5 Convincing Reasons You MUST Do a Yoga Retreat
5 Convincing Reasons You Must Do a Yoga Retreat
Going on a yoga retreat isn’t what it used to be.
There was a time you couldn’t browse through thousands of retreats based on your interests and compare star-ratings on bookyogaretreats.com . Your knowledge of the retreat location was limited by the descriptive capacity of your yoga teacher – or guru, as they may have been called back then. You heard about the retreat from this teacher or through the whispers of fellow students. A travel agency would book your flight, and a separate agency might handle ground transportation, while a series of broken conversations with locals and sketchy carpool situations may eventually land before your teacher in a mystical and secluded piece of paradise. This is where you would dive deeper into your yoga practice, see things and interact with an environment that will forever be imprinted in your mind and heart, and be instilled with the most powerful insights to drive a new era of your life. Does this sound exciting? Well, you ruined it with your Google search.
But there are still reasons everyone should be doing a yoga retreat. Everyone. A perk of the modern world is that not only can you find a retreat that relates completely with your interests, desires, and even dietary needs, but retreats all over the world compete to ensure your experience matches or exceeds expectations no matter the location. So let’s dive into a bit more detail:
1. It’s because you need a change, and it happens to be the title of the retreat…
Do you want to change your diet? Try yoga for the first time? Dive deeper into a specific practice? The beauty of the modern age is that you can filter out thousands of retreat in order to hone in on your specific interests. Changes in your life can mean a raw food retreat at Farm of Life, surfing in Ericeira with Omassim, or even getting ‘drunk on joy’ with yoga and community in Tuscany. If you know the change you want in your life, specificity is only a click away, and it can easily be the best decision you make all year.
2. You have permission to let it all go…
Technology made things more convenient, but it all made a sense of guilty obligation more difficult to overcome. Despite the t-shirts saying “I’m only here for savasana”, people are not just coming to yoga classes because they are tired. Yoga classes can be found online too. It’s that in a yoga class, cellphones must be put away. Meanwhile, a yoga teacher (eventually) tells you take a final relaxation pose, consequently giving you permission to let everything go. In fact, if the teacher is a bit more clever, they will somehow make you concentrate on anything but the worries that fill any normal day. They can possibly make this happen for an entire class. With or without knowing it, most humans need to be told they can release anticipation of a responsibility. In this age, many obligations can follow us even into the deepest jungles. A retreat, however, contrary to any old vacation, is an invitation to trade your normal obligations (even if that’s sensing a need to post on Instagram) for the work toward new skills within a set time and place. Knowing there will be a beginning and end to this journey, the yoga retreat facilitator is explicitly or implicitly giving you permission (or demanding) that you cast aside your routine worries. It’s liberating, instantly relaxes the mind, and sets new priorities.
3. It’s a controlled experiment…
Your poison could easily be what you seek to avoid at a retreat, and combined with something new, one can discern how adding and subtracting elements of life will affect your wellbeing. For about a week, your retreat facilitator has helped cultivate a fairly predictable atmosphere: food is at a certain time, activities are at another time, and the very location is meant to engage guests in anything other than the ordinary of your hometown. What would life be like without internet? Phone reception? Booking a retreat with Los Cardones in Nicaragua can easily allow someone to experiment with such a life. A staff within such a retreat center holds the job of ensuring that food along with other comforts remain the same. Add activities such as yoga, and one can make a reasonable decision if lifestyle change is doable and worthwhile.
4. Make a real friend…
In the middle of ordinary life, I would hope you make friends that you really connect with in the level of your interests and manifesting your highest aspirations. If that is not what is happening, finding a retreat that matches your key interests and goals can manifest the accountability and support group you have always wanted. Some retreats, such as Drunk Yoga, specialize in manifesting a better life story under community support. As guests mingle, they share ideas and dreams. Within an environment that fosters mutual encouragement, someone is bound to find a buddy. As guests move back to their prospective locations, support may not be readily available there except for the friends they’ve won at the retreat. This support can keep goals promised at the retreat extended well beyond expectation.
5. There’s still no place like home…
Paradise is beautiful and an excellent training ground for betterment of self. Nevertheless, once you leave, there is nothing like returning to something familiar where you can apply your new skills and aspirations. How can someone convert their kitchen to accommodate a raw food lifestyle? How can the living room furniture be rearranged to allow for yoga and meditation? Your old place becomes a new playground for positive change.
Want more information on how to pick the best retreat for you? Email info@dodrunkyoga.com and they’ll point you in the right direction!
