Why Go on a Spiritual Retreat
7 Reasons You Need to Go on a Spiritual Retreat
People have been engaging in travel as a means for self-discovery and spiritual growth for centuries. Think of pilgrimages, a custom that’s common in many religious and spiritual traditions. The purpose of a pilgrimage is to embark on a journey that’ll inspire spiritual revelations and growth. Spiritual retreats are very similar. They offer an opportunity to travel to a destination for the purpose of withdrawing from your daily life and exploring a more sacred connection with your body, mind, and soul. There are so many amazing retreats that exist today that offer this gateway into deeper self-discovery. So if you’re being beckoned to dive deeper into your spiritual self, a spiritual retreat may be the perfect setting. Spiritual retreats provide you with guidance and allow you to engage in practices, like yoga and meditation, that invite you to open up your heart and your mind.
Even if you’re already deeply spiritual and have a spiritual practice in place, going on a spiritual retreat can still be a good idea. Going on a spiritual retreat is a break from routine, an opportunity for reflection and renewal. If you’re feeling disconnected, stuck, ungrounded, or getting caught up in the vortex of the 3D, a spiritual retreat will give you the intentional space and time you may need to reconnect with yourself and your purpose.
What exactly is a spiritual retreat?
A spiritual retreat can take different forms and may not necessarily be tied to a certain faith or belief system; rather, a spiritual retreat provides a safe space for you to deepen your own spirituality through contemplation, sacred practice, and isolation. Soul School’s spiritual yoga retreats are built on the 8 Limbs of Yoga and encourage you to tap into your inner intuitive knowledge so you can reach your full potential as a soul.
Spiritual retreats are about more than just spirituality. They’re about feeding the mind, body, and soul with nourishing foods, holistic practices, reviving movement, and sacred places. Entering the sacred container of a spiritual retreat can remind you of the ceremonial nature of life and the importance of ritual. The intentional space and time that’s created within a retreat can help you slow down and disconnect from the distractions of the outer world so you can heighten your awareness of your inner world and find harmony. No matter the setting or method, attending a spiritual retreat can lead toward profound discoveries.
Reasons to go on a spiritual retreat:
1. To develop a stronger connection with yourself
Spiritual retreats are a medium for self-discovery, which can be incredibly helpful if you feel you never have the time to sit and reflect on who you are, where you are, and what you want in life. Maybe you feel too busy to slow down and focus on you, or maybe you’re just avoiding creating the time because you’re fearful of being alone with your own thoughts. Being on a spiritual retreat is like court ordered time to spend with yourself. It provides you with a supportive space and allocated time for self reflection. Through introspective practices, like meditation, movement, and sitting in community, you’ll get to know yourself more deeply and develop a stronger connection and understanding of yourself, your beliefs, your dreams, and your values.
2. To find your soul tribe
A retreat centered around a topic of exploration you're interested in is the perfect place to meet like-minded people. Making friends as an adult can already feel hard enough, let alone finding people who share the same spiritual outlooks as you. If you’re wondering where to go to find your people, a spiritual retreat may be just the place. Chances are, you’ll encounter others on a similar path as you. Something we’re always told is one of Soul School’s greatest achievements is the supportive and inviting community of kindred souls we continue to build. When you gather with people who share the same values as you, it’s easy to form lifelong, soul friendships.
3. To rest and recharge
We could all use a little r&r and a spiritual retreat is the perfect place to find it. Spiritual retreats are designed to refresh your spiritual hygiene and help you prioritize your well-being. Often set in energetically charged corners of the world, spiritual retreats offer the ideal space and resources for slowing down and recuperating. For example, on our Peru Ayahuasca Yoga Retreat, which takes place in a beautiful and lush mountain setting, you have access to luxury spa amenities, including an infrared sauna, herbal vapour sauna, dry saunaa salt cave, temazcal, hot tub, pool, ice plunge pool, and fire pit. The combination of thoughtful amenities, a serene destination, holistic practices, and high-quality foods make for a total revitalization of the body, mind, and soul. On a spiritual retreat, you have all the ingredients to bring your body back to equilibrium and cultivate inner peace.
4. To connect with nature
It’s easy to feel disconnected from nature’s intuitive rhythms and how they’re intertwined with our own when we’re caught up in the business of everyday life. This is even more true for those who live in a city. That’s why escaping from the city can feel so rejuvenating and affirming. It gives us the opportunity to realign with Mother Nature and resynchronize with her cycles. As mentioned, you’ll generally find spiritual retreats being led in sacred locations, such as Peru’s Sacred Valley, where an appreciation and awareness of the natural elements is baked into the land and culture. A spiritual retreat offers the perfect setting to experience the healing powers of Mother Nature.
5. To gain mental clarity
Even when we set aside time in our everyday lives for mental decluttering, it can sometimes feel impossible to fully get quiet. Our attention is constantly being pulled in different directions, so that our mind becomes filled by a constant hum, like TV static. A spiritual retreat gives you the space to disengage from external distractions and step away from all the noise. You can quiet all the voices that aren’t your own, defog your mind, and gain more clarity on your own truth and thoughts.
6. To unlock a new perspective
Have you ever been wracking your brain over a problem, and it wasn’t until you took a step away and stopped thinking about it that the answers flowed through? Stepping back allows you to observe things from a new perspective, to see the bigger picture. A spiritual retreat grants you this change of scenery, as well as prompts you to engage in the type of contemplation that can lead to perspective shifts. When you pause and give yourself space, the floodgates will open. It’s not uncommon to unlock a new perspective on a problem, or even your entire life, while on a spiritual retreat. As you enhance mental clarity and enrich your capacity for self reflection, you’ll invite in new ways of thinking, observing, and perceiving both your inner space and the world around you.
7. To learn new practices and skills
Retreats offer unique classes, workshops, experiences, and opportunities designed for different purposes. On a spiritual retreat, you’ll most likely be engaging in practices that’ll support you on your spiritual journey first and foremost, but also in other facets of your life, such as your health, happiness, well-being, and confidence. On our Soul School retreats, we like to introduce people to both traditional teachings and modern treatments. On our upcoming Sacred Retreat in Peru, you can expect to dive into experiences that’ll catapult your spiritual growth and help you tap into your divine powers. These include feminine embodiment practices, shadow work, womb awakening, sitting with sacred medicine, and more. The great thing about exploring these practices in a retreat setting is that you won’t be doing them alone. You’ll have skilled guidance with you every step of the way. Unlike drop-in classes, retreat settings allow you to build more trust and find more personalized meeting points with the practices you’re exploring – practices you can then carry with you back home and incorporate in your daily life to enrich your spiritual well-being.
So are you ready to go on a spiritual retreat?
Spiritual retreats offer the opportunity to engage in metamorphic experiences that you can’t get at home. If you’re feeling called to immerse yourself in an intentional environment for the purpose of experiencing lasting transformation and growth, then you should consider taking yourself on a spiritual retreat in 2024!