A retreat is time and space set aside from your normal routine of life to reflect, integrate, and perhaps create. Retreats can be a really generative practice for examining and activating what’s in your soul’s pantry. You may not always have the opportunity or access to go somewhere on retreat, but with some intention and support, you can retreat at home wherever you are.
In this post I’ll share tactics I’ve used for home retreats, most recently a writing retreat I designed for myself over Mother’s Day weekend, when my husband took our son to visit relatives and attend a videogame conference in Boston and I had the house to myself. I’ll also talk about pitfalls that can get in your way and how I’ve navigated those obstacles.
Prepare For Solitude
Arrange to be alone. If you live alone, this may be as simple as clearing your calendar for a weekend. If you have children, this may require a supportive partner, relative, or friend to take your kids away. If you have elders in your home who aren’t mobile, a retreat at home may not be accessible at this time.
Prepare your space. Stock your kitchen with easy, nourishing, vibrant food (maybe include visiting a farmers’ market as part of your retreat). Take some time to set up your space in a way that feels beautiful and relaxing. For me, that’s clearing clutter in the living room and kitchen, picking up some fresh flowers or cutting some from the yard, and opening the windows to let the air in.
Set an intention. Just to be is great! Or maybe you have a creative project you want to work on—a painting, a new recipe, or for me recently, writing. I did have a specific goal (I wanted to write two posts to share here), and then I let it go, focusing more on the process (times I would write) than the outcome.
Allow Yourself To Flow
Mark the opening and closing of your special time. This can be as simple as lighting a candle or walking around the block—whatever is meaningful to you as a ritual to designate that this time is set apart from your usual routine, and this space that you live in is now a container to hold your intention.
Rest, nourish, move, play, reflect. The most important aspect of a retreat is to constantly check in with yourself and do the things you feel like doing, when you feel like doing them. Choose activities that align to your energy and your body’s needs at particular times of day. For my writing retreat, I imagined myself typing at my computer, ending the weekend with my posts queued up—but that didn’t happen. What did happen was first thing in the morning, I felt like journaling, and ended up writing outlines and paragraphs in longhand. So I did embody my intention of writing, but to get there, I had to go with the flow of what my body wanted to do. I spent the rest of my day walking, working on a puzzle, lying in my hammock, and eating the nourishing food I had sourced for myself.
Limit external influence. A retreat, for me, is about going inward and being in my own energy, but there are times when experiencing something outside myself sparks creativity. On my writing retreat, I did go to the farmers’ market and a yoga class in town, and I also enjoyed reading The New Yorker and watching movies and shows on the couch. But I chose not to text with anyone or use email, focusing the energy I was putting out into my own creative work. Feel out what’s right for you, taking an intentional approach to technology, media, and interactions with the outside world.
Potential pitfalls: The danger of retreating at home is that there are infinite everyday activities you could do. Only you can discern whether an activity is part of your meditative process or an impulse to get everything done or control things. Laundry, for example, can be a sacred act and a welcome opportunity to engage with something tactile, or it can be a distraction from what I really want to do. Clearing out my actual pantry is similarly cathartic, but I chose not to do that for my writing weekend. Whatever arises for you, give yourself permission not to do your regular things unless you really want to. This is your special time.
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