• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • 0Shopping Cart
Renee Trudeau
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Self Renewal Groups
  • Books & Audio
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu

What’s your vision for how you want to live?

Self-Care, Women's Retreats

lost pines one day retreat 046

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. Seneca

Most people are surprised to hear that I love making a big pot of minestrone soup for my family and neighbors as much as I love getting invited to go to India to speak to a women’s group on work/life balance. So after an intense stretch of speaking gigs and events, I’m ready to be at home, anchor, reconnect with my family and get clear on my top priorities. One of the ways I do this is by taking a personal planning retreat.

For the last 15 years, I have been taking personal retreats every 90 days to sit with the questions, “What is uniquely mine to do?” and “What is the best use of my energy and talents in the next 3 months?”

We’re all feeling overcommitted, overscheduled and exhausted. We’re trying to do too much. A personal planning retreat is a great way to pause, pull back and get clear on what matters most. You may want to spend this time getting clear on your vision for how you want to live, what in your personal or professional life is calling for your attention and thinking about how you want to allocate your time and resources over the next ninety days (I find this much less overwhelming than looking at an entire year).

Getting started: from Chapter Four on Managing Your Energy in The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal, I recommend first making a list of what activities fuel you (which ones give you energy, nourish you, make you come alive) and what activities drain you (create a physical tightness or discomfort in your back, belly or neck every time they cross your consciousness). Often these drains are things like a financial issue that must be handled, a tough conversation that has been postponed, a disorganized space at work or at home or a career or job issue that needs to be addressed.

I like to approach these drains with an aggressive housecleaning mindset, giving myself three options for handling these energy zaps:
1.I can “just do it” —and set a deadline for when I’ll complete the project
2. I can delegate it—and ask for help if needed or outsource the task
3. I can dump it—and walk away from this task or decide it isn’t going to happen (at least not this year!)

During your personal retreat, you can revisit old goals or dreams, enlist books for inspiration (I recommend the exercises in my two life balance titles), draw from Career Strategists’ Inspiration Café, journal, draw/paint or create a collage from magazine images that represents your vision for how you want to experience the next three months.

Do whatever inspires you and helps you gain clarity and focus (but “do less,” and trust your intuition; this isn’t a race). A primary goal of this retreat—whether it’s a day or a weekend —is to give your analytical thinking a rest and give your creativity and your Wise Self the opportunity to speak. Some tips to help you get the most from your retreat:

•Set aside a day, afternoon or a weekend void of all distractions (a minimum of eight hours is ideal, but even 4 hours is great).
•You may want to make this a personal retreat and be alone or you may decide to attend a guided group retreat; it depends on your personal needs and life stage. I do both.
•Choose a location that is inspiring and conducive to contemplation—a quiet park or natural setting; a friend’s vacant house; a retreat, yoga or spa center or even a quiet coffeehouse are good places to go (but get out of your own house!).
•Focus on what you want to create for the next ninety days of your life.
*Have fun and make this your own!
•Get the time on your calendar NOW! Otherwise it won’t happen. Think this sounds impossible? Well, if not now, then when?

You may, like me, decide you want to take a personal retreat each quarter. These planned respites are a wonderful, nurturing way for you to invest in yourself and align with your vision for your future.

JOIN ME ON A RETREAT:  Read 5 Reasons I Take Retreats and check out all my upcoming self-renewal retreats for women (don’t delay-lodging books up months in advance). P.S. A giveaway! Want to win a copy of my friend Marianne Bohr’s wonderful new book Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boom Adventure Across 21 Countries (I’m reading it right now and living vicariously!). Share in the comments section on this blog post below one aspect of your vision for how you want to live. We’ll pick a winner on Thursday.

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by life balance teacher/author and Career Strategists president, Renée Peterson Trudeau. Offering speaking, custom workshops/retreats, training, books/telecourses and individual coaching focusing on self-renewal, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Spirituality & Health and more. Thousands of women in ten countries are becoming RTA-Certified Facilitators and leading/joining self-care groups based on her award-winning curriculum.  She is the author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal and Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 13 year-old son. More on her background here.

 

October 19, 2015/4 Comments/by renee
Tags: Gap Year Girl, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, personal planning retreat, women's retreat
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://reneetrudeau.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/lost-pines-one-day-retreat-046-e1398697664386.jpg 226 340 renee https://reneetrudeau.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/renee_trudeau_logo_tagline.png renee2015-10-19 20:57:132019-05-13 11:20:28What’s your vision for how you want to live?
4 replies

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to my blog

 

 

Archives

Categories

Popular Blog Posts

Self-Care 101: Three Ways to Begin

This Is The Time to Take a Retreat (Here’s How)

6 Things to Do When The Going Gets Tough

Self-care is Not About Improving Yourself

Connection = Medicine. Are You Getting Your Daily Dose?

Pause. Are You Honoring Your Journey?

Feeling Out of Sorts? Start with Self-Compassion

Are You Nurturing Your Friendships (+Why You Should)?

Sign up and receive my meditation on How To Start Your Day Intentionally.

My inspiring Tuesday emails provide timely life balance tools to help you soar through your week, plus receive pre-invites to our sell-out events.

Sign up and receive my meditation on How To Start Your Day Intentionally.

My inspiring Tuesday emails provide timely life balance tools to help you soar through your week, plus receive pre-invites to our sell-out events.

Get In Touch

info@reneetrudeau.com

512-459-6700

Popular Blog Posts

Self-Care 101: Three Ways to Begin

This Is The Time to Take a Retreat (Here’s How)

6 Things to Do When The Going Gets Tough

Self-care is Not About Improving Yourself

Connection = Medicine. Are You Getting Your Daily Dose?

Pause. Are You Honoring Your Journey?

Feeling Out of Sorts? Start with Self-Compassion

Are You Nurturing Your Friendships (+Why You Should)?

Upcoming Events

March 1-31st ~ Wild Souls Nature Adventures (Blue Ridge Mountains, NC). New experiences are posted each week; keep checking back! Learn more.

April 14-16 ~ Awakening Your Wild Soul: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (Berkshire Mountains, MA). Learn more/register.

May 2023 ~ FREE Self-Care Global Summit with Renee and other self-care authors, teachers, coaches, and experts in relationships, spirituality, health & wellness and more. Registration coming soon.

May – June ~ Spring 2023 Women’s Self-Renewal Group  Small group/in person. Brevard, NC. Email us at info at reneetrudeau dot com to receive an invitation.

October 13-15th ~ Awakening Your Wild Soul: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (Berkshire Mountains, MA). Registration coming soon!

© 2023 Renée Trudeau. Privacy Policy + Terms of Use
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Self Renewal Groups
  • Books & Audio
  • Contact
  • Facilitator Login
  • My Account
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only