Recently I have moved into a brand new studio in one of the less expensive suburbs of the city. As I needed to reduce my budget and lifestyle, I urgently had to do something to boost my well-being and bring my mind into a more relaxed, cheerful, and optimistic state. After a week of heavy shifting, moving, and rearranging, I decided it was time for a break, which triggered the idea of turning my studio into a zen wellness oasis.
With the stress, anxiety, and emotional turmoil around the COVID-19 pandemic, you most probably crave a true escape, but until it is safe to travel for a week or a weekend, why not do that in your own home?
With this article, I would like to guide you through creating the ultimate wellness escape right at your home.
It all starts with a well-planned schedule, even if you will be doing it all at home. It would be best if you organized your itinerary in advance. That brings you a better perspective and keeps a good structure in an otherwise chaotic pandemic world. The itinerary must balance low-impact and more intense exercises and meditation to stimulate our brain and boost the endorphins, healthy food and beverage recipes to detox and re-boot our immunity, and activities to promote well-being.
A few guidelines to follow on the way to planning your home retreat will be:
1. Declutter and remove destructions.
When you determine the space for your retreat, clear and declutter anything that will distract your attention, reminding you of your daily life. That includes removing all the iPads, computers, video games, and alarms that may break the retreat cycle or your meditative state of mind.
2. Create a signature spa fragrance.
Mix your own fragrance choices. Get a water bowl or a dispenser and mix a few drops from lemongrass, mint, and peppermint with hot water for a wake-up morning ambience and lavender, ylang-ylang, or patchouli for an evening calm. Use a simple candle or a water dispenser to keep the air as long as possible.
3. Pack your bag.
Yes, even if you stay home, being organized is key to a smooth journey flow. A luggage preparation will help you focus on the itinerary and not allow you to lose time searching for anything else that you might think of later.
4. Pick up your meditation space.
Set your place for daily meditations and reflections in a corner with cushions, flowers, and candles that will ease and invite you for practice and help you be more disciplined. This should be an energetically high space without cables and clutter to help you re-reconnect with your unconscious mind to find accurate answers to all your doubts or questions.
5. Prepare your gratitude journal.
Prepare a pen, notebook, and coloured pencils for reflection, as you might want to get creative or put highlights in your diary notes that you may wish to reflect upon later.
Beginning of your retreat
Day 1
Late Afternoon Check-in
If your typical work weekend is Thursday night, you will check in mentally into your well-being sanctuary late after work. Instead of the usual start of your weekend, start preparing your welcome detox tea and pulling your luggage outside your dresser and into your retreat space.
Detox Tea
Delicious detox tea is from cilantro or coriander, parsley, rooibos tea, dandelion, ginger turmeric, or milk thistle, just a few examples. Boil the water with your preferred herbs and decide whether you drink it cold or hot with lemon grass or fresh basil leaves.
Meditation
Sipping on your tea, proceed to your meditation corner to dive into your favourite practice of serenity for at least 30 min. An easy way to meditate is when connecting to your breath and following the inhale-exhale cycle, focusing on your body and mentally imagining how you cleanse yourself from all heaviness and toxins while exhaling and pumping your body with freshness, invigorating energy and vitality while inhaling. An excellent relaxing meditation with NLP techniques promotes the building of your self-confidence. You can find it on the link below:
Journaling
Following your mental calm, now is the best time to start journaling. Remaining seated at your meditation corner or choosing a more comfortable spot, ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers:
ü What do you want to achieve during these couple of days?
ü How do you want to feel when you wake up on the last day?
ü What do you want to change in your life, and what do you want to reconnect with?
Give yourself numbers from 1 to 10 ( one being the lowest, 10 the highest) of where you are now versus where you want to be.
Detox bath
Before kissing the pillow, indulge yourself in a homemade detox bath. An excellent recipe for a detox bath is mixing Epsom salts with a teaspoon of baking soda and a few drops of essential oils, including eucalyptus, peppermint, rosemary, and lavender. You can add cinnamon or vanilla pinch as a signature aroma.
Suppose you don’t have a bath; it’s not an issue. Mix sea or Epsom salts with 2-3 drops of your essential oils in a bowl with water and mix into a paste. Apply over damp skin with luffa while scrubbing your body from the toes upward toward the heart and the hands toward the chest area. That scrub will increase the lymphatic drain flow and dispose of the toxins through the skin.
Bedtime ritual
It’s time for a good night’s deep sleep. Lay down straight in your bed on your back, stretch yourself tall up and down, stretch opposite arms and legs together, and pull them apart a few times to release any tension in your spine. Do that alternatively with the right and left leg. Place your sleeping beauty eye mask and ear plugs on and visualize yourself already being in that state you want to be, having what you want to have, and doing what you want to do while drifting away.
Day 2
Good Morning Booster Drink
Wake up with a healthy shot of immunity booster. A good recipe for that is boiling half a spoon of ginger and half a spoon of turmeric in 200 – 300 ml of water, and once it’s cooled down, add a ladle of honey and a spoon of apple cider to it. This is considered one of the best immunity-boosting drinks, especially when keeping your health guard high. Prepare a double dose of it to have one for the following day.
Yoga or Fitness
Start your day with an active yogic or a fitness workout before anything else. It is important to sweat and increase heart rhythm, so if you opt for yoga, try some of their dynamic versions of vinyasa or ashtanga, and if you are fitness, try something with cardio, kickbox, or aerobic. Ether, use a yogic sequence or a fitness workout you love doing for at least 30 – 40 minutes of it.
Check out my article on a yoga sequence for higher vibrations and try to do two to three complete lines for 30 minutes.
Breakfast
Make a light breakfast and skip it or replace it with a smoothie or nutritious juice. If you are a fan of intermittent fasting, you can take your first meal only in the afternoon.
A healthy breakfast option is granola paired with yoghurt, fruits, nuts, scrambled eggs with spinach and veggies, and overnight oats with fruits and seeds.
Healthy smoothie options are made out of frozen berries, almond butter, almond, or any other plant-based milk, or perhaps leafy greens mixed with chia seeds, berries, and your choice of milk.
Leisure Time
It is now time to enjoy your leisure time – sunbathing, swimming, walking, reading a powerful book, or watching an inspiring movie.
This is the time for you to reflect and relax. Some genuinely inspiring movies to watch are:
Unbroken, A Beautiful Mind, Forest Gump, Seven Pounds, Theory of Everything, Mitty, Big Fish or biographies of great people, etc.
Lunch
You decide to skip your lunch or not, and again, a reminder here is to listen to your body. If you feel no hunger, stay involved in your leisure activity, sipping on healthy tea options ( avoid coffee and caffeine drinks for those two days)
Self-Massage
That’s right! You can perform a massage on yourself. The easiest way is to roll a small tennis ball under the shoulders against a floor or a wall, releasing all the tension in that area. Another great option is to heat a neck pillow in a microwave or oven for around 10 minutes and place it over the shoulders until it gets cold. A do-it-yourself version of a neck pillow will be from two large old socks filled with dried lavender seeds and giant sea salt crystals. After removing the hot neck pillow, start massaging your right shoulders with the left hand, doing long strokes from the back toward the front to the collarbone line. You will feel immense relief when moving the tissue and muscles back to act as you activate the blood circulation and promote lymphatic drainage of toxins. Subsequently, do that with the left hand massaging your right shoulder. Finish with a long arm stroke from the shoulder to your fingertips. Crossing both arms and rubbing them together promotes extreme relaxation as it activates and balances both the left and right brain hemispheres.
Juicing
Following the massage, take a shot of freshly squeezed juice or smoothie. Please make your juice with calming and relaxing properties since it is already noon.
A relaxing juice recipe includes a banana, coconut milk, and a lemongrass stalk. Alternatively, mix apples, cherries, and blueberries to relax the arteries and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, plus supply vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Journaling
Today, write in your journal about how you see yourself in your desired state, what you will do, where you live, who is with you, what you see around you, what is before you, and how you feel. Describe as specific as possible, visualizing and writing about your soul and mind desires.
Affirmations-Visualizations
After clearly describing your wishes, lay down on the floor to ground yourself, cover yourself with a blanket, play relaxing music, and see what you have written clearly in front of your mind’s eye.
Day 3
Late Afternoon Check-out
It is the last and significant day of your sacred home retreat since how you finalize the experience will determine its outcome.
Juice
Wake up slowly and take your morning shot of the immunity booster juice.
Journaling
Write in your journal about how you feel today compared to the day you started on the scale from 1 to 10 and what has changed:
ü Something you feel grateful for?
ü Something, someone you need to remove and let go of your life?
ü Something you need to have more of, someone you need to spend more time with?
ü Observe your prime emotions and write them down.
ü Rewind to the first pages of your diary and compare the feelings you had to the state you are in now.
Meditate
Reflect and withdraw to your meditation corner for at least 10 – 20 min.
Dance Fit
It is a perfect time for an upbeat fitness session or perhaps your favourite dance workout.
Play your favourite dance beats on and dance the way you only know; practicing Zumba, Latino music, Afro beats, or whatever makes you happy and your hips sway.
Do this for at least 30 – 40 minutes to level up your heartbeat and mood.
Breathing Session
Round up with relaxing breathing sessions by doing yogic sequences such as alternative nostril breath, kapalabhati, or bastrika. You can always check out how these breathing techniques are done online if you have done them before.
Happiness booster cocoa –coffee drink
Reward yourself for the job well done over the past two days with a healthy cocoa coffee drink.
Mix your choice of milk, one scoop of cocoa, a few coffee beans, 2-3 large ice cubes, and 2-3 significant dates in a blender, and enjoy your iced cocoa–coffee latte.
Write a letter to the Universe.
Wind up your retreat by sitting down and writing your goals to the Universe dated a year from now. Address all you would want to accomplish if everything had gone how you wanted.
Write it in the present tense: I have, am, and do. – Write about the loving relationship with your kids and husband, how successful you are in your career, and how you did the holiday or travel you always wanted to do. Be specific, energetic, and excited. This will create the blueprint of your road map in your mind and help you get faster to it.
Final words
Whatever the reasons for making time and space for this retreat, let yourself slow down and enjoy the journey. You don’t need to follow the agenda described above but create your order following the guidelines; similarly, let your body dictate what food and beverages you want to explore as long as they are healthy and nutritious. It is essential to listen to your body, intuition, gut, and soul and let them guide you towards making the best choices for yourself.
Have fun!