I had the good fortune recently to spend almost an entire week on retreats. Yes, two retreats back to back! The first retreat was one I attended as a guest. The second was a retreat that I had the honor of speaking at on the topic of Elevating and Amplifying Your Energy, especially as it relates to abundance.

Both of these retreats were about Abundance and Alignment. If you know me, you know that I do not believe in coincidences. This is a topic that is gaining momentum in our society today and is dear to my heart.

As I reflect on these two recent retreats, as well as ones I have attended previously, I wanted to share with you the value people find in retreat.

Connection

Regardless of what role we are in at home, at work and in our friend groups, there is a universal need for deeper connection. On every retreat I have attended one of the biggest take aways for everyone was the deeper connection.

Vulnerability

There is something about being in a room full of people that you don’t see every day, knowing that they have the same challenges you have, that breaks past our barriers and invites us to be vulnerable. It is in these most vulnerable moments that we create the most growth.

Reflection

The retreat environment, as defined by the word itself, gives us space to step back and look at our life, our business, our relationships and our dreams from a different perspective. When we see these things in a different light, it allows us to change our thinking to create better solutions.

Intention

Stepping back from the demands of daily life and slowing things down, allows us to connect with our self, our soul, our dreams, and create intentions. Our intentions are like entering an address in the GPS of our unconscious mind. Our conscious mind is the goal setter and our unconscious mind is the goal getter. Remember: our mind does not sleep even when we do, and it’s paying attention even when we are not. Setting intentions tells our unconscious mind what to pay attention and gives it directions for what lens we view things from.

Unplugging

This seems to be one of the most difficult things to do on retreat, and when we do, this is when we get the most reward out of the experience. It allows us to be present, to be able to participate, connect and let our guard down: It allows us to get off of the hamster wheel and actually be intentional.

Play

I feel like sometimes we get so busy doing, and getting by, pushing through, that we forget to play. At retreat, we laugh, we connect, we skip our makeup (if we want to), we lose our expectations and just have fun! One night, we had dessert three times. Another night, it started to rain, and rather than running for the cars, we let our hair down, danced in the rain and enjoyed being alive.

Dreaming

In our daily lives, we set goals, and expectations of ourselves, so we can hold ourselves accountable to more doing, but do we really step back and allow ourselves to dream? When we allow ourselves to step back and really dive into the reflection process that retreats offer, we open ourselves up to all the possibilities and we allow ourselves to dream.

The thing is, that we have to dream and believe that we can have it, to make it a reality.

If there was one overarching take away for me from both retreats, it is that we need to step back, re-energize and find alignment to create fulfilling and abundant lives.

If we want change in our lives, we need to unplug, get in touch with ourselves, our intentions, and our dreams. We need to bring all of this together for alignment. And we need to feel everything that comes up…all the limiting beliefs and the scary emotions. This is what retreats allow us to do.

It is in this process that we can see what we need to let go of and what we need to embrace, so that we can create a life of abundance and alignment.

How are you re-energizing and finding alignment?