When a Retreat Isn’t a Retreat - Jen solo episode

Jen Lang: 00:00:08

This is no halos here hosted by Jen Lang and Jane Stark, the place to inspire a change in your consciousness to elevate the world. We're to heart centered business owners nourishing our inner rebels while growing our respective businesses.

Jane Stark: 00:00:21

No halos here is the result of bringing together an opera singer turn spiritual mentor and a marketing professional turned well being coached to meditate daily. Together, we unite physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energies into a powerful presence to lead, heal and inspire. We love exploring the shadowed edges of life, the universe and beyond through honest and thought provoking conversations. Let's dive in.

Jen Lang: 00:00:47

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of no halos here. Today,

Jen Lang: 00:00:52

you have made Jen on my own. And it's an interesting topic, because when a retreat isn't a retreat also begs the question, when you set an intention to have a retreat, is it still a retreat, where you don't have to be away from your regular surroundings to have a retreat. So I'm going to explore both aspects of this topic today. And just in the context of my own recent experience, where I was co facilitating a retreat near Whistler, and I was very excited to get away with my first in person event in quite some time. And I loved my co facilitators, the attendees, and the topics all just came together so easily. It was one of those beautiful synchronous events that just unfolded and came together with such ease and flow. However, I had in my head that I would have more downtime, and I did not. So it was very interesting to me that I came out of that retreat actually feeling more tired than when I went in. And that showed me a couple of things, one for myself that I hadn't thought about the level of output that I was going to be or necessarily considered in advance the level of output that I was going to be putting forward for this event. And also, that I didn't quite set myself enough recovery time afterwards. And for me, doing an event like that, whether it's my own, or whether it's attending, I like some integration time. And even though I had set a day or two, you know, a day afterwards, I actually needed more than that, to really comfortably wrap things up, I actually still have a couple of audio tracks that I need to process from that event. And it was it was almost a month ago. Not quite it was, you know, it wrapped up three and three weeks ago. So this sort of got me thinking about the question, when is a retreat, not actually a retreat, not in the same sentence, I retreated from my home. And from my day to day life, I was in a different community, I was I had a roommate, I was staying in a different environment. And it was all beautiful. And there were many aspects to it that were very soul fulfilling. However, I didn't necessarily retreat from the level of energetic output that I normally have for my business and for my life. And I didn't retreat from showing up for this group and for this event in a way that was meaningful and necessary for the smooth and expansive experience that I wanted this retreat to be. So for me, it was less about actually retreating. At it was more about stepping into more fully. So when we consider on the opposite side, retreating, a retreat is, you know, in military terms, that is like falling back. And, you know, in Monty Python terms, it's running away. And it is regrouping and regaining, you're sort of trying to regain a tactical advantage perhaps in military terms. So you retreating, it could just be that you're outnumbered, and that you have no other choice but to run or die. Now, I certainly didn't feel like this in this retreat, but I'm just sort of talking about the different meanings and facets to this world retreat. When we talk about a retreat these days, usually in sort of the spiritual well being world that Jane and I operate in. A retreat is usually a stepping back from your regular life. So in that sense, it is stepping away from the day to day activities that are make up your everyday life. So this could be the full time job, the kids to and from school or sporting events. It could be if you run your own business sits the day to day activities of running your business. So in that sense, you are retreating. And unless you're running an event, you're going to an event to participate and get a new perspective on an aspect of your life that you have been wanting to unpack. It could be a yoga retreat, and maybe you'd like to deepen your yoga practice. Or maybe it's simply a retreat at an all inclusive resort, that is just all about doing nothing, and lying around on the beach and ordering margaritas, that is a form of retreat. But usually, a retreat is a partially or fully facilitated event. Put on by a number of organizers or one organizer, maybe an assistant in order to support the attendees in transforming something in their lives or giving people a new perspective. So they're retreating from their day to day life, in order to dive deeper into something that they may not normally have time to do, is a part of their day to day lives.

Jen Lang: 00:06:04

So this got me thinking, we can retreat on our own. Without the support or without, yes, it's wonderful to do it for at a facilitated event and get that have that held container, and have those different ways of being those interactions, the energy exchanges that make that kind of event so meaningful and fun. But what if you gave yourself permission to give yourself like a mini break or a mini retreat in your own life, without it being another big thing that you have to take care of? What if a retreat for you was simply going to the beach for the afternoon on a nice day, or noticing that it's sunny, whether it's nice out, and you decided sort of a 15 minute afternoon break, that you're going to take a two hour afternoon break or four hour afternoon off, and make up that work another time. So we all have the power and the ability to make these choices to retreat. It could be a weekend away, you know, sometimes like you could do a Couples Retreat, where it's you and your spouse or your partner. And you just get away from your day to day life, you have all the other details taken care of. And you go and have a fun weekend somewhere but going to Airbnb on a small island. And you know, those kinds of retreats are worth exploring and inviting into your life more frequently. You could also retreat for half an hour and meditate. So pick a 30 minute meditation, go visit Insight Timer. Just look at what's coming up for you, that's 30 minutes long retreat, close your eyes and set and take in that take that break from everyday life. It's up to you. Whether you give yourself permission to take that time for that experience. And I think this is something really important here is we don't often give ourselves permission, or we feel we don't deserve to take that retreat. It's often because we're in the space of doing there is so much to do. And we are in our minds and our mental spaces about all the doing that we have to do. And this actually came up recently in a mastermind group I'm in where a person who has a chronic illness is high was sort of struggling with their output and was struggling to give themselves permission to take a break and actually give their body the rest it needed to manage their chronic condition. They were sabotaging themselves about I'm not doing this and I'm not doing that. And I really love this work. So it's true. We can be pulled in many directions or both directions where we want to do this work. I want to be busy in the doing. But some other life circumstance is is keeping us from that choice. But what if the only doing you need to be participating in right now is being and that is your retreat. You retreat from your doing so that you can enjoy more being.

Jen Lang: 00:09:31

And I think that's for me, what was I wouldn't say missing but I didn't choose to invite those experiences more frequently at the retreat that I was co facilitating. Now part of it was yes, I was there to work. Absolutely. And there was one evening event where I left early. I was like I just need to go back to my room and rest because I knew I had a big day the next day. And what I found myself doing was As you know, I made a phone call. And then I scrolled some in some social media for a while. And that wasn't serving the whole reason that I had retreated from that evening activity, it was only still tied up in the doing part. So there has to be this conscious decision in retreating, retreating from our day to day lives, and retreating from our routine, and retreating from all those demands that others make on us or that we make on ourselves. In order to go into that sacred space of being, or that sacred space of actually retreating from our lives. This is why we do stuff like this. So if you're listening, and you're like, huh, that sounds like me, then I would like to invite you to go into a space of conscious retreating from an aspect of your day to day life. It could be as simple as literally switching all your devices off for 30 minutes, it might be that basic starting summer, and noticing because Jane, and I talk about this a lot, noticing the thought patterns that come up, noticing the impulses that you might have to check your phone or the impulse you might have to pick up that book. What if you literally sat there and looked out the window and watch the world go by? Remember people watching? Do any of you still enjoy doing that I do. I love me when I was traveling more I loved sitting in an airport. And watching people go by and imagining, you know stories about their lives or making up stories about their lives, because that's a fun, creative activity. And it's means that my face isn't buried in my device or my book, there are times where reading for sure. But when we make a conscious powerful decision to retreat from our day to day lives, and from our activities, then we are setting a new pattern for ourselves or setting a new intention that we don't always have to be in doing. We don't always have to be in producing. We don't always have to be in impressing others. We don't always have to be in x y Zed preparing this doing that. I think our world has developed to this stage where it is that worship of busyness, it's that worship of productivity. If you can't physically see the output of what you've been doing, then it doesn't mean as much it's not as valuable. Another facet to this actually that was I talking to that might have been Jane and I having a conversation, it could have been another friend recently. Where unless there is like a physical tangible result, like I don't know, cleaning the kitchen, then it's not as valued as say organizing the files on my desktop, which is still an energetically clearing activity, but it's not as tangible to someone else. And you're either in your household or in your life. So again, it's making these conscious decisions to both value, the subconscious tidying or value, the digital tidying that you do as much as you value that retreating from your regular life. Maybe you don't need to be doing any of that filing at all. It is simply retreating, reflecting and breathing pool, what a concept. How fun would that be? So in the spirit of that, let's retreat for a minute. One minute I'll set a timer and breathe. I invite you to breathe with me starting now.

Jen Lang: 00:14:54

There we go. That's one minute. So what did you notice in that minute? What did you What sounds Did you notice, you might have heard on this recording the sound of a vehicle or to driving by, you might have noticed your breathing or my breathing, or some other background noise in your environment. So this is what a retreat is a retreat, because you're retreating from the engagement in the automatic activities and the automatic unconscious doing that we often get trapped in. So this next week, I invite you to practice more retreating, then you have considered before. And maybe you go and look for a retreat experience that's facilitated. And maybe you go look for that weekend, or you book that weekend getaway with your loved one, or even with your family, where you retreat from your normal environment. In order to enjoy a different perspective. It doesn't necessarily have to be a vacation, per se. But a retreat is a wonderful way to be able to have a perspective on things in your life that isn't available to you when you're living your day to day life. And in the same token, while you're on retreat, or when you come back, give yourself a day to adjust or adapt into your normal routine again. So if you have the space to do that even half a day, and don't come home on a Sunday night at 10pm on then get up at 6am and start your workday morning as normal. So give those things a think and consider whatever treat means to you. Whether it's long or short, somewhere exotic or maybe just your backyard. And let me know what you think. Okay, thank you so much for being here today on the no halos here podcast. And Jane and I will see you next week with our next episode. Have an awesome, awesome week. And oh, one more thing. If you haven't downloaded the empowerment playbook, it's available to you. And that is a wonderful retreat tool. You can use it to retreat from your daily life. Listen to a specially curated soundscape and get some new perspective on your life. So you just have to go to we are Jen and jane.com/playbook and download it and see you soon. Have an amazing week. Bye. Thanks for joining us for these conscious combos. If you're ready to dive deeper, head on over to Dr. Jen and jane.com to continue the conversation.