I needed this as much as they did!

Retreat reflections - Northern NSW (EDITED(

Wed, Aug 07, 2024 9:47AM • 30:01

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

retreat, beautiful, emma, incredible, receive, day, felt, people, work, sri lanka, night, facilitator, space, jade, love, great, lovell, sarah, travel, share

00:00

Emma, do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell, show a place where we talk about living a life you love. Now I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world, and now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure too. It's possible, and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams, to create a life you love and to live it now, not wait for a time and or someday in the future, I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01:03

I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place, now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land, waterways and skies where I work, live, listen, learn and play from here on Yugambeh country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01:26

So it's Emma, and I'm in Italia. I am actually in my hotel room in Lake Como. This is a podcast recording, but for those playing along home as a little oh well, it will do a clip, so maybe you can see this. I'm showing, for those listening, I'm showing my balcony overlooking like coma, with our washing drying, but it we have a nice ground floor balcony, which is lovely.

01:55

And today I'm not here to talk about Italia. I'm here to talk about rest, to receive,

02:03

which look, to be honest, is what I'm doing here as well. I practice what I preach. And sometimes, you know, it still takes time to rest, it still takes time to wind down and to relax.

02:14

And sometimes the universe decides, yeah, well, if you're not going to do it actively, we're going to force you to do it, and so I'm sure I'll share many more stories from this trip. Especially, I tend to usually do a before and an after. So what we're thinking is going to happen with our big family trips. So what we thought was going to happen with this pleasure trip, which is me working a little bit our family here, meeting up with friends and traveling with a child, and also just having some Rex rest and relaxation. So we're getting all in but,

02:50

yeah, it's it doesn't always work out ideally, but today's worked out really well.

02:57

It's 3:48pm

03:00

my husband and my son are in the pool. I've come back from the pool early. It's very, very hot outside, so I'm really happy to be inside.

03:09

We had a beautiful morning out at Bellagio, and now I'm here recording this podcast, because my team is like we were meant to release the podcast. Where is it? So here it is, just like, a week late, but it's okay. It doesn't matter to you. Doesn't matter to me. We we release two a week, and at the moment, sometimes we're releasing one a week, and that's fine. There's more than I think. We're up to 80 episodes, so there's plenty for you to catch up on. But today I want to talk about rest and receive retreat, which I just had.

03:40

And I'll take a deep breath, because I'm feeling short of breath.

03:46

And this troop has come at divine timing. Had planned it just after the rest received retreat finished, which some people are like, You're mad. You're finishing the retreat on the Saturday, the 28th of July. 27 of July, you're flying to Europe on the 28th of July. And I said, Yeah, that's fine. That's intentional. Because the retreat for me is, is work, beautiful, work, wonderful, work. And then this is my a holiday.

04:16

Said it's a pleasure trip my life. You know, I did a kind of a funny reel where I was like, oh, you know, you know, you finish your retreat and you gotta go back to real life. Wait a minute, but it's pleasure. So this is a real life. So pleasure is combining work and travel, or how you find harmony with work and travel. So pleasure typically meant when you would go on a conference, say, or you'd have a work trip, and then you extend it after and had some time for yourself. For me, I'm taking pleasure to a much further extreme and saying we can live a pleasure life. This is a pleasure movement, and we can incorporate Travel and Leisure into our work, or our work into our travel and leisure, so that you can have this more harmony, and you can do more of what you love. I.

05:00

So even going on the retreat, I mean, yeah, it's taking time out from the everyday.

05:06

But they're the people who come. They're doing the work. They're doing the work on themselves. They're doing personal development, professional development, work for themselves. So it is work, and they are business trips, and they are tax deductible because we do work and we set big goals, and we talk about work

05:23

challenges we're having, but we also talk about life challenges. And for some, one of the ladies who came, you know, work is going great, money is great,

05:33

professionally, she's sort of found her stride and feels really confident in her abilities, but she still has some challenges with home and

05:46

enjoying the time that, you know, enjoying the fruits of her labor and the abundances she's created, and trying to be okay with getting help in the business

05:57

or even in the home so that she can actually spend more Time with a family. So, like, that's her challenge. And everybody came with different things. And, you know, it was so the rest to receive retreat. Australian version this year. I do an international and an Australian one every year. Oh, I try to last year I did. Yes, last year I did. I just they were so spread out. So last year was February, kangaroo Valley, and then 2023

06:25

and then India was in November. And then this year was July, New South Wales, Northern New South Wales, in the hinterland. And the end of this year will be Sri Lanka. So there's just two spots left on the Sri Lanka trip. So if you are interested, you can email me with Sri Lanka, or you can head to my website, and you'll find it at Emma lovell.au forward slash Sri Lanka retreat. But this one was, yes, our New South Wales one. So July 2024,

06:54

we had, oh, I think there were 11 of us, but we had one night. We had nine people one night, we had 10. Another night, we had actually we had a few bonus days. So we had 12 the final night, which was fantastic. And yeah, three nights, four days, in the gorgeous Northern, New South Wales hinterland, we stayed at the fabulous Stonehill estate, which I had the fortune of visiting beforehand, I had seen a colleague Liv file and run her retreat there, and I thought, that looks pretty great. I didn't want to do Byron Bay, but there is something energetically really great about that region. And so when I saw the property, I thought, Yes, this is the one for us. And I really like having a property or an estate or sort of a small boutique place. The house was huge, but a place where it's just us, and so a few of the ladies went out one day to Byron Bay. Another few went out to get coffee one time, somebody else went another day to Byron Bay. So that's great, like it's in the region, but I really want people to not have to go away, to not have to travel. That's something that's really important

08:06

to me and to my guests, something that's really important about the rest of receive retreats. So yeah, so we arrived on the 23rd

08:17

no 24th

08:21

and, you know what? On the 23rd it was a really hard I feel

08:26

a bit sick. To be honest, I felt really I've pushed this off a little bit, I guess because

08:35

the day before the retreat started was,

08:41

was my nephew's funeral.

08:45

My nephew, Louis Lovell

08:49

had a regide condition. He was diagnosed at 11 months. He lived for 18 months past that, and he died in July,

09:01

and earlier in July, I didn't even know if I was going to make it to the retreat. I asked Emma walkenshaw, who was our beautiful facilitator for the workshops and who hosted the yoga sessions, to take if she would take it,

09:15

if she could run the retreat, if I wasn't able to, because there was every chance that he would have his final days

09:23

or the funeral would fall on those dates. So I just felt really anxious about it, and then I asked her, and it felt more at ease trust her implicitly, and I knew that yes, people had come for me, which is a huge thing. Actually, I think a big thing about it was a big thing for me to let go of. But this is where I want to take the retreat business is. I don't want the retreats to be about me. Rest and receive is about so much more than me, and I'm the host and I'm the facilitator and I'm the creator, but if something happens to me, and I tell my retreat.

10:00

HOST, clients, people who are learning to be retreat host,

10:05

that you know it should be that you've set everything up so well, that it's not about you and you're them or to guide and to support. And I know that Emma would have stepped into that place so well,

10:15

and I loved being there, but and I love being the host, but it doesn't have to be me. And I would love to create future retreats where there is another facilitator or host, because I know that what we're creating with the rest and receive is so transformative that to have more impact, we could have more of them, and that doesn't need to be reliant upon me.

10:40

But, you know, ideal world I would be there, and I know that people had joined because they want to experience it with me.

10:47

And yeah, my nephew died on the eighth July, and the funeral because of the retreat, my brother

10:55

picked the date so that I could be there, which was really hard to ask for

11:03

if it could be before,

11:07

and I didn't realize today would be so hard.

11:11

So yeah, that was a lot. I flew back from Sydney from the funeral the 23rd afternoon. I went to the shops in the morning to pick up things, and thank goodness for my mother in law, who came with me and helped me just put one foot in front of the other, and to think somewhat clearly about what we needed to do.

11:30

And then I went to the airport, and I picked up Jade and met Christy, who came along too, and we drove to the venue. And once I reached a stony estate and I walked in,

11:42

I just had a big sigh, and it was like, I made it.

11:48

I made it because I didn't know if I would.

11:54

Once I was inside, I felt so much better.

11:58

And of course, what I didn't realize was, when I left the retreat that night on the

12:05

27th that it would hit me again, but that

12:10

the day after my nephew passed, I was calling gwyngan A retreat and asking if they had any availability like in the next week, because I felt like I needed something like that. And then I had a moment where I realized I've created the retreat that I needed, and the way that this divine timing worked. I needed that retreat. I need everything in that retreat, just as much as my attendees did. And I say selfishly or what? Not selfishly, but

12:38

yeah, I'm creating the retreat that I want. I'm creating the retreat that I need because I know that other people feel the way that I do, that we have to be forced away from the day to day in order to focus on what we need, what we want, and the bigger visions and goals we have for our lives. That's what rest and receive is. Is that when you rest, when you make space. When you create, give yourself time, then you can receive,

13:08

hey, lovely. I want to open the doors to incredible opportunities for you on an all inclusive luxury retreat, exclusively for people who are ready to live a life they love. I invite you to join me for five inspiring nights in sensational Sri Lanka for the rest and receive retreat hosted from second to seventh of November 2024 by yours truly, Emma Lovell, I ask you to disconnect your senses and immerse in this exotic culture while you reconnect with yourself. You get to share this luxurious experience with 12 incredible people while forming connections that last a lifetime. I really cannot undersell or overestimate this incredible retreat and the magic of going to a place to give yourself space and time. I want to share it with you, and if you are interested, then please head to my website. Emma lovell.au/sri,

14:06

Lanka retreat. I'd love to see you there, and I'm happy to chat. If you have any questions whatsoever. Please take this opportunity to come along and join me in stunning Sri Lanka.

14:21

Speaking of time and space, I was my husband and son arrived, which I knew they probably would, back to our hotel room after a Finn had gone for a swim. So that's why sometimes, when we need to do concentrated work, we have to go away. Um, I should have let you see what my my son was jumping on bed behind me his new red shirt, saying, poodle, poodle, poodle. So that would have been great for the audio that is traveling with kids. But the retreat was 100% not with kids. And that was a really special it was all women this time. Sometimes we've had men come along and I.

15:00

Afford to have any more men mixed retreats in the future, and a few of the ladies really requested that maybe we look into doing some men's retreats, because it's probably there are some, but there's not that many out there, and I think men could have a really great benefit from resting to receive as well. And so, yeah, this

15:22

retreat was everything I needed and more. And, you know, sometimes you just bring together. The thing I love about these retreats is you never know who's going to come together. And the mixture of people was incredible. And it was the first time that I brought along other facilitators and presenters as well. Usually I do all of the workshops myself, so I actually only did four sessions. I did a welcome session, and then a two work, one workshop each day, and a final closing workshop.

15:51

Emma did the yoga each morning, and then she did a session called embody me. It's about body love, acceptance, which was absolutely beautiful. And I got to participate.

16:02

I just got interrupted again by housekeeping, wow. Okay, so this is going real smooth. The Retreat went really smooth, which was fantastic. We had Jade there doing content creation, which is always such relief for me. She takes

16:18

the photos and the videos, so I just don't have to worry. We did a little bit of a photo shoot during but, you know, we're quite quick together now, so I don't really like to be away from the group too much. I want to be able to enjoy we did a few select things other than that, it was just kind of capture the moment. We had a beautiful pool, we had a wellness space, which is a spa, sauna and an ice bath, which was really fun to see everyone using Claire, who came along was the best at it. She did five minutes, which was remarkable, and most of us would only do one minute,

16:55

and we had two lounge rooms, and then about six bedrooms and that many bathrooms. It wasn't even funny, beautiful, big grounds, and it was just so quiet and so private, a massive wraparound balcony, egg chairs to sit in. And, you know, I tell people, just do is, you know, in the rest times, you just do what you want. We had a masseuse come and so we did have some booked in times, but everybody was really fluid with that as well. We had beautiful therapeuta Daniella, who came and her massages are so intuitive, just so unique, so different. And she set up outside in our yoga area. We had a covered area where we did the yoga in the morning. So it's just a beautiful, energetic space. Um, most people got a massage, which is wonderful, even Jade, who I have to really tell her, like, Stop, switch off. I know you're working, but And thank you, but please you get to tap out now as well. I want everyone to be in that good vibe and that good energy. And so that was a really beautiful thing. But other than that, we had the workshops. Yoga was optional. Massage was optional. There was an optional extra of booking a photo shoot while you were on location in this beautiful location with Jade. And three people did that, but otherwise, everybody was just kind of in flow. And you know, some people would be in a spa together, or someone would go on the sauna by themselves, or some of them would go to the pool area, and no one ever felt compelled to do anything. Some people went to bed earlier. Went to their room to do some journaling.

18:33

Phoebe went out for a walk. I went for a stroll myself. I just feel like everybody really down their groove, um, the comp, the groups moved very naturally. And there was no groups or cliquis. Everybody flowed in and out. And that's just such a joy for me, just to see. And you know, people said to me, you don't have to host us. You don't have to sit with us. And I was like, Yeah, but I'm not hosting I'm just having a conversation because I want to sit here. And, yeah, if I get tired, or there's something I've got to do, I go off and do it. But other than that, it was just really wonderful to be in this house, to have the time. It was the first time I've done the three nights in Australia. I've done the last two retreats. I did two nights. And I think the three nights just gives you that bit more space. And one of the ladies could only come for the last night, and it was amazing. So she came for like, two days, one night. And it was incredible how out of the group she was, and how engaged she was, and again, how easily that flowed. It was just really beautiful.

19:39

I loved seeing the the breakthroughs that the women had, the realizations,

19:45

the challenge someone who have never done work like this before, where they've asked for what they wanted or thought about what they wanted, not just what they need, what they want, what they want for their life, what they want to create, what what they want outside.

20:00

Of work as well. And even the I say that when you go on a retreat, the transformation happens a transaction. So choosing to go is part of the transformation. And then the transformation continues long after. So six months after you might the thing that you sort of put out there might actually start to happen. The intention that you put out there might start to happen. And

20:22

I just love seeing that

20:25

that come up. And so we've got the group, we've got the connection, we've got that support that continues. We've got a WhatsApp group that will continue afterwards. I love seeing the women come together and connect.

20:37

No complaints at my end, I will ask for feedback, but I just can't believe how well it well went,

20:45

just only because, like, that's obviously a testament to the planning that we've done, to the facilitators that I had to the team, but

20:54

just considering this, this life circumstances I was in, I was blown away. And it was just exactly where I needed to be, right then the other beautiful thing we had was a charity partner for the first time, so we donated 10% of the revenue. We did revenue, not profit, revenue to gorgeous Rafi Kim, Emma, which is means loyal friend. And it's an organization who supports children in Kenya, where they have homes and a beautiful, big farm, where they support children who've been through extreme trauma, and they help them to heal and to rehabilitate them with their families and rehabilitate them in their lives. And it's a charity that I've known for eight years. I've known Sarah Rosberg since the day I saw her speak and was powerful. She's a guest on this podcast, so you can go back and have a listen. I'll find out which episode that was for you, so you can go and have a listen, because her story is incredible. But she spoke. She came and spoke, so it's episode number 68 and she came and spoke to the group and shared their mission and shared what they've done. And it was just such an important session. The other really wonderful thing in that session was that another local organization, so Sarah's in Lennox head, but it's so it's an Australian run charity for Kenya. And then we had a woman who runs a sanctuary in crabs Creek, which is literally down the road from where we were. B runs the owl and pussycat sanctuary. And I had been there at a horse retreat on the weekend, and I said to her, I want to do more things there. I want to open those mini retreats, some mini self care retreats. So watch this space

22:31

at the owl and puss Cat Sanctuary, because being around animals, her daughter did sound bath. It was incredible. And I wanted her to see how I run a retreat. And I know that she doesn't really do things for herself. So I said, Please come and be my guest. But also I knew her and Sarah would have a lot in common, being both running NGOs and also just being around the other women. So B did make the time to come, which was profound and incredible. And she was there just for Sarah's session, and then to hang out after, and that was beautiful to see that connection. Sarah brought gifts for everyone, which I didn't expect. I bought the affirmation cards of her. They have these beautiful affirmation cards. Every single card is different. It's beautiful artwork with a message. And I use them each day of the retreat. I use them each day of my life when I'm at home. I love them. I've had them for years, and so I bought up a bunch of sets from her, because I don't want to lose them, and gifted those to

23:27

the attendees. But then Sarah brought hand cream, which is a beautiful thing that they sell in the Rafiki Emma shop. And she also brought for me a Maasai blanket. If you've ever seen the Maasai tribes of in Kenya, they've got these beautiful it's almost like a tartan. But she gave me a pink one, and I love hot pink, and a beautiful necklace, which is a beaded necklace, and it's made by the Maasai tribes. But I think that one was actually made by one of the staff of Rafi King women, and it just was not what I expected. I was so blown away. Two of my guests also gave me gifts, which

24:07

I was like, No, I'm supposed to be giving you gifts. I mean to surprise and delight you, and you're surprised and delighting me. But you know my message is about receiving and so I'm like, Yes, I will gratefully receive this. And thank you for thinking of me so kindly.

24:23

But yeah, then that final night, we were all sitting around the fire, talking, having a chat, having a having a wine, just seeing everybody so effortlessly Connect. It was just that makes my heart so happy.

24:37

Felt like we've been there for weeks. We're only there for three nights, and I just, I don't know, I just maybe we'll just get the L group together and do it all again, because I loved it. Um,

24:48

yeah, and the food, the food was,

24:53

I catered some of it, which is really hard. And my next retreat, I went back.

25:00

Forth, back and forth, back and forth. It was just the way that I structured this one. But we did cater a few of the meals

25:07

over cater lots of food. But for the two of the dinners, we had Asia Jade come in. Asia Jade, and she is from the Byron region, and her food was vegetarian. It was incredible. Everybody was blown away. Everybody wants to, like, take her home and keep her forever. And so, yeah, that was, that was a great decision. I was going to actually do only one dinner with Aja, and on the morning, on the Wednesday morning, on the way to I just went, are you available Thursday night too? And she was because trying to cater for dietary requirements, trying to, like, we got lots of beautiful food, and the first night was great. Um, Emma and I, like, did it together, but trying to cater for so many people. And everybody probably would have been quite happy with with the food we prepared. But I don't know, it's just caterers. That's their job. That's what they're good at. And they know how to to make sure everybody's taken care of. And they know the quantities. They tend to do a bit more.

26:08

But yeah, it was, um, yeah, best decision ever. So next one is, like, it's just everything. I'll always get snacks. But even then I got snacks, I went and got all these snacks because I'm like, I don't know, people get hungry, um, initially, I don't want them to have to leave. I want them to have lots of things and here available. And then we get to the house, and there's a whole Stonehill estate had given us a bottle of wine, a whole platter of fruit, and all these snacks, some of them were duplicates of mine. I went, oh my goodness, anywho. It was wonderful.

26:39

So that was rest and receive. So that's my reflections. Yeah, very, very personal, and this time for me,

26:45

I'm just always blown away by who chooses to come and make that time for themselves and seeing what they get out of it. So I'll have to do an episode where I get them to talk. I do have some from one of my other ones, because, yeah, it's one thing for me to talk about what the retreat was like, but I think it's better. Think it's better to hear it from others. So I'll ask them all for little snippets, and we could have a episode which is like, what is it all about? Um,

27:13

and on that, I would love to announce the next rest and receive retreat. We do have Sri Lanka, which I mentioned earlier in the episode, but drum roll please.

27:25

The next rest to receive retreat is in kangaroo Valley again, but it is at the original venue that I had planned. I had booked this venue, it's going to be from the time we go. It's going to be over two years. So two years ago that I booked this venue, and unfortunately, due to the fire and the floods, the road was closed, and so we never got to go to that venue. And the venue we went to was incredible. Lake David, stunning. The house was amazing. It was a great replacement. But

27:58

the energy of this estate, of the Barranca estate that we're going to stay at, this

28:04

property that they have, and everything they've done there is just next level. It's just a special, special energy there. And I think you're going to love it. And it's very intimate. We're going to have the whole place to ourselves. It's four villas

28:19

there, just exquisite, fully catered breakfast, lunch and dinner, lots of snacks, yoga, animal meeting, interaction session, some workshops. We'll have one to two workshops on the day. So that's we'll have four workshops run by me. We might have a few bonus ones added in. And there's just 12 spots. So I've already got four people from the last one who are like, yep. I mean, so, and I haven't even announced it yet. So if you've been looking at the rest and receive retreats, and you think it's for you, it's time. It's time to come. It's time to make the time and space for you visit rest. No, sorry. Emma lovell.au forward slash. KV, 25

29:01

Emma lovell.au forward slash KB, 25

29:05

Okay, that's it for me today. Thank you for listening.

29:10

And yeah, thank you for listening. This was a special one to do, take care.

29:18

Thank you for listening, lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today, if you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected, come and join the live a life you love. Group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au the same as my website, but all the details are in the show notes. Lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom, seeking. Now go out there and live a life you love. You.