Get Outta Town: Top Reasons to Take a Yoga Retreat

 As we experience nature’s growth and expansion during springtime, many of us may be thinking of ways that we can let go of the old and welcome in the new. Attending a yoga retreat can be a great opportunity to recharge batteries, take stock of your life and chart a new course for yourself.

Let’s examine several of the top reasons to take a yoga retreat:

1. To Deepen Your Practice

Most of us lead hectic lives and are unable to practice yoga as much as we’d like to.  A yoga retreat gives us the opportunity to practice each day, sometimes multiple times a day. The effects of yoga are cumulative, and a daily practice gives us an opportunity to explore both our body and mind in a deeper way.

Perhaps on Monday triangle pose felt great… but on Tuesday we’ve had less sleep and it’s a bit of a struggle. On Wednesday, we try triangle pose again and we may finally understand some of the more subtle energetic and alignment cues that our teacher is giving us. We learn when to press forward, and when to back off. We may find a newfound sense of patience in our practice as we watch it evolve from day to day. Through continual practice, we learn about the infinite variations of our body, mind and psyche.

2. To Gain Perspective

Simply put, yoga retreats provide respite from the daily grind. Many retreats are set in foreign countries or places of great natural beauty. Stepping away from our routine to breathe, explore and simply be still can help us to look at our problems anew, and to find gratitude for what is indeed working in our lives.

A yoga retreat encourages us to appreciate many of the things we neglect to see or sense in our daily lives – the beating of a hummingbird’s wings, the natural splendor of a mountain, the smell of orange blossoms wafting through the air, the smile of a stranger. Refining our awareness to include the simple things in life can be a powerful tool in gaining perspective.

3. To Heal and Transform 

Many people are drawn to a retreat when they’ve reached the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back”. Consciously or unconsciously, we sense that attending a retreat can be a powerful and positive first step in creating a life change.

For many of us, self-care is not a priority. Making an investment of time, money and energy in a yoga retreat is an empowering choice – we control the reins and can steer the course of our lives in the right direction.