How to transform your home into a yoga retreat in 7 easy steps! Daintree Rainforest/February 2014

SHRINE

Hello wellness warriors. Well the new year and its flurry of resolutions have no doubt tailed off a little so I’m guessing now is a good time to lift the bar once again and remind you (gently and softly of course) to stay on track with healthy & balanced living!

I have been very excited about writing this article because I LOVE doing my own mini yoga/wellness retreats at home; they make me feel so good. For the little bit of effort and organisation required the benefits are so great. What could be better; carving your time and space, creating rituals and shrines and off you go into a wonderful state of peace, learning, bliss and relaxation in 7 easy steps!

Why do your own mini-home-yoga-retreat? Well here are many reasons.....

Whilst researching the subject of personal retreats and silence, I came across Sara Maitland who is the author of an amazing book ‘A Book of Silence’. Click HERE for details.  Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence and retreat on her own in the Sinai desert, the Australian bush, and a remote cottage on the Isle of Skye. Her memoir of these experiences is interwoven with the history of silence through fairy-tale and myth, Western and Eastern religious traditions, the Enlightenment and psychoanalysis, up to the ambivalence towards silence in contemporary society. Sara states,

 “I became less driven more reflective and a great deal less frenetic. And into that space followed silence: I would go out into the garden at night or in the early morning and just look and listen; there were starts, weather, seasons, growth and repetition. For the first time in my life I noticed the graduation of colours before sunrise – from indigo through apricot to a lapidary blueness.”

I too have experienced some interesting revelations about myself and the world during times of retreat – it’s so important for us to take stock of ourselves every now and again. It’s as if the world goes from black and white into colour and layers upon layers of life are revealed to you, manifesting a more rounded and deeper life experience. Suddenly out of the silence pops a solution to a problem I have been pondering, or a brilliant creative idea; because I have created the space for this to happen. Sara Maitland goes onto say:

“In our noise obsessed culture it is very easy to forget just how many of the major physical forces on which we depend are silent – gravity, electricity, light, tides, the unseen and unheard spinning of the whole cosmos. Organic growth is silent too”.

This brings me neatly onto the subject of Mindfulness. I was recently reading a very interesting article about this topic in Time magazine (February 2014 edition); yes it seems that ‘new age’ concepts such as meditation/yoga are making it into the mainstream and despite them being ‘repackaged’ with oodles of scientific empiricism to appease the masses I’m so very pleased that it has.

Mindfulness programmes are being taken up all over the world but particularly by high level executives and IT specialists currently. Mindfulness techniques (which is a meditation technique similar to that of yogic meditation) according-to-scientific-study (I sound like them!) help to make our minds more focussed and elastic! What a fantastical idea I hear you say wellness warriors! And it is. We should all want more elastic minds; the ability to change the way that we think and adapt to new ideas; to literally rewire the brain, be more creative, think outside the box, be more efficient, increase memory capacity etc etc -  neuroscientists call it functional connectivity don’t you know. Buddhist Monks nuns or yogis in the Himalayas who have clocked up more retreat and meditation hours than we have had hot dinners come top of the class when it comes to having elastic minds and good for them!

Yoga and meditation have also been found to lower cortisol levels (which is the stress hormone), and lower blood pressure too. My blood pressure has gone down-down-down since I have been meditating daily - yippee!

Enough said wellness warriors; I think I have made my point. And I think it’s time we got onto the practical business of how to set it all up!  

How to transform your home into a yoga retreat in 7 easy steps!

ONE - Carve your Space

Find somewhere quiet, warm and light in your home with a good supply of fresh air. Choose somewhere that is close to nature perhaps.

Make your shrine/meditation space. You can use anything! Just create a focal point – the process of doing this creates a ritual commitment to the task. Above is a shrine that my husband and I have made on a beach in Australia – the red heart shaped stone and shells etc are placed in a wee hole in a tree by the beach – it’s beautiful. It’s been there for years and it’s our special place.

Adorn your space with cushions/yoga mats/some candles/incense etc – whatever makes you feel calm relaxed and at ease; whatever makes you feel like ‘getting-your-Om-on’ (couldn’t resist that one)!

TWO - Carve your Time

Make a loose schedule for your retreat time; what you will do and when.

Switch off the phone & wifi. Clear the clutter. 

Let your friends, family and partner know that you are unavailable for the next few hours/days/weeks/months!  

THREE - Eat Well

Fill your fridge with fresh fruit and vegetables. Avoid anything processed or packaged. Avoid dairy alcohol sugar caffeine meat gluten/wheat based food.

Enjoy creating and eating healthy salads healing soups tasty vegetarian dishes and fresh juices.

Stay hydrated. Drink filtered water and nothing else (apart from home made juices and herbal tea).

For a more detailed healthy eating plan please do contact me. Click HERE.

FOUR – Detoxification of Mind and Body

Use natural alternatives to chemical-laden beauty and home cleaning products.

Do not smoke drink or take drugs.

Have an Epsom salt bath every other night for a week. Put 200-300g of Epsom salts in a bath and then sink your whole body into the water for 20 lovely minutes. You should perspire between your brows.

Drink lots of water and home juice; lemon beetroot ginger celery apple and carrot is great for detoxification and delicious too!

FIVE - Meditate

Meditate.

Make positive affirmations & mantras.

Be silent.

Perform gentle yoga postures and yoga nidra deep relaxation.

Be by yourself – dig your own flow without any pressures or expectations from outside.

Sleep and rest.

SIX – Visualise

Visualise your dreams into being – what you focus on will materialise so sit and imagine in full colour exactly what it is that you want in your life. 

Visualise your whole body being surrounded by white healing light.

Write your thoughts down without judgement – let go of anything that does not serve you well.

SEVEN – Repeat

Repeat all of the above a few times a year

I do my own mini-home-retreat regularly and am currently doing it in the Daintree rainforest Australia for 5 weeks. I always feel lighter brighter and clearer for it. So give it a go wellness warriors! I’d love to hear about your experiences so please do share!

Love Mounira

For tailor made home-retreat yoga meditation visualisation healthy eating and detox packages please do contact me. I can work face to face (depending on my location!) or remotely online. My details: Click HERE and contact me!