January's retreat offered a day to build focus, clarify intentions and ground our vision of 2025 through movement, breath, self-reflection and creative expression.

Our location was the Green Heart Cabin in Tortuga, a space within the Central Range that offered a view of the Gulf of Paria. As one participant shared, "...the place was perfect. While doing yoga we were able to see nature. Beautiful trees, the sky, feel and hear the wind. It made the experience better".

We began our day in conversation, sharing why we had chosen to spend the day on retreat and then moved into our practice on the mat. I led a gentle practice on building focus, spoke about using the breath as a tool for centring and focusing, and shared the following for contemplation: ‘drishti manaha prana’, the prana follows the mind and the mind follows the focused gaze.

Following a short break we moved into our workshop on clarifying our intentions through journaling and self-reflection. I shared prompts on exploring our desires, our values, and our aspirations for the year ahead. We spoke about intentions and sankalpa. Following this session these words were shared, "the prompts gave me a clearer idea of what I want to do, where to start and how I can set my mind into being more positive in my intentions".

Our vegetarian lunch was catered by Desserts by Danielle, a delicious and nutritious combination of soup, salad and a sandwich. Lunchtime offered us time to share and relax in community.

After lunch we moved into our creative workshop where I guided participants in creating their personal vision board in mini altar form. I thought that creating something portable and personal would be a helpful takeaway from this retreat. It was a lot of fun, as I have observed in so many other instances, to be able to sit in community and craft something personal.

Overall a really lovely day. As an instructor and facilitator these retreats, while requiring a bit of work and thought, are such fulfilling and enriching experiences. I'm happy to be able to offer them and thankful for people who are open to experiencing them.

One last share from another participant following the retreat, "In the retreat one of my intentions was to really focus on my tasks at hand and being more present in what is in front of me. This has stayed with me and after explicitly setting this as an intention, I find it easier to keep at the forefront of my mind and put into practice."

I hope that you have also had an intentional beginning to 2025!

peace,

Renee Arundhati