The Autoimmune Thriving Retreat was a complete success despite a few hiccups! We came, we yogaed, we learned about Reiki and we ate a delicious fresh meal!
With the sun streaming in the windows on Sunday morning, I got up to let the dogs out. After making warm lemon water & coffee, I curled up beside our pup Rogue on the couch to meditate. I grabbed my notebook with my class notes written out and turned on my playlist. I then verbally taught my empty living room the morning restorative yoga class to practice.
11:30 am couldn’t come quickly enough. The morning seemed to go by so slowly!
Finally, I jumped in the car and drove up to Strathmere, a short 15 mins drive from our house. I found my Reiki guest speaker, Jo Tucker, sitting by the fire pit. A few women had also started to arrive. We gathered around our lunch table while waiting for the yoga room to open up. A yoga class was in the yoga room just before us so as we waited for them to vacate the room. I ran in like a mad woman to help clean up and set up the class. My set up called for 2 bolsters, 2 blocks and a blanket on everyone’s mat. Jo and I then set up the mats around the room near a wall space.
Restorative Yoga Practice
The wall space was important for legs up the wall pose at the end of practice. With 8 people in attendance, we actually had to close & lock the door and have one lady use that space.
Here’s a list of some of the things that didn’t go as planned but I’m just laughing about now:
- My phone wouldn’t connect to the blue tooth speaker
- We opened the windows as the room was quite warm and could hear people in the hot tub below.
- The retreat cafe was quite noisy with the lunchtime crowd.
- During the last few resting poses, someone from Strathmere kept knocking on the door to bring us our smoothies. I tried to ignore the knocking but after the third knock, one of the ladies whispered “I think you should get that!” to which I responded “yup I guess I should” LOL
None of these things seemed to bother anyone. Here’s hoping it was just their yoga teacher that was slightly worried it would ruin their experience.
The Yoga Playlist
Reiki Guest Speaker
After grabbing our smoothies (Arugula, Green Apple & Pineapple), readjusted our set up to get comfy, and got to listen to Jo Tucker tell us all about Reiki. She shared what it can do for people on a healing journey and her practice with clients. From there we moved over to the Retreat side and devoured our lunch around a long table. Lunch was absolutely amazing. From non-stop conversation, great food and laughter around the table you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if you tried.
Autoimmune Thriving Retreat Paleo 3-Course Lunch
I cannot wait to host the next one! I’m thinking the fall…
Autoimmune Thriving Scholarship
Ok so now the scholarship! As a part of the Autoimmune Thriving brand, I want to give back to the autoimmune community every time I do something for a profit. I set aside 10% of the overall profits from the Autoimmune Thriving Retreat to be able to gift someone in the Ottawa area (who can’t always take advantage of holistic therapies) with a massage from my RMT.
All you have to do is nominate someone or send in your story to apply yourself to robynbaldwin @ gmail . com. I’ll accept applications until May 21st and then get in contact with someone to arrange for the massage!