This is not a meditation retreat

We are very excited to be back at the Forge this May: to revisit favourite activities and places, to check out all the changes that have unfolded since our last visit, and to spend time with wonderful people. And we're thrilled and honoured to get to share some of the skills, practices, and ideas that we find helpful in our own daily lives, in a retreat setting.

But we have a confession to make. Come To Your Senses: Meditation for Non-Meditators is not actually a meditation retreat. Wait, what?

The truth is, both of us have meditation practices that are deeply rooted in well-established lineages. Maybe you do too. Or maybe you're searching for one (in which case, we would love to share thoughts and experiences with you).

Or maybe you don't: maybe everything you've heard about meditation makes you think that it is the most unappealing, terrifying, baffling, or boring way to spend a bank holiday weekend that you could imagine.

Maybe the idea of sitting for hours to de-stress your mind actually gives you a lot of stress.

Maybe you get assigned a mantra that you say every morning, and your children and your boss still drive you bonkers.

Maybe everyone talks about having blissed-out experiences and you have nothing to say because you actually can't think of anything other than your regret over which shoes you chose to pack.

Maybe it is a cult.

It is so easy to imagine that a meditation retreat might resemble any of the things described above... and let's face it, sometimes you're not far off.

So maybe we should start with: what is meditation anyway? And why is it worthwhile?

We hope that our Come To Your Senses retreat can show you one surprising answer: that maybe it's something you're doing already. And harnessing the potential of this latent superpower might just be a matter of giving yourself the space to notice it.

We know this is not a very detailed description of what will happen on our retreat. But who can describe your mind to you, other than yourself? Our intention is simply to create a safe and encouraging space in which to make discoveries about your own mind through fun, purposeful experiments - and to help you remember how to do this in your daily life, once the retreat is over.

Turning on all our senses to experience and engage with the world fully turns out to be a great way to tune into understanding ourselves - and this can prove to be the most powerful portable tool you have. It's just such a bonus to get to practice using this tool in a beautiful setting. Did we mention how excited we are to be going back to the Forge?

If you are finding out more about this retreat just click here.