Why You Should Come on a Mini Retreat!

Have you ever reached a point in your life, when just when you think things can’t get more stressful, something else happens?

If you had been with me a couple of years ago you would have seen me living the corporate dream. I was working for a university, setting up a national research network. What had started out as a wild idea had become a full blow thing and a showcase piece for the university.  Suddenly I was presenting at the top level, to CEOs and university VCs, travelling and speaking. And to be honest I was very much winging it. 

I had also just moved back in with my husband after a period of separation, and it wasn’t going well.

During the separation I had been trying to figure out my life. I had done my first two silent retreats and had been shocked at what they gave me – a sense of clarity and peace and knowing exactly what I wanted in life.

Because I was so inspired, and because I can never do things by halves, I’d applied to train to study with the founder of the retreats, Sara Avant Stover.

Sara is everything you would expect in a yoga High Priestess. Calm, serene, beautiful and a little aloof. When I applied, I had so little expectation I’d succeed that I figured I’d work out how I would manage if it happened, (let alone how to get to Colorado for the final live training!) and forgotten about it. I was sure I was not what they were looking for. I wasn’t a full time teacher, I taught unconventional yoga to people in offices, and I was deliberately fun and unserious.  

Imagine my shock when I did, the first person in the southern hemisphere. And because it is a spiritual lineage, it was rigorous. At the start there were 9 of us. 2 of us made it through.

My stress levels were through the roof!

I knew that this training was powerful, had transformed my life and could transform the lives of people I shared it with. But I felt like a complete fraud, stressed out of my brain and with my personal life in tatters.

What could I do? I dived in. I got up at 5 am every day. I dumped my resistance to the quieter practices of yin yoga and mediation and gave myself wholeheartedly to the course. And waited for things to collapse around me. The amazing thing was, they didn’t. In fact, I was so calm and focused that thing started to go better.

What I learned was that when we do the quieter practices, even when we are at our wits end, too stressed, too broke, too busy – it gives back rather than depleting us. The very thing we resist are exactly what we need.

These days I do my own mini retreats and online challenges. I have no shame in telling everyone they should practice, because I know that no matter where you are at, practicing will enhance your life.  

Wanna dip your toes in, with me to hold your hand but no MAJOR commitment? Join the Spring Self Care mini challenge

Want to go deeper and experience a deep refresh and recalibration? Come to a mini retreat (sign up here)

Ready to really create a shift in your life every day? Work with me privately to tailor the perfect practice for every aspect of your wellbeing. Book here

As always, lots of love

Ruth

Get your free time here!

... (after you watch my 30 min video – just kidding)

Have you ever experienced fear of missing out (or FOMO)? Do you sometimes have trouble saying no to things even when you’re already over stretched? Or perhaps you know the sense of anxiety you get when you can’t get through all the reading or webinars or trainings you want to do at work– and have a constant sense that there’s some breakthrough contained in that thing you haven’t quite gotten to, or you’re about to miss something huge that’s going to happen?

If if you relate, you’re in good company. FOMO is now considered an actual mental health syndrome and while it’s defined as being about personal lives and fuelled by social media, I think it’s possible for the phenomenon to creep into all aspects of life.

When I quit my full time job earlier this year, I imagined that my life was about to become more simple. I had been working and maintaining yoga teaching on the side, so I figured working on just one thing had to be more straightforward, right? Wrong!

If anything, I’ve found FOMO gets out of control even more easily, and I thought it was really just me being easily distracted. But the more I work closely with my students, the more I see this is a really common story. In our society, we have so many voices clamouring to be heard and modern marketing methods being based on creating a conversation with you, it’s not easy to know which to listen to and which to ignore. We naturally want to try out things that looks promising but this is impossible because there’s simply far too much to ever get through.

And the thing that we lose in trying to work out which is worthwhile actually costs us something that is very precious. Time.  

So my aim is to give you as much value as I can without adding to the general noise or the time demand or FOMO that you can’t do it all.

This is why, unless you sign up for a particular event or course with me, you won’t get more than one email a week. It’s why I try and scale all my offerings to be as accessible and do-able as possible.

This is why I love mini challenges! The aim is for a commitment that anyone can do, for a price that is not going to prevent anyone from taking part and benefitting. The challenge will gently tweak your life in a positive way, without adding pressure. So you can start to feel the affects that little changes can make and what works best for life almost effortlessly.

Each day you’ll receive an email from me with a contemplation for the day and you can choose to either read that and take 10 deep breaths, or read on a bit more for some concise and relevant information. It’s designed to be a note of encouragement, inspiration and support for you. And because it’s spring, much of it will be inspired by the season and all about de-cluttering, cleansing and new beginnings.

The one thing I really do encourage everyone to do is to track their practice, so you can see how you’re doing and reward your progress! Really important.

If you haven’t signed up there's still time (click here) and if you have any questions, let me know!

Warmly

Ruth