Richelle Sigele Donigan - Long weekend: guidance and inspiration for creating your own personal retreat

A thousand-mile journey is begun with a single step.

Lao Tzu

When you think of a retreat, you may think of leaving home, traveling to some place beautiful, serene, and far away. How amazing it would be to leave it all behind for a few days and simply rest. But if and when we are able to get away from it all, it can take a while to calm our busy minds. Our precious time away can become more about doing than being. We may find ourselves filling up the space with activity, anxiously checking work email or replaying stories in our heads. We may end up feeling the need for a retreat after our retreat!

Long Weekend is an invitation to being. We can be on retreat without going anywhere. It is an opportunity to create beautiful and serene moments right where we arein our home, with ourselves, in our neighborhood or in nature, alone or with our family, friends, or community. We can also go away to be on retreat, but its important that while traveling there, we dont get rushed or stressed. Taking our time is a radical and necessary act that gives us the opportunity to nurture the qualities inside that we also wish to cultivate in the world.

We offer ideas for each day of a three-day retreat, including activities that you can mix and match, as well as additional resources for meals, customizing your time, and ways to bring a little bit of the ease of a long weekend into your daily life.

Our world is moving faster and faster. We can find ourselves depleted, overscheduled, and sleep-deprived, reaching for quick infusions of energy from endless cups of coffee or energy bars. This can float us for a while, until the inevitable crash that leads us back to dreaming, wishing, and planning our escape. Long Weekend will give you the tools to integrate and care for yourself in ways that support your daily well-being.

Taking time to go away and turn it all offthe phone, the TV , the computer, the always on way of lifepositively recalibrates your whole body, your mind, and your senses. Maybe you have done a cleanse when you took out sugar, wheat, alcohol, or dairy and noticed that after a few days you were actually tasting your food. When you clear away the noise and busyness of the day-to-day, life gets sweeter. You can hear and feel the quiet, the subtleties of a moment. Your long weekend is a healing balm for the soul, a tonic for the spirit.

With all of the giving we do in a single day, we need to take time out to replenish and nourish ourselves. Taking a long weekend is about giving yourself time for simplicity and balance, an extended pause from the usual. With clear planning and deliberate intentions, we can recharge, refresh, and gain resiliance to carry us forward for our work in the world.

Rain falls from the sky, the sun shines, then night falls. There is a rhythm, a cyclical nature to things, and most of us feel out of step. We may feel that we are behind the ball. We may feel like there are never enough hours in the day or days in the week. We can feel the if onlys adding up. We are tired, stretched. Maybe we are working with some disease in the physical body that is taking its toll. In front of the television may be the only place we are actually getting some time to ourselves. This feeling is one of being out of balance.

Listen to your longings. You are hearing the deepest part of yourself speaking to you. Take the time to ask, What would you love?

In these pages there are recipes and tools for fun, health, and wellness. Give yourself permission to be in your own flow while reading. What if creating ease were as simple as rolling over in your sleep? It can be. Imagine saying Yes! to a few days of doing only what you desire. Nothing to be but what you choose. No time frame, no deadlines, no schedule.

Imagine saying yes to sweet languishing, to stopping to look at the beauty that surrounds you whether you are in the city or in the country, near the ocean or in the mountains. There is beauty everywhere, if you look for it. What would it be like to walk around your block or neighborhood on the hunt for the exquisite in everything?

You might find yourself saying yes to taking the time to play games, to draw or color, to read, or to dance or sing along to all the songs you love at the top of your voice. What we look for and hold space for we will find.

This is a time to remember who you are and maybe add a few new grooves.

Come journey with us. Take a moment now and listen to your breathing. Come find your way.

Richelle and Rachel

What a Long Weekend Is

Crafting time for yourself in the ways you find most restorative and nourishing

Time to drop into yourself and what matters to you

Creative time

Deep rest

Silent time

Space for joy

Nourishment

Being rather than doing

What a Long Weekend Is Not

Working from home

A family vacation

Fitting yourself into an already pre-packaged and impersonal schedule

A work trip

A full-on party weekend

A weekend of taking care of the errands on your to-do list