8 Reasons You Definitely Shouldn’t Book a Yoga Retreat
- sjholisticyoga
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
You may have been considering booking a yoga retreat.
Perhaps you have imagined a peaceful weekend away, with gentle movement, nourishing food and long stretches of time in which nobody asks you where the clean socks are.
Before you do anything rash, though, here are eight very good reasons why a yoga retreat may not be for you.
You enjoy being constantly needed
At home, there is always someone or something that requires your attention.
A child needs a lift. A partner cannot find something directly in front of them. The dog is staring at you as though it has never been fed.
On retreat, you may experience several uninterrupted hours in which nobody needs anything from you.
This can be deeply unsettling.
You prefer your yoga with a side order of rushing
Perhaps your usual yoga practice involves arriving three minutes late, flinging your mat onto the floor and trying to remember whether you turned the oven off.
On retreat, there is nowhere else you need to be.
You may even have time to lie still after yoga instead of rolling up your mat during the final sentence of savasana. If the sun is out you might just soak up the rays for 20 minutes once practice is over....
Frankly, it is an alarming amount of spaciousness.
You are suspicious of delicious food that you didn’t cook yourself
Imagine sitting down to a home-cooked meal that somebody else has planned, prepared and served.
No meal planning. No chopping. No washing up. No trying to make four slightly different meals because everybody suddenly dislikes the thing they happily ate last week.
You simply sit down and eat. And you don't have to even have to wash up.
It sounds impractical, but apparently people manage.
You have no interest in remembering who you are
Most of us spend a great deal of time being someone’s mother, partner, daughter, colleague, teacher, carer or emergency provider of forgotten items.
A retreat may give you enough quiet to remember that beneath all those roles, there is still a person.
She may have opinions. She may have needs. She may even remember what she likes.
Best not to disturb her.
You dislike spending time with lovely people
Yoga retreats tend to attract kind, interesting humans.
There may be conversations over cups of tea. Laughter around the dinner table. Stories shared with people who were strangers only a few hours earlier.
You might find yourself feeling unexpectedly understood.
Worse still, you may come home with new friends.
You are very committed to being exhausted
Rest can be inconvenient.
Once you remember what it feels like to be properly rested, you may begin to notice how tired you have been.
You may start saying no occasionally.
You may stop treating every empty space in your diary as a problem that needs filling.
This could cause widespread disruption.
You might come home changed
Not dramatically. You probably won’t return barefoot, sell your possessions and move into a woodland hut.
But something small may have shifted.
You may breathe a little more deeply. You may feel more at home in your body. You may remember that your needs matter too.
You may even decide that rest is not something you have to earn.
Previous guests may attempt to encourage you
This is perhaps the greatest risk of all. People who have already been on one of my retreats have an unfortunate habit of saying lovely things about it. They have described the weekend as “It was a gift to practise alongside such a wonderful group of people and to feel so safe”, “It’s just been the most fabulous experience. I’ve never felt so accepted and comfortable.” and “I will never forget this weekend as long as I live. Thanks to all of you for making it so special”.
Others mentioned the warmth of the group, the delicious food, the care woven through the weekend and how deeply rested they felt afterwards. Some said it was "life-changing".
Should you ask a previous guest whether booking is a good idea, you are unlikely to receive the sensible discouragement you were hoping for.
So no, you probably shouldn’t book a yoga retreat.
Unless, of course, a weekend of yoga, beautiful food, good company and time to yourself sounds like exactly what you need. In which case I have just the thing for you ....
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