I remember my first retreat with Shiva Rea!It was an amazing experience in itself. At that time I was a mother of two, a full-time mom, looking for jobs or to teach yoga. I was just excited for my personal time and all that I could do along with yoga. Little did I know that my whole universe would change in front of my eyes and could bring back Vinaya in a better version. I just got to know myself!
Here are my top 8 reasons to go on a yoga retreat.
Day 1:
As always, we love being in our comfort zone. Life goes by, day after day, and it’s the same: cooking 3 meals, same routine, same phone calls, and same people on television. We run on automatic!On a retreat, the different environment makes you open your eyes a little bigger to observe nature all around. Even if you don’t want to have social interaction, there is a sense of fun and excitement in the air! You suddenly allow and give yourself permission to notice more and enjoy more.
Day 2:
Sometime around morning practice, I felt cracking in my spine and it was such a big emotional stress release for me. I still wonder if it was my skull. Yoga practice helps in every way. I have learned from my teacher, if there is no solution from your mind for problems, just surrender to yoga and experience the solution practically.By day 2 or 3 of a retreat, there is a change and transformation in the way we start feeling things around us. There is sense of inner calmness! Life feels extraordinary, like a gift which is spectacular.
Day 3:
Suddenly there is a desire to mingle with people and get to know them, know their story and listen compassionately. After all, we are all there for just that experience. It’s like cookies: sharing makes it fun and brings out our true inner nature of why we are all together on the planet. You see that life isn’t just about opening the garage, parking the car and going into your own house. You are part of a community, getting to know people in an innate way only humans know. It’s in our DNA to be social and be part of others’ lives. It’s like a spider that can never weave just a strand of its web. A web must be in communion with and interconnected with others.
Day 4:
Journaling. No matter how much you run away from it, it kind of follows you. Write a little. Words pour out. Words stuck from 4 grade or sometime a situation which disturbed you 5 mins before holding the pen. Writing changes your own image of yourself! Today I observed that my handwriting looked very similar the way it did when I was in high school. With our thoughts and how we grow our handwriting changes a little here and there! I was pretty impressed with the amount of cleaning I did on myself on the retreat.
Day 5:
Letting go and forgiving is hard, I know. If you had said I was a hoarder, I would never bother to agree and would defend myself until death! But here we go. It’s again our mind, not cleaned enough, holding that precious blanket which keeps us warm, and fear of feeling the cold when the blanket is gone. It is almost like a horror movie. I wouldn’t want to think of it even for my enemies. But how long can you hold trash in your mind? Trash is trash. We accumulate emotional and mental trash and no one comes on wheels with gloves and sunglasses to pick it up!Nah aha! No one! However stinky it is, it’s yours.
[pullquote]On a retreat you are made to think again and again to throw away! Forgive! Let go and move on![/pullquote]
Here I learned cleaning every day will keep you so clear. Literally now I imagine a day’s events and situations are like the stinkiest trash. If you still have it on the kitchen floor it’s hard to function and respond to today’s situations. Learn to clean up everyday!How we feel everyday is our responsibility and only ours. What we think becomes our reality. To keep the system going, clean up all the pop-up viruses. Instead of force quitting your system at night you will slide into sleep naturally!
Day 6:
Life stops for no one! Neither do people. Unless you clean up your mind, you are filled with your own toxic filth and no one wants to hang around it!Your thoughts are your fragrance. What thoughts you create circulate around your energy field. People come and pass by. It’s their story, too! If you want to attract the best person or most honest and trustworthy people, true friends, it’s you who needs to change from being a stubborn, locked-up child to a sharing, caring civilized aware human being!What kinds of people do you want around you? Aim to be that first. I realized that, unless I become what I want, I can cry inside my own cage to find awesome people, but they will only watch me through my self-created bars.
Day 7:
The best day. I framed my name and personality today and said now I know who I am!
Everyone goes through a period of not knowing what to do,of confusion, self-doubt, and misconception. Ultimately you reach your innerself! It’s there waiting, waving at you to discover within you. You might not hear it, but it is definitely waiting! And a retreat takes you face to face with your higher self! The day you get your bags packed and realize that you want to come closer to that whole within you, your innerself is prepared in a million and one ways to be there to hug you, comfort you, and say, “You are phenomenal and unique on this planet and there is a purpose for you. Hold my hand and walk, listen from your heart. You are safe!”
Day 8:
The day in which you capture this image of yourself and take it along with you! Even when you are in automated mode, you just glance at this image and your innerself reflects the love! No matter who comes into your life, you know you are here to cooperate and share all that you are with the world!
Come along with me on my retreat! Hopefully I can bring out an experience that will change you and get you to make friends with your inner self! Your flame!
