Can a Retreat really be life changing?

It might be hard to believe that stepping away for just one week could truly transform your life. And I’m not here to promise that it will.

But here’s what I do know:

When you step outside the familiar rhythm of your daily life—your routines at home, your responsibilities at work, even the automatic ways you care for yourself—something shifts. Your being notices. It wakes up to new possibilities.

A retreat isn’t about escaping reality. It’s about tasting a new way of being—one that feels more aligned, more intentional, and more deeply connected. And once you’ve had that taste, even for a moment, you can never truly forget.

Step away to see what is truly possible

I remember my first time at D’Alijo, a special retreat center in the north of Portugal. One of my teachers said something that has stayed with me ever since:

"If we were to leave the group here, just in this nature, without any activities, it would be enough."

Coming from a culture of productivity—where we are conditioned to believe that in order to achieve something, we must do something—these words felt almost shocking. My mind resisted at first. But my body, my whole being, already knew the truth of them.

I felt it—the tremendous presence of nature, the quiet, the simplicity. Just being there was enough. More than enough.

It was a moment of deep recognition—a reminder that we don’t always have to push, strive, or fix. That true transformation isn’t always about doing more, but about allowing ourselves to simply be. And in that space, everything shifts.

Back then, this was a hard pill to swallow. We were about to begin an intensive two-week teacher training, one that I was assisting with. The schedule was packed—long hours of study, rigorous practice, and a dense manual to get through to meet the Yoga Alliance certification requirements.

So when my teacher said, "If we were to leave the group here, just in this nature, without any activities, it would be enough," I couldn't help but wonder….

Just leave them here? Let nature do the balancing? And at the same time, proceed with the structured curriculum, and measured hours of practice?

Of course, I loved the fact that we were so privileged to have those surroundings as the setting for our training.

The idea that such an environment would support the absorption and integration of all the content made perfect sense—and it did. It truly did.

When everything else is taken care of, when you are nourished by nature, good food, and a peaceful rhythm, learning flows more effortlessly. The body and mind soften, making space for deeper understanding.

But let’s bring this back to retreats.

Unlike structured trainings, in a retreat there is no need to meet external requirements or finalize a curriculum.

It’s about unlearning, about experiencing firsthand that presence alone can be profoundly transformative. It’s about stepping into a space where there is nothing to achieve, nothing to perfect—only the invitation to be.

And that is where the real shift happens.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether a retreat can change your life, but whether you’re ready to experience what happens when you give yourself the chance to simply be…

Keep popping up here for more topics about retreats from my own experience and, please leave a comment if you would like to explore a topic or make a suggestion.

Thank you for reading me!

Love

Adela