Many years ago, I wrote in The Woman’s Retreat Book about reentry after a retreat. I’ve shared that content at every retreat I’ve led because reentry is often so difficult and so much can be lost through a careless return to ordinary life. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
We so love planning the retreat or vacation – or at least anticipating it – yet we may avoid endings (who likes to say goodbye?) so we ignore that things end. Which means we come home to chaos or loneliness, and perhaps both, and lose the benefits of the retreat or vacation more quickly, and maybe even convince ourselves it’s not worthwhile to ever leave. Let’s just stay home and work all the time. Or “It’s too threatening to my partner, too hard for my business, too much hassle to treat myself to a retreat.”
Please don’t believe those lies. You simply need a more mindful reentry plan! Here’s a few ideas to consider:
1. Honor your reentry desires.
What would make your return to ordinary life easier? Jot down a quick desire list. Need to call a friend to put milk and gluten-free bread in the fridge? Make a dinner date with your BFF to share pictures and stories? Make clear requests from your kids or partner to clean up the kitchen before you return? Be willing to ask for what you want to ease back into life. This is not to be underestimated!
2. Reject Puritan Backlash.
Otherwise known as, “I did something fun for myself so now I will work 15 hours a day, eat only kale, exercise two hours starting at 4 am, launch a tech start-up, and repaint the Sistine Chapel by Thursday.” Please flush the superhuman act down the commode. Instead:
What can you cancel now that is scheduled during the first week? Wiggle out of? Let go of? One of my Taos writing retreat gals did not cancel helping her daughter with her garage sale the day after she returned. Not fun. Less is best the first week back. Especially if you say, “But I can’t cancel anything!”
3. Dissolve all big plans for change, especially the self-improvement kind.
Many of us leave our healthy habits on vacation and then get snarled up trying to get back to “normal” too fast. Start small. Instead, use Conditions of Enoughness and lower the bar on what new behaviors you will embark on. One small change at a time please. Five minutes of meditation, not twenty. Or even one minute! Ten minutes of writing into your project, not quit your job and write a mega best-seller by Saturday.
4. Touch the experience of your retreat or vacation often.
Put your hand on your heart and savor a memory – slipping into the moonlight ocean, your beloved’s face eyes crinkled laughing, the light in your eyes after a day following only your own desires. I call these “snapshots of the heart.” Thirty seconds reliving them while breathing in and out of your heart resets your nervous system.
5. Protect what’s sacred.
Especially after retreats, you may find people in your life wanting to pin you down on what happened, like a dead butterfly in a display box. After my Taos retreats, I’ve had bosses and co-workers corner women and demand, “Did you write your book!? Is it done??!!!” (In a week???) Have a tiny elevator speech ready for these needy souls (they want to be brave enough to do what you just did but they don’t know that so they try to take it from you). Talking about the food or the weather is often a great diversion: “Oh, the chocolate cream cheese muffins, you would have loved them!” Or asking how that difficult person in the office has been. Off they go!
If they persist, you need to be firm. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet but thank you so much for asking.” Protect what you nurtured into life.
6. Be greedy.
What will keep the spirit of the retreat/vacation alive? A massage? A Saturday hike? Extra noodling morning time over tea and your photos? Feed the goodness, feed the life you really want to build.
Love,
Jen
P.S. The more you say “not possible” when you read this, the more you proclaim how behind you are, the more you need to take a sliver of compassionate action on your own behalf. If reentering with others, share this post and brainstorm (as a family or roommates or even a team retreat): what would be a great reentry for all of us?
