Take a deep breath in. As you breathe out, cross your eyes, stick out your tongue as far as possible, leap forward and roar like a lion. Repeat a few times. Notice how a strong and fierce energy fills the room. Also notice the laughter of all the people around you.
The “Crazy Lion” is just one exercise we used during the wellbeing retreat to explore the fierceness and fears within us as individuals and within our group of euforians.
The 3-day wellbeing retreat in the mountains around les Marécottes is one of the ways in which euforia is pushing forward on its quest to make wellbeing an integral part of the organization. What do I need as an individual for my personal wellbeing? How can euforia support the wellbeing of its staff and volunteers?
We explored these and many other related questions by looking at and experiencing different understandings, dimensions, and strategies of wellbeing. While Jerónimo and Michelle had put together a general structure of the retreat, we decided together as a group how to fill the days with discussions, exercises and practices related to wellbeing that were most intriguing to us.
In different workshops we discussed and provided insights to each other about priority setting, energy management, the concept of neotribes, and feminine leadership. Through various mindfulness exercises we focused on the relationship between us and nature and our surroundings in general. Yoga and meditation were offered every day to explore our relationship with our bodies.
Hotel Balance was the perfect setting for all these activities and the beautiful mountains and nearby hiking trails were an open invitation for us to (re-) connect with nature. All meals were vegetarian (with vegan options) and so smashingly delicious that all 17 of us flooded the kitchen on the last day of the retreat to personally thank the cook.
We left the wellbeing retreat with our heads buzzing with ideas and intentions to integrate simple wellbeing measures into our everyday life – at home and at work. As a very first step to spread our insights of the weekend among the euforia community, we are currently putting together a “recipe book” full of “wellbeing hacks” that we collected during the retreat.
However, the greatest lesson of our days together was that finding your personal wellbeing mix is most fun when you do it together and share your wellbeing journey with a friend. Venture out and find a wellbeing buddy or group of friends with whom you want to figure this out together! Enjoy nature together, share with them your meditation or yoga experiences, share with each other what you are grateful for, practice mindfulness together, and - most importantly - be crazy lions together!
