Today I am going on a creative retreat. I am loading my car with favourite writing materials, books, nourishing foods, my favourite herbal teas and, of course, this being a Yorkshire retreat, my raingear and wellies, and I am off.

I am smiling just thinking about the weekend ahead.

Over the last few days, I have also been setting my intention for this retreat. I am using it to rest and rejuvenate and to go inside, to connect with what it is that restores me, that helps me to find my flow, as Csikszentmihalyi might describe it.

I’m also going to be noticing what happens as I experiment with some new wriing techniques that I’ve been developing so that I can test them for the book I’m working on.

Most of all, I’m going to listen.

How often do we slow down enough to really listen, to get out of that spin cycle in our heads and into our bodies that know so much more about us than we do?

I have noticed that, over the past few days, as I was preparing for this time away, I was even thinking thoughts such as ‘Hmmm.. Perhaps I will get the entire outline of my book done,’ or ‘How many chapters can I write in three days?’ How persistent my mind can be at chattering away. You know, without too much effort, I could even turn a retreat into something to bash myself over the head with.

But when I breathe in and breathe out and just check in for a moment with my body, my body is saying, ‘I want to swim and do self-hypnosis every morning, and write whatever wants to come up. I want to get coloured pens and make a great big picture on an enormous piece of paper of this new project… and write and write and write some more. And I don’t really know what it is that wants to be written yet. I want to walk in the rain and soak in the hot tub… and find out what happens… ‘

So that is what I’m listening to – that simmering, giggling, bubbling feeling that is just biding its time now until I can give it free rein.

What is the weekend that you long for? What is the weekend that your body wants and not all those chattering voices in your head? What do you need right now, when you really listen?

You may not even need to leave the house to give yourself what you need.

You could take out your journal and write for twenty minutes, run a nice long bath with candles, wrap yourself in a blanket and create a retreat in a corner of your bedroom.

Or it could be that right now, this weekend, your body is saying ‘I want to be out in the world, laughter, dancing, cooking, friends…’

Whatever you discover when you slow down and listen, I’m wishing you a weekend in which you can give yourself at least a little of what you really need.