about myself on this retreat was where I found most value, and I’m going to share with you a few take-a-ways.
Learning to relax is hard work.
It wasn’t until I found myself alone that I realised how ‘on-the-go’ I am all the time. With nothing to do, the pace that we’ve had to maintain this year was really hard to let go of. It took me a few days to adjust, I never thought relaxing would be such a challenge!
I’m addicted to my phone.
I knew this to a certain extent; it plays an important role in our job as a real estate agent. So much so it’s like an additional limb. However, I didn’t realise how often I check it unnecessarily, how often I filled time looking at social media or my emails or just checking it for no reason. I also discovered how much free time I got back once I detached from it.
Managing our minds.
Life is too short for stinking thinking.
Our minds are like plastic, we can change the way we think.
All flowers need to grow through dirt. Look for the roses in your life.
Focus on the good. When you have a negative thought, turn it into a positive.
Our minds are so powerful, and we often forget that we are in control. We let our minds run off on tangents that can be a bit melancholic. We can automatically focus on the negative instead of looking at all the good in our lives.
Treat yourself.
I’m late to the game on this one, but hair masks are glorious! I think I found my new favourite self-care practise! Taking time out and treating your body can be super revitalising. Knowing that you are looking after and treating yourself well is so restorative.
So too is fuelling yourself correctly. Eating well is often the first thing to be set aside for convenience. We’ve been taught ways of fuelling ourselves that are no longer correct, yet the idea has stuck. I mean, butter is good (in certain amounts) and healthy food is not all cottage cheese on cardboard crackers, it can actually be super yummy!
The power of connection.
One of the most powerful things I walked away from this retreat was how powerful and restorative connecting with others can be. Being vulnerable can build the most intimate connections with people in a short period of time. Focusing on building those relationships with the right people, remarkable people can boost your outlook on life.
Being kind to each other is so much more important than we realised. Everybody is carrying some weight of the world on their shoulders. Showing them kindness in their hardest moments will not only help them but it will grace you with the side effects a rush of endorphins.
While I’ve been on other retreats before, this was the first time that I committed to one of this level. Not only was it memorable, lifetime experience its one that I would do over and over again.
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