thoughts on courage

About a month ago I attended a yoga retreat in Todos Santos, Mexico — a formally designated “Magic Town” ("Pueblo Mágico") on the Baja California Peninsula Pacific coast side. Two hours and seemingly a world away from Cabo San Lucas. The first year I attended the retreat, at the time called “Alive & Away,” was a leap of faith — I didn’t know anyone attending, and had met the creator only once. To say the experience was transformative was an understatement, and I’ve been back every year since.

This year, I arrived in this magical place — the retreat has evolved with time as well, now very aptly named Sanctuary — a different version of myself than I was in previous years (but aren’t we always. I digress.) On the one hand I felt a strong sense of self-possession, able to decisively follow even the smallest instinct of what I needed/wanted to do — for example, I skipped the opening ceremony on account of an overwhelming exhaustion from the travel day. Anyone who has ever been on a yoga retreat knows that one NEVER skips the opening ceremony. That was how tired I was, okay!!

But as an intentional retreat attendee is want to do, I set my intention for the retreat in my own, better-rested time. The intention (supported by a card pull courtesy of the retreat co-founder’s uncanny ability to always deliver the right cards at the right time — this was a “Full Moon” deck) was balance.

Which brings me to the yin of my “self-possession” yang: I was in the midst of a month-long wave of burnout. For anyone who has been aware of their own experience with burnout, it’s basically the opposite of self-possession: it’s rife with indecision, retreat from your day-to-day (in the opposite way of a yoga retreat), and in my case a good amount of illness. I knew that this trip was giving me space to try and fight back from how I felt.