Our group today was the first to experience the retreat but it will become something offered by the studio. I feel so honored to be one of the first to be involved in this powerful retreat and I am here to tell you that it is something you should take advantage of if you are able. It takes her book and teaches the lessons throughout the day through discussion and activities. I want to briefly share what we went through today because it was so motivating and inspiring and I feel a renewed passion for life. It was amazing. I feel compelled to share this positive day with you so that there may be a ripple affect but I want to also suggest reading the book and doing the retreat yourself because you will get even more out of it.
We talked about embracing life, living in the moment, seizing the day. What do we dream of doing? What is stopping us? What can we do about it? The perfect scenario is this very moment!
We talked about connecting. We have people and moments in life that teach us lessons. They either inspired us or their adversity led us to something greater. Connect in that, express your gratitude, see the lesson. The cool thing is that one day you will be able to pay that forward. You will be someone's coach, maybe without even realizing it. One exercise encouraged us to think about a person who served as a coach at some point in our lives. To really ponder on how pivotal those moments were and what an impact that person made was so powerful. We each wrote thank you notes to our person. Most of us, including myself, were practically sobbing through this. To put your thoughts and gratitude in words was so meaningful.
We talked about creating the life we want to live. This was a really cool topic for me because I am currently creating, planning and working through so many of my goals in the life-coaching aspect of the life transformation project. Really creating goals in a way that encourages action and in a way that can be measured takes time and a lot of writing. In the retreat, we did goal painting. We envisioned the life we wanted for ourselves and portrayed that as a painting. I chose a color to represent different aspects I want to see as a part of my life (to be surrounded by only people & things that add positive energy to my life, to be of healthy mind & body, to continue to learn & grow personally, to achieve professional growth & success, to travel & explore, to pursue passions & adventures) and applied it to canvas. So therapeutic and one of my favorite things. [photo below!]
We talked about empowerment. The fact that happiness is not the end result of something else. You choose to be happy and we discussed a challenge to make that a habit. The challenge is to, everyday for 30 days, experience one of four things: be inspired, get out of your comfort zone, learn new things, take time to relax & restore your body. I will talk about this more in a future blog post as I will be embarking on this challenge as a part of my continued life transformation.
We talked about choice. We choose our path. We choose if we want to change our story. We choose if we want to let go of our burdens or let them weigh us down. We choose if we need to change our mindset or our direction.
We talked about climbing and conquering our mountains. Our mountains should not be viewed as punishments. They are are there to show us something. We learn strength from our challenges and we learn to keep moving forward. When we strive to raise the bar and reach for something higher and higher, we will stumble. But there is no such thing as failure. Failure is life trying to move you in another direction. Our activity here was stair steps for what I think was two minutes but what seemed like much longer. When it seemed we were at our capacity, Julie asked us to think of something we really want and just envision that right in front of us. I stepped faster, I pushed through the burn in my thighs. Really picturing your goal right there and attainable truly made it easier for me to power through to reach it. It was one of those "If you can think it, you can do it" moments. Focus on why you can achieve something and not the reasons why you can't do it.
We talked about inspiration. We heard about an ancient Egyptian concept that when you die, you are asked two questions to get into Heaven: "Did you find joy in your life?" and "Did your life bring joy to someone else?" These are amazing questions to live by and I am so happy to have learned of this concept. We should strive to live so that we can answer "Yes" to these two questions. Be your own light, and be the light in someone else's darkness. We did an exercise to bring light to others and now we each have a piece of paper filled with 8 comments from the other members saying wonderful words about ourselves and how we have inspired them. It is really heartwarming.
This day was so amazing and such a wonderful investment of time. I am so blessed to have met these fabulous, positive people and share in this with them. Julie filled our retreat with inspiration and I am so glad I could share a little bit of our day with you!
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