Today’s tarot reading told me I’m a workaholic, said I needed to slow down, to take time to step back and look at life instead of zooming through it, phone in hand.

It’s good advice.

As a writer, deadlines and the arrival of the muse don’t always coincide, but what I’ve found is that you have to give them both the time they deserve. The singular focus and energy I can only find when I get away. Retreats are as necessary to my work as they are to my well being.

The good folks at LA MUSE offer these 10 reasons to take a retreat.

1. Pull Back

It’s strategic.

You withdraw from your regular life, pulling in all the energy that’s otherwise fanned out and thinned out in multiple directions.

You gather your forces to focus them on something you love.

From this place, you get a new perspective, you regroup and re-energize. You find inspiration.

Then you put inspiration into action. You bring that thing you love to fruition.

Getting away from it all gives you focus on what it is that inspires you, whether it be writing, doing yoga or coming up with a business plan.

2. Become Spacious

You step out of your structured scheduled day-to-day and step into space and time, space-time.

At the office, at the family dinner table with the kids vying for attention, on the cellphone walking home from the train talking to your friend/lover/spouse about the game/boyfriend/bills, time is taken. All of it.

There is no free time.

Time on retreat is different, fluid. There’s no more rush!

You find a space where you can give yourself time to connect with flow, genius, inspiration.

And of course this is why number 4 below happens.

3. Get Inspired

Inspiration, translates as “to breathe into.”

So, you breathe life into your life.

How it comes is different for everyone, but one thing’s for sure: Inspiration won’t strike out of nowhere, while you blindly do the same rote stuff every day.

It’s a frame of mind that can come from a change of landscape and outlook.

We’re all creative. Creativity and inspiration happen when you take the time away from your day job to remember your day dream.

You play with what inspires you, whether it’s crochet, writing, jogging, sculpting, cooking or a little bit of everything.

We had a Californian software designer at our retreat once who made a different type of organic bread every day for three weeks.

4. Listen

Whether you’re on a writing retreat or a yoga retreat, you get to listen.

Why?

Because, depending on where you are, there’s no phone, kids, TV, co-workers, limited or no WiFi, and maybe a few octogenarians like the ones in our village who have absolutely no idea what Facebook or the Internet are.

What do you hear?

The screech of the swallows swooping.

The wind, but more importantly, that quiet inside your own heart.

5. Detox

People come on retreat and they get a cold, sleep for days, or dream vividly for the first time in years.

It’s astounding to them, but it never surprises us.

Everyone needs to unload, clean out and empty their mental desktop.

You will leave a retreat lightened, clearer, recharged, refreshed, and more present.

This new perspective can guide you to make changes in your life that you know you need to make.

6. Lose the Fear

How many of you live part of every single day steeled for confrontation?

Our retreat is a safe space, literally and figuratively.

You don’t have to lock your bedroom door. You don’t have to lock the front door, or the front gate.

You don’t have to worry about people breaking in and literally or figuratively stealing your stuff or taking your peace.

Imagine that!

7. Remember Who You Are

Society wants you to be the mother, father, sister, wife, husband, friend, lover.

One mother here on retreat put it this way: People need to be reminded that we are actually individuals, human beings, as opposed to “human doings.”

On retreat you can drop all the roles.

You can just be you for the first time in decades.

8. Find Your People

We’re all the same/different.

You meet other people in the same position.

They came on retreat to do yoga, write a screenplay, a novel, a book about inventions, to crochet, to cook, and they all came from different continents, countries, cultures, age groups.

They’ve all gone through life doing whatever they have to do to keep their creative flame alight, stealing opportunities to get a little word in here, a sketch in there.

Here, no one has to justify their “hobby”- it’s actually taken seriously.

That inspires you to do more of your own thing.

You allow yourself to be different because the people around you are.

9. Help Others

When you take space-time your spouse gets space-time too.

So do your kids, your co-workers. This brings appreciation.

Why?

They realize what it’s like when you’re not around, to work, clean, love them.

Without you taking up your usual spot, people shift positions to fill that space.

Life takes on a new shape.

Life is actually different when you return and you are free to take up a new space in it. This is growth.

People see a new you, and they see that they’re new, too.

People are motivated to make more positive change.

10. Establish a Routine/Practice

Sure, you can optimize conditions in your own life to create a non-negotiable writing routine or yoga practice.

But if you’re trying to squeeze time into an already full schedule, creating those conditions at home can take years.

Establishing them on a retreat is easier.

As opposed to having to fight through your routine to form a creative schedule you go on retreat and get encouraged by the example of others.

You go back home and re-establish your life in a new way.

Retreats are important because people leave retreats fitter, rested, happier and clearer.

Who doesn’t want some of that?

I agree with La Muse.  Check out their retreats here.

Register today for the Excellence in Fiction Writing Seminar and Retreat, Ecuador 2019