What do you need in your life right now?

I’m so grateful for the little voice in my head that is constantly asking, “What do you need in your life right now?” The answer varies from really big things like, “I really want to go on my first ever trip to Hawai’i to celebrate that I’m vaccinated!” to “I need to go lie on my bed and scroll through Instagram while Matt deals with the kids.”

A couple months ago, I asked myself that question, and I realized that I really, really wanted to go on a retreat with other women. My original goal this year was to go on a solo retreat, but I think that 1.25 years of pandemic life have changed my mind.

So I made a list of some of the smartest, most interesting, and most introspective women I know. I made a list of dates that would work best for me. Then I sent them an email to see who was interested in the idea.

Once I had a sense of how many people were interested (7-8 total), I started searching for AirBnBs. Then I sent three options (with corresponding prices) to everyone to vote on.

Next, I secured the AirBnb and emailed everyone to explain that they had 24 hours to pay their money or else we would have to cancel.

Voila!

With the dates, location, and Airbnb booked (photo above), I paused working on the retreat for a while.

Retreat Questionnaire

Then Kelsey made us an awesome Google spreadsheet with the following questions:

• Where do you live?
• Tell us a bit about yourself.
• What are you hoping to get out of the retreat?
• Do you have any current challenges that fellow attendees could support you through, or are you celebrating something you want to share?
• Do you have a skill, superpower, or passion you would like to share with others during the weekend?
• Are you interested in leading a session, workshop, or experience for the group? If so, what are you interested in doing?
• For meal planning, do you have any dietary restrictions?
• Do you want to be an Executive Chef (i.e., a lead) or a Sous Chef (i.e., a helper)?
• If desired, share any social media handles to connect with others ahead of the retreat.

The women are from all different areas of my life, so they don’t know one another. But I know they will get along splendidly.

I’m really looking forward to this time with other women. I loved answering Kelsey’s question about what I’m hoping to get out of the retreat. Here’s what I said:

I am wanting to bring more experiences into my life that help me reclaim the parts of my pre-motherhood life that feel trampeled upon. I also want to promote as much healing and reflection as possible for myself after the trauma that I experienced during COVID as an educational administrator who had to make life or death decisions without much support from the state or federal government. And I want to immerse myself in supportive and striving women for inspiration as I think through my intentions and goals for my life.

So what do you need in your life right now? It might be NOTHING like a retreat with other women. But the question still remains. So how would you answer it for yourself?