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Is it time for you to take a spiritual retreat? 

A vacation is defined as “an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling.” A retreat is “a period of withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study or instruction.” 

What do you need for your spirit right now? 

A retreat doesn’t have to be complex, expensive or difficult. It can be as simple as a few hours or as long as two weeks. You get to decide. 

And since many in the US have a long holiday weekend coming up, why not take a portion of that time to create your own retreat of the spirit? 

Step 1: Decide how much time you can realistically set aside for your retreat. Do you want to do this solo, as a couple or as part of a group? Where do you want to do this retreat? 

Step 2: What do you want to do on this retreat? This is YOUR retreat. YOU get to decide. It might help you to decide what you want to get out of the retreat before you decide what activities you want to include. Do you want to clear your head? Get in deeper touch with yourself? Learn about a spiritual path? Ideas to consider: reading, prayer, meditating, journaling, a walk, yoga, making music, building a prayer altar, smudging your space. 

Step 3: Take a deep breath. 

Step 4: Set yourself up for spiritual success. Decide what you will and won’t do. Digital detox? Eat healthy? Listen to only specific kinds of music? Take steps to make your idea of a spiritual retreat be all it can be for you. Think about your five senses. If you can include specific items which engage your senses, your retreat experience can be deeper and more profound. 

Step 5: Gather all you need for your retreat and prep your space. (Nothing gets you out of flow faster than realizing you’re missing one of the key components or that your space has distractions. Please note: caregivers and pet people – you need to make sure these responsibilities are covered and/or work around times when you are free.) 

Step 6: Hydrate. Breathe. 

Step 7: Start your retreat. If you can symbolically open this period of time with a prayer or a facet of what you want to do during your time, do so. If you find during your retreat you are drawn to certain activities and want to skip others, do so. This is YOUR spiritual retreat. Once your time of retreat is drawing to an end, close it out with gratitude for the time you had and what you experienced. 

Step 8: Give yourself grace as you reintegrate back into your “normal” life. Depending on what you did and the duration of your spiritual retreat, you may decide to make some changes based on what you learned during the retreat. Pick one thing for the first week to integrate into your daily life. Once you’ve got that worked in, pick the next thing if you have one. 

Step 9: Reflect. Pick a time a week after your spiritual retreat to think back on your experience. What did you love? What did you learn? What would you do again and what would you skip? Did you get out of the retreat what you needed? 

Spiritual retreats are a wonderful way to reset yourself and gain wisdom for what you want in your life and how you want to live it. 

Jennifer Markley 

Jennifer is a LUT (Licensed Unity Teacher) candidate and author of The Reader’s Journal and The CreativeGoods.com: Resources, Tools and Inspiration to Live the Creative Life.