4 Reasons to Schedule a Home Retreat
A personal, at-home yoga and/or meditation retreat is easy, affordable, and benefits both mind and body. All you need is 24-hours or more to yourself, and a home retreat plan. Learn more about the benefits of a home retreat and why you should schedule one ASAP.
The Benefit of Solitary Retreat
A well-balanced spiritual practice combines study under the guidance of a teacher with self-study and time spent in contemplation and review. One should also seek balance between group study and time spent in relationship with alone time spent in solitude.
A formal retreat is an opportunity to develop a deep relationship with educational materials you've been taught or given. It's a chance to strengthen your practice and single-pointedly study a particular topic.
Perhaps most importantly, a solitary retreat frees us from our typical worldly distractions, and opens a space in which we're more readily available to connect to the divine.
Choosing to Retreat at Home
An away-from-home retreat can be nice for its potential to physically removes us from distraction, whether that's people, places or things. But traveling to a far-off exotic location, or renting a cabin in the woods is not always feasible.
This is especially true as we continue to grapple with a global pandemic that has made travel irresponsible, or in some cases, illegal. Loss of income and high levels of anxiety and stress are very good reasons to keep things simple.
A home retreat is easy and affordable, and offers no fewer benefits for the mind or body than retreat to a far-away hermitage. There are, however additional considerations to keep in mind if you'll be retreating at home. We'll review some of these as we review the benefits. May this post motivate you to open up your calendar and schedule a retreat at home!
1. Home Retreat is Easy
There's nothing more convenient than an activity that doesn't require you to leave your own home. A home retreat lets you forgo the packing, the travel and the hours spent online browsing for the perfect AirBnB.
Your books, your yoga mat, and your favorite pillow are all at home. But so too, are most of your distractions. Don't confuse comfort with a lack of boundaries while retreating at home. Learn how to keep your home space sacred, and free of people, pets and other intrusions by downloading our free guide to successful home retreats.
2. Staying Home is Affordable
Even a solitary retreat is no small expense. When you chose to stay home, you forego the costs associated with renting a retreat location, getting there, and purchasing groceries, retreat supplies and additional travel-friendly staples.
At home, you could even choose not to pay a teacher. Depending where you are on your journey, you can schedule a retreat using free yoga classes and meditations, you can read your own books, and spend time on self-study.
If you'd like more guidance, there are several affordable at-home retreat options, including ours! Visit our virtual classroom for an affordable single-day retreat program that includes meditation, yoga and journaling.
3. The Body Benefits
With the right schedule and the right menu, a home retreat does the body good! Strike a balance between rest and movement. During the first few days of your retreat, it's likely all you'll want to do is sleep. If you're spending 3 days on retreat or more, the body may get restless as your inner winds begin to shift. A strategic combination of yoga and lots of naps will help you find the balance you seek.
Choose a retreat menu that's healthy, nourishing and grounding. Decide ahead of time if meal prep would be of benefit, or if you'd rather spend time cooking. At home, you know you'll have the saucepans and spatulas you need. Cooking on home retreat can be very rewarding.
4. The Mind Benefits
The purpose of retreat is to benefit the mind. What may be surprising is that these benefits are available to you even at home. Taking a break from technology and doing a deep dive into daily meditation or yoga practice, spiritual study or rest is proof positive that it's possible to do this in smaller ways during 'normal life' in the 'real world' as well.
Home retreat can help us intentionally break down the barriers between our practice and our lives. Of course, when you're on retreat, keep those barriers active! Stick to your boundaries just as you would in a more formal setting. The magic of the union of retreat life and real life is only possible once we've experienced them as separate.
Here we are, a retreat travel business promoting stay-at-home retreats. But the truth is, there's just no need to go on a thousand dollar trip to an exotic location to get some rest and clarity. That said, we hope you do both.
Retreat at home. Stick to your practice and continue to grow. Then share your practice with others once you're ready to travel again. For the best part about alone time is how it opens us to the joy of relationship when we enter back into the world.