Yoga retreats are much more than a privileged escape. Even a mini weekend or day retreat can deliver you from an insane head space and lead you to your serene inner world where innumerable gifts await you. If you desperately need a break right here right now and cannot take off for that Caribbean Yoga Retreat, let's see how you may capture a few of those simple treasures in 30 minutes.
1. Physical Rest
Yoga retreats provide the luxury of exploring the body like an adventurer discovering backwoods that were always there. And offers the opportunity to restfully foster a connection with your habitat, the body, if you so desire.
At home create the time and space for a 30-minute exploration. How can you make this luxurious? Use a bolster, cushion or pillow to support your body in a few poses, and journey within the backwoods sensing and feeling one body part then another, then the body as a whole.
2. Restoration of Energy
There is time at a retreat for a spacious practice of Pranayama or breathing exercises. The relative ease with which one is able to practice this more subtle aspect of Hatha Yoga sometimes surprises. Another forward step on the Yoga path.
At home, pay attention to your breathing while lying in the restorative pose. In the poses that open the chest, like Restorative Bridge pose, play with breathing into different areas of the lungs. Slowly increase that connection with the breath that can be so elusive.
3. A Quieter Mind
Some Yoga retreats include meditation in their program. Even first timers try different meditation techniques to see which ones could have some effect on that wild and untamed horse, the mind. They take advantage of the environment and practice every day at the retreat. Such consistent practice bears fruit.
In your mini retreat, practice counting the breath from 1 to 10 or from 10 to 1. You can also mentally repeat a prayer, favorite saying, or mantra with every breath. This attention training practiced time and time again will bring results.
4. Insights from a Journal
Personally I only write in a journal every now and then in spurts. Journals are like mirrors to an inner world. At a yoga retreat there is a chance to illuminate the inner landscape through keeping a journal.
For your home retreat, it could be fun and enlightening to write in a journal either before and/or after the 30 minute session.
So if you must take a break right now and cannot take off to an organized Yoga retreat, why not try a 30 minute restorative Yoga session at home and find your way back to sanity.
Heather Greaves is the owner of Body Therapies Yoga Training. She organizes yoga and meditation retreats and workshops in Ontario and the Caribbean, and has been helping yoga enthusiasts learn to teach yoga in a certified program. For more yoga tips or to sign up for our monthly newsletter visit http://www.yogatogo.com/
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