How My Love for Retreats Began

My love of retreats didn't begin with a plane ticket, a beautiful hotel, or even a weekend away.

It started at home, when I was a stay-at-home mom and the house suddenly got a little quieter. I loved being home with my children, but somewhere in the everyday rhythm of laundry, lunches and loneliness, I had begun to feel a little lost. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted anymore—or even what made me feel like me. I felt disconnected from a deeper part of myself, my soul.

With a little more quiet in my days, I intuitively started carving out time for myself to sit with my thoughts and write in a journal. (Definately a new experience for me.) At the time, I certainly wouldn't have called what I was doing retreating. I just knew I needed some space that belonged to me. Time to recalibrate my energy, take a pause, and think.

A Little More Space

Journaling gave me a place to begin finding my way back…to me. In the quiet of my own thoughts, I could sort through my feelings that I hadn't taken the time to name. I could ask myself questions without needing to have the answers. I started paying attention to what I missed, what I wanted more of and what was beginning to bubble to the surface—feelings and thoughts I could no longer ignore.

Looking back now, I realize I was learning something that would eventually become an important part of my soulful life: Creating space is the first step to hearing ourselves again.

Eventually, these at home retreat moments grew into something more, and travel became a big part of it. I began taking occasional weekends away and discovered that changing my surroundings allowed for a new perspective on my life. Away from the routines of home and the things constantly competing for my attention, I could simply follow my own rhythm for a while and finally feel more connected to ME. I could wander. Read. Journal. Explore somewhere new. Sit over coffee for as long as I wanted- without any interruptions. Simply bliss! And I began to notice something else. The time away wasn't only giving me space to think. It was giving me space to FEEL…more like myself again.

My first solo trip to Italy was one of those special experiences. While in Florence, I spent time exploring the city on my own, wandering the streets with my camera and photographing whatever caught my eye. There was something about having nowhere to be, no one to answer to, and enough time to simply follow my curiosity through such a beautiful city.

What mattered most was how this trip made me FEEL. It made my spirit feel alive and revived, as if this trip was my life support unit. I felt more connected to the person under the supermom cape—the parts of myself I didn't always make time for.

I began to understand that this was what made these 'retreat' experiences different for me. They weren't about escaping my life (although a plane ride does wonders!). They were about creating enough space to reconnect with the parts of myself I had neglected over the years.

Intentional Travel & Retreating

Over time, I became more intentional about the experiences I created for myself. Instead of only asking, Where do I want to go? I started asking different questions:

What do I need right now?

What do I want more of in my life? What's missing?

How do I want to feel?

What kind of place or experiences might help me connect with that?

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Sometimes the answer meant going somewhere new. Sometimes it meant slowing down. Other times it meant trying something I'd never done before. But most times it meant getting out of the house and travelling. This practice of creating space to listen to myself stayed with me. Today, I can see the natural progression much more clearly: it started with making room for myself at home, grew into time away and eventually became more intentional travel experiences designed around what I needed at different points in my life. And I've come to believe that creating this kind of space for ourselves becomes even more important as we transition into the empty nest seasons of life.

We now have more opportunities to turn some of our attention back toward ourselves—not because we're leaving one part of our lives behind, but because there's room to discover what else might be waiting for us and for what's possible.

I believe that a personal, self-led retreat can give us that space. It can be a chance to step outside our everyday routines, listen to ourselves a little more closely and reconnect with something we want more of—whether that's rest, creativity, adventure, joy, curiosity or simply the feeling of being fully alive.

And the beauty of it all, you don't have to know exactly what you're looking for to begin. Sometimes the journey starts with one simple question:

What do I need more of right now?