Giving yourself the gift of a retreat can be as simple as stepping away from your home for a night or two. You can stay somewhere that you can afford whether it is a B&B (all kinds of wonderful ones to choose from in the Texas Hill Country such as the Red Corral Ranch which I love), a plush hotel or borrowing a friend’s room for a night or weekend.

There are also numerous retreat leaders, such as myself, who lead all kinds of retreats.  For instance, I’m offering a retreat this coming December 16-18 which will focus around my friend and best-selling author Janet Conner’s book, “Writing Down Your Soul“.  Although my retreats have “themes” to them such as WDYS, there is also the implicit intention of giving each woman the gift of relaxing for 48 hours during what can be one of the busiest seasons of the year as well as connecting with other very special women.  I’m very blessed to know some incredible women so it’s always fun to get a group together to enjoy new found friends.  One thing we women still aren’t very good at doing is finding time to connect with other women.  My guy friends seem to find all kinds of ways to enjoy time with each other from golfing to sailing to hiking and more.  Women tend to make themselves too busy to take time out for themselves much less with each other.

There is a whole group of Certified Retreat Coaches (of which I am one) that you can look through to find the Coach and retreat that is the best fit for you.

Still, there are the retreats where you go off on your own to enjoy time, space and quiet.  I’m very extroverted which means that for the most part I get re-energized around people. However, even I find myself needing time all alone to just regroup after I’ve been around a lot of people.  This past weekend I had a good friend and mentor come stay with me for the evening and invited a group of our mutual friends over for an evening of conversation and fun.  The next day was a conference that my friend spoke at with about 60 or so people attending and then a lunch afterward with about 30 people.  It was all good fun and enjoying interesting people but I did end up coming home in the afternoon and taking at two hour nap!  That’s why on any retreat I lead, two hours down time is always built in to the schedule!

However you choose to give yourself the gift of a retreat, just know that it is a gift that keeps on giving to you and those with whom you share your life.  When we’re stretched to the edge of our breaking point because of all the things that we “have” to do and feel responsible for in our lives, that does no one any good–least of all ourselves!  I bet if we took most any species of animal and studied them for very long we would soon observe that they take a retreat of sorts for themselves on a regular basis to recharge and recoup.  Why do we humans insist on being any different?

Give yourself the gift of relaxing and recouping and if you’re feeling especially frisky and daring (and you’re a woman—sorry guys for this one)  then sign up for my Writing Down Your Soul Retreat this December 16-18, 2011.  It’s $195 for 2 wonderfully comfortable nights at the Red Corral Ranch.  Send a deposit of $75 to hold your space now by November 1.  For more information, you may email me at [email protected]