How A Retreat Can Help You Recharge

Hillary can be found on her website, Hillary Chybinski, where this post was originally featured. 

The word retreat means different things to different people. To some it may be a place you travel to. To others they may retreat within their own homes. How about you – what do you think of when you hear the word, retreat?

I immediately conjure up something relaxing. A retreat to me, means getting away from it all and recharging your batteries.

I recently had the opportunity to go on a weekend retreat with a group of creative entrepreneurs. It was like a girls’ weekend, but with a mission. We had a loose agenda to keep us on track and help us accomplish our goals.  We loaded up journals, paper, pens, yoga pants and wine and headed to a beautiful cabin in the Maryland woods.

We did yoga and meditation.We cooked together and shared delicious and wholesome meals.We journaled.

We made mind maps and vision boards.

We colored.

And we grew. We grew as women and as business owners. And it was glorious. We weren’t there long, just for the weekend, but that was all it took to refill our buckets, renew our creative focus and make a plan for the year ahead.

If you’ve thought about getting away for a few days with some like-minded people, my suggestion is to do it. I’ve been freelancing and running my own business for about four years now. I have attended workshops and conferences to learn new skills and keep the ones I have sharp. But nothing I’ve been to has had as big a personal impact on me as this simple weekend retreat. I learned new things about my friends, but more importantly, I learned new things about myself. I opened myself up to new experiences.

Day in and day out, creative entrepreneurs spend their days making things happen. Writing, designing, planning all day and sometimes into the night. As women, we fit it in around the hours we use to take care of our homes and families. We often do so at the expense of our own personal care. A retreat can help you take care of you. It can give you the opportunity to focus on yourself without guilt. That focus can help you see your true dreams and desires more clearly. It can help you find your passion and discover creative solutions to problems you thought you were incapable of solving.

So if you are feeling stuck or depleted, consider giving yourself a retreat. There are public ones available all over the country. Or you can gather a few like-minded friends and get out of Dodge for a weekend.

Have you been on a retreat? What did you learn?