In case you missed it:

Part 1

Part 2

Now onto the last day of Glow Retreat (no I don’t want it to end!!).

Sunday morning was an early one as we had alarms set for 6:30 and breakfast for 8:30am. At 6:30, we didn’t get up right away though. I think I eventually got up at 7. Kaiti headed out for a run. Hannah went to walk around. I headed over to the donut place for an iced tea. It was not a beautiful morning though like the previous, as it was cloudy and drizzling a bit. So I headed back inside to hang out in the lobby with Hannah until around 8am. Then at 8:30 we gathered for breakfast in Kasey’s room. Breakfast was Purely Elizabeth cereal, which is granola mixed with puffs, so good! It was also Kasey’s mom’s birthday so we all said Happy Birthday as she entered the room for breakfast.

After eating, we brought our journals to out mats and gathered in a circle for a workshop with Heather about Mastering your Energy. This was a very informative workshop as we discussed characteristics of a highly sensitive person and the tools we can use to protect our energy. I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a highly sensitive person and so it was interesting to learn about how to protect my energy.

Next we headed into a glide workout with Kasey, using paper plates to get our heart rate up. We did some cardio, lunges and ab work and then to end it, raced across the room holding plank position with paper plates under our feet. I made it 4 lengths of the room, just barely, and I was dead afterwards. I definitely felt that the next day!

Then it was time for a short snack break before moving into the Dear Body Workshop. This workshop was a very deep and emotional workshop where we spent time writing letters to our body. First we began with “Dear Body I’m sorry for…” and then “Dear Body I’m thankful for…”. I believe whether you have been through an eating disorder or not, this is a good exercise to take part in. No one is perfect and there were times in my life that I struggled with my body image. There were times I lost weight without trying and not realizing that the reason I was losing the weight was because I wasn’t eating enough, not fueling my body properly and that led to not getting a period for as many as 12 weeks as well.

What I can say is that I am a lot healthier now than I was 6 years ago. I also have more appreciation for my body now. I noticed during the workshop I had more “I’m thankful for” than “I’m sorry for” and I think this is due to what I have been working on lately with my mind, focusing on the good things and what I do have rather than dwelling on the negative. I also read BodyPeace a couple months ago and the exercises in there helped me as well. This book was written by Kasey and Heather and they did such a great job with it.

After sharing our letters out loud, we had a snack break and ended with a vinyasa yoga class,

followed by giveaways and a group picture.

The weekend went by so quickly! I found myself so present in the moment each day. Not thinking about the end or my drive home, just there, in the moment. That is so hard for me as I am always thinking about the future and planning, so it was a perfect weekend to just sit back and enjoy every moment and the wonderful women I was surrounded by. I am so thankful I was able to make the trip and hope to go again if they plan another retreat in the future.

Again thanks to Kasey and Heather for the photos and leading such a wonderful weekend. Also thanks to Shelley for stepping in as the yoga teacher for our retreat and the wonderful savasana adjustments!

From August 7-9 I was in Hyannis, Cape Cod for Glow Retreat. In case you missed it, here is part 1.

Saturday morning we didn’t set an alarm as breakfast was at 10am in Kasey’s room. Being that I am an early riser, I quietly got up shortly after 7am and brought my ipad outside to read for a bit enjoying the morning breeze. I decided to head across the street to the donut place and get a bran muffin to enjoy. Around 8:30am I headed back inside as I figured my roommates would be awake. We then all got dressed into our workout clothes for the day and headed to the Green Lotus Café for juices. The juice cost me $8 but man did it feel good on my dry throat. I was still recovering from the ear infection and was hoping the greens of cucumber and mint would help. It did help that day.

After finishing our juices, we headed back and shortly after had breakfast. Breakfast round 3 for me, as I had already munched on granola I brought, ate a muffin and drank a juice. I had no problem grabbing a bowl of Mamma Chia granola with some coconut milk. [Side note: I am not a huge coconut fan, the smell of coconut oil and flour turn me off but I do like the flavored coconut waters blended with fruit in slushie form and coconut milk is not so bad. ]

We brought our breakfasts into the Cape Cod room in the hotel, which was our room for the weekend.

We began with a workshop with Heather called Dig Deeper, Fly Higher. This was definitely an emotional one as each of us shared things going on in our life. Heather talked about separation and the part we didn’t get to was attachment. I was thinking about separation as ways that I am unique and myself. Whether or not this is the right way to think about separation I am not sure. What was good about this workshop was just opening up about how I currently feel about my life and also knowing I am not alone with how I feel. What I loved about this workshop was how I could relate to what some of the other women talked about. While I know I am not alone with things I feel, sometimes it is comforting to hear other people’s stories to know you really are not alone.

All of us could talk for hours, in fact we went an hour over the time slot for this workshop, but we went with the flow of it. We ended with a short meditation as our beautiful Sage and Sea candles burned. Heather leads the most beautiful guided meditations.

After a short snack break and wiping our tears from our eyes, it was time to get our minds into a workout.

We had workout gear provided by Harbinger Fitness and HumanX. We started with a  warm up with some leg raises across the room and some squats. Kasey set up a circuit with 5 stations. We spent 60 seconds at each station and rotated twice through. The stations included Balance Discs (I might buy one of these because it works on carpet and challenges you), bodyweight squats, abs using AbX Mats (I actually got to keep one and have already used it), jump rope (with awesome ropes we each got) and lunges with resistance tubes. Jump roping for a minute is SOO HARD!

To end our workout we did some hamstring stretches using our ropes and some resistance band leg raises.

After working out, it was time to eat and listen to a short presentation on fueling your body from Kasey. We had tons of hummus! Now I have to find Hope Hummus, especially the dark chocolate, original and there was a pesto one we had the next day.

Then it was time for another workshop with Heather. We talked about the sacral chakra and a quick overview of each of the chakras and their colors. When the sacral chakra is imbalanced, you might find that you have a lot of shame, guilt and unwillingness for pleasure. Some ways to get the sacral chakra back into balance is thinking about when you were 2 years old and free and creative. What was your favorite activity when you were 2 years old? Maybe it was playing house, playing dress up and the ways you would role play all with your imagination. Revisit that and meditate on it. Also the sacral chakra is orange so bringing more of the color orange into your life through clothes or food.

We ended the day with some restorative yoga with a very long savasana. I actually had trouble laying down that long and was also freezing under the AC, so that didn’t help. Since Katie was unable to make the retreat, Kasey and Heather got in touch with Shelly to lead the yoga for the weekend and she was a great instructor.

It was shortly after 5:30 that we ended and then headed back to the room to change and decide on dinner. I also loaded my car with some of the treats we were given like protein power, energy and aminos.

My roommates and I headed down to Main street and met up with most of the group at Beech Tree Cantina for some Mexican food for dinner. We started off with 2 bowls of guacamole made fresh at the table, YUM! Then we ordered. I got the chicken burrito with sweet potato fries. However after all the guac and chips and it being so late (I don’t normally eat much past 8pm) I only made it halfway through my dinner and got the other half of my burrito and the fried boxed up. [I actually did eat the burrito and fries the next day after my drive and it was pretty tasty still.]

We wanted a group photo and a guy at the table next to us got up and said he’d take it. So he gets the phone and says “say tofu” and we say it and laugh and then take two, he says “say camel toes” and we were just cracking up. Great time!!

After dinner, we met by the fire pit and it was already almost 10pm. We made sure to say Happy Birthday Alyson as it was her birthday on Saturday and so she went out with her mom who came along on the retreat as well. We were all pretty tired but talked until about 11 before finally going inside and heading to bed.

The day was so busy but it went by so quickly and every moment was enjoyable! Stay tuned for part 3 (the last part) coming Tuesday!

 

About two weeks later and finally getting some time to put together my Glow Retreat recaps for you. I am splitting this into 3 parts, one for each day since I tend to write a lot, but I will try to not overwhelm and bore you. To sum up Glow Retreat in one word though, I would say AMAZING! I am so happy I was able to go (it really would not have been possible if I didn’t live on the East Coast since I drove). A very inspirational weekend and I mostly remained in the present, which is very hard for me to do as a planner and thinking about what’s next all the time. Since I was in the present and soaking up all the time I had with the amazing women I met, I don’t have many photos, but thanks to Powercakes and Heather Waxman for some of the photos.

The trip began Friday morning (Aug 7). I left at 8am to start my drive. I don’t know about you, but I always have to pee 12343466 times in the morning so I stopped for a bathroom break an hour into my drive. When I texted Brian that I was an hour into the drive and stopping he was like “oh boy, another 5 stops.” Not really though, I made it another 3 hours before my next stop. Without traffic, Philadelphia to Hyannis Cape Cod would be 6 hours, but I will tell you that driving through Connecticut was the worst! It took me 7.5 hours for the trip and that was only 3 quick stops. I snacked while stopped in Connecticut traffic at 11am Friday morning. Honestly NYC was not all that bad, it was actually continuously moving, but once I hit that Welcome to Connecticut sign, stopped. I didn’t let it ruin my drive though. I stayed relaxed, I had plenty of time before the 7pm dinner to make it there and it gave me time to snack and enjoy the beautiful day, blue skies and trees along the highway.

I finally made it to the hotel at 3:30pm. Luckily I wasn’t any earlier, because I actually had to sit and wait 5 minutes for my room. At least I got a cookie while I waited.

I was bringing my luggage into the hotel when I saw Kasey and Heather pulling into the parking lot. It took me a minute to recognize them. I mean it’s not like I had met them before, I only follow them on social media and read Kasey’s blog. In my head I’m thinking “OMG that’s them!”. These two women are so inspiring and it’s like getting to meet a celebrity to me, so I was very excited even if I didn’t show it. Plus it would have been weird to just run over to their car, right?!

Anyway moving on, I get to my room and quickly change into my swimsuit as I had some time to check out the beach. During this time, they were placing the last welcome basket into my room for my roommate and Kasey and Heather introduced themselves, immediately so friendly and we hugged and were all excited for the weekend. In that moment I knew the 7.5 hours in the car was already worth it and it was going to be a wonderful weekend. [I should also note, Katie was supposed to be there as well but couldn’t make it due to personal reasons. I was sad that I couldn’t meet her but maybe I will get a chance to attend again in the future if they do another retreat]

I drove the 1.5 miles down the road to find Veteran’s Park Beach and hung out and took some photos. It was a little cloudy but still beautiful. I really must get back to Cape Cod to travel down to the peak and everywhere in between.

When I got back to my room, one of my roommates, Hannah, had arrived. We talked for a while about our jobs and lives while munching on our snacks until our 3rd roommate Kaiti arrived. We all talked while getting ready for dinner. I was excited to wear the dress I got from my Stitch Fix last month.

Dinner was at 7pm in the room around the corner from us. We got drinks and then sat down for Kasey and Heather to make their entrance and give us our swag bags. They did a short introduction and we all got pumped for the weekend and then enjoyed one of the most delicious dinners I have had in a while. The pasta primavera was probably my favorite and then the lemon chicken second.

 We ate and talked and once everyone seemed to be done eating, we played an ice breaker game. We each got a question, which we didn’t know until it was our turn, some were serious, some funny. I was so nervous after hearing some of the questions because I didn’t know how I would have answered them, but when it came to my turn, my question was “If you had a superpower, what would it be?” and my answer was teleporting so I could see a bunch of places. I just have that travel bug right now and it also would have been nice to teleport home to see my sister after her accident happened just 5 days before this night.

We then went through our swag bags, tons of snack bars, granola, a shaker bottle and more, not to mention the cool Under Armour bag itself. Then we ate the flourless chocolate cake, which I ate so quickly and didn’t get a photo of, but here is Kasey’s artsy photo with me in the background.

It was so fudgy and delicious! Probably not the best idea to eat that at 9pm because I was just wide awake after that and all the talking.

We moved outside to gather by the fire and play the game Heads up, using Heather’s phone. I was terrible at guessing the actors/actresses, but it was still a blast.

 

Before we knew it, it was 11pm and time to head to bed. I think my roommates and I stayed up talking until about midnight though. So much excitement from the first night and we had 2 full days ahead!!