Re:Treat - March 2021

Hello, welcome to the Re:Treat in March 2021. First off, thank you so much for committing to you, thank you for committing to yourself for these three days of this wonderful gift that you've given yourself that we refer to as the Re:Treat. So it's up to you how you spend this time - there'll be some recommended resources and recommended things that you can do for your time during the retreat.

We'll initially start with some time to reflect so that's sort of looking back to the past, and you can choose the timeframe - it could be looking right back through your life, it could be looking back through the last year, or even shorter or longer, whatever feels right to you, but some sort of reflecting. And the purpose of that really is to tune into what's been working well for you, celebrating the successes, that's a really, really important thing. And what have you learned, and what do you want to build on?

The next part of the retreat is when we recharge. So that's about reconnecting with who we really are, and realising some of the things that are important to us. Some of those things will be integral in our lives, and some of those things we might have forgotten about and maybe we want to bring more of that into our lives.

And you can focus this retreat on whatever feels right for you. If you want to do it as a whole life retreat, you absolutely can, if you want to do it as a retreat on a certain part of your life... maybe it's your career... maybe if you run your own business, it's your business... maybe it's part of your personal life... maybe it's a hobby... maybe it's your fitness.. Whatever that might be, what I will do is encourage you to kind of focus your energy on what feels right for you. So you'll do the recharging.

And then the final bit of it is when you bring all of that together, so the knowledge that you've learned from the reflecting, the successes that you've celebrated, and the energy that you've got from the recharging, which will then pull together. And that's when we're going to start looking at re planning. And again, you can choose the timeframe on this, it could be planning for the next year for the next five years. For the next three months, whatever feels right. And you may well want to do a little bit of each of those; short term, medium term and long term planning. And there'll be tools and resources to help you every step of the way. I'll show you a little bit more about those in a moment.

But first, just a little bit of what to expect for each day. We'll have three calls each day. They are all optional but I would highly recommend that you join the first call of the day and the last call of the day. So in the morning, 9:30am, every morning, wherever you're at, wherever you choose to do this retreat, hopefully the restrictions will be lifted so that you're able to get out into the local area if you'd like to, I certainly will be if I can do. And so we'll be checking in from wherever you're at at 9:30. If you're there with your breakfast, if you're out and about for a walk, whatever feels right for you, as long as you've got good connectivity so that you can join the video call. So those will be on Zoom, I will send you the link to those. And so the first call of each day will be a sort of grounding, setting the scene, preparing for the day, it will be part of committing to yourself what you would like to get from that day, and sharing that with the group and then we can support each other. You may want to work on things on your own, you may want to work on things with other people in your life, and you may want to work with someone else who's part of the retreat. So each morning, we'll have that check in point to focus our energy, set our intentions for the day, and then we'll we'll be off and raring to go.

There'll be another check in at lunchtime. This is an optional one, it kind of depends on where you go and where you're at with the day. So if you're really focused on something, and one o'clock flies by no worries at all, but if you'd like to join the mid point, bring your lunch if you want to, they'll be at one o'clock each day. And that's an opportunity to sort of check in on your progress. And maybe if you want to reassess what you're going to spend the afternoon doing.

And then the final call of each day will be at four o'clock. And that will be celebrating the wins for the day, you know what worked well, and also checking on your progress and maybe a little bit of starting to think about what you might want to spend the rest of the next day doing. But mostly, it's about closing off that time because it's important that we protect this time and space, but it's also really important that we give ourselves time for other things in our life during the retreat as well. That's one of the benefits of doing it from from home is that you can you can decide how much time you would like to dedicate to this. So part of that is also about switching off and so we'll be spending the final call of each day, checking in, sharing what's worked well, sharing any learning from the day, and then switching off until we meet again the next morning.

We'll be using the Facebook messenger as well, if you haven't yet added me on Facebook, please do so - I'll make sure to send the details. And I'll bring us together as a group on Facebook Messenger. It's up to you how you use that. The reason that I've set that up is because sometimes it can be helpful to have a check in point at a different part of the day. So you can use that to share a photo of what you've been up to, or you can use it to check in and ask a quick question, or you could use it to kind of say, "I need some help with this, what does anyone else think?". So however you wish to, but also, if you want to protect your time and take time offline, that's totally fine as well. So there's no obligation to check in on that it's just there if it's needed. And if you would like to use that.

So a quick showing of the material. So you'll see on this page, you can download these, I've printed this out, you don't need to, but I've printed out because I tend to prefer to work on paper. So I've got all the materials there - I'll be joining in with the retreat. And I'll be using some of this so I've printed mine out ready but it also means I get to show you in this video.

So the bit that I want you to focus on for now is the introduction. So the first page there will just give you a little bit more information; it talks about what to expect (some of the information I've already given you on this video) but just as a sort of reminder, that's what to expect. There's also a little bit about tailoring it to you so that you're not feeling too comfortable. It talks about your comfort zone, your learning zone and your panic zone - and during the retreat, I'd like you to check in with yourself and see where you're at with that so that you're not going too far outside of your comfort zone that you're starting to panic, but also that you're stretching yourself that little bit so that you're gaining something from the process. So there's a little bit about that.

And then the first bit, which is the bit that I'd like you to focus on before we meet on Monday, is this first sheet here - you don't need to do it on the sheet, you can jot it down or even record an audio or video or whatever feels right for you. But what I'd like you to think about is what are your reasons for doing the retreat? So what led you to do this? What are you most looking forward to? What are you hoping to get from it? And that's the second question, actually, what do you hope to get from the retreat? And how do you maximise your learning experience to make sure that you get that? So if it's about giving yourself time and space, how are you going to block that time out to make sure you do that? If it's about reflecting on a certain part of your life, what are you going to do to help you do that? Are there people that can help you? Are there things that we can do to help you? But this also sort of sets your intentions. What would you like to get from retreat? And how are you going to make sure that you maximise that opportunity? So that's the first bit for now.

The rest of the booklet has got the other sections in so you've got it all up front. So then the next section is on reflecting. And there's loads of tools and guides and templates throughout here that you may wish to use so feel free to have a look through but don't worry too much yet about those. You might want to just have a quick look and think, "oh yeah, that looks useful, I'll probably spend some time doing that", but don't worry about it yet because there'd be plenty of time next week to do that. It's just I'm giving you all up front, so that you can take a look through everything and kind of see right, yeah, these are the things that I want to focus on. I should also say, if you have other exercises that you would like to do what doesn't even need to be a tool or template, whatever feels right for you that fits into this retreat, please feel free to do so. This is by no means an exhaustive, you must work through this workbook. It's just tools that are here to help you if you find them useful. Some of them you might love, some of them you might hate, but there's just lots in there for you to choose from.

So that's it really. I am so so looking forward to seeing you all on Monday morning. And I'm looking forward to spending those three days checking in and going on our own retreats but in an environment that's with others who are going through a similar journey so that we can check in and support each other during that. I'm around at any point during those three days. Like I say, if I can, I'm going to be getting out into the local area. I'm excited about being able to get outside of the house a little bit more. So I might be out and about but I will always make sure that I've got my phone with me so if you want to drop me a message or give me a quick call, I'm here to support you during the retreat. And of course, we've got the Facebook Messenger group as well. So feel free to contact me.

If there's any questions in the meantime, drop me an email, send me a text, send me a message on Facebook, whatever feels right for you and I'll be happy to help. And I'll see you on Monday.

Thank you so much for committing to this. You're going to love it. It's going to be an amazing experience, and I can't wait to get started. See you next week. Bye.