Ibiza Retreat

Looking back now in 2021.  I am even more blown away with the memories of being able to travel and to stay in this beautiful house. We might not be able to return for some time yet but I am very much committed to the work that myself and my team created here and how valuable it is. 

This is my 4th trip to this stunning house, the first comments from my guests and team here are, WOW, this is Special. Great Accommodation. A real sanctuary. Stunning grounds with lots of private outside space. Total Luxury.

This is my story of life on retreat. I want to share with you what we are doing here in Ibiza. You are join in and follow our meditations, inspirations, and new found shared wisdom and fabulous food. From this post you can dip in and have a flavour or essence of out time here.

First morning, before my guests arrive I take the time for self practice on the terrace followed by a swim in the pool. I acknowledge the feeling of gratitude for what is  an absolute luxury, being here is a gift of time and even though for me and my team it’s our work, aren’t we lucky to work here. This feeling of gratitude never leaves me, I am always inspired by nature, how I feel taking time to immerese myself in the environment and be able to share this with others.

My aim for this retreat is to offer people a chance to go deeper into their practice. Rather than a holiday with only yoga , this retreat gives you the opportunity and space to enhance yourself care and wellness. I am working with Heena who will be taking us trhough EFT (emotional transformative therapy), Heena is also offering massage and Dansoa will give you a diet consolation. We are giving talks on how to manage stress and bring balance into your life and live mindfully.

Dave is our Chef and is cooking us super nutritious meals with Dansoa on side to advise us on how tweak these meals to suit our own individual needs. It is so inspiring.

This is one of our lunch dishes, Char grilled broccoli garlic olive oil dressing with green beans, cherry tomatoes and feta. I am enjoying the added flavours from seeds and different oils. Everything is colourful and you just know it’s super food goodness that you are absorbing. My whole body is loving it.

Today we did pranayama and meditation as the sun was rising, I recorded the session for you to try out and include a picture of the sensational sunrise. Yoga followed our light breakfast and I then had a swim which I think will be my new routine. Having the pool to myself, enjoying life to the full.

Here is our meditation for you to enjoy, we start off by getting seated, kneeling on blocks or sitting on a chair.

Sun Rise Meditation

 I have included post yoga chat time where we explore issues that have come up in the session. Today we discussed Anger! Yep Anger, here in peace and tranquliuty but anger is an emotion like any other. It was really good to share our stories around anger which we condensed into feelings of frustration. We looked at ways of coping, sharing our experinces with journaling, mind mapping, practices of gratitude, patience in the process of letting to and knowing that we can change.

Coming up……

Foraging for Cactus, cooking and eating it!

Amazing inspired talk about EFT with a practice to share with you.

Heena our EFT therapist shared her wisdom with us. EFT is used for changing limiting beliefs, you know those time when you speak negatively about your self. EFT works on disrupting that pattern. In the recording together we do a practice and I can share it with you. We are all repeating the statements together which felt really empowering.

 Listen to Heena talk about and practice EFT

 DAY 2 IN PARADISE

It’s been a busy day, I woke up late and had to dash to the yoga terrace to teach this mornings session of pranayama, Yikes, I am supposed to be running this gig. Another stunning start to the day though at 7.30 am watching the sun rise, followed with our yoga practice. Today was all about moving from our core, rolling over our toes, lots of toe and foot prep, rotating legs in hips, learning to move in silent grace and apply that to moving with side plank. I can hear my students at home gasping, “not side planks” but it’s way easier here in this relaxed vibe.

After class today our talk time was on work life balance, its here to share in a pod cast for you. Almost an hour long, conversation sharing what we do to find that balance, where we have all come from in this journey of change and what we can take back with us as inspiration for living well.

I asked the group what would be our best day off, words that resonated with us all were, comfortable, space to myself, at home, cooking for friends, relaxed time, sitting around not doing much.

Check out the pod cast as it is interesting to hear how we got to this place.

Books and insights that inspire us

Another beautiful lunch and today we had cactus, yes indeed.

Mexican recipe
cut a couple of Nopal leaves, remove the thorns and remove the thicker part so it’s all flat. Cut into quarters and put in a hot pan. Cook a couple of minutes until they start turning a darker green. Chop into small pieces and mix with chopped tomatoes onion and fresh cheese like feta.

Following lunch it’s time for my complimentary massage. Floating on…..

Pre dinner – post yoga we have an inspiring talk about the restorative and healing aspects of DoTerra Oils. These oils come in a family house hold pack and you can treat and prevent all sorts of issues, endless possibilities and they are also digestible. I am testing Frankincense to use as an anti inflammatory in prevention of Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can listen to our conversation here wit Heena and our Chef Dave sharing how they came to finding the brand of oils, why and how they use them in everyday life. It’s very interesting, especially if you are interested in living with out toxins in your life, and perhaps never getting a cold again.

Listen to how to use essential oils in your daily life

Dinner was the most delicious chicken caesar salad ever made, except my version was with eggs, but for those of you who do enjoy meet our chef Dave roasted the meat over bread which soaked up all the juices that he then baked into croutons. I am not a meat eater but I had to taste these. My reasons for not eating meat is that meat animal fats can cause me migraine but senses over took all sense of responsibility to my digestive system. Sometimes in life you just have to roll with a desire, I did have a mild head ache, I knew I would. It was worth it though.

A touch of apple cider vinegar in water will restore my equilibrium.

We are now enjoying out 3rd day on retreat and as my team is enjoying our work we are also aware of the intensity of our program. The third day is always a challenge on retreat. Tiredness can kick in and lets face it as much as we want to share all out work with our guests there is a lot going on. So we took time out and headed off to Sant Gertrudis. Here is a beautiful village with super boutiques, cafes and bars, a beautiful romantic little church to admire. We topped up on supplies and indulged in a new therapy, you know that one, retail. Everyone back for lunch, or awake after a long morning of sleep.

And so our daily routine of breath work and mediation, what we call ‘Talk Time’ and lunch, swimming, massage and time to check in with our diet coach Dansoa. After dinner we have more talks, theses are from our therapists and have a theme. This is evening Dansoa is talking about food and stress. How low level stress effects your hormones and how diet impacts on this. We are all different and I do highly recommend getting professional advise regarding our diet, life style and gut. We are talking a lot about life style balance and can see how difficult it is to eat well if we are working in offices or environments nah too not support eating fresh food. It’s our aim on this retreat to give to the time to process all this information, learn new skills for living well, improve your work life balance, know yourself better, tweak you daily routines. These talks are inspirational. I love the morning ones where we purposefully talk about what we are learning from each other.

Here is our talk on day 4, this is us all chatting about inspired reading, recognising self awareness and knowing, taking that knowing to the next level and making positive and and healthy changes to our lives.

Listen to our talk about how to keep this work from the retreat in our lives 

As we approach the end of our time here, our last morning of talk time was not talking but reflecting and working on our own with a work sheet guiding us through creating new goals for living with mindfulness. Threading our new learning with our goals and values and intentions for living well. Setting foundations of sustainable personal growth.

And now the grand finale, our last evening is where we are exposed to all the elements and our senses are delighted. We head off to Bennares beach for dinner. A celebration of our time. Dinner at the beach in one of lovely restaurants. This beach is the place to be on a Sunday, the atmosphere is typical Ibiza vibrant chill, there is a market, there are bars, there is a lot of people enjoying the beach and the drummers who create a tribal vibration of collective sound, drumming down the sun at the end of the day and our time here in Ibiza. It’s a perfect way to end the retreat.

This is where I leave you, please do think about joining myself and my team next year for a truly life enhancing experience and time to become yourself.