To prepare for a personal growth retreat, make the week before lighter, not fuller: finish or hand over what you can, keep your sleep steady, and skip the homework. In the last few days, a reason to wait may turn up. Look at it before you let it decide.
The out-of-office reply is on its third draft.
The first said you'd be away for five days "with limited access to email". You deleted "limited". The second said you'd be out of reach, and gave the name of a colleague who could help. It sat in drafts for a day. This afternoon you added one more line at the bottom: "For anything urgent, call my mobile."
You booked the five days weeks ago, in a calm moment, and you were sure. Since then the week before has filled up the way weeks do. A client wants a quick call before you go. Your brother asks whether you're still doing "the retreat thing", in the voice he saves for your gym memberships. A friend who went on one years ago sends you a reading list and a breathing app. There's a new notebook on your desk with nothing in it yet.
On Wednesday a delivery slips at work, and a colleague says, kindly, "You could always do the next one." For a moment it sounds like the most sensible thing anyone has said all week.
You look at the auto-reply again, and at the line about your mobile.
How do you prepare for a personal growth retreat?
You prepare by clearing space rather than adding tasks. Spend the week closing loops at work, settling who covers what at home, sleeping and eating the way you usually do, and saving the reading for later. Then take any reason to postpone as something to sort, not an order to follow.
What should the week before a retreat look like?
Quieter than the weeks around it. Here's how I'd use it.
Close your loops early. Aim to hand work over by midweek, not on the last afternoon. The final two days before you go tend to grow new tasks, and you want slack for them, not a deadline.
Tell people plainly that you'll be away. Say when, and name who's covering. If someone at home needs to reach you in a real emergency, make sure they know how. An auto-reply that ends "call my mobile" leaves you on call for five days.
Sort the practical things before the last day. How you'll get there each morning. Where you'll sleep, if you're travelling. Who's looking after things at home, who's walking the dog, what's in the fridge. By the first morning, the only job left should be getting there.
Keep your body's week ordinary. If the days will start earlier than you're used to, go to bed a little earlier from midweek. Eat the way you normally eat. This isn't the week to start a new diet, a cleanse or a punishing training plan. Five full days are long days, and you'll want to walk in rested.
Leave the homework. There's no reading list for this kind of week. If a book steadies you, read it. If you're reading so you'll arrive ahead of everyone else, you can set it aside. The notebook can stay empty. And if not knowing how the days run is what unsettles you, read what happens at a transformational workshop once, and then let it be.
Haven't booked anything yet, and wondering whether five days in one room suits you at all? Ask Sara, our veteran RS Method Master Coach. There's no fee for her Zoom call, and it's twenty to forty minutes long. She'll hear where you are and point you towards the right door, ours or another. Book a free slot. Or read on.
Why do reasons to wait turn up in the last few days?
Look at the colleague's line again. "You could always do the next one." It's kind, and it's reasonable. It also landed in the one week of the year when part of you was listening for it.
For a lot of us, "next time" is a well-worn sentence. It's in the gym memberships your brother teases you about, and in the course you paid for and meant to finish. Every "not now" made sense on the day it was said, and every one made the next a little easier. By now the sentence turns up finished, before you've weighed anything at all.
Conditioning often works this way: one small choice, repeated until it no longer feels like a choice. You are not broken. You are buried. Some of the burying is nothing more dramatic than a word said many times.
So take each reason on its own, because some of them deserve to win. If the cost is a stretch right now, that's a real reason to wait. So is a fever, a family emergency or a cancelled flight. The one worth catching is the reason that arrives already finished, the one you've had the most practice saying.
If the reasons are getting loud, Sara will hear them on the same free call, and the decision stays yours. Choose a slot for the call.
If you're in treatment for anything, tell the organisers before you book, or as early as you can if you already have. Five days of this kind of work can bring things up. This work isn't therapy or medical care, so keep working with your doctor or therapist. Should they advise waiting, that's a good reason to wait. Should the week stir up something painful, bring it to a doctor, a counsellor or someone close to you, the same day if you can. And if you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
What do you do with a reason to wait?
Use the out-of-office reply. It's already half written, and it's a good place to watch the reasons arrive.
- Finish the reply as if you'll really be away. Say when you're back and who's covering. Leave out any line that keeps you on call, unless someone may need you in an emergency. In that case, name them.
- Read it once a day until you leave. Each time you feel like adding a line back, such as "happy to jump on a call", notice what reason came with the urge.
- Ask that reason one question: does it need an answer before you leave? A fever, a family emergency, a cancelled flight, advice from your doctor to wait, or a cost that's a stretch right now all do. See a doctor, call the people running the retreat, or change your plans.
- If it doesn't, leave the reply as it is. The reason will keep, and you can look at it properly when the five days are done.
- Switch the reply on at the end of your last working day.
If no reasons turn up, there's nothing more to do than switch it on. And anything hard, above all about your health, goes to a person straight away: a doctor, the organisers or someone close to you.
If one of your reasons is the dread of speaking up in a group, that fear has its own piece: do I have to share my story.
What should a five-day room take care of for you?
You've cleared a week for it. It should clear a few things for you in return. Three at least.
- It should take the running of the days off your hands. Meals, timings, the small decisions that eat attention. You came to step out of all that, not to run it from somewhere new.
- It should tell you it isn't therapy. Work that can stir things up should say so before you book.
- It should let you talk to a person if you have second thoughts. Before the first morning, not only after it.
The 5-Day RS Method Experience page covers all three in its own words. "Lunch and refreshments are taken care of each day. So is everything else that usually pulls your attention." Asked "Is this therapy?", it answers "No", and says the work is "not a substitute for clinical care". And if you decide it's not for you after you register, it says: "Reach out. We'd rather have the right people in the room than full seats."
The guarantee, as the page states it: "Show up for all five days. At the end, if you honestly feel it was not worth it, say so on the spot, and 75% comes straight back to you." It adds: "We keep only what the room itself cost, never the fee."
The days run from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and the page lists "Five full days with Robert and the Master Coach team, in the room." Can you join by livestream? Yes, and on that the page leaves no doubt: "If you can come in person, come in person." The current dates and price are on the page.
Choose your seat on the RS Method Experience page
Rooms like this have been my work for over twenty years.
These words come from our Google profile. Huda, Google review: "I came to the 5-Day RS Method Experience not really knowing what to expect. Five days later, I walked away feeling that something inside me had shifted."
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. Finish that out-of-office reply today, and leave out the line about your mobile unless someone may truly need it. The five days are on the RS Method Experience page.