Flying to Joshua Tree, CA took me outside of my comfort zone and healed me.

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My spirit guides said, “Girl it’s time to step outside your comfort zone and heal big time”. So I did.

My recent voyage from North Carolina to Joshua Tree. There is a very synchronistic sort of magical story about how I got to Joshua Tree and how life really pushed me to go there on a five-day women’s retreat.

In order for me to tell the story about how I got to Joshua Tree, I need to back up a couple of months and begin a little further than just the retreat itself. So I had, at the beginning of the year, in February, actually started a full-time job that deep down, I knew I wasn’t supposed to necessarily. My soul was not craving that job.

It was a nine-to-five job. But for some reason, a part of me really gave in to a few fears I had about life and my journey. So I said yes to this full-time position. I was only there for six weeks and then decided I’d haven’t had enough. I knew it wasn’t for me.

I knew my soul was going to slowly dwindle, and I knew my soul was really deeply asking for me to leave that position. So after six weeks of me trying a nine to five to see if I liked it, which I definitely didn’t, I left that position. Well, the interesting thing is, once I left that position, I had a friend who leads the retreats for AwakenWellness Retreats. Lindsay and Heather lead retreats all over the United States, and soon, hopefully, international retreats as well. And Heather approached me and said, there’s one spot left for this retreat.

Do you want it? I could not have taken a week away from the nine-to-five job that I had previously been previously held. So the fact that that opportunity came to me to go on this retreat was huge. And I was gifted the retreat by spirit. In a way, it was almost like life rewarding me for choosing my soul and choosing my heart over any sort of fear surrounding money, fear surrounding stability.

So letting go of the nine-to-five job opened the door and the opportunity for me to go on a retreat. But here’s the catch. I originally said no to going on this retreat, and the reason why is because I had not flown by myself in a very long time, since before the Pandemic in 2020. And not only had I not flown by myself, but I hadn’t flown that far away from home by myself for years. When you think about North Carolina on the East Coast versus California all the way on the West Coast, those are two long flights to get there. It’s not an easy hop & skip. It is a full day of travel and investment.

The Retreat was outside of my comfort zone big time. wow was it triggering me!

I knew I was going to be sharing a room with other women. I think there were six of us in total sharing a room together. When you think about it this way, you’re putting yourself in a vulnerable position. You’re traveling, your energy, and you’re going to be surrounded by other women. You’re not going to have privacy for a little while.

Although there are great workshops and the food was super scrumptious and healing, you still have to face the fact that your privacy and your sacred space that you’re used to, you’re not going to have that for a little while to go on a retreat. All of these things came up for me that really challenged going on a retreat and leaving home, the fear of flying, the fear of being alone from my partner, the fear of really putting my trust in the hands of Heather and Lindsay, who are going to be leading a week-long retreat. Transportation, food, the location of the Airbnb, and where we would be staying. There are so many factors, external factors, that really I was uncomfortable with putting myself outside of my comfort zone and doing something that I had never done before.

I have never gone on a retreat before, and it was a challenge for me. But eventually, I decided that my leaving that position and then having the opportunity to go on a retreat like this was a coincidence. I knew deep within my heart that the opportunity to go on this retreat was really a gift from the Divine. And my spirit guides were gently and lovingly pushing me to go on this retreat, to get outside of my comfort zone and to be adventurous, and to allow myself to be immersed in something new and something different. When I was younger, I craved travel, I craved change.

When I studied abroad, I traveled to 14 different countries. When I first left the United States by myself, I had just turned 21, and I got on a flight to India to do a month-long yoga teacher training. Travel for me and traveling alone had never really been a challenge, and it had never produced anxiety for me. However, that was quite a while ago. And now traveling for me was a whole different story.

I am much older than I was, than I was when I traveled to India, out of the country by myself for the first time, and that was seven years ago. A lot of shadow side came up for me. A lot of parts of myself I didn’t expect. A lot of triggers came up for me during this moment of having to pack and prepare for travel in this way and then also having to share my energy in my space with ten women in total was really hard for me to do at first. Once I got through the flights and landed in Joshua Tree, I carpooled with the women that were going on the retreat.

The retreat healed me and made me stronger. It made my comfort zone grow.

And once we got to the Airbnb, I started having a lot of anxiety. The anxiety lasted through the night and until the next morning. And one thing that was really important for me to understand is that the anxiety was showing me parts of myself that didn’t feel safe or comfortable. But the anxiety gave me the opportunity to ask myself, why don’t I feel safe or comfortable and what is the root cause of why my nervous system and why my whole system right now is in fight or flight? What is the root cause of why I don’t feel safe?

I had to go through a lot of psychological and emotional evaluation when it came to why was I being so deeply triggered by all of these things. I will say, after the first full day there, the full retreat day there, I was a totally different person. I felt so comfortable and safe around these women. I shared more than I thought I was going to share. I shared a lot of personal information, more than I thought I would ever share with women at this retreat.

And I, by the end of this trip, was just in deep gratitude for having said yes to this. It totally was outside of my comfort zone. I knew it was a gift from Divine and my soul wanted me to say yes, and I’m so glad that I did. I’m going to give you a little bit of info about the retreat and what it looked like with Heather and Lindsay leading the retreat. On a typical day, I woke up before sunrise every day.

Not everyone did that. Only a couple of us that chose to spend a quiet morning, a silent morning, with the sunrise as we meditated and journaled. I personally woke up every day and gave myself an Esoteric energy healing session as I watched the sunrise. And then we would have yoga together. We did group yoga, and then we’d eat a really delicious breakfast together, and then we’d go into a day of workshops and a lot of fun.

So one of the workshops, funny enough, was also about regulating the nervous system and learning a lot about how the nervous system is triggered and how to calm the nervous system. One of the workshops was a humor workshop where we got to laugh until we cried and where we got to just have a lot of fun, all ten of us women. One of the workshops was a really deep breath workshop where we got to do a lot of deep healing through that breathing exercise. It was overall such a blessing. And we ended the week by going into the Joshua Tree National Park so we could explore the area and really get grounded into the earth.

The things that supported me through my anxious comfort zone healing.

A couple of things that helped me throughout the week allowed me to feel comfortable when I was really not comfortable. The first thing was having the self-awareness to understand that I was not the anxiety, but the anxiety was a mirror to show me things that were ready to heal within me. So the first biggest part was having the self-awareness to not give in to the anxiety, but to have compassion for myself and know that my anxiety was sharing a part of my story. The second thing is yoga. Every morning we were given a yoga class and that 08:00 a.m.

Morning yoga is what centered me. It allowed me to ground into my body, it allowed me to feel more stable and it really helped decrease the anxiety. Another thing that really benefited me and was so comforting to me was being able to have time to myself in the morning so that I could wake up for an hour and give myself an energy healing to also help calm me. Those three things were super special. The fourth thing I’d say that helped me regulate my nervous system was walking the property the Airbnb.

Having the understanding of where I was, the awareness of the land and walking the land, and also being able to walk the land. Looking out at the gorgeous Joshua Tree National Park, that gorgeous mountain view there, feeling the desert air, feeling the sun on my face, really touching the rocks and the plants at the Airbnb on that property helped ground me as well. I am so grateful I went on this retreat. And if you yourself feel that you would love to go on a retreat and have some time away to learn more about yourself and to connect to other women in this way, I highly recommend Awaken Wellness Retreats. Heather and Lindsay are amazing and they facilitate the whole thing.

They cook for you, they provide workshops for you, you get to do yoga with them, you heal with them, you dance and laugh with them. It is really a unique and special experience. And just to conclude, if you are really nervous about doing things that are outside of your comfort zone, especially after something like the pandemic, especially when the world was quite literally turned upside down, the world was turned upside down. And it can be really hard for us to again take a leap and step outside of our comfort zone. If you have faith and trust in yourself and you see the signs and your intuition listen to your intuition.

Listen to your heart. The doors of opportunity that are opening for you are there for a reason, and you know deep within you what is in your highest good and what isn’t. You may absolutely surprise yourself with what you can handle. And you may absolutely surprise yourself when it comes to saying yes to opportunities that you never thought you would say yes to.

If you have any questions for me, feel free to reach out to heartofbritt@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you, and I’ll see you next week on Guidance From Within.