Design your Personal Retreat
Welcome to a Journey of Self-Discovery & Renewal
Why not take a modern pilgrimage in your own backyard?
You can skip the expense, time, and carbon spent on travel and design your own spiritual retreat right at home. As the year draws to a close, there is no better time to reflect, recharge, and set intentions for the future.
Use this guide to design your own immersive New Year’s Personal Retreat that nourishes your mind, body, and soul.
“Times are urgent. We must slow down.” — Bayo Akomolafe
Preparation
Create Your Container, Find Your Ideal Space
Identify a time and space. If you have kiddos and/or are partnered, please ask for a few hours of solitude. If not, set whatever boundaries with yourself and others necessary to create this time alone.
Silence that phone and keep in another room if possible.
Whether it’s a cozy corner of your home or a serene outdoor spot, choose a space that fosters peace and introspection.
*I once did a three hour retreat under a London Plane tree in the backyard.
Make Your Playlist
Woo thyself with music. Create a playlist (or use mine on Spotify) with 15–20 songs that resonate with your intentions for the retreat, or take inspiration from these suggestions here:
Customize Your Retreat Schedule
Here are a few ideas to create a retreat schedule. Please make your own to help you stay focused on the sacred.
Reading soul-filling books, dancing, yoga, stillness, staring at trees, journaling, listening to music, doing breathwork, drawing, painting, collaging, whittling. What makes you come home to yourself?
What will you eat and drink? Or will you do a period of fasting for mental and spiritual clarity? Choose what resonates with you.
Please be kind to your body and mind before you commence. Avoiding large amounts of alcohol, sugar, stress, and violent/stressful content will be of service to you.
Here is a sample schedule, from our Creative Monastery Retreat 2024
7:30 am Singing & Chanting
8:00 am Silent or Guided Meditation
9:00 am Slow Breakfast
10:00 am Creative Play Time / Stillness
12:30 pm Lunch
2:30–5:00 pm Nature Walk / Movement
5:00 pm Reading
6:30 pm Journaling
7:30 pm Dinner
9:00 pm Closing Ritual
Settle In
Begin with this Guided Meditation
In this guided meditation, Bristol Baughan supports to you in cultivating the optimal inner conditions for rest and retreat. Let’s begin.
Link to the meditation
Reflection
Ponder about the following questions, and write answers down in a journal or notebook
What are your proudest achievements this year, both personally and professionally? (List them. Look back at your calendar if you can’t remember.) Celebrate yourself!
What is one pattern you shifted this year? What is one thing you stopped doing and one thing you started doing?
How have your relationships evolved this year, both with yourself and with others?
In what areas would you like to continue to grow. Get specific. (Dreams and goals go here.)
What are some of the big spiritual lessons of 2023? What are a few challenges you faced?
Imagine your soul played a role in designing everything that has happened to you. what lessons does it want you to learn?
If you learned these lessons, how might that shape 2024?
Ritual
Celebrate and Honor
If you look back at what you are letting go of in 2023, how might you honor this act with a ritual? *I am a fan of making up your own rituals. I once buried a tiny note and a sliced credit card in ancient mud with a prayer for forgiveness.
You can burn, bury, sing, make offerings, pray, dance, etc. Whatever helps you celebrate and honor your past year.
Once you are done, complete the following stem sentences:
I release…
I forgive myself for judging myself as…
I forgive myself for buying into the belief that…
The truth is…
I call in…
Now, this truth is your seed to nurture patiently. Please write down all the truths you wish to cultivate and place somewhere you can see everyday.
“With nature’s help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life sustaining.
Everything in nature, the sum total of heaven and earth, becomes a temple and an altar for the service of creation.”
- Hildegard of Bingen
Nourish
Read something that feeds your soul
These are a few reads I go back to often, to remember who I am and how I want to spend my energy. Enjoy.
- Emergent Strategy | AMB
- Braiding Sweetgrass| Robin Wall Kimmerer
- The Prophet | Kahlil Gibran
Aliveness Meditation
After you have rested and released, practice deep listening with this Aliveness Meditation:
Link to the meditation
Please write down your moment of aliveness in your journal and any wisdom you received. How does this energy want to play through you right now on this planet?
Now, write down one small action step you can take to honor and cultivate this aliveness.
You can come back to this meditation any time you wish to reconnect with what makes you come alive.
Design
Design Your Spiritual Practice
What conditions will support you in coming fully alive this year?
Like soil requires light, water, rest, and nutrients, in order to thrive, what is a daily/weekly/monthly practice that will do the same for you?
Pull up your calendar and begin marking off sections of time for whatever fills you up physically, spiritually, emotionally, creatively, and mentally. Go small. Make it so easy, you will 100% show up for it. Put it on your calendar to repeat. Then run experiments and tweak until it sticks.
Here are some examples that you can slot into your week on one or multiple days:
07:30 am 10' meditation
10:00 am 60' writing
06:00 pm 60' Yin yoga
At the end of your retreat, please take a moment to thank yourself for your presence. It is a rare gift.
Wishing you a year of presence, play, and deep commitment to your creative self. Regeneration of people and planet begins within.
This guide was made as a personal journey to mirror the Creative Monastery Retreat hosted by Bristol Baughan, taking place in Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal in December 2023 — January 2024. If you are interested In future retreats or co-living in a monastery during 2024, please reach out to bristol@innerastronauts.com.
I work with executives, entrepreneurs and storytellers to connect to their confidence, passion, and purpose, in private 1:1 leadership coaching sessions. Want to discover what makes you come alive, and and how to lean into it? Sign up for coaching sessions, designed to meet you where you are in your journey. Online or in-person intensives in the Azores, Portugal.
If you are interested In future retreats or co-living in a monastery during 2024, please reach out to bristol@innerastronauts.com.
