Retreat Yourself: How to Create a Truly Transformative Self-Led Retreat

Leading yourself on a self-led retreat is a truly empowering experience. It’s time to retreat yourself!

Attending a wellness retreat offers a sacred space to pause and reconnect, to step off the monotonous treadmill of daily life to rest, restore and re-energise. Given the right setting, guidance and schedule a retreat can be a life-changing experience. However, the true magic of a retreat doesn’t lie in the location, the leader, or the group - no matter how enjoyable they might be. The true magic lies in your ability to choose to participate and to hand yourself over fully to the experience. Any insights, wisdom or inner shifts you experience while on retreat - whether group or self-led - is all owned by and because of you. The retreat is the excuse to pause. The activities are the vehicle for reconnection. The carved-out space for self-reflection is where the real magic happens.

Creating your own retreat experience at home or elsewhere is the ultimate act of self-care. Done right, a self-led retreat can be just as powerful, if not more so, than a group experience. Although the bonds formed with others on group retreats can often be one of the highlights for many retreat-goers, navigating group dynamics and different energies can sometimes be distracting and, at times, challenging. A self-led retreat is designed specifically to meet all of your own individual needs, allowing you to connect with yourself on a profoundly deep level.

In this spirited guide, readers will plan, design and prepare for their own self-led retreat. A pick n mix of retreat activities, rituals, recipes and more offers support and guidance during the retreat experience, with suggestions on how readers can integrate learning and insights after the retreat has been completed.

Joey Hulin is a meditation teacher, author and poet based in Cornwall who is making a name for herself as a thought-leader in millennial spirituality circles. She offers a down-to-earth, warm, and playful approach to mindful living and spirituality. The founder of wellness company Horizon Inspired, she offers retreats, online courses, and meditations around the world. Joey’s first book Your Spiritual Almanac was published in September 2021 by LKP. Your Manifesting Year was released by Ebury in December 2022. She is an active teacher on the Insight Timer App - the world’s fastest-growing meditation app with over 5 million users.