A Well-Being Retreat Made Me Realize That I Wasn’t Okay

I knew — just three days into The Well-Being Retreat — that something was going to need to shift when I got home.

I was coming off of one of the most stressful periods of my entire life, balancing graduate school, work, and writing my book. I was a little over a year into my new life as a single parent. And just a few days before leaving for the trip, my primary client terminated my contract without notice. 

I was deep into problem-solving mode. Anyone that knows me knows that’s how I handle a crisis –– I jump into action and try to sprint my way to the finish line. It’s like I think with enough strategizing, planning, and analyzing, I can outrun adversity.

No matter how much inner work I do, my first instinct is always to grab the broken glass with my bare hands, hoping that if I’m fast enough I can put it all back together before I bleed.

So having to sit down in the middle of all of that was incredibly, deeply, profoundly uncomfortable.

My busy-ness is a strategy, and it’s a damn good one. It’s built a career, written hundreds of bylines, earned multiple degrees, and raised some awesome kids. But it’s served another, sneakier purpose, too.

It’s kept me from feeling the things I didn’t want to feel. It’s helped me ignore uncomfortable truths. It’s created a habit out of self-abandonment.

So when I was finally still, safe, and separated from my to-do list…everything I was pushing down came bubbling to the surface.

There was guilt, because I missed my kids.

There was grief, because I missed my mom.

There was shame & fear, because I didn’t know how I would find another job.

And there was sadness, I missed the part of myself that didn’t need to fly to the other side of the world to be still.

To be honest, those feelings haven’t entirely gone away. Since I left Vietnam, I’ve cried –– a lot. I’ve been frustrated, angry, and overwhelmed. I haven’t fully been able to slip back into the version of me that made juggling all the things look effortless.

I’ve been connected to that inner self who honestly just wants a hug, something yummy to eat, and a nap. But through it, even though there have been times when I wanted to give up, I see glimmers of something even bigger than the grief breaking through.

Now, this is something people won’t tell you about retreats. A retreat isn’t quite the same thing as a vacation.

It’s a transformational experience. Gorgeous. Luxurious. Transcendent –– yes. But also deep. Raw. Vulnerable.

When you say yes to an experience like this, the stillness gets under your skin. The beauty fills you up. And without realizing it, you start to see what you’ve been holding onto — and what it might feel like to let go.

I haven’t flinched from that work, but good God — it has been messy. 

But it’s been real. And deeply necessary. Because that other me? She was quiet, but she wasn’t okay. 

This me? She doesn’t always feel okay, but she’s no longer abandoning herself to look like she’s got it together.

I’m asking for help.

I’m letting the light in and the dark out.

And what’s coming through is teaching me something powerful about who I actually am when I stop performing self-care and start doing the real inner work.

You don’t need to change your whole life.

You just need to stop, listen for a minute, and let the silence break through the noise.